Fresh Cut Grass

Yesterday as I began teaching the girls I was very aware that two ladies outside our home were also beginning their working day. The ladies were using hand scythes to trim the grass between our building and the next. Bent over, they would take a handful of grass and cut it through. This was repeated.

During the day I read with the girls, took them to morning tea, did a science experiment, took them to watch an athletics carnival and we cooked pikelets together. We definitely enjoyed our balanced diet of activities for the day but I found it hard to reconcile it with the hard, repetitive work of our friends outside. While we were flitting from one thing to another they would pause, straighten up, beam and greet us warmly. Afterwards they would return to cutting.

As we finished our day of learning the ladies also packed up to head home. It was pretty confronting to sit our day of activities alongside their full day working hard in the sun. More confronting still to think that the mower I use at home would achieve the same acreage as these two hard-working ladies in less than five minutes.

We were expecting these sorts of contrasts in Zimbabwe but it still gives me a jolt. In fact I still get plenty of jolts per day.