Contemplation in the Back Yard
16-Dec-2007
Georgetown
Sitting on a wooden bench in the back yard of Joyce and Lawrence's house - although it is Janelle's family I am staying with, in the three, small rooms that they rent out downstairs. For the first time, it is sunny without a hint of rain - a breeze, but not the door-slamming kind that heralds a shower.
There is noise, but it is peaceful in its way. Where I sit, the yard is concrete, its uneven surface swept clean by the bundle of 'pointers' like we used back in the school in Aishalton. Further back, by the corrugated-iron fence, the concrete yields to soil, littered with unruly weeds, a few plants, and some palms, eternally damp from the dripping taps in the outside sink, where Janelle stands, washing her wares. Beside her, on solid concrete platforms, one above the other, are three huge black tanks, filled with a tiny portion of the rainfall that is causing so much disruption further into 'Town - and which, right now, must be in such short supply South, in the interior - in Aishalton.
The sink is attached to the wall of the shower and toilet block - three concrete walls defining each, a wooden door across the front of the toilet, but for the shower, just a sheet of metal propped up to waist height, the whole covered with a zinc roof. A tap is running in the shower, filling the bucket from which we bathe - there is never enough pressure for the overhead tap to work.
The rest of the yard is home to an assortment of tools, engine parts, jerry cans and buckets of oil or paint. Beneath some more sheets of zinc, held up on four wooden posts, is a large round oven of brick and clay, and a bench, a motor on top, attached to a cassava grater by a fat elastic strap. The words 'Success come through hard working' are painted on its side.
This is the house of not one, but two (or more, with all the various relatives and friends who stay from time to time) families, and it is, indeed, one built 'through hard working'.
Georgetown
Sitting on a wooden bench in the back yard of Joyce and Lawrence's house - although it is Janelle's family I am staying with, in the three, small rooms that they rent out downstairs. For the first time, it is sunny without a hint of rain - a breeze, but not the door-slamming kind that heralds a shower.
There is noise, but it is peaceful in its way. Where I sit, the yard is concrete, its uneven surface swept clean by the bundle of 'pointers' like we used back in the school in Aishalton. Further back, by the corrugated-iron fence, the concrete yields to soil, littered with unruly weeds, a few plants, and some palms, eternally damp from the dripping taps in the outside sink, where Janelle stands, washing her wares. Beside her, on solid concrete platforms, one above the other, are three huge black tanks, filled with a tiny portion of the rainfall that is causing so much disruption further into 'Town - and which, right now, must be in such short supply South, in the interior - in Aishalton.
The sink is attached to the wall of the shower and toilet block - three concrete walls defining each, a wooden door across the front of the toilet, but for the shower, just a sheet of metal propped up to waist height, the whole covered with a zinc roof. A tap is running in the shower, filling the bucket from which we bathe - there is never enough pressure for the overhead tap to work.
The rest of the yard is home to an assortment of tools, engine parts, jerry cans and buckets of oil or paint. Beneath some more sheets of zinc, held up on four wooden posts, is a large round oven of brick and clay, and a bench, a motor on top, attached to a cassava grater by a fat elastic strap. The words 'Success come through hard working' are painted on its side.
This is the house of not one, but two (or more, with all the various relatives and friends who stay from time to time) families, and it is, indeed, one built 'through hard working'.
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posted by Unknown at 16:57
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