Friday, November 6
Today was Felta's last day to help (the girls only come three mornings a week and they rotate weeks). Since we harvested our umalau on Wednesday, we took out the old vines and put in new plants today. Felta said the umalau we planted today should be ready around April. Lots of ladies came by why we were working. One of them paid me a huge compliment when she asked if she could have some of my umalau cuttings to plant in her own garden! Katherine kept stealing my bush knife and hacking at the vines or the ground. She's pretty good with it! All of the little ones here practice with small knives. As they grow, they get bigger knives and learn to use them at a very early age. I finally got her a small kitchen knife so I could use mine to work.
Melissa and Ruthie (two of the young ladies who often help me) came by and storied for a while as well. Katherine loves all of her "aunties" and enjoyed sitting in their laps and listening to them sing and talk. I was better at digging the holes this time, but I'm still slow. Every time I lifted the hoe, big clumps of dirt fell in my hair. Felta reminded me not to lift the hoe quite so high. When you plant umalau or obikola, you bring the hoe down and toward you while you slowly work in a circle. When you are finished, you have a nice circle about two feet wide with deep soft dirt all heaped up in the middle. I'll be sore tomorrow :-)
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