Bright patterns in the African Sun.

A chicken with wild eyes runs into the congregation, then immediately turns and runs back out, in pursuit of a moth.

The preacher shouts her message in impassioned french.

The translator forms her words into the local African language, speaking in his deep baritone voice.

Syllables wash over me.

I bounce a small child on my lap.

She rests her head on my shoulder.

At regular intervals, the congregation bursts into song.

Some kind of conga line.

Orange and teal and purple and yellow.

After the conga line a tight circle is formed

and people are pulled in two at a time to face each other in a dance-off.

I think I just won a dance-off ?

Dust under our feet

sweaty bodies

A woman dances with a chair on her head

the leader of the church is lying face down on the concrete porch and sobbing.

. . .

African church services regularly go for 4 hours or so. This is a poem I wrote during my first Sunday morning African church service.

Many of you know this already, but I write a lot of poetry as a form of journaling and processing.

I decided to share some of that with you to give you some little snapshots of my time on the race.

Hope you like it!

Much Love,

Hattie

p.s. I most likely will post these without sending updates so you'll have to look for them. Little Easter eggs for you ;)