Random things, illustrated
Posted By Sika on February 28, 2008
I took this picture because it gives me the opportunity to explain a few more of those things that are normal to me but aren’t anything you’d think about if you didn’t live here. So let’s start out with the clotheslines. There are three in this photo, although one is barely visible because it’s in my neighbour’s yard. The one with lots of (my) clothes on it is cotton string because I didn’t know better when I bought it. It stretches out and if I don’t want my freshly laundered clothes covered in dirt, I have to retie it every few washing days. The other lines are all plastic covered wire because someone who did know better bought them.
One end of the cotton line is tied to my porch, from which I took this picture. The other end is tied to one of the posts of the fence to my garden. The main posts are eucalyptus. Some eucalyptus secretions or some such are bad for food gardens, but my hope was (and it seems to be true) that once dead, they’re not as much of a hindrance. The walls of the fence are made out of elephant grass.
The previous fence had been made out of corn stalks after last year’s harvest, but they all rotted away about half way through rainy season, allowing those damn free-range chickens (they’re all free-range here) to eat anything that was actually growing and necessitating a complete replanting of the garden. After Moses built the new fence. He also planted some herbs in 50kg maize bags in the hopes that they’ll grow better there than they did in the ground and they’ll be high enough that the chickens won’t eat all my cilantro before I get any. The garden is doing much better now, although I’ve run out of cherry tomato and sweet pepper seeds, and my garden is definitely saddened by the lack. I’m ok, it’s the garden that’s mourning its chance to be unique and special by growing something that doesn’t normally grow here.
Moses used linya to tie the elephant grass to the fence poles and to give the beans and air potatoes something to climb. Linya is what you get after you drive on a tire until it’s completely bald, cut the tire to make a flat piece of rubber, and then tear strands of rubber off the long side of the piece. We use it for fences, to fasten the dog chains to each other or to the porch poles, for pretty much anything that needs to be tied together and then stay tied.
Under the cotton clothesline, you can see concreted ditches. Those are our gutters. When it rains, the water falls off the roof into the waterways. The added bonus of the waterways is when I’m washing zovala (clothes) I put the buckets on the porch but stand in the waterway so I don’t have to kill my back to have clean clothes. Then, when I’m done, I splash half the soapy water on the porch to clean it and the other half gets dumped down the waterway to the road. Really, I should use the water that’s not too soapy in my garden, but I, um, don’t. The waterways are also where I dump cockroaches after I smoosh them many many many times.
The wire clothesline I use is tied to the guava tree you see there. That’s the one I’m trying to climb. See how it’s basically begging to be climbed? How it practically makes steps to invite you into the highest reaches of its very being? Yeah, so that guava tree is a lying sumbitch. People under 5’6” need not apply. But don’t worry, I’ll beat that tree eventually, even if I have to grow my legs another inch or two to do it.
The other end is tied to a mango tree you can’t see. The clothesline is suspended over the few maize plants my neighbours have room for in their side yard (technically, both trees are theirs, but they leave most of the fruit for me). I’m pretty sure the maize would be doing much better if FIFO, Ujeni, and Froppy/Wokuba (the dog who has adopted me against my will) would stop digging holes in and around the poor maize plants’ root systems. At least they haven’t killed it all off, which I was afraid they might do. Not on purpose, of course, although Froppy/Wokuba might contemplate the option if he had two brain cells to rub together in his skull, which he doesn’t. All he’s got is one ear that goes up and one ear that goes down and unfortunately makes him cute enough that I can’t stay mad at him, even when he steals my sandals, chews on them, and throws them in the yard. Or tries to steal my washbasins. Or thinks I’m a dog and so tries to play bite me, his flopped down ear looking very sad and confused and even his perky ear losing a bit of its luster when I yell at him, “Iwe, choka!”
The white rectangle on the clothesline is for the owners of the tuck shop across the street. They just had a baby (their first girl after two boys. She was named when she turned one week old: Memory) and so Derek bought this crib blanket-type thing, which I washed and now need to repair one little seam. The tag says Made in the U.S.A., which I find to be appropriate. I’m glad that Derek is around to remind me of gift giving occasions, because otherwise I’d forget.
So, that’s my little stream of consciousness snapshot of my world at home.
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