a novel

patience. i will adapt. i will learn. i will speak. i will teach. i will trust. i will become. god has a plan. courage. no need to fear (except the cars and mottos on the goudron). no need to shy away. dig in. be you. feel deeply endurance. live. keep living. keep trying. pick yourself up and get back at it. sleep. that's the key. but not too much of it. and now, yoga... maybe that will help love. everyone and all of you. take extra breaths and remember your cloud of witnesses. and then sing a sweet song unto the lord.

The Chadian French does not use segues. It took me two weeks to realize that. For awhile I thought my French comprehension was so poor I must have been missing some important transition language. But it’s true, the Chadian’s don’t use segues. At times they jump from one conversation to another and back again so fast, if you blink, you’d miss it. Fitting then, that I jumped from snow to sand, from English to French, from wealth and development to poverty and trash, from single life to family living. No segues for me either. No nice time of transition, just a huge jump from one side of the ocean to the other. Something like the philosophy of sink or swim. I hope I’m swimming. I walk out the door in the morning and remember to tie my piece of Chadian cloth, or sometimes a whole pannier (yard of fabric that you can wear as a wrap skirt), around my head before stepping into the heat of the Sahel. Pants are taboo and sunglasses a must. As I walk down the street I avoid both the puddles of s...