15/8/2013

After walking 100 Meters towards the school I turn back home. My body is feeling like my bones were all out of glass and I feel out of breath even though I just started walking. This is very strange, how can all my physical health and fitness just vanish in so short time? I sleep and sleep and give it another try to walk outside in the afternoon. I walk consciously and slowly, like the old ladies here when they are balancing their harvest on their heads. I walk through the changing vegetation of bigger and bigger trees, walk further till I arrive to a meadow in front of an apparently abandoned school. The kids that are playing in the grass tell me it is their secondary school and they are just on holidays. Some of them are playing pushing wheels in front of them with a stick, the girls are picking huckleberry leaves, a vegetable that is very much eaten here, mostly together with fufu, a nourishing paste made out of dried, finely ground corn.

The view from this place is amazing, I sit there for a long time just observing the kids playing, the clouds getting darker over the shining green grass, and the mountains slowly disappearing behind it. I ask „When is it gonna rain?“ The answer is yes. I insist twice, the answer is half an hour so I start walking back, with some grandnuts in my pocket for the way. I cross a little girl that seems to be afraid of me and hides behind her big sister. I feel like playing a bit with her to take away her fear – but the opposite happens. As I come closer to her, she starts to cry terribly and runs away. It is the first time this happens to me, and I feel very sorry for scaring her so much... the sister explains me „she isn’t used to, em...“ „white you mean?“ I ask and she says yes.

I realize that I would probably have been afraid of a black man or woman coming towards me as a child, too. I still wish I had a chance to take this fear away from her...

14/8/2013

A long school day with lots of surprises.

I woke up with terrible back pain and didn't think I could actually go to school. I finally stood up and when I went out the sun was shining, and all my tiredness and pain from the night was suddenly forgotten. I taught the kids some wordpairs, la guerre et la paix, le vent et la pluie, la mer et la montagne... I did it intuitively and noticed it was not a bad idea at all. Through the repetition of those word pairs they would easily remember the second word when I told them the first... It is a preparation for a poem that we are going to read tomorrow:

J’attends...

J’attends la pluie                                             moi aussi dit l’oiseau

Dit le désert                                                    J’attends mon heure

J’attends la paix                                              dit le prisonnier

Dit le soldat                                                    moi aussi dit la liberté

J’attends demain                                             J’attends la paix

Dit aujourd’hui                                               dit le soldat

J’attends la nuit                                               tu l’as déjà dit

Dit la luciole                                                    Je sais dit le soldat

Moi aussi dit l’astronome                                J’attends un enfant

Moi aussi dit l’étoile                                       dit la mère

J’attends le vent                                              J’attends tout

Dit la fleur de pissenlit                                    dit l’enfant

(Hubert Mingarelli: Le secret du funambule)

In the break, I start taking pictures of the kids running and doing cart wheels and handstands in the grass. I managed not to attract all their attention so that they would just continue their game. Later on they started performing for the camera, singing a song and dancing in a line, coming towards the camera. I liked very much the effect of them coming closer and closer towards the lens while dancing. I wonder why they are so self confident in front of the camera and in the same time so shy when talking to them. Some don’t even look into my eyes but keep searching something on the ground, trying to hide away... Sometimes I have to ask many times and sit beneath them to get an answer to my question.