I am sitting on a lovely white sofa after having had a delicious shower, I showered the grime off my body for about 30 minutes solid, there was grey water sliding off me and I had to really scrub. We came back from Nwadjahane village today, we went to stay there for a night for two reasons. One was to go and see a woman called Maria and her family. The other reason was to see the children, follow upabout the books and do some painting with them.
We sat with Maria, who had lost her three children a year ago yesterday. Her children were killed in a terrible fire, it was an act of jealousy and rage done by a boyfriend of one of her daughters. The grieving consisted of family drinking cashew wine and falling over and staring blankly in to space. The kids ran around skipping and laughing, they seemed happy that thier cousins were there. Although they also had to slot in to working and helping with the food, the dishes, the cleaning and the endless tasks that children seem to have to do in these villages. Or should I say the female children have to do.
We were talked through the process of how cashew wine was made and I tried it. A sort of cross between fresh vinegar and off vinegar.
We gave Maria some food and some clothes that we had bought, all a bit irrelevant considering the enormity of her loss. But she was, within her sad face, beaming.
I can't and don't even begin to imagine that kind of loss. I guess I look at it from the outside knowing that it is wrong and wishing that I could go back in time and stop that moment before it happened. That match before it was lit.
I understand that faced with that kind of grief, cashew wine may well be a good place in which to swim.
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