Tres Beyan

This is Beyan, the spelling of whose name I am not sure of. I just know it's pronounced as the French say bien. He's posing with his dog and machete in front of his freshly planted peanut field. In July these should be ready to harvest, and will require regular weeding until then, especially when the rains come daily. Beyan helps a lady called Farzee cater for us at the small guesthouse where we stay in Konia, and today he took us on a walk.

Beyan pointed out an old pineapple field and said Farzee found a baby eagle alive under a tree, which everyone was very excited about.
'What happened to it?'
'We ate it.'
'Oh.'

I was woken at 7am by a thwacking sound, and realised it was a group of ladies communally threshing rice to share the load and enjoy the social time. Household tasks are done so manually here, from rice threshing to water carrying, to the huge bundle of firewood that Beyan collected up from dead stumps at his farm, and transported on his head for about an hour. Alice and I estimate him to be about 16, so it was a gargantuan feat. It didn't stop him pausing to shimmy up a twenty metre tree to poke down some baboon kola fruits, which reminded me of mangosteens.

Time in rural Africa is excellent for my digestive (very little lactose), physical (earlier bedtimes) and mental (better quality sleep) wellbeing, except when an urgent South Sudan issue crops up and I have to drive 45 minutes for an internet connection, heart all of a flutter. Aside from that it's been a relatively chilled out Sunday: getting some welding done on the car, checking out some potentially better office premises in the village, over-consuming pineapple, strolling to Beyan's farm, watching a storm roll in, and getting our brains around some project management headaches.