Xima Blisters

So remember in middle school science class when your teacher told you that one of the most important evolutionary differents between mankind and other species is the use of opposable thumbs? Well, he or she was right. I am suffering the limited use of my right thumb due to a giant blister that is covering it and I've realized I never gave my thumb its due.

My thumb did fine yesterday morning - we had woken up before sunrise and taken out my still camera, Dusty's video camera and tripod out to the Machamba. The mist, the dew, the golds and oranges and purples were worth the weight. After an hour or so of shooting, we found Alice, whom we had worked with earlier in the week and began out documentary journey. We followed her from the beginning of her day as a couve seller, finding the right patch, negotating a price, harvesting the couve (kale), loading it onto her head, the long walk to the highway (where I intervened and carried it on my head once we had gotten enough footage of her), then loading it into the truck. At this point, Dusty and I had know idea where she was going, where she lived, where she would sell it...

So we jumped in the back of the truck and went. Just imagine, a beat up little pick up full of vegetables and two white boys squished against the tailgate, on the trans-african highway, without an idea of where they were headed. Turns out we went to Boane, a city about forty minutes west of Maputo in the dry, picturesque countryside. When we finished our bumpy, dusty journey we arrived at Alice's parents house, where we met the entire clan and neighborhood and then did some more filming and shooting. Alice was great to work with because she really enjoyed being in front of the camera(s) and would remain completely normal in her work while we filmed.

At Alice's parents house it was fun to meet the personalities - the drunk uncles, her blind but strong mother... and that's where I was:

1. Beaten at a stone game that was like mancala on steroids - the playing board had been scooped into the hardened sand, was four rows deep and eight feet long! The sad part is that the man who beat me (I didn't win a single rock) was completely drunk.

2. Taught to make xima... I think the translation is grits, but I think corn porridge describes it better. This is where the blister comes it. You have to rip the kernels out of the dried ears of corn by hand, and them pound and grind them in giant metate-looking wood mortars. It was great but my thumb took the heat.

Oh man, I wish I had more time to tell you more. There was watermelon whiskey and watching her sell, catching the bus and starting a fire, dividing up land for gardens at the church and crazy adventures on the highway.

Next time...