A silent combine waits next to stacked straw bales. Flat gravel roads quietly hold sprawling sunsets as evening breezes grow overnight into winds which make biking in the mountains seem easy . . . mourning doves, hidden somewhere in the evergreens, accompany the sleek wriggle of my parents’ puppy as she chases dragon flies through chest-high purple Canadian thistles on the banks of our dug-out.

I usually joke about my years spent in a West African village, as if they were simply a sweaty, stinky, rat eating, tummy-cramping adventure, as if Afi and the villages hadn't given their homes, their laughter, their grooves, their children, their food, their lives, as if they hadn't given and given and given their strength, their love, their spirit — concocted with a little mango breeze, some marche dirt, and a little Nigerian palm oil — bounded and danced and lived.
     So did I. With wind wrapped around my stomach, the sun scorched freckles on my skin. I danced at night under raving stars, living in the wild with God.