Transcribed from audio
Yay, my music stays which is really nice. That's so nice. Okay, welcome to Syren's first real blog and this one we're going to call it what's Village Tales
I don't know, I'm still working on the title... Tales of the Village because oh I am going to tell you about my experience from the start to the finish. So let's begin and and it won't be in any particular order.
So apologies, it will be all out of order but it will all be beginning from February 15th when we arrived back here. When we arrived back then, Akyeremanteng village, _Mantang village, Achir Mantang_... I still can't say it, almost a decade and I still cannot properly say this thing.
I will ask them again today and I'm sure they will look at me crazy but I can't say this thing. Anyway, let's get to the story. So as we are going from truck driver to truck driver with negotiation of price and changing in times and changing in dates and no proper communication at all.
Like it's so bad... the communication. You're pulling information out of people left and right. People want to chop you because you're foreign and they think you're ignorant and you don't know the prices.
But me, I'm not a foreigner. This is part of home now.
From truck driver to truck driver all the stress was tremendous. Why? I want to be there before my birthday.
I wanted so badly to make sure that I had done enough work so that I was satisfied not to do much work on my birthday but it did not happen that way. No, instead I ended up coming here only a few hours before the night with no lights. Kwesi brought charcoal but we did not burn fire. We just were tired.
We went to sleep and I had to lie on my bed and look at the ceiling and realize we had bat visitors or were we the visitors?
Yes... We are now the visitors. We've been gone for a while. We built the place and we never stayed and this would be our first time.
However, as I walk now from my place to Bra Kofi, I will tell you a story about the bats that live in my room. It has to be a short one because they say people don't read so let's give you a story.
Okay, I lie on my back, my eyes heavy, heavy with anxiety of travel, transport, dust and troskies.
I lie on my back. I wait for the sleep to approach me. I lie on my back.
My daughter is struggling with the itching she's feeling from the shifts in environment. I lie on my back to soothe her and make sure she gets proper rest while I lie on my back waiting for my son... waiting for them all to rest while they don't. Not that first night.
They don't. But they sleep. Finally they sleep in their new place with no windows and no door.
A place they've been before but forgotten. As I walk through the Plaintain farm and remember how I layed on my back and I met our new bats.
It becomes so dark, so still.
There are sounds and you wonder what each one is? What could they be? You listen well. You try to separate them. There's so many sounds all happening at once.
More than crickets, frogs and toads. It's more than anything you know. There's even one we have not figured it out but at the same time around seven you'll hear it.
You will hear it, no doubt. There are about three or four, and they're all in different places and they all are singing a song.
I lie on my back and I listen to the sounds of the village whose name I can barely pronounce. Whose people greet me with such big smiles. Who hugs us and embraces us as their own child.
Only asking in return that we do the same.
Each and one of them absorbing, giving and receiving from me. And seeing where I am and wanting to be. I lie on my back and I meet our new bats.
I lie on my back and one fly in so fast. Their wings flew as they knew.
They whoosh and they whoosh and they whoosh and they whoo.
I lie on my back and I meet our new bats. They whoosh with freedom that they've had long last.
Freedom given with our distance. With my needing to heal. With the time that I've taken to be away. To be still.
I lie on my back and I respect our new bats. This is their home.
They have shown me that.
And I say to myself, well I guess we can share but let's see how you behave. And if my children would dare.
Could I convince them, to live under the bats? If they find the wonders of nature and all that. I lie on my back and I meet our new bats. A story so bold to tell. They're talking to each other. Some sort of council. Like they come here at a certain hour in the night
to chat amongst themselves.
To plan their next flight.
They chat and they chat and then they notice me.
Noticing them.
Meeting the bats.
The more we move into the room the more they seem unfamiliar. The more I hear their wings flapping the more peculiar.
They whoosh no more. Now they flap, flap, flap. They take time and look around to see what is that.
I lie on my back and I meet our new bats. My children sleep well. But I don't.
Oh no. I meet each new bat. I hear each new sound.
I watch all the windows and the doors. I even listen to what's happening outside. The steps.
The cats we've brought.
Discovering things.
Oh how they are enjoying.
I lie on my back and I meet our new bats.
I tell you this story as I walk this long path
Cocoa, plantain, maize, and Zingy.
Wow, the cocoa farm has grown so big. The plantain farm too, right? And so many more trees. They say it's dry season but it still
Everything is so green. I'm going to take a picture for you to see. Zingy wait for me!
That audio stopped at 11 33.
4 4 8 whatever you would say.
That number sounds so wealthy to me.
I lie on my back and I look at those bats. I absorb them. I know them.
This one and that. I realize they don't like when I burn eucalyptus. But that stops the mosquitoes from biting us.
I lie on my back and I decide that these bats they get to stay here and if they continue to come in we respect that 💯
Some windows will help them find a new home, just send us some cash so we can get some
