Manly man's work

In the humorous song “I’m still a guy” by Brad Paisley the country artist sings the following line: “these days there’s dudes getting facials, manicured, waxed and botoxed with deep spray-on tans and creamy lotion-y hands that can’t grip a tackle box…” Well this might be the case with some of my misguided American brethren but there is a little place just down south where they haven’t heard of such beautifying enhancements. Here in busy kinder (bush country) my bar soap was a novelty and the object of wonder…and that was with the Aukaan women! Sand just doesn’t have the same refreshing scent as my verdant bar of Irish Spring. So needless to say people out here are tough…and therefore work is tough.

I consider myself an outdoorsman and a country boy of sorts. It wasn’t incidental that I arrived in this place doing this particular work in this jungle environment. And I have loved every minute of it. Since arriving in Godolphin a month ago, I had become acquainted with the village but hadn’t ventured to do anything too risky or adventurous. With a foreigner, Awakeners exercise an understandable degree of caution. You’re under their care and your well-being is their responsibility. They want to see what you can handle. You quickly learn why because there isn’t room for blunders when you’re deep in the bush and mistakes can very well cost you your life. After three weeks I was anxious to get out and do something outside Godolphin itself. I was chomping-at-the-bit to get after it.

So around the last week of September every family in Godolphin began the annual task of clearing a section of land to plant for next year’s crops. Baa’ Pikin Lodie gave me the go and so two days were spent cutting all the underbrush of a two to three acre plot of virgin jungle. With machete in hand we hacked and hacked…and hacked all day long. The jungle vines and brambles are which make the jungle so dense were the objects of our wrath. All the while carefully looking for hidden wasp nests and deadly snakes. It was work, no doubt and at the end of day 1 our hands were sore and bleeding. But as tough as this sounds, women in the village do it along side the men. Saa’ Olie, Baa’ Pikin Lodie’s wife worked with us the whole day. But this wasn’t the end to clearing the plot. A weekend to rest and then we go back to Faa goon: Fell all the trees on the plot. It’s what Aukaaners call man nengee wooko (“man’s work” or for a better definition and understanding, “manly man’s work”).

So Monday arrives and we load up all our gear and head to the planting ground (goon). There’s a clear and apparent disconnect that comes with two people who speak a different language. I could tell Baa’ Pikin Lodie wasn’t sure if I had worked with an axe before. I know he was going to be cutting with the chain saw and although I knew how to use one too I didn’t ask, besides I love workout you get cutting with an axe. When I told him I’d used an axe plenty of times helping my Grandparents cut firewood and didn’t try to push using the chainsaw there was an immediate relief on and reassurance on his face. Why would there be any apprehensions in the first place? I soon discovered why.

Before we put the axe to the tree, Baa’ Pikin Lodie prayed in earnest to the Lord for safety while we worked. It was really neat that he saw that as being of paramount importance and we wouldn’t dare venture to begin without asking God’s hand to be upon us. So I began to hack away. I love cutting with an axe. And when you fell a big tree after strenuous effort there is a unique sense of satisfaction – a victorious feeling. Well there are also dangers (big surprise) when Faa’ing a goon. The tricky part of the work stems from the vines interwined in as many as a dozen trees. You cut one expecting it to fall and it just hangs or won’t move. You look up and see it being held by a vine connected to another (usually bigger) tree. So you cut every tree in that area and yet none have come down. You carefully observe to spot which one is keeping them all from falling. So you eventually cut the winner and in an instant all the trees come down with a swift and violent crash. Toward the end of day two with a small section of the plot left uncut in which about 10 relatively large trees had all been hacked but were being held up by one. Baa’ Pikin Lodie had a necessary planned route of escape since the tree was situated right smack in the middle of where all the trees were going to fall. He cut until we heard the first (and only) telltale sign: a faint crackling of the trunk. So Lodie began a dash towards safety. The scene was like something from a movie because he barely escaped, the trees were so near to hitting him I couldn’t help but see Indiana Jones and the huge boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark. And like Indy, he came out unscathed. There were many close calls but that’s what is to be expected when you’re doing man nengee wooko. So after two exhausting long days with sore hands and scraped and scratched legs (I for some unknown reason did not find it necessary to bring pants and I paid for it dearly) we were finished. At prayer time with believers we had plenty of reasons to give God praise. Many Aukaaners had gotten serious injuries and just a month or so previous several men had died from accidents.

When people in the village found out that I had Faa’d a goon they were impressed and laughed because this work is about as “Aukaan” as you can get. Doing it helped me understand and discover a newfound respect for the hard life they live to provide food for their families. When telling men here the story of the Fall of Man there is always a clear understanding and acceptance when God tells Adam: “cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life” and “by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground”.