Shamba

Tanzania is a farmer. The Earth is the element. They touch it, sense it, they walk through it bare feet, letting it pass between their toes. That nice soil, dense of rain, teeming with life. By hearing the first drops of rain the population activate. Before the singing of the cock everybody is already on the field: kerchief, maize seeds and hoe, one child hold onto the back, another helping aside. The men come back from the work at the sunset. They show up orange feet, coloured with that land that is now a part of them. They eat four plates of ugali and fall on the bed, worn out... they snore up to half past three, when, after other four plates of ugali, they leave in the darkness with the hoe on the shoulder. Even the old Bibi forgets her thousands aches disturbing her back, stomach and teeth. In the morning without fail she is there, one bang after the another. She is not going to overlook even a single centimetre square of her acre of the land she loves more than the own children. In secret, hidden from indiscreet eyes, she plants a cap of coke... well, why not?