by Bessie Head
Gilbert’s eyes lit up with laughter. “She’s hard to get,” he said. “She makes all these little rules and you can’t budge her from them. When I first came here I asked her to marry me and she said, ‘I can’t marry you, Gilbert, because I’m not an educated woman. You won’t be happy with an uneducated woman.’ So I said, ‘All right, get educated then.’ Now I’m sorry I ever said it because I’ve been teaching her English in exchange for lessons in Tswana. All I’ve got out of it is an inferiority complex over my inability to grasp Tswana.”
This odd little confession warmed Makhaya’s heart to the man. There might have been so many things that could have stood up as a barrier between a possible friendship, like Makhaya’s background and his distrust and dislike of white people. Instead, he found himself confronted by a big man who allowed himself to be bullied by a small woman. They sat in companionable silence for a while, then Gilbert stood up and cleared away the plates and crouched down on one knee, pretending to fuss about putting them in a basin. He half-turned and looked at Makhaya.
“I could do with a friend around here,” he said, slightly embarrassed. “Are you looking for a job?”
“Yes,” Makhaya said.
“Tell me a bit about yourself. What work were you doing in South Africa?”
“There’s not much to tell,” Makhaya said. “I worked for a newspaper in Johannesburg. It was the only sort of thing where black people could see their faces on the front page and read about their neighbours, but it was lurid. And since I went out on the stories I could see that it was not so far from the truth because people who are down in the hovels are lurid. The only thing is, it’s a law of life that they rise up but there are man-made laws to keep them down there. After a time it begins to drive you crazy. You either drink too much, or you join underground sabotage movements which are riddled with spies. You keep a piece of paper in your pocket with a plan to blow something up, and you get thrown into jail for two years before you’ve blown anything up.”
“Do you still feel committed to all this?” Gilbert asked.
“Wouldn’t I have stayed there if I had?” Makhaya said, half-questioning himself. “I don’t know. Nothing is quite clear to me.”
Gilbert stood up and swung around decisively. “Can you drive a car?” he asked.
“Yes,” Makhaya said.
“Driving a tractor is much easier,” he said. “Part of your job would be to learn tractor ploughing and the use of planters, harrows, and cultivators. The other half would be to teach women agriculture.”
Makhaya stared at him in amazement. “But I know nothing about agriculture,” he protested.
“I have the lectures,” Gilbert said, almost impatiently. “I know what’s needed but I can’t teach. I can’t put my ideas over somehow, and not only because my grasp of Tswana is poor.”
He sat down on a chair and for almost an hour talked eagerly, the way he had with the paramount chief, only this time to a keenly attentive listener.
He felt that he had stumbled on to one of the major blockages to agricultural progress in the country. The women were the traditional tillers of the earth, not the men. The women were the backbone of agriculture while the men on the whole were cattle drovers. But when it came to programmes for improved techniques in agriculture, soil conservation, the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and the production of cash crops, the lecture rooms were open to men only. Why give training to a section of the population who may never use it but continue to leave it to their wives to erode the soil by unsound agricultural practices? Why start talking about development and food production without taking into account who is really producing the food?
At each turn he had been struck by the complexity of the structure. Golema Mmidi was, for most of the year, a village of women with all the men away at the cattle posts. Dinorego was the only full-time male crop producer in the village. All the rest were women. What Gilbert had in mind was to bring the two, cattle production and crop production, together. The system of uncontrolled grazing far out in the bush, apart from ruining the land, was only producing low-grade beef. If cattle were brought to the crop-producing areas, they could be fed on the crop residues and grain surpluses, and this would raise the grade of the beef. This was a serious reason for finding urgent solutions. The country was in the grip of a severe drought, which had already lasted five years and was becoming worse with each succeeding year.
“Well, Mack, what do you think?” he said at last.
Makhaya spread out his hands, helplessly. It was a whole new, astonishing world.
“I think I’ll accept the job,” he said.
“You can move in tonight,” Gilbert said.
He picked up the lamp and led the way to a nearby hut which was furnished on the same lines as his own. Then they walked to the home of Dinorego to fetch Makhaya’s baggage. The old man’s heart was full of joy. He thought he had indeed acquired a son in Makhaya. Once the two young men’s footsteps had retreated out of sound, he turned to his daughter and said, “Well, what do you think of the stranger, my child?”
“He’s all right,” Maria replied, with profound indifference.
She stood up from her place at the fire and went to bed. The old man sat for a long while contemplating the flames. Would he see no grandchildren? Would Maria never love a man?
Three
Not anything in his life had prepared Makhaya for his first week in his new employment. There was so much that excited the interests of Gilbert about the country, and he was anxious to impart three years of observation all at once to Makhaya to give him a base on which to work.
Golema Mmidi was in the eastern part of the country, in a watershed area that received an average annual rainfall of eighteen inches, while vast stretches of the western regions were almost desert and received an average annual rainfall of nine inches. Thus, the eastern watershed was also the most heavily overstocked and overgrazed and overpopulated part of the country. Because of this, much of the softer, sweeter types of grass had long since disappeared from the area, and great stretches of land were covered by a species known as the carrot-seed grass. This was a tough, quick-growing little annual. Its short impoverished leaves grew close to the ground in a spread-out, star-shaped pattern from the centre of which arose a thin stalk, profusely covered by close-packed little burrs. These burr grass seeds clung to the mouth parts and legs of the animals and were so transported from place to place.
The carrot-seed grass grew in profusion all over Golema Mmidi. When Gilbert first arrived and fenced in the 250-acre plot for cultivation, he had left a wide strip of land between the fence and the cultivated area. At first, on this border strip, the carrot-seed grass grew.
Over a period of two rainy seasons, a number of interesting changes took place on this border strip. Springing up between the carrot-seed during the first season were the long frail, feathery stalks of the wind-blown eragrostis, a lush sweet grass. Within two years, this type of grass had gained dominion over the border strip area, crowding out the carrot-seed grass, which by then had ceased to grow. This amazing development caused Gilbert to place the carrot-seed under closer observation in a rough, homemade laboratory. He noted that carrot-seed showed a preference for impoverished soil, but once the burr casing had liberated the tiny seed, it rotted, forming a humus layer in the soil. Thus, while not liking rich soil, it had the ability to built up the humus layer in impoverished soil and was the tough pioneer which paved the way for a more fragile species of grass to gain its hold on the soil again.
Other miracles too had taken place in the border strip. The minute star faces of wild flowers peeked up amidst the now dense grass: white stars and purple stars and the lacy curving sprays of delicate blends of pale-pink blossoms with, here and there, the jaunty yellow-gold of strange freakish daisies with stems that were one inch wide and flat as rulers, topped by flowers with the odd shape of inverted whorls. A strange gourd too crept along the fence, the hard outer husk of the fruit enclosing enormous
seeds which were covered by a thin film of syrup that tasted like honey.
Had all this strange new growth lain dormant for years and years in the soil? He questioned the villagers, but only Dinorego, one of the earliest settlers, retained a wistful memory of when the whole area had been clothed by waist-high grass and clear little streams had flowed all the year round. The pathways of the streams were still there but dry and empty now.
Gilbert travelled all over the eastern watershed area and in dismay often came upon abandoned villages that had been turned into sandy wastelands through the grazing of the cattle and the goats. In some of these wastelands even the carrot-seed grass had completely died out, and the only type of vegetation that held the soil together was the thornbush. These observations convinced him that only large-scale fencing of the land and controlled grazing would save the parts that had not yet become completely eroded and uninhabitable to both man and animals. But it was his enthusiasm for fencing and his criticism of the tribal land tenure system that first brought him to a head-on clash with the fuming Chief Matenge.
Not fully understanding the complexity of the land tenure system, Gilbert had announced that it was a hindrance to agricultural progress. Matenge’s brother, the paramount chief, had broken precedent when he allowed Gilbert to fence the land. Fencing of tribal land was not allowed, as ownership of the land was vested in the tribe as a whole. No man could claim that he had purchased a plot of tribal land and anyone who asked was merely allocated a portion free of charge by a chief. This system was designed to protect the interests of the poor and to prevent the land from falling into the hands of a few rich people. Intent on his own schemes for reclaiming eroded soil, Gilbert was shocked to discover that he was the centre of a violent storm. Chief Matenge, aware that he was about to lose his lucrative cattle-dealing business with the villagers, grabbed onto the fencing of the farm and cattle ranch to convince the villagers of Gilbert’s evil intentions towards them. In alarm, the villagers called a meeting and sent a deputation of old men to Gilbert.
Was it true, they wanted to know, that Gilbert had in reality secretly purchased land from the paramount chief and was using the name of co-operative to enslave the people? That was what Chief Matenge had told them. At first Gilbert was dumbstruck by the accusation. Then he realized that he had endangered his work by criticizing the land system and creating the impression that he favoured freehold tenure.
No, Gilbert had replied, he was not proposing an alternative to the tribal land tenure system. He believed that co-operative organization was similar to communal ownership of land, and he felt that progress could be achieved if enclosed grazing land, farm machinery, boreholes, and marketing societies were the responsibility of the members.
Dinorego, who had acted as interpreter of the deputation, pointed to the fences. Why had barbed-wire fencing been set up around the land? It was something that was not allowed. They did not doubt the word of the young man, he said kindly, but all the commotion was over the fences.
Gilbert took them to the border strip area to show them how good grass regained its hold on the land once the earth was protected by a fence. All the old men could not but agree that they had not seen such grass in Golema Mmidi for a long time. He also took them to the cattle ranch where the same miracle had occurred. The cattle ranch had been divided into four camps. Two were to remain empty for some time. In one of the empty camps, he wished to observe the speed with which the natural grasses of the area recovered. In the other he had had the land de-stumped and ploughed and a drought-resistant type of grass seed sown. From this he would be able to judge whether indigenous grasses or imported drought-resistant grasses would be best suited for cattle grazing.
In the two occupied camps he had retained one hundred cattle which he had purchased from the co-operative members. The best of these were to be used in a stock-breeding experiment, and these would then be resold to members wishing to restock their herds. The last camp was also an experiment to raise the grade of the meat. The cattle of camp number four were fed on a special type of corn that produced only stems and leaves and was grown on the farm as part of the year’s crop. Water, bonemeal, and salt licks were also provided within the fenced-off area of this camp.
Gilbert explained that without fencing he could not gather all this valuable information. Also, it was his hope that all the cattle of Golema Mmidi would one day graze on co-operatively owned feeding grounds, and the fencing of these feeding grounds was most essential for a number of reasons. There could be no overstocking once a fence was erected. The plan was to keep no more than two hundred cattle at a time on a ranch of seven thousand acres. If fewer beasts were kept, they could be better fed, and this would bring an increase in their cash value. Fencing also reduced the hardship and labour of cattle-rearing. No longer would cattle stray and get lost in the bush, and it prevented the spread of infectious diseases like foot-and-mouth.
The old men were deeply impressed. They all were or had been cattlemen and immediately grasped the significance of what they saw and heard. The young man’s entry into their village had not gone unnoticed, nor had his deeds or his ability, though educated, to live under the same conditions as the poor. But the deputation was concerned about the young man’s truthfulness and sincerity, for everyone from the chiefs down to the colonial authorities had lived off the poor in one form or another and in the name of one thing or another, like cow tax, hut tax, manhood tax, and tax on not paying manhood tax. Gilbert gained two advantages out of this meeting with the old men of the village: the establishment of the co-operative movement in Golema Mmidi and the friendship of Dinorego.
Out of the two, it was difficult to say which he valued more. Without the villagers’ enthusiasm for co-operatives, his dreams would have remained at a standstill. Yet without the friendship of Dinorego he might not have survived the frustrations of three years and the continual enmity of Chief Matenge.
Progress was slow. The main purpose of the 250-acre plot was to try and prove whether, if run with modern machinery, it could win crops under all but the most severe drought conditions. Yet he was under pressure to make the farm economically viable; he had established it on grants and donations which would not continue indefinitely. The distractions were immense. The drought became worse with each succeeding year, and the rainfall pattern became exceedingly unpredictable. At times a whole year’s rain might fall in one month or one day or one hour. For the past two years, few of the villagers had reaped an adequate amount of crops.
When he first arrived in Golema Mmidi, all the ploughing was done by oxen, and these were always in a weak condition by the time the first rains fell. Almost six weeks of the rainy season had to pass by before the oxen, fed on the fresh green growth, were strong enough to plough. In the meanwhile, all the good rain needed by the crops might fall in those six weeks. This created anxiety, and often a man would harness his plough team too soon, only to have them topple over from weakness created by the long walks in search of the scant grazing during the dry season.
Gilbert’s solution of this predicament was a thrift and loan club which enabled the villagers to hire machinery from the farm so that they could take immediate advantage of any rainfall. Most of the men of the village had taken their first lessons in tractor-ploughing at the farm.
All this covered the range of his achievements so far, yet these achievements seemed to him very unsatisfactory. Apart from growing crops for food, crops that brought in cash had to be grown too. This called for trying out new ways of making the land produce all the crops a man might need to support his life. His views reached out to no one but Dinorego. Gilbert was to find that strange prejudices surrounded people’s eating habits and the types of crops they were prepared to grow.
He had approached the authorities to inquire as to the amount of research that was being done in the country on breeding drought-resistant strains of seed. He found out that the most intensive research had been done on millet. Millet was really a stranger to souther
n Africa where sorghum and maize are eaten as a daily staple. Yet fifteen thousand varieties of millet had been tested in the country, and the authorities had finally bred a type that could produce a crop in only three inches of rain, with a few most needed advantages. Witchweed, which is a parasite that is germinated by and lives on the roots of maize and sorghum plants, stunting their growth, was germinated by this type of millet as well, yet the plant remained unaffected by it. Also, the red-billed weaver bird that lives off sorghum seed and caused heavy damage to crops each year, bypassed the millet because the ear produced a lot of spiky hairs that irritated the throat of the bird.
“So everybody is growing millet?” Gilbert queried the authorities.
“No,” they said. “Everybody is still growing sorghum and maize.”
He looked at them dumbfounded. Were they deliberately sitting on research information? And they merely laughed at his look of baffled surprise.
They also shrugged. They had done their best to publicize the millet discovery, and what had happened? Countries at the end of the earth had grabbed it, but the discovery had made no impact on Botswana because certain minority tribes, traditionally considered inferior, had long had a liking for millet and had always grown it as part of the season’s crop. Therefore, other tribes who considered themselves superior would not grow it nor eat it. These ‘inferior’ tribes lived in the wastes of the Kalahari Desert where the rainfall barely averaged nine inches a year, and it was their success in growing millet under such conditions that had first aroused interest in millet breeding. But the agricultural authorities decided it wasn’t the policy of their department to interfere with the traditional prejudices of the Batswana people.
“But why don’t you tell people that millet is a cash crop?” Gilbert said, hotly. “Why don’t you say, ‘If you don’t want to eat it, grow it and market it. Grow it and make this the greatest millet-producing country in the world because it’s the one kind of crop that’s certain to do well here.’”