It’s dark. Electricity is out. It’s can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of your-face dark. It’s not eyes-will-ultimately-adjust dark. So it’s dark! Get it?

I’ve been told that the Burkina military does exercises near here. Yesterday there was a military parade for the guys that just completed the Burkinabe version of boot camp. After the PC’s pre-service training, I know just how they feel. I once had that same deer-in-the-headlights look . . . and some days I still have it. Today I made an unsolicited telephone call, in French, to someone who speaks only French. Think about that. No hand gestures or facial expressions. It was a PCV-in-the-headlights kind of day.

I heard what sounded like thunder this afternoon, then I realized it was more like cannon fire. Repeated cannon fire. Maybe RPGs? Google that acronym. Rather freaky, but a Po possibility. Then came the true rumble of thunder, and now it’s noticeably cooler . . . cooler being a relative term.

Children love total darkness. I hear them giggling and moving about in the courtyard. Truth be told, I love darkness, too. The problem? Cooler is still hot; and after a late afternoon glass of espresso, I’ve been frenetically organizing and cleaning my kitchen. It’s warm inside, and I’m very hot. After sweeping with the world’s tiniest broom (about 5 x 3 inches, seriously . . . it’s the size of an index card), I applied bug powder around the inside perimeter of the house. Ah, caffeine . . . what legal stimulants can accomplish.

Although dark, I’ve got a wind-up lantern. Doesn’t make me giggle, but it’s useful for locating my nightly malaria prophylaxis. . . malaria prophylaxis also being a relative phrase, or an oxymoron, or both. Anyway, the lantern enabled me to locate the laptop.

So I’ve got a clean new kitchen, and a new countertop-table was delivered. New, relatively. I feel as if HGTV was here . . . even more so in the darkness. Why? Because Maggie sent me a tee-ninsy 360-degree LED light clipped onto a gourd nailed to the wall over my little stove. I mounted the gourd-cup to hold matches for the stove. So the effect is that of a tiny spotlight in the kitchen. It’s fantastic, so thank you, Maggie.

While high on caffeine, I painted furniture. Furniture, too, being a relative word. I painted some wood that is pieced together as a bookcase, and now I’ve painted the new table and the little stand on which my cooktop sits. Black. Glossy, smelly, probably lead-based-gonna-kill-some-brain-cells black. With these pops of black, the walls actually appear clean . . . or cleaner, relatively. Eight dollars for killer paint, or $40-plus to paint the walls? Not a difficult decision. I think I'll paint the door. Fumes are fumes . . . and to borrow an African phrase -- if there's enough for one, there's enough for two . . . right Keith?

With no electricity, complete darkness, a cool evening outside, and lots of paper trash, wouldn’t it be a fine night for a poubelle fire? Maybe make some ash for the garden? Between bug powder and paint fumes, will I survive until the end of my two-year service? How many relative terms are there in West Africa? Do they still make cannons? And where’d I find espresso? We can only speculate.