Burned

It’s been a month and my yard is a hot mess. Flames rolled across the dead grass and gray plumes of smoke wafted into the sky washing into a thin shade of white. When the Zimbabwean woman who was clearing my yard asked for matches, I assumed she smoked. Shocked, I asked myself why I hadn’t acted on the impulse to make a bonfire of the backyard by myself. I nearly killed myself digging up the front of my yard but Alice burned it where it stood and had a much easier task in front of her sans foliage, thorns, and ticks. Yes. That is what I thought. The roots were exposed and stubbornly gripping the dirt like lost boys found.
I’d planned for Alice to come the Sunday before, but she never showed. I had insisted on Alice because I know she doesn’t drink her pay at the chibines. It was a holiday weekend. For lack of a better allusion, Zimbabweans are to Botswana what illegal Mexicans are to California and Texas. Her employer unexpectedly revoked her days off since she needed help that particular Sunday. I stood at the kombi rank for an hour and a half, waiting in vain. I can generally tell a Zimbabwean, not by physical features, but by language proficiency. They tend to speak perfect English. Zimbabwe has (or had) a 90% literacy rate and so Alice is uncommon since she spoke about as much English as I speak Spanish. The following Sunday we sat in my living room and had tea before she got to work on the yard.
“I run away” she said “Foreva. Neva comes back. Neva!” Forever was said with an emotive hand gesticulation. “She neva gives day off and leaves no food me eat. I tell her I go to Gaborone (mispronounced) and put days in papers but I run away foreva.” Alice planned on adding more days to her visa in the capital until she could get back to her 5 year old son in Zimbabwe at the end of August. “Two rooms you live here?”
“No. I live by myself. Alone” I said.
She nodded and sipped her tea. “All this room is only for you?”
After tea, I showed her my yard.We agreed on P80. To clear my entire yard, was P100 but I offered her P80 for half. For a month’s work her employer paid P300. I spend about P250 a week as an unemployed volunteer. I offered her P80 for a job worth P50 but 30 minutes later, she asked for “20 more.” Alice and I mostly communicated in broken English and hand signals but its clear she believed I was rich. “No. I do not have more money,” I told her. “Alice, do a portion of it” I drew a line across the back of the yard. “Pull the grass from the roots so it does not grow back.” When she got to work on my yard, she burned it and what was left was singed but still stubborn, proud, and firmly rooted in the ground. “I finished” she said, palm turned upward for payment. I took her opened hand, “Come Alice. I’ll show you what I want.” I walked her to a well manicured yard. “I see” she said. She would have to come back to finish. This was to be a two day piece job. Thursday Alice returned. On account of this jagged piece of work she delayed her escape but she never finished the job. Instead, she moved the numerous rocks in my yard, stones that hid under the once tall grasses. Hand out for payment, she told me she had to get to “Gaborone for put more time in my papers.” I tried to reason with her. “Alice, I do not want to cheat you, but you didn’t clear the yard.” I tried to explain what she obviously knew and understood.
“It too much,” she said. “Stones under grass. Hurt arms. Stones heavy.”
Stones hadn’t crawled into the yard since she burned the tall grasses, exposing dirt, roots, and rocks and I finally understood that she’d never intended on finishing. Feeling sorry and stupid at the same time, I gave her P20 short of what I promised, hot lunch, and cold water. From my house she ran away to Gaborone looking for more piece work and fair pay. I wasn’t angry as she left, but felt an invisible yet palpable mound of pity akin to the smoldered patties of cow shit in my backyard. Burned, I walked next door and knocked on my Counterpart’s door to ask her to help me find someone to clear my yard.