Mountains

So I've been wanting to talk to somebody about the trees that live in the desert here. They're so

beautiful!!!! I swear to you they look like upside down storms because they wear their roots on their heads. Also, its been really funny for me and Lisa to see all these animals walking around. People here think we're real crazy because we're amazed at the cows crossing streets between cars. There are lots of donkeys and large birds with swollen pink necks that eat the little birds for breakfast (the big birds, not the donkeys).

Here is something like a poem for you:

The bowing noises

Of wing-things and trees

Carry miles on their backs

Somehow I buried

The beatboxing Atlantic

In the dirt of my poems

& found her

In the trees of the desert


Yesterday I climbed (meaning walked a long long road uphill) the Mountain EnToto (sp?) in Addis Ababa. I guess because im a new york city-kid (or maybe I'm just ignorant) I thought, you know, mountain....Bear mountain...that kinda thing....I didn't know people really lived on the mountain.

There are all these patches of trees that look like the land of the elves cos of the green color of the moss. Many rows of slanted houses and a lot a lot of kids looking for water. While I was walking they were asking for plastic bottles and for pens, because their parents live far and they want to write home.

Because yesterday was Sunday, the holy day, people were singing their prayer on the mountain but I didn't see them so I said to Jimmy (as in Jimmy Carter from a few entries back) that it sounded like the mountain was singing...and he said "Oh yes! all by itself!"

Also, yesterday I met Jimmy's brother, David (yes, these are their real names) who is a poet. He read me some poems in Amerik. My favorite one was about a girl who comes from the countryside to the city looking for a better life but her dreams end up broken. I like how you can talk to a poet anywhere you go...I asked him why he writes and he said, "You know, I just write...how I feel..." Each of us is the same-same-same...