In The Middle of Dark Africa

I sit on the new hand-made mattress, an item familiar to third world countries, with this computer in my lap. It is very dark outside and inside except for the lighted screen glaring me in the face. There is no power tonight, electricity being rather new and not yet completely without its problems. Hopefully, the battery of this computer will hang in here with me while I occupy my time by writing about the moment.

A hyena whoops several times and is loud enough to not be far away. Now, there are several whooping but further away. Perhaps they are only answering back. I have no fear of them unless I should possibly meet several in a pack on my return to the house on a dark night. I wouldn’t do such a trip alone, am I stupid? I usually finish dinner just before dark and don’t have far to walk around the wheat field.

It is absolutely quiet for long periods of time. Occasionally, the metal roof will expand or there is the pounding of a pestle into the mortar filled with fresh-roasted coffee beans. It will be the final taste of the evening before neighbors retire in their newly built cement block houses.

Across the pasture and up the hill a ways, fires can be seen through open doors of the few remaining thatched mud huts in this area. I can only imagine that in ten years from now all of these will be replaced with mud houses that have metal roofs.

The darkness is again still, silent, and peaceful. I rather dread going back into the capital of Ethiopia a week from today, but I must to collect my resident’s visa so I can return to stay in Hosanna; a place I love to be.
Thank you God for planting me here.