We always lacked the water and thirst hurt a lot.
We were born anguished by the dryness of our fields and we have grown begging for the arrival of the rain.
We have accepted our needs, demonstrating ourselves that we are strong. And capable of living attached to the land we love. Nonetheless.
And now hunger came to us.
Almost without warning, our barns of the little livelihood that we could keep in them were emptied.
It rained little, the harvest was brief. And it is no longer enough.
Nobody's fault. Who could we blame for it?
In constant and excessive sun? To our beloved poor and dry land? To our inevitable lack of foresight?
And, in addition, what would it serve us?
It has already happened many times: a small need is followed by another need.
The needs are pursued, one after another, in an endless chain of sad events, that pile cold stones over our worn poverty.
In spite of everything, we always sit patiently, to wait and talk between us. We tell ourselves: hunger will pass. Now it arrived and then it will pass. As, so many times, thirst came and then passed.
And although, perhaps by then, let's be less than we are now, we know that we will continue.
All the time that our forces allow it. And while behind the hardness of the sun and the dryness of the earth there is a minimal possibility of standing, to continue supporting the weight of our lives.
Pepe Navarro
Burkina Faso, Africa
