My Yard

My yard is a matted brown tangle of dead weeds and coarse grass. Thistles choke your ankles as you try to walk from the front gate to the door. It’s embarrassing. A cow femur lays in the front yard among other unidentifiable bones. The previous volunteer had a dog and this dog dragged bits of a cow corpse into the yard to gnaw on (dogs are pretty hungry out here). All things considered, I decided it would be sensible if I bought a shovel and cleared my yard. “Clearing” my yard means digging up every single strand of grass with a shovel. Batswana usually pay people to do this kind of grunt work, but I’m a self-masochist; “cheap” is my safe word. As I locked my door to head to Mustapha’s Hardware Store, a man stopped at my yard and asked for piece work
“Let me clear your yard. P100,” he said.
“I don’t have any money,” I reasoned.
So I headed to Mustapha’s hardware store and purchased an expensive flat edged shovel. P80 it cost me but that was the cheapest one they had. Along with the other items, I purchased-a box of laundry soap (self-masochism at its finest; this is a cruel game I play with myself), and some other item I ‘needed’- my total came to P103; three pula more than having someone else clear the weed carpeted yard for me. I reasoned with myself saying that a P80 shovel will save me from having to pay someone to clear my yard in the future. It’s an investment, I told myself. Its 10 days later, and only the very front of my yard is cleared. Impish thistles don’t affront the ankles of visitors anymore but there’s much more to be done. I gradually chip at the yard day by day, and inevitably, a passer by will shout out that you’re supposed to pay someone else to do that, but I get a deep sense of satisfaction knowing that I’m being productive with my day. This is what I tell myself. Everyday I gaze on my barren dust bowl yard with pride although last weekend my neighbor’s teenaged brother took pity on me and cleared part of the yard for me, free of charge.