February 6th
It’s off to the garden I go.
Sun hat on head. Watering cans in hand.
Whistling like I’m the eighth dwarf – Hippy.
I’ve been asking my homologue since October if he’d walk
around village with me and help me identify where the quartiers (neighborhoods)
stop and start and where some of the most prominent figures in village live.
Finally, in January, I decided to start myself.
(I also need something to do to get me out of my house. My
arms see plenty of action – hauling water our of a well, carrying it on my
head, doing laundry by hand, sweeping my entire cement house with a two-foot
long bundle of grass, etc. But my lower body has deteriorated into nothing. All
my cycling/running muscle is gone…)
Anyways, long walks and getting to know my village even
better was my new mission to start this year. After walking for about an hour,
I decided to hang out at the school on the outskirts of village that had just
emptied for lunch. It over looks adolescent hills that gradually mature into
mountains in the distance. It was also.. quiet. A rare pleasure one can
experience here in West Africa.. what with all the animal noises, aggressive
conversations, babies crying, and music blaring 99.9% of the time. I spotted a
collection of Baobab trees (African trees with knotted bodies that tower over
you, complete with twisted branches and fruit hanging down) across the field
from the school and decided to check them out.
On my way, I met a woman coming back from the fields that
only spoke local language. Although we couldn’t really understand each other
verbally, I could tell she thought I was lost. She gestured that to go to
Teroda I needed to go left, and to go back to Kemerida I needed to go right. I
tried to gesture that I understood, but wanted to stay here. I tried to do all
the good-bye’s in Kabiye and then continue on my way to the tree cluster.
However, she refused to leave unless I went with her. She walked me all the way
back in to town and acted as if she’d done me a huge favor. To humor her I said
all the local language thank-yous and remained in town.
The idea of just walking here doesn’t exist. You have to
have a purpose. And you have to tell everyone that purpose. I feel like I just
turned 16 and am determined to explore the world, but then there’s 1,000
parents asking where I’m going, for what, and how long I’ll be. And it’s not
that they don’t listen to my answers.. just sometimes they actually can’t
understand them..
I decided to walk to Judith’s and explain my predicament: 1.
What do I tell people when I just want to walk? And 2. How can I learn about
the village without having someone there to guide me? Judith
always has the
best solutions.
The next morning Roman (her 14 year old son) showed up at my
door and said he was to take me on a tour of the village. I packed a backpack
and off we went. We toured four different quartiers and I learned the dominant
families in each one. If we came
up on a hill, we would run to the top of it and look out over the fiels that
continue for miles. Every fruit tree we passed, he would teach me the names in
Kabiye, and then shoot us down a sample. After a couple hours, he asked if I
was tired, or if I wanted to check out the community garden. He hadn’t watered
it yet today and if I was up for it, he’d like to show me. He warned me it was
a pretty far walk though.
Honestly, I didn’t even know we had a community garden
before that moment? Naturally, I jumped on the chance to see it. How could I be
here for 6 months already and just learn this information? I owed it to my
community to become familiar with this major missing chunk of information.
The garden runs a long a river about a mile outside of my
village and continues about 2 miles down it. Each family has their own plot of
land that they can choose to cultivate or not. Roman said they start working
the garden in August and then everything is ready in February. Then in March,
no one works in the garden anymore because it’s time to start on the corn.
He explained all this on the 30 minute walk out there. His
little plot was towards the furthest end of the garden.. As we end up on top of
a hill over looking the shrinking river (2 months of dry season already), you
can see the land divide into shapes of different colors and sizes. Well.. the
colors were all mostly green. But different greens. The cabbage lots were the
most noticeable.
As we get closer, you can see bikes parked underneath the
trees, women starting fires to boil some yams in their marmites for the workers
in the field, women in clusters bending over at the waster to pick peppers, and
boys running back and forth to the river to fill up watering cans. Again, I
experience the same serenity I discovered sitting outside the school looking
into the hillside.
When we reached Roman’s plot, he showed me this melons,
cabbage, lettuce, carrots, and pimante (peppers). He picked a few of them for
us to eat. After he showed me where he keeps his watering can and enters the
river, he let me water his patch. After we were done, we crossed a bridge to
the other side to continue doing the same thing with his friends. He told them
I’d already watered with one can, and together they decided I should prove that
I could do two. One of Romans friends went first to demonstrate.
He took the two huge pails, agilely worked his way down the
slippery slope into the river bed, walked in to the knees, submerged the water
cans, and ran back up the steep mud covered bank back with his arms locked in
45 degree angles, biceps the size of my face. Then, with a pail in each hand,
he lowered his arms into slightly obtuse angles, maintaining bicep contraction
and watered the patch with both pails at the same time. “See, it’s easy,” he says.
So now I guess it’s my turn.
In my chacos, I very ungracefully slip down the slope, but manage
to stay on my feet. While in my mind, like a broken record, plays “please, don’t
fall.. please, don’t fall.” Upon making it down to the water and wading in, I
remember a lecture from the Peace Corps Med Unit about fresh water sources in Togo..
and their very adamant warnings to avoid them. Because of things like Schisto..
and other extra intestinal parasites. So, distracted from my thoughts of
self-preservation, my mind flipped a switch to, “please, don’t get schisto..
please, don’t get schisto.. was that a pink snail?.. because I think those
carry schisto.” Too late now though, I decide. I’m already in the water. Elbow
deep, filling up my pails. I emerge with my two cans, 45 degree angles, and
cramps threatening my biceps. I work my way up the bank with very slow and
deliberate steps. I felt like I should be wearing one of those sumo wrester
costumes ballooning around me. You know the ones where you face each other in a
squat position and then slowly rotate around each other with huge, purposeful
steps in preparation to charge? Maybe it’s just me.. but that’s how I felt
walking up this slope with the watering cans.
The boys up top are giggling, but they let me continue. I
take a steep step up to the garden and waddle over the quenched vegetables and
let my elbow angles become obtuse. I can tell I’m absorbing all the effort in
my back and straining parts of my body more than I should be, but I’m succeeding!
Two handed watering. Ohhh yeahhhh. The boys all applaud me and tell me I can
help them work in the garden any time.
After Roman and I finish with his friends, I’m on cloud 9.
Probably all the endorphins I produced in those 3 minutes my arms threatened to
burst.. I started thinking about how therapeutic it would be to do this every
day. To bike out to this garden early in the morning, away from all the noise,
and work side by side my neighbors for my livelihood. Eat boiled yams, nap
under a huge tree, and then continue into the afternoon. I decided to ask Roman
if there was a way to make it happen. He told me I could help him with his
garden for now, and then maybe in August we could find a plot just for me.
Continuing with my elation, we made our way down the river
and into many more families’ gardens. I offered my watering services and in
exchange got cabbages the size of my head. When we reached the pimante fields,
we were given some of those freshly boiled yams (taste like baked potatoes) that
we snacked on in between disrobing bushels from all of their peppers. Roman
also taught me the names of all the vegetables in Kabiye and how to say other
phrases related to fieldwork. At the end of the day, several people invited me
back the next week and they’d sent me home with an entire bucket of pimante
peppers, that I don’t really even eat..
We ended up getting back to Judith’s around 2 o’clock,
sunburned (well, just me) and starved. We delivered the fruits of our labor and
then Judith prepared a meal. Fed and ready for a nap, I made my way home,
gifting everyone I met pimante peppers on the way.
This was by far one of my favorite days in village. I woke
up with no plans, as usual, and not only found an enjoyable way to kill one
day, but now have plans for how to get out of my house and into my community
for the next month! I’ve already talked to Roman and we are heading to the
garden this weekend. He has school, but he told me I could work with him every
Saturday. I’ve also made plans just to make a short trip out there a few
afternoons just to see if I can lend a hand.
I really hope come August, I’m able to start my own plot. Working
in a garden almost every day for a few months sounds challenging, but also such
an amazing thing for my mind and body to take on.
There are a lot of things I miss about the U.S. every single
day.
But there are a lot of things I can do here that I know I’d
never have time for without this opportunity.
I am getting busier as my projects take off, but it is so
nice to know that I will almost always have time to waste with yoga and
gardening.
Here, I always have time for growth.
Pun intended.
Happy gardening my friends,
Kumealo
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