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The Iroko in the previously-placed picture is one of my favorite trees, but moving quickly up the list of favorites is Somba, which definitely has to be in the same family as the maple tree. The leaves are very similar, and the seeds are the exact same helicopter blade. A somba tree grows quickly and is a preferred wood for pirogues, that is, canoes. “Athieme” in Mina means “le bois blanc,” or the white wood, which is the somba. Sadly, not many of the trees remain that gave my home its name, but Patrice and I spent three hours bent over, picking up somba seeds to plant at As.P.E.L. Working on it, we’re working on it. <br />I was in Lokossa the other day, running errands such as paying the water bill and mailing the answers to the quiz for the Coupe d’Afrique, the Superbowl equivalent in African soccer, for Mathurin. Soccer is very important. (Egypt won; I was rooting for Cote d’Ivoire!)

Maple-land

Erika Kraus
2006-08-28 19:45:07

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The Iroko in the previously-placed picture is one of my favorite trees, but moving quickly up the list of favorites is Somba, which definitely has to be in the same family as the maple tree. The leaves are very similar, and the seeds are the exact same helicopter blade. A somba tree grows quickly and is a preferred wood for pirogues, that is, canoes. “Athieme” in Mina means “le bois blanc,” or the white wood, which is the somba. Sadly, not many of the trees remain that gave my home its name, but Patrice and I spent three hours bent over, picking up somba seeds to plant at As.P.E.L. Working on it, we’re working on it.
I was in Lokossa the other day, running errands such as paying the water bill and mailing the answers to the quiz for the Coupe d’Afrique, the Superbowl equivalent in African soccer, for Mathurin. Soccer is very important. (Egypt won; I was rooting for Cote d’Ivoire!)
I really like Lokossa, and as I walked around, I got kind of reminiscent for the future, thinking of the simple, everyday things I think I will miss. Simple things such as a cow walking his man on a rope down a main street of Lokossa and an aged woman singing and dancing to the yovo song while carrying a basin of wood on her head. But there are also random events that I will miss, such as the crazy man gifting me with stick and seeds on a string (in my home, through my window, in my absence!!) and the public bucket for the well. The woman who lives behind me and doesn’t speak much French saw him in the process and called the gendarmes. She explained very well to me what had happened. I gave her and her family a pineapple for taking good care of my home and me.
Also, yesterday as I was sleeping/reading the heat of the day away on the porch (a favorite activity), I heard rustling in the grass next to my home. I thought it was a herd of cows again, but no, it was a thief that had escaped from the gendarmerie. A sudden crowd of twenty-plus men circled ...

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