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.......
