Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Maneli's board game

Maneli was my neighbour.  A very special man and a great farmer.  Here is a phot of him and Balbina coming back from the village.


 
Maneli's Board Game
A litre of seed is thrown onto a wooden tray. Seed by seed his nimble fingers pass and push the chosen ones to the other end of the tray. The wild seed is then picked out. For hours, for days, for weeks. For two weeks he sat in the doorway of his cow barn, while the rain drummed down and the ground became sodden. Too wet to sow, but time enough to sort the seed.  
I went up one one morning and sat with him. He was surrounded by fourteen sacks, and he had cleaned half of them. One by one, seed by seed, he scanned and screened his future harvest. A board game for rainy days. When I asked him about the work, the time it took, he shrugged and waved out to the field. To pull out the wild grass later would take more time, and since he had to wait for the rain to stop before he could plant, then he had time for this . 
We sat in silence for a while as I helped him sort the grains. His eighty year old hands lightly shifting the unborn corn. The wood of the tray shiny and smooth .  A patina of years of peaceful, patient work. The rain drummed on.

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