A Relief In Rain

I've noticed something lately that has me towards the edge of worry. Not worried about myself nor the direct future. A distant worry.

In total, I saw two fights in my first two years of service here. The first was between ten year olds. They were wrestling. One accidentally bit the other's finger (hard) and it turned into fisty-cuffs. The second wasn't even in Burkina. Not but moments into Ghana, two men were slugging it out at the first major town we passed.

Things have changed in the last month. Along the bus ride to Saponey, two men in the fields were pulling at each other. Same at the Kongoussi-route stop at the edge of Ouaga, only this time it was a teenager and old man. Again, before getting onto a bush-taxi for Sindou.

The unrest in Burkina has meant something. Perhaps this is it. Whatever one says of reform, punishment or revolution, perhaps the most common impact is stress, that tension that builds into confrontation.

It would be a hard stretch to say that Burkina is violent. Far from it. A few fights is hardly pandemic. It only shows a raised tension. As each volunteer has felt, so have the traveling merchant and the ticket boy, the farmers in their fields and the two taxi operators. Each has felt the pressure from military unrest and looting, soaring food prices, school closures, cotton farmer boycotts, heavier foreign investments in gold mines, sugarcane workers' protests, so on and so forth.

Having endured these three months of sporadic unrest, the rains here are welcomed more than ever. Not only for the refreshing burst of green that hits the landscape but for the promise of work, hard work. The fields will be torn apart and seeded. Backs will break in the sweat of it all. The breaking of ground can be that violent outbreak, that release of stress.

One hopes for a strong season and consistent rain for it means good work and food. Without those, I wonder what sort of other trends will show.