Life in the bush...

To the African, me and Reaiah must seem the most fragile things on Earth. So far we almost have to sneak around to be able to do anything for ourselves… If we try to draw our own water (or even carry our water back to our hut) one of the women or girls will come and take it from us before we finish. They will ask us to try to pound the grain only long enough to prove that we aren’t good at it and then take it away again (and the one time they let us go very long, my callous-free hands formed instant blisters and almost bled—which they thought was hilarious and proceeded to tell everyone about for the next several days). We wanted to go to the peanut fields with them (even if they won’t let us work) but just before we were to leave they made the excuse that it was just TOO far for us to walk (5 km) and besides it was going to rain that day (which it didn’t…) and they made us wander around town instead.
As they sit around chatting at night, some of the women brought their peanuts to crack. and they even let us do that for a while. Ok, cracking peanuts, no problem… I may have been at it for 20 minutes before the woman next to me started asking about my fingers and insisting that I stop or my fingers would bleed… I told her I was fine and assured her my fingers were not going to bleed from cracking peanuts, but she eventually took what was left in my hands away from me and wouldn’t let me get anymore. And so it goes…