Last Day on the Farm

The routine on the farm goes something like this: at about 4:30 in the morning the first roosters crow. Grandma and Auntie Justina get up around 6, I think, and start the fire burning for breakfast tea. We have been getting up around 6:30 and by that time there is already a crowd around the fire. Breakfast consists of a sweet tea and bread of some kind, when there is any; when there isn’t, just tea. There is usually a large pot of pap cooking as well, as tea alone would obviously not sustain those who are working so hard on the farm. After breakfast the older girls do the dishes. Then the men and boys spend the morning tending to the cattle and goats and sheep and whatever other work needs to be done around the farm. The women might do some washing and cleaning and tending the various birds on the farm. All morning the kids will be playing – the boys usually with the soccer balls and the girls cards or something along those lines. Quietly, alone or in groups, people head into the bush to do their morning business. By 8 the sun is high in the sky though we have been lucky to have a breeze that has kept things pretty cool. Maybe around 11 or 12 preparations for lunch will begin and it will be ready around 2. When there is meat lunch will consist of meat, probably boiled in some way, and pap or rice, often with a sauce that contains potatoes. Preparing any meal is a huge task with so many people on the farm; we are probably 30 in all. After lunch and cleanup after lunch there is some time to rest. That might be a time for cleaning the small houses in which each family lives, doing washing, or just sitting in the shade of a tree. Around 4 or 5 the fires get going again and the preparations for evening tea begin. Again, if there is bread, there will be bread with the tea, if not then there will be only tea. On one of the fires water for bathing will be heating up and the girls in one house and boys in another will bathe pretty much communally from a large tub of water. Once people are clean and warmly dressed they gather back around the fire to talk the night away. Often the older boys and younger men will be at one fire and everyone else at the other. Last night all of the kids were with the older boys and Kuno was regaling them with jokes.

This morning Kuno was given a female goat, to begin his own herd! Later in the morning another delicacy of the goat from a few days ago was cooked and served – the stomach and the ears. Moses and Kuno very much enjoyed that, though Mave was less impressed.