Squirting Milk at Chameleons by Simon Fenton

Author:Simon Fenton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eye Books
Published: 2015-01-29T08:39:21+00:00

The work on our many projects had slowed due to heavy rains and problems finding the few remaining kembo that were required for the fence. One of the well diggers was no longer well. He had an infected hand, which he was urinating upon every day, a local method of curing it. After several weeks of digging and lifting the sand out, one bucket at a time, the diggers finally struck water and the well was under way.

Around this time we started work on the small house. With the rains and hardships, time seemed to drag indefinitely, but a glance at my diaries shows that I signed the land ownership papers on 22 June, started the house build on 24 July and we’d moved in the first week of September, so we didn’t do too badly.

The foreman was Yancoba, another of Khady’s uncles. He worked with three young guys, all part of the extended family. I was taking a bit of a chance here. Whilst we were getting family rates and it’s a good way for me to support the family, the downside is that things can get awkward if problems occur. Khady assured me there wouldn’t be any problems and on this occasion, with the builders at least, she was right.

I had to send money for the builders to travel to Abene, which is the normal procedure. For example, if I want the police to sort out a problem, I have to give some petrol money to them to get here, as they have nothing. Despite my many complaints, there are some good African systems in place; in this case I just gave the cash to a local shop which somehow sent it by text message to a shop in Bignona, where Yankoba picked it up.

It wasn’t until Yankoba arrived that I discovered that he was blind. Not only that, but after I sent the money, I was expecting him the next day. That day came and went, as did the next. Khady called him and then cheerfully told me the reason.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be here tomorrow. Their house just fell down, so they have to build an emergency new place. That’s why they’re late.”

I wasn’t quite sure whether to be worried that my newly hired (blind) builder’s house that he had personally constructed had fallen down or to be impressed that he could rebuild it in just two days. To be honest, by this time these things were beginning to roll off me. I laughed and figured it would all turn out all right. One day. Maybe.

Many houses were washing away this year and I later learnt I was living through the heaviest rains in 40 years. Traditionally, houses are built with banku (mud blocks made with the sand from termite mounds), but also traditionally they collapse in the rainy season. With the current rains there was a good chance that a house constructed solely of banku would collapse, like Yankoba’s had. So we decided to mix banku with some cement.

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