Cliffs and salsa

This weekend ushered in February, and it ushered it in well. Saturday, I finished the elicitation for the dictionary. It was such a load off of my shoulders. That night, I bought beers for M. le Maire, Oumar and Dave, and we celebrated its completion. Market day rolled around, and I didn’t have to get out of bed at 7:20. Unfortunately, I’ve now been programmed to do that, so I woke up then anyway, but I lay in bed and didn’t worry about having to be anywhere.

In the morning, I realized I had a few more words to look for that Jeff had added after the fact, so I did that. I started to get a hankering to make salsa, so Dave and I went to the market and picked up the goods. I made two kinds—regular and mango—and that night, I shredded some chicken, mixed in taco seasoning Dave had, bought some beans and lettuce, and had a veritable taco salad. It was extremely delicious. Unfortunately, such a supply of vegetables is not going to last much longer. Once cold season is over (and it basically is), the vegetables dwindle back down to next to nothing, namely little onions (shallots) and cabbage.

This morning, M. le Maire went back to the village, so Dave and I decided to get out of Douentza and do something fun. I drove us up to a village called Bota (Mbota?), ten kilometers up the road to Timbuktu. The village is situated at the bottom of these rocky spires, the faces of which rise up at a 90 degree angle to the ground like someone just came and sliced them off. There are rocky debris fields around them, though, so we went to climb up. Dave had done it before and is quite a rock climber, so he scampered up the rocks like it was his job, leaving me wheezing and stumbling behind him.

The first part of the ascent was just a steep rocky hill, which then gave way to bigger rocks and tall grasses that were generous with their burrs. After that, it got woody and the boulders got bigger, so that much more climbing and much less walking was involved. At the end, I was frankly quite scared of falling to my death, since if you took a wrong turn and somehow fell, it was a straight drop hundreds of meters down.

But I did not fall and am here to tell about it. We climbed around a ledge on the face of the cliff where you can see all of the plains and Douentza stretching out flat and barren below you. Whereas a city in America would be distinguished from the surroundings by buildings or clear roads, you pick out Douentza because it has more trees than anywhere else—you can’t even see the buildings. I could see all the way across and onto the plateau behind Douentza, where presumably my village is located. It was a breathtaking view, quite worth the strenuous climb.

After that, we started to head back and stopped in a shady crevice for lunch: peanut butter (real Jiffy PB from the US) and banana sandwiches. After so much physical activity, it tasted delicious. I was dying of exhaustion on the way back, my legs screaming at me for doing something other than sitting around working on linguistics. On top of that, the shady side of the cliff was now the other side, so we had to stumble down a rocky slope with no shade whatsoever.

I just got back before this and took the most satisfying bucket bath of my life. The silver lining to cold season ending is that bathing is pleasant again. That’s about it, though. I guess the Peace Corps boss is in town tonight, and I get to bum along and get a free dinner. I’m not complaining.