amateur african almanac, 20 november 2007

Litchi are in season. I see their solid almond-shaped pits, the color of cherry wood, scattered everywhere I walk, children popping the fruit in their mouths like nature's sweet and sticky ice-cubes. The empty peels resemble deflated basketballs. The rains have begun, falling thick, boisterously, a pleasure to sit and listen to. With them, the heat.

There is a certain insect that comes out, following the first few rains of the season, emerging from the formerly dry soil to breed and to die. As night descends after a rain, they swarm and bombard the house, like an old-fashioned horror film, thousands of them, attracted to our lights inside. They wriggle in any hole they can find, slide in beneath the cracks of doors. People here eat them - mostly kids, who run, excited, to snatch them up. They transform even the coming of bugs into a festive time. By morning, all the insects have died. Only their wings remain, lying in massive piles inside and outside the house. Each wing is an exact replica of the helicopter leaf we have back home, light and airy, twirling and swirling as it falls.

Mango trees sag heavy with oblong fruit, still too green and stringy to be enjoyed, but tantalizing in their promises for the coming weeks. Farmers have started planting. Women march in line along the roads, en route to their fields, carrying wooden hoes and babies strapped to their back. I saw my first watermelons for sale today. The land is getting greener.