The Yard Smells Like Cow Manure

Back during training, before I had internet access, my primary hobby was reading ahead in "Everyday Tsonga," one of our grammar manuals. In one of the later lessons, one of the vocabulary words was "ku sindza." This means, "to smear mudfloors with cowdung." I thought, "Uh huh. Okay, not going to learn that word."

I went on site visit. By the end I realized, "Hmm...these agricultural and cowdung-related terms might be useful after all."

Today, there was much sindza-ing at home. The yard, as perhaps you noticed in earlier pictures, is made of hard dirt. This is not the kind of thing you can allow to take care of itself. Every morning my sister sweeps the dirt off the dirt floor, and every once in a while it has to be re-paved. I missed much of the process since I was at work, but I gather that basically it involves taking cow manure and spreading it into a thin layer on the ground, then smoothing it out with a stone or other tool, and then letting the sun dry it out. Mainly I witnessed this last bit.

The process for a fairly large yard was completed in a day, thanks to the help of our neighbors. My mom, Masingita, has occasionally gone to help other friends in the neighborhood with the same process. It's a nice network, being able to rely on other members of the community to help you out when you need it, because they know you'll do the same for them.