Hills of Ruarwe #3

We reached the summit of the first tier of hills, that rose precipitously up from the Lakeshore. The land plateaued out and we followed a track into a village. Women sat outside the huts shelling peanuts. One of them offered me a handful of the green kernels, and sliding the wet skin off, I chewed them one by one. Groups of men sat on their haunches, smiled and nodded as we passed. Some were weaving the large baskets used for carrying. I watched as they split springy switches of cane into strips, which were bent and woven into the half made forms. We came to where the hillside fell steeply away. Before us stood a timber frame supported by four tree trunks driven into the hillside. On top stood a man, with his large, dusty feet planted firmly on either side. He was stripped to the waist and wild looking, with muscles that bulged like steel cables through his shiny black skin. Standing adjacent to him on the ground below, was a younger, less heavily built man; his red shirt and white baseball cap standing out in vivid contrast to the backdrop of green-ochre hills. Between them a seven or eight foot saw moved rhythmically up and down. As the man below pulled, the saw cut down in one long continuous stroke, and when the man above pulled, the saw was drawn up ready for the next stroke. As this was done, a perfectly straight line was cut through a log that lay lengthways on top of the frame. At one point they stopped; and to allow the saw to continue to run freely, another man swung himself up onto the frame, and inserted a small wooden peg into the saw cut to wedge it open. It was slow, strenuous work, and I watched in awe at the simple beauty of it.