“What Is Happiness?” She began. Where can one live and not have to worry about
the unthinkable, the unimaginable, the unbelievable and the unspeakable things
that are happening in the world. I know of a place like this.
I was born in a dense and desolate forest. It may seem
scary to many people who walk through it. Our house was a wooden house situated
in the middle of many tall trees like the Poui, immortal, silk cotton and teak.
We had no electricity, so at nights, the area gets pitch-black. It was still
very dark on moonlit nights, because the trees block the sky. I never saw stars
or the moon until I came into the civilized world.
There were five rooms in our house – a dining room,
kitchen, and three bedrooms. Our toilet was a latrine. The flames from two
flambeaus illuminated the house. Our water supply came from drums that were
filled by the rain. Most of our baths were taken in the river, and our showers
were taken when it was raining. We had no television, telephone, radio or a
clock, so we depended on the cock and the sun to know the time. When the cock
crowed, our day started and that was at ‘fo-day mornin’ –just before dawn.
My father,
mother, brother, Kenneth and I would have breakfast. After breakfast, my father
went to work on a farm and we stayed at home, tending to the animals and the
garden. At midday or when the
sun was directly over head, we broke for lunch.
The farm my father worked on was about three miles
away from our home. His pay for services rendered was by bartering, so he came
home with grocery supplies, clothes or animals. The animals he received were
chickens, ducks and goats. He also received two cows. Kenneth and I would
gather the eggs from the chickens and we would milk the cows and the goats.
The cow’s milk
was put in a bowl, covered and left overnight on the table. The next day, my
mother would skim off the cream, put it in a bottle, pour some water in the
bottle over the cream, then tap the bottle lightly on a folded piece of cloth.
This shakes the cream up in the water so that the excess milk would come out of
the cream and into the water. She poured off the water, added some more, then
continued shaking. The cream turns into butter and it floats on the water. My
mom would scoop out the butter, put it in a bowl, and add a little salt then
mix it. The butter was eaten on homemade bread that was baked in a dirt oven.
This oven was made by my father. He built a frame with bamboo and pieces of
wood, in the shape of a dome. When he was finished building the frame, he cut
up grass and mixed it with dirt, adding water to make a paste. He then
proceeded to slap the paste onto the frame. When he was done, he wet a piece of
cloth and wiped it, making it smooth. Some weeks after it dried, my mother
started baking bread and cakes in it. Food was cooked over a fire or on a coal
pot.
Kenneth and I would go hiking in the forest. Sometimes
we walked to areas where we heard voices. We hid behind trees so the people
could not see us. There were days when he went to work with my father, and I
would hike deep into the forest where the trees are very big and where there is
thick tall bamboo grass. At a particular time of the day, the forest gets very
quiet. I would lie on the ground, looking up at the trees, and listen to the silence.
The most peaceful tranquil moment filled my space and I sometimes fall asleep.
On most occasions, the rustling of the bamboo leaves by the wind would wake me,
and I knew the forest was coming alive. I listened, as the bamboo stems rubbed
against each other. The, woo woo woo woo sound it makes is the wake up call for
the animals. A garden lizard may scamper by or an iguana would run up a tree.
The monkeys swing from branch to branch, flipping as they did. It was as though
they were trying to show what they could do. The parrots, the toucan, the
kiskadee, and many other birdcalls, echoed through the forest. I like hearing
the kiskadee, because this bird sings its name over and over as it says, “kis
ka dee.” There were snakes in the forest, but not in the area where we hiked.
The mongoose lived in this part of the forest, and they kill snakes. Living in
the forest is my happiness.
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