Cornishmaninafrica

Income for the borehole this month is £11,416.85. We need £11,500 to start digging. We’re almost there – help us reach our target.

Borehole income Jan 2010

Vikram Seth: The humble administrator’s garden

Farid Ud-din Attar: The conference of the birds

Daniel Everett: Don’t sleep, there are snakes

Che Guevara: The motorcycle diaries

On the very day I arrived back in the village, amongst piles of half-opened suitcases and cardboard boxes, I cut my hand on a kitchen knife. Faustin swung into action and drove me down to Kara hospital (24km round trip) where I had three stitches and a tetanus jab. Not the best way to ease back into life up on the mountain!

Eduardo placed the knife in a separate drawer in the kitchen, and no-one must use it until I get better. He explained that if the knife was to be used to cut something hot in the meantime, I would feel the pain. I was also interested to learn that in Kabiye, you can’t say “I cut myself with a knife”. The correct form is “A knife cut me”, as though it was the fault of the knife itself, not the person holding it.

Update: had the stitches out today and all is well.

Nice to go from 0 degrees in Paris to 30 degrees in Lomé overnight. I was born for the tropics.

The first few weeks back in Togo are always very full. First, I spent two weeks in Lomé and Cotonou getting visas for Togo and Benin, having the car repaired and visiting members of the Kabiye language committee. Courtesy visits are a high priority in African culture.

Some good news: M was my first ever househelp when I arrived in Togo in 1996. He was 15 then, and I’ve been sponsoring his education ever since. Now, at 28, he’s just announced that he’s been recruited as a lycée teacher, which gives him job security for life.

Today an African Grey Hornbill broke his journey on a nearby tree, his extremely long beak poking out of the branches.

This is real Cinnamon-breasted Rock Bunting country. No wonder, I suppose, with all these rocks.

5pm is playtime for Swifts, frolicking in the sky after the heat of the afternoon has subsided. They often make their home in compound entrance huts.