Dry season

I’ve been moving continuously since I came to Africa
looking for water in the desert
a spot to relax and feed
a place that would sustain me
where I could build a shelter of branches
set down my load
and let the animals graze.

But I never did find a place
With more than a drop or two
of beauty and sweetness
the dust swallows up any moisture
that touches the earth.
It is the dry season after all.

I wait for the rains to come.

Bella women hiding from the heat in a reed mat shelter

I realize that I have been travelling, physically moving to a new location, a new community (or lack thereof), a new bed, on thirty three of the last sixty days since I arrived in Africa. And this includes a fourteen day stint in Essaouira and nearly two weeks in Bamako. This cannot be healthy.
And indeed it is not.

There must be an optimal pace for movement according to the land and social specificity. But this is not it. Nomads move slowly, gently. They tend to move together - in families, in clans. Or if traveling solo - a man or a boy leaving with herds and then returning periodically like a ship gone out to sea and coming back to port.
It is important to return, to rejoin.

Instead, I feel like I am blowing across the land like some deranged sandstorm. Misunderstood, unseen, cursed and unwelcome. The people are all tightened turbans and closed doors, squinted eyes and pursed lips.