Forty: Kumani

In the morning while the mists moved through the deep green growths she stirred and tied up her long, pipe-stringed hair.  Like a basket of charcoal silk it sat atop her head, to help hold the grain basket on the way back from the market.  She ate guava and mango, then slipped a gourd into the deep water barrel and took a drink.  Thus sated, she yoked the two buckets to her strong and youthful shoulders, put the empty reed basket on her head, and walked west toward the village.

Along the way she passed a group of white people, volunteers from America who were visiting for the summer.  They wanted to build a school near the village, so that children from the area could learn to read and write, to count numbers in their heads, to think in the Western way.  It was good for the village, many agreed.  Kumani knew that rain was good for the village, because it helped the crops grow.  A catch of fish was good, because it brought in needed meat and thin bones that were used for sewing and piercing and jewelry.  Trade brought silk cloth, rich dyes, and spices that would not grow in their damp jungle.  These things were good for the village.

There were harmful things, too, that happened to the village.  Along the way Kumani had to step into the brush to avoid one of the loud, rut-digging Jeeps that belched its way along the footpath.  No longer was it only for feet.  Electricity was bad for the village, because in order to get it miles of cable had to be strung through the jungle.  Crews cut down straight swaths of trees and growth to make the most direct path.  Kumani did not need electricity.  She cooked oxen hides and skimmed off the oil.  She drained it, squeezed it, and cooked it again.  The finest oil was saved for cooking and salves.  The second finest became pitch for their torches.  It did not smoke or fill the air with fumes like the generators the white people brought.

One man offered to show Kumani how to use his small phone.  He said she could talk to anybody in the world with it.  She replied, “I am talking with you right now.  Why do I need this thing?”  He asked who else she would like to converse with.  She pointed across the clearing to a woman with blonde hair named Julie.  “I will talk to her.”  Kumani walked toward her, and did not understand the man’s laughter.

At the village Kumani placed ears of corn and long strings of millet into her basket.  A man came over to her holding a clear utensil with blades in the bottom of it.  “Watch this,” he said eagerly.  He took a sprig of millet and threw it in the clear part, then pressed a button.  The clamoring noise made Kumani jump.  Again there was laughter from a man at her behavior.  Gesturing for Kumani to hold out her hands, the man poured the ground seed into her palm.  She smelled it, fingered it, then handed it back.  “Want one?  Instead of pounding for hours, you just throw your grain in and it does the work for you!”

“Then what would I do?” asked Kumani.  She turned her back on the man, filled up her buckets at the well, and began the walk back to her home.  She was sure that using machines to shorten one’s work was a bad thing for a village.