maïs

I came outside today after a quick trip home to run an errand, and saw
that Albert, who works at the house as the day guard, had some corn
("maïs" in French, with two dots over the i) spread out in the sun to
dry. He explained that he was going to grind it up to make flour. I
think the picture is after cleaning or soaking it, which is why it's
mostly white. You can't see it too well in the picture, but there are
yellow kernels in there too.

I also got a picture of the little birds, about the size of a small
child's hand, that eat the grass by the side of the road. They'll land
on a stalk that's six or eight feet high, and it will bend under their
weight but hold them. Then they curve their head around and eat the
seeds. There is usually a flock of five or ten of them by the side of
the road when we walk to work, in the high grass. They are easily
disturbed, and will fly off if a car drives by or if you walk too close,
so this was the best I could get with our camera's 3x zoom. We have
more colorful birds around too, but we see these every day. You can
hear birds here all the time, especially in the morning. It starts
really early, and none of the windows in the house have glass, just
louvers and screens, so if you wake up before dawn you can lie there and
listen to them while it slowly gets light.