My Expanding Resume

Many, many times over the past few weeks, I have been invited to people’s farms to help pull (harvest) peanuts.  It is not something I have done before - and I often tease them, when they press me to come, by saying  “No problem - Let me just run over to the clinic and tell the sick people that so-and-so wants me to go to the farm with them - so you will just have to wait until another day.”  Usually they start laughing and beg me not to do that. 

Anyway, it got me thinking about the new skills that I have learned since moving to Africa.  I have NO doubt that they will greatly enhance my resumé should I ever look for a job in America….

Here is a list of some of the things I can now do:

1.     Beat rice to get the husk off

2.    Beat millet to get the husk off

3.    Dig up sweet potatoes

4.    Plant peanuts

5.    Shell peanuts

6.    Beat rice off the stalks

7.    Pick sweet potato leaves

8.    Cut sweet potato leaves for sauce

9.    Mix cooked cassava - this is a very difficult and taxing process which involves sitting down, pinning your feet against a hot pot of cooked cassava, and beating it with a wooden paddle that you keep pulling towards you - it really is exhausting - even for the women who are used to it, much less a “soft” white lady.  Also, I am NOT a big fan of the resulting meal - which is a bit like eating a big pan of glue - so it hardly makes the work worth it!

10.  Prepare fish to smoke - you take gutted fish and bend them into a circle and pin their side fin into their tail so that they remain in a circular shape - you then smoke them slowly over a fire.

11.  Make fish balls - this also a long process which produces less than appetizng results (in my eyes).  You put gutted little fish into a big wooden pestle - fins and all— and start beating it - it makes a sloshing, sucking, nasty kind of noise.  Then you add salt and hot pepper and peanut butter and bullion.  Then you shape them into balls - making sure that you don’t poke yourself with the fins and bones.  You cook them in boiling water and then place them in the sauce.  They are EXTREMELY high in nutrition and EXTREMELY hard to eat as you have to pick through the bones and fins and spit them out.  NOT my favorite!

12.  Wash rice to get the stones out (I really like this job - it is relaxing to me).

13.  Open a can with a knife - this is accomplished by gripping the can with your bare toes and plunging the knife bade into the side of the can - and continuing to work your way around the edges until it is open.  It is a bit hard for me because my husband has always stressed taking care of the knife blade - AND also I don’t want to lose a toe.

14.  Pull water from the well

15.  Start a fire

16.  Cook over a fire

17.  And my most recently acquired skill, of which I am SUPER proud!….. washing a plastic bowl and then tossing some of the water out into the air and flipping the bowl over just in time to catch the water to rinse off the bottom of the bowl.  I have ALWAYS wanted to learn how to do that - and now I can (or at least I COULD, a few weeks ago)!  It is possible that in the learning of this new skill, I became covered in water, providing MUCH amusement for Kanko and Isatu. 

I still have many, many things that I can not do yet (like fanning rice to get the chaff off) - but I am working on it.  I am thankful to Isatu and Kanko for giving me a new appreciation for how incredibly hard women work around here.  They are AMAZING!  And not only does it increase my appreciation, but it also provides entertainment for the people passing by!  Anything I can do to help, I guess.   :^)