Written on my ride back from site visit:

I don’t take medicine
Over the years I have convinced myself that they are a scam
But I am half an hour into an 8, 9, 10 hour taxi-brousse ride
Falling into Dramamine drowsiness
Glad I am not nauseous like the vazaha next to me

We are still in the city of Fianarantsoa
Yet the people are no less intimate in their engagement with the environment
No one wears white in the villages
It is a tainted love affair they have with these rivers
Women trace its outline daily
Secretly to escape away
They know its bumps, its wrinkles
Search for their favorite curves to wash away sweat, red dirt and car exhaust from the past week
Soap
Scrub
Brush
With a parasitic rinse cycle
Let hang dry 3 days

No, the city is wed to its rice-patties
They even span the dips and valleys in the heart of it
Betsileo are the most romantic
They know how mody this land is
Thigh deep in brown skin
Using every tool to give birth to their most sustainable relationship

It’s a rough path to take, this marriage
Worn in with years of practice
Of women bearing the weight
Not only on their backs but atop their heads
Bags of men’s work
Jenga stacked bricks
And buckets, buckets of water
I’m amazed they never drop a tear

They must be steadied from their reality of choosing
Help over knowledge
Work over hunger
Life over choice
They must have to master this balance
As to not slip and fall
To the ground
Dirty palm stretched out like a Baobab tree
Branching fingers to catch as much light and hope as the world can offer

I mistake the smog for dew rising up from the trees in that light
I’d rather see the beauty
I’d rather terrace my heart
Dig
Carve
Create more space to grow and care and bleed
But mostly to understand

Peace Corps by choice
Betsileo by the grace of …
I want to believe their lives can be better
And that we will have something to do with that

But I’m all drugged up
Remember that better is relative
And let these winding roads rock me to sleep