one world, two places at the same time

That incident carried me miles and miles away.

On day before Al Aid, I always come to help my father the pressing shop. He asked me to put a blanket into the sink and soak it. Then he gave a wooden material in order not to wet my hands. It was a tall and big like a baseball stick. The sink is deep and whenever I had to pull the blanket back into the water, I had to bend and stand, bend and stand, bend and stand. I am a woman of a “primitive” African tribe. I am black. I have a cloth wrapped around my chest, another cloth wrapped my waist. My flesh and blood wrapped on a cloth around my back. I am wearing jewels: jewels made of iron, silver around my hands and neck. My hear is thick, curly, and set in the form of tresses. My feet are bare, and whitened by the dust. I am doing housework. I am crushing something on that wooden mortar and pestle; it is a couple, there is the container and the wooden stick; I am singing in my mother tongue. Maybe Swahili, maybe Zulu, maybe some unrecorded mother tongue. I am singing with the women of the tribe. All of us working with the same material, helping each other, each using its own pestle to help crushing the same plants on the same mortar. There is harmony in our moves. Some bend, some stand accordingly. Some stand, some stand in rhythm.......