 | by Claire Pfeiffer
If the thorn trees cut you, then the aloes will soothe your wounds. In South
Africa there are umpteen varieties of aloe, which belong to the plentiful
succulent family (bringing one to the United States, by the way, will
cost you $1,500 in quarantine fines). Not all of these plants contain the
unguent aloe gel that can heal burns and cuts, but those that don't are
often too imposing and impressive to dare to cut down anyhow. Some aloes
have fancy flowered hats, others have red-tinged arms that wave like alien
sentinels, still others stand as high as you and me and are probably
stronger than both of us combined.
Church convened beside a hillside every Sunday, next to where I was housed,
underneath a lone, lush tree that was ringed two metres away from its trunk
by vibrant, white stones. This miniature arboretum gave shade to the
congregation as they sang in rich voices throughout the afternoon. The
tree’s leaves mediated the strong sunlight, but allowed the sound of singing
to float up into the sky, where it met our ears after drifting along the
mild wind several hundred metres.
More freestylin' abounds in the realm of fruits and vegetables, from the
dark and heady grapes used for wine-making in the Cape (always the sort that
turn your teeth a dark purple, announcing to everyone before your breath
that you're a raging drunkard) to the crazy edible water lilies,
starfruit, and fresh figs. The most popular carbohydrate food is white corn,
which is milled into a meal and then further transformed into a stiff
porridge (known the world-over by a number of names) called, in Zululand at
least, mputu. I would gladly give up all the wheat and potatoes of this
continent in favour of eating mputu day-in and day-out, at every meal. It is
delicious, probably owing in large part to its freshness.
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