november

Is it really November already? I’m sure that in MA the leaves have fallen and so have the temperatures. Things are beginning to change here too. The rainy season is tapering off into occasional drizzles, and the effects of this turn can be seen in the yellowing of the corn stalks, the disappearance of the colourful bursts of flowers that were so abundant when I arrived and the gentle fading of green to brown along the sloping landscape. When I walk the one same road that runs through the whole town, I can vaguely remember my first impression of shock at the abundance of green with the dotting of orange flowers. I can still vaguely sense the innocence of first impressions. I fear that the initial infatuation with the beauty of the landscape will fade with time and familiarity (not to mention how the community grows into more than landscape), but with time I feel that I will yearn for the once lush street sides and blindingly green expanse. Winter at home means the coming of snow, the coming of the momentary purity of whiteness that captures the still, brown landscape, the soft, lonely sound of snow falling on the leaves. I will miss this. Instead I find myself in a land where the color of fall, winter and spring is brown.
When I arrived, the land was brown and so dry that a single footstep set a cloud of dust flying. Throughout training, my metaphoric blossoming into a Peace Corps volunteer was paralleled by the growth and blossoming of the planted land. I have begun to bear the fruits of this harvest in my work and development. Unlike the land, I will continue to grow and develop and bear more fruit. I can only hope that as the next planting season rolls around, I will be leaving the seeds of my labours as well, for what good is a fruit tree that bears fruit only once? My hope is to leave a little green that will flourish year round and for years to come.