Bienvenue, ma fille

Perhaps it was the more concealed, mystic qualities about African societies that kept drawing me in, surely charged by my own inner desire to find missing links in my own ancestry. As I prepared to embark on my graduate research, I knew I wanted to better understand those traditional practices that have stood the test of time in West Africa. My research would lead me beyond the books, journals and online databases and into the field of tangible experience.

I departed NYC in a blizzard during the winter of 2013. My flight, among the few, that wasn’t cancelled. Within hours, I stepped off the plane in Burkina Faso in sort of a trance. Immediately struck by the intense sun, intoxicated by the pungent, city smells and pleasantly surrounded by a myriad of interesting and striking people. I felt embraced by a familiar presence that whispered to me,
“Bienvenue, ma fille.”
 
Those first few weeks were all about finding the current and flowing with it. Many of the ideas and plans I had were dissolved and rearranged. After months of travel, interaction and experience; it was in the shade of a small hut in the Bissiri village, that I made the decision to let go. Let go of the previously defined parameters of my research and simply live the story. As I laid down feeling more grounded than ever, surrounded by earth clay, geckos and a mosquito net. `It is here, where I would begin my exploration into farming and gardening practices of the Mossi people. I observed first hand a myriad of customary agricultural practices existing alongside the more commercial and imported ones. I observed and experienced abundance living alongside lack, speed passing through stagnancy and joy sharing the same space with sorrow. It was here, that I sat at length with men and women of all ages and held auspicious dialogue with elders and pioneers.
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