Nurturing Trees

I spent a week or so researching trees for a school mural project. The idea is each class will be assigned a tree to study. They will create leaves, seeds, flowers and fruit on clay rounds. The rounds will become leaves on a Tree of Life wall mural. I am pretty excited by the project because it will be long lasting and is located in the perfect spot- an enclave covered in shade by a massive flamboyant tree and filled with picnic tables where the first graders eat their snack.

Since my Kinshasa days I have been fascinated by the way humans congregate under and around trees.  It would make a stunning photo essay. The ways people use trees for leisure, as part of business, for protection and cover from the sun. Trees become holders of things, shelves. They become parts of buildings and grow through walls. Trees exhibit a resilience that is simply admirable.

My moringa trees are an excellent example. There are two miracle trees- useful for everything from medicine to cleaning water-growing on my little patch of dirt I call a yard. They grow faster than we can keep up with, every so often stripping them of their leaves, drying them and using them for tea and all kinds of garnishes. I think the nounou was particularly disturbed by the way they shed their leaves all over the driveway. Every so often she would ask if she could cut them. I obliged as long as we collected the leaves for use. I have noticed that one of the stumps has stopped regrowing- highly unusual as they love nothing more than a good trim. I suspect she treated it with something.

Around the same time, I took a few of the chopped branches and stuck them in the earth, trying to create a little fence around my plants (the children are constantly playing and stepping there and I was trying to keep people out of the area.) In response, the trees have bloomed and now I have four moringa trees. It was that easy. That unplanned. The trees decided to grow despite me (or my nounou.)

In more recent days, the prospect of a new president has me more concerned than ever about the environment. Like most Americans I am reading everything I can, trying to educate and activate. The potential problems are overwhelming. This article, before Trump was even elected, merits a link mostly because of what it doesn't talk about. Perhaps history shows that humans have a tendency towards self-implosion, only to come out better for it on the other side (supposing you are not among the million or so sacrificed in the purge) but history doesn't really show us how the environment will fare.

It may well be that we've done enough damage to alter the earth irrevocably. And if we haven't already, four years with Trump's team will surely set us firmly on that path. Of course, the earth will continue to spin, it's just a question of in what state.

All of this uncertainty brings me back to the trees. Each tree I researched resurrected memories of a relationship. The avocado tree with her branches full of fruit, bending low to offer me her gifts and raising back up again at the end of the cycle, patiently growing again.  The star fruit tree at the end of our driveway, offering up its bittersweet fruit for eating, lending her shape to colors for stamped birthday card designs. There were the mango trees, whom I made a portrait series of in all their stages of beauty from birth to decay. And the glorious mountain apple tree who showered me in neon pink carpets as she shed her flowers to bloom forth soft, pale apples. Banana trees and bamboo trees providing sturdy leaves for making art and strong stems for creations of all kinds.

I want to get back to nurturing trees the way they nurtured me. We could all do with nurturing some trees. We are so far from nature we've forgotten our dependence. It's what the water protectors are all about. It's what we all need to be about.

Election Season

Some places have hurricane season, others have tornado season. Here in Africa we have election season. It's not all that different. Disaster preparedness. I've been trying to stock up on essentials like food and water. A propane shortage in the neighborhood reminded me I should get an extra tank of that as well. A rare power outage last night reminded me I need candles. And lighters.

Nabih and I spent our time in the dark, hot night making a list of other things we might have forgotten to add to our list. Mohamed was at a birthday party and when I called to check in he asked to sleep over. He ended the conversation by assuring me if there were any "election problems" I should call him immediately and he would come over to save us. Sweet man-boy that he is. I accepted his offer but let him know I was pretty certain we would be fine.

In general, I think this time the elections will go well. The president is still eligible for another term and it is likely he will win. Posters and billboards of running candidates have begun to pop up all over town but it feels forced- as though they are there just to prove there is actually more than one possibility for a win- even if no one believes it.

Guinea is suffering her own election woes now and Burkina Faso hasn't really solved her problems which began a year ago. No matter which country, the story seems to read the same. Will the elections be free and fair?  Has the opposition party united enough to present a real challenge to the incumbent and will the people accept the results? The questions are always the same. The answers appear dismally similar as well. The articles read like a madcap MadLibs- change the country names and photo captions and potential candidates to those from the country of your choice. The rest of the facts remain. African presidents don't want to leave, African people live in economic distress and aren't sure who to trust and the elections are met with suspicion, false hope and ultimately, anger and frustration.

The small words on the street offer conflicting accounts, as far as I can gather. It is in keeping with all things Ivorian. The country seems so equally divided on all matters that there appears to be no real majority. Of course, I am an outsider with very little insight. Half the taxi drivers and phone credit men believe Ouattara is doing a great job and is the only one who can continue his work. The streets are a mess of construction and destruction in case there is any doubt he is doing his job. (Cinq chantiers anyone?)

On the other hand, there are plenty of university students and taxi drivers (it always comes down to the taxi drivers, doesn't it? The heart of any good economy, the ones with their finger on the pulse of the country...) who think the president has had his turn and enough is enough. They are not awed by the propoganda and they don't like certain restrictions being laid out- they want a free chance and a fair chance for change.

At times the expectations seem too high to possibly be met. There is too much need in general and it is unlikely any candidate can promise real improvement. In the meantime, the country waits in anticipation. Foreigners make plans for vacations or other conveniently timed trips that will take them out of the country for those weeks. Locals stock up on provisions and try to prepare for the inevitable.

In a conversation this morning, we were talking about a family that was leaving. "For the war?" someone said, an inadvertant slip of the tongue. She meant to say elections. Somehow these two ideas have become synonymous, despite the signs appearing to promote a different reality. Elections are not violent, they read. And We work toegther in our diifferences to unite as a country.

The question no longer seems to be if something will happen but for how long. There are sure to be unsatisified citizens. By now, the entire world has come to equate burning tires and rock throwing with protest. Not in just in Africa but everywhere. Anywhere. Baltimore, for example.

With these images in mind, I've taken to wondering about my neighbors as I make any of several trips through the neighborhood out to the big road. My neighbors see me every day. I am a stranger among them, some friendlier than others but in the end a stranger. And I wonder how much it would take for them to turn against each other. To turn against me.

It's all unpredictable and could just as easily pass without complication. I don't spend too much time dwelling on possibilities. You can't live peacefully in Africa if you do. So, I am taking this extended weekend to stock up and prepare for a few days stuck in my house. Or a week, or a month. And after that....well, hopefully election season will drift out on the ocean currents and we'll be left to navigate the next season. (It's not apple season, which I was waxing nostalgic about in the grocery store this morning. I guess the next season would be holiday season- or the dry season- or, a bit further out on the horizon but coming nonetheless, harmattan season.....) There's always a season to look forward to.