Monday, February 13, 2012

rocks or diamonds?

10 fevrier 2012
when a day starts off uneventful...
this past monday after "doing the market" in village with my postmate, i was sitting and reading in my house.
salam alakum - i heard a quiet woman's voice outside
i wasn't sure if it was for me so i let the boy next door answer the door. the woman wanted to see me. i invited her inside. she was a small fulbe woman with blue tattoos forming lines, x's and stars on her face. she started talking to me in fulfulde but realized we wouldn't get very far, so we called the boy next door back in.
she has brought something to show you - the boy said
from within the folds of her panya, she pulled out a small black bag. she carefully untied it and within were beautiful gemstones coloring from blue to violet. inside of that bag was another smaller cloth-wrapped sac of clear crystals. i turned them over in my hands and held them up to the light. they were so beautiful.
does she want to sell them? - i asked the boy to translate
no, she just wanted to show them to me and see if they were worth anything. she heard i was here and maybe you would know something about them. she found them all up behind her house. she says there are a ton of them. her village is after saltaka.
what? i have no idea how to test if something is a real diamond or whatever.
if she leaves a few with me, when i go into town next, i can look up on the computer if they're real or not or how even to test if they're real or not - i said
she agreed and left me a handful of beautiful gemstones. she'll be back in two weeks to see what i've found out.


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