A Sweeping View

I’ll be the first to admit: I’m not much to look at. I don’t have pride of place in any village hut.  I’m homemade, stubbly, short.  You can’t use me without bending over double.  

I’m not very durable. But I am indispensable.  I need to be used twice a day, without fail. Otherwise, danger slips unseen into the tukul.

I am an African broom.

My component parts?  Just reeds and stiff grasses. Ordinary stuff. Young girls collect armfuls and bundle them. I emerge as a serviceable tool for sweeping the dirt floor of the hut and the area surrounding the hut.

Women and I, we work together.  She grabs me at dawn, vigorously raising clouds of dust as she swishes me back and forth, back and forth in ever widening thrusts, until she has shepherded all the twigs and bugs, animal droppings, and stray trash into small piles that she will combine into one larger pile and burn.  

She grabs me again at sunset, in that brief equatorial twilight that separates brilliant sunshine from total darkness.  Why sweep again as daylight dies, when everything will be invisible during the long night anyway?  

Now you learn the reason why I am so precious:  I do not merely rid the ground of litter. I clear it, smooth and open, so that nothing can hide there.  Snakes and scorpions and poisonous spiders and camel spiders (eek!) prefer underbrush and clutter. 

There are many such in the villages and refugee camps, but they mostly slither and creep where debris can camouflage them. They rarely venture out into the open space of a well-swept yard where they could be seen and killed. 

Yes, I am a simple broom. But I save lives.  Have you done as much?

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