A GIRL'S MIND[CHAPTER SEVEN]

Dave crossed the stream and Eddy tagged along.They left the track and went right into the forest,keeping close to the bank.Then they came to a large swamp.1

'Look carefully for snails now.They have high concentration around swamps,'Dave said and let the back of his machete boom on a very tall plant as a big snail came thudding on the ground.Eddy searched hard for his too.2

Dave zigzagged the swamp,booming the machete here and there as snails fell to the ground - the bustle making Eddy agitated for his own catch.A monkey coughed in the distance a warning to its clan.3

The snails just seemed to be hiding from Eddy's path!Wearied from his futile search,Eddy came to a log long blown down by the wind and sat,his mind wandering here and there.The jungle just fascinated him.Unlike bush around farmland where shrubs stand every inch of the way,under the big trees of the jungle the ground is porous - plants stand scantily here and there.Only swamps or open spaces have plants,especially creepers and canes,crowding together.4

How Dave saw the snails he was garnering surprised Eddy.Then he looked up a nearby small tree and there it was:the biggest species of snail in this wing of the jungle!He cut and trimmed a tall and slender plant and brought it down.5

Hearing the hustle far behind him,Dave hooted across to Eddy - they just realized they had separated that wide.Eddy gaily went after the hoot.6

They crossed streams,swamps,tracks and circumvented the pockets of farm and clearing.Eddy missed by a hair's breadth being bitten by wasps and then sneaked close - hearing hisses and creaks - to two belligerent tortoises struggling and bent on inflicting grievous bodily harm on themselves.Eddy thought:'Ah,blind rivalry in all of creation!You fight yourselves,leaving your flanks open - standing here vulnerable to natural enemies' attack.'7

As Eddy came into view,the tortoises started creeping away in flight.'Stupid things,'Eddy said out aloud,'you can't run and you're here fighting!'He left them alone as it was a taboo to eat or even touch a tortoise back home.And then an image for a poem crossed his mind:'THE FUTILITY OF WAR'.8

The sun was getting buried in a fiery splendour below the western horizon when Dave and Eddy reappeared at the Irokut bank.They sat on a condemned timber lying around and took stock of their snails.9

More than a hundred pieces of the finest species of snails in this wing of the jungle knocked together as Eddy poured them on the ground.He loosened the ropes,overturned the muck and returned the snails into the sack.Eddy did the same with his slightly more than a dozen snails.10

'I saw two tortoises fighting,'Eddy said,dropping the snails in twos and ones into the sack.11

'Where are they?'Dave said,searching the ground around Eddy's sack.12

'It's a taboo in my place so I let them alone.'13

'Our people and their funny taboos!You even packed this too?'Dave stopped Eddy from putting the snail in his hand into the sack.He collected the snail and pressed the edge of the shell which instantly chipped off.'This snail is not mature enough to be picked.If you keep picking this,it means in no time no snail would be found in this forest again.We pick only the mature ones with all part of the shell hardened.We allow the young ones to continue from where the older ones stopped.'Dave overturned Eddy's sack and gave it a proper scrutiny,reducing the stock of snails to seven as the others freed were thrown into the nearby clearing.Then he counted two dozens from his and added to Eddy's snails.14

'No,thanks.I only came to have a feel of what the jungle looks like,'Eddy said,rejecting the gift.15

'You keep them.I have more than enough for my needs.I come hunting for snails so I won't overstretch the small cash I'm getting from my parents.'Dave neatly tucked  and tied the mouth of his sack.16

'Okay then,thanks,'Eddy said and tied his sack too.17

'You said tortoise is a taboo in your place?'Dave asked as an afterthought.18

'Not actually.It's the neighbouring villages.But our people didn't want to - because of their closeness  - eat what would poison their neighbours knowing at any time they could come visiting.You know here there's nothing like telling you in advance I'd come visiting so you'd start preparing something special.You have visitor any time and what you have available then is what you give.So we imbibe this belief through our closeness,'Eddy explained.19

'Certainly,every village here has its taboo - one or two.Yours must have them too and what are they?'Dave asked.20

'I learnt it's snake and also house rat,'Eddy answered.21

'You can eat the bush rat and nothing would happen?'22

Eddy nodded in the affirmative.23

'You're a cunning stock!'Dave said,smiling.'You have as taboo things most people wouldn't feel comfortable eating anyway!And do you believe anything would happen if you eat or touch whatever is taboo to you or your people?'24

'I don't know how far now.But I learnt these things were potent in the past.People become seriously ill because of this and if sacrifices were not made,they died.Actually,it was an oracle that would diagnose the cause of illness and would also recommend the sacrifice to be made for appeasement.'25

'These things worked then because it was the belief system of our people.But these customs have died out and I think people should be free to eat what they feel like eating.I know a family in the village that the big species of snails are a taboo in their place.And funnily enough they eat the smaller species - even their pastor father observed the custom too!The whole thing was so ridiculous that we used to tease the pastor's kids that if we were them that we would prefer being pirates than pilferers - why steal a sachet of peanuts when you have a huge sack staring you in the face?Later,they started eating the big species of snails and till today nothing has happened to them!'26

'Do they visit their home place very often?'Eddy asked doubtfully.27

'Yes and as often as a housewife visits the market!'Dave replied.'Man,feel free to live.If you don't want to eat anything for hygienic or conservation reasons or simply because it doesn't go well with your system - fine.But say because of some little god's instructions - then you're a slave in style!'28

'What do you mean by "a slave in style"?'29

'Okay,let me give you a real-life story my old man very often tells us.He said during the civil war,there was this popular witch-doctor serving a very potent fetish - a fetish that had all the answers to questions of sickness,protection and wealth to people far and near.As the war hotted up - you know what the fetish told the attendant?'30

Eddy shook his head in the negative.31

'He told him,'Dave said,'the soldiers were closing in on the area - that the attendant should run as he himself was running too!'32

'And what happened?'Eddy asked,greatly amused.33

'What happened,you asked?The very god you're serving has taken to flight and would you wait?They both ran!The gods that gave taboos to our people ever since had been running - so it's high time our people seek a steadfast God.I need a God that would stand and safeguard me,not the one that says I should start running because he is already running!'34

Eddy laughed as much as he was tickled.35

Then from the jungle approaching Dave and Eddy were skirt- and frock-wearing carriers of dense bundles of over twelve-feet-long canes - they all walked with rolling gait.The twosome greeted the seven heavy-laden men individually and they grunted their replies - their burdens muffled their vocal cords!36

'Why are they wearing female clothes?'Eddy asked Dave as the last of the men had long passed them by.Even their deftness in crossing the uneven log across the stream made Eddy stare in bewilderment at their backs - something he did with a machete and an empty sack with trembling legs!37

'To avoid scraping their thighs as they're walking very long distance back to the village,'Dave answered.'You'd be surprised they've walked over six hours to get the bundles on their heads.'38

'Six what?'Eddy exclaimed.39

'People have taken again and again one thing out of the forest.So they have to walk very long distances,as they've depleted the nearest stocks,to get the little they want now just to eat.To get robust canes that would attract the right buyers you must trek at top speed not less than four hours on the average to and from the jungle.'40

'Are you serious or joking?'Eddy asked,perplexed.41

'If you don't know it you just don't know it!I wish we are spending like one week together in the tent and I would show you round a whole lot of things here.Every tracks in this jungle has its own unique story to tell.'42

Eddy contemplated.'I would like to come and spend some days in the tent,'he said finally.43

'I've checked the bush mango trees as we were foraging and had split some of the fallen fruits to see how mature the stones are.I think at the latest by mid July mango-splitting would start.Your programme should end by then and our vacation should start too.We would come in for the mango jewels.We would make money too as you have your picnic.'44

'I'd love that,'Eddy said excitedly.45

'That's a deal!'Dave said and got up,his sack on his head and machete in hand.46

Eddy copied him.47

They foraged for free pineapples - residue of the forfeited farms - in the gmelina plantation at Irua.They were lucky to find four ripe small-size ones.Devouring them,they returned to the stream bathing and washing their smoke-scented clothes.Then they walked - their wet clothes drying on their bodies - at twilight with other villagers bearing bulging bags of farm produce into the village.48

THE END>>>Chapter Seven.       49