What a grind!
When a task is unpleasant or tiresome or repeatedly burdensome, I hear people say, “That’s a real grind”. When people struggle to complete a particularly tough job, they sometimes say, “I’m grinding my way through it”. Outsiders speak about “grinding poverty”, as if I were somehow implicated.
Such negative references insult me. I am a grinding stone -- and proud of it!
Perhaps I am not beautiful, but I am definitely essential. I am handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. They may not like me, but they treasure me. Their hands grasp me every day. Back and forth, stone on stone, rhythmically crushing maize or simsim (sesame) into flour that they will later boil with water and salt over an open fire. Thanks to me, they can enjoy meals of porridge or ugali.
Sure, this grinding is hard manual labor. But what South Sudanese woman or girl is not accustomed to hard work? And they know that no South Sudanese family could survive long without me.
Those few who have money might take their grain to a grinding mill for a fee; but who wastes precious money that way? Women know it is their place to kneel and sway and push me forcibly up and down to accomplish the same result. I charge nothing. Those mills will never make me obsolete. My place in the village has been secure for as long as anyone can remember. I am not going away anytime soon.
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