When small chickens or guinea fowl hatch during the hot season, there aren’t a lot of things they can eat because they are too small. So what do they eat? Termites. During this season, people collect corn husks and manure. They add a little bit of water, and pack the mixture into a clay pot.
After the pots are packed, they put small sticks across the top, making a lid so the manure and corn husks will stay inside even if the jar is tipped upside down.
In the evening, people will put the pot, upside down, over a place where they know there are termites around. During the night, the termites climb into the jar to eat the manure/corn husk mixture.
Early in the morning, people will come and collect the pot. They remove the contents, and then the chicks scratch through it and devour the termites.
Baby Backing
“Patience, what a beautiful baby you have!” some women said as they passed me on their way to go fetch water. “I think he looks like me,” I answered. They all laughed. Abdul Salaam looks nothing like me.
They were commenting because I decided that I wanted to learn how to tie a baby on my back with a piece of cloth, which is how women here carry their children. Madame Shera offered to teach me, and her son was the one I had tied on my back.
Baby backing is pretty straightforward. You bend over and put the baby on your back, and then move the cloth so it goes just under the child’s neck. Then you pull the top part of the cloth tight and tuck it in under your armpits. After that, you pull the bottom of the cloth under the baby’s bottom and twist it in front of you before tying it in a knot.
Carrying children that way is really easy and surprisingly comfortable (although it does squish your chest a little). I was hauling firewood with Salaam on my back, and it felt secure.
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