Yesterday morning Emma and I went for a run before breakfast (although to be fair, we do claim that this necessitates a small pre-breakfast-breakfast so we fuelled up on bananas). As we ran some of the local children decided to run with us, one of them took my hand, which made me feel a little lopsided. It’s not easy to run while holding onto someone’s hand, at least not if you’re as unfit as me. The first interesting thing we came across was a black line across the path that on closer inspection turned out to be the most enormous trail of ants who had built up sandy barricades either side of their road to make some sort of ant-esque superhighway. As we went on I felt a sting on my leg. You guessed it, as I observed them, one of them had decided to have a closer observation of me and got inside my trousers. The child very helpfully assisted in the killing of this rather mangled ant.
The second interesting thing that we came across was some
men in a field standing amongst big piles of stone. If I’m honest, it was partly
because I wanted an exercise break that I suggested we go over to see if they
could tell us what they were up to. They could; their level of English was
pretty good; they were mining stone. There was a child in the pit throwing up
slabs, and a man sat on a pile of little stones with a hammer who was smashing
up the big stones to aid in the proliferation of little stones. After watching
for a bit, I realised that there were spare hammers and so I asked if I could
have a go. The men were tickled pink that a white woman would try her hand at
their work (of course, it’s easy for me, I can stop when I’ve had enough, so I
don’t see it as arduous at all). I picked up a big stone, was surprised to
realise it was solid granite, took a hammer in hand and handed another one to
Emma (who had introduced herself to everyone as Anna as we find this new name
catches on better). I hit the stone hard a few times and succeeded in nothing
more than making some white marks on it, then all at once it fell apart. Not
quite into pieces as small as I needed but all the same I was very pleased and
kept up my hammering. As the person in charge of the health and safety of all
the volunteers I was glad it was me, rather than anyone else, engaging in this
extremely risky activity. Incredibly, the men were working while wearing flip
flops and no eye protection, so I felt that at least my running shoes and
glasses were a step in the right direction. It was probably no coincidence that
most of them had missing teeth and so I reminded Emma not to smile while
hitting the rock. Before leaving I looked down into the pit, and as if my mind
were being read, it was suggested that maybe I’d like to climb into the mine to
have a go at chipping off a bigger piece of rock. Yes, I thought that would be
fun. So I lowered myself in (it was only about 8ft or so with lots of good
footholds on the way) and climbed from bolder to bolder to the exposed rock
face (it was quite flat, it looked like an enormous grey half-carved ham – very
easy to see where you start) the footing wasn’t the best and I marvelled at the
way anyone could do it in flip flops. When I was ready I planted my feet firmly
each on a flat rock and was passed an enormous hammer. To be honest, this was
my undoing. I could lift it easily, but wield it, not at all! I did give it a
good go, but the effect of waving a weight of that magnitude unbalanced me on
my feet and I struck the rock with all the force of a doctor tapping a
patient’s knee to test their reflexes. I did have a couple more goes but must
admit that I was not equal to the task, not by a long way. I wasn’t keen to
stay in the mine as another man had started proper work some distance from me; his granite chips were flying over and able to deliver a nasty sting when they struck me so I
scampered out. Happily for my duty of care, Emma didn’t follow my example and
remained the contented spectator.
When we got home I tried to act out to our host mother and
aunt what we’d been up to. I’m pretty sure they thought I’d been using an overarm
technique to hoe a field but they were suitably impressed.
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