Collecting Firewood

writing twice in one day? thats gotta be a record :)
I had an amazing afternoon. the background: I dropped in at the village of my 'rent a friend' late in the avo cos i missed last week due to lack of voice and the recent struggle of fitting everything in with work orientation and nasty cold etc. ANYWAYS... I wanted to give her some photos I took a few weeks ago and find a mutually convenient time for a proper visit- but when I got there the village was deserted. Eventually a lady came out and explained that they were gathering firewood and headed off to show me where. I hadn't really planned a firewood gathering excursion at 4.30pm after a particularly long day, but I thought 'why not?' and followed.

The story: The young women were in a nearby woodlot, felling a tree. They all stopped to admire the photos, then went back to chopping, then decided that I should have a go. I quickly proved to be quite useless, so we stood around watching while one of the young girls finished the job. Timber! then we set to, breaking off all the branches and stripping the twigs off the smaller branches and putting them into piles- well, that was my job because I quickly proved as useless wielding a machette as I was with the axe :) Next thing I knew I was deemed the babysitter, had a 1yr old strapped to my back and was busily de-twigging. I loved the atmosphere of working as a group, the banter, the babies, the giant knives... As it started to get dark they said it was time to go and I asked if I could help carry some of the wood back tot the village. They wrapped a tiny bundle in my chitenje which I carried as far as the next pile and added a few more substantial sized sticks so I wouldn't be completely useless. The chitenje acted as both a rope and padding for my head.

As I made way back along the path with 3 women in front piled up with wood (twice the size of my bundle and they weren't even trying!) babies tied to their backs, and several behind- i realised I knew every one of these women and was actually a part of this very familiar spectacle. Although my attempts were met with raucus laugther in the village- I couldn't help beaming.