Page 74 of Beautifully Wild

He tiptoes around, and yet he wakes me since my head is thick from barely sleeping. I’m still haunted after finding Samuel curled up like a fetus in the shaman’s special ceremonial hut. The stench of acid lingered in the air, his stomach contents in a bowl by his side.

I had cried, tried to wake him, yelled profanities knowing the meaning would fall on deaf ears. It felt good to release my frustration until Kaikare took me by the shoulders after the shaman shooed me away.

His broad, muscular back tenses as he kneels to open his suitcase, busying himself with a map.

“What was wrong with you last night?” I ask, trying to hide concern.

He freezes, although he doesn’t turn. Instead, he dips his chin. “I can’t explain now. I need you to go to the fields with Kaikare and learn their ways.”

I clamber out of the hammock. “But—”

“Eden,please, not now. You shouldn’t have come. I’d asked you to stay here. Please go to the fields.” He points to the doorway, and sure enough, Kaikare is waiting.

He hands me two bananas and a clay mug filled with water. “The women will cook something more substantial soon.”

I down the water and hand the mug back to him. “Promise me we’ll talk later.”

He places a hand on my face and rubs his thumb on my cheekbone. “Okay. So long as you stop worrying about what happened last night.” He leans in with a quick kiss to my forehead. “Kaikare will teach you today.”

Kaikare and I walk side by side just as friends do, except the entire journey is in silence.

We keep walking beyond the village until we stop at a small clearing and join the other women dotted among the rows of prickled shrubs. I turn in a circle, assessing the fields. Some plants I recognize like sugarcane, capsicum, and potatoes. Toward the jungle edge is a cluster of pineapples and banana palms. Unfamiliar are the rows of woody branches dotted with small thorns and fanning leaves. Samuel had mentioned yuca as a main source of diet, so I assume—since no-bloody-one can enlighten me—these are the source, and it’s our chore for the morning.

Kaikare tilts her head, holds out a long thick branch with a stone fastened by twine at the end. She points for me to dig the root. Remembering what Samuel had previously mentioned about the root containing cyanide, I crinkle my brow at Kaikare.

She points to her mouth and eyes, shakes her head.

I turn and observe how the other women harvest the root, a technique without using garden gloves or protective clothing. My core switches on, and I suck in my bare stomach as much as possible because of the tiny thorns. Swaying the man-made pick over my shoulder, I whack the ground. Vibrations shoot up my arms to my neck and back. I let go with one arm and rub a point at the base of my neck beneath strands of beads that are becoming heavier by the minute. Ignoring sideways glances from the other women, I heave and take another swipe, barely denting the soil.

I can do this.

Several blows later, Kaikare nudges me aside and extracts the plant pulling out the entire root. She smiles at me before throwing it on a pile. She nods to the next plant growing beside the one I previously mined.

Two more plants are added to the pile. I wipe my brow, my attention captured by the giggling of young girls reaching for banana bunches. To my left, a pregnant woman plucks capsicums, and I can’t help the pang of jealousy that she doesn’t have to wield a blunt axe. I stop to inspect a blister on the thumb line of my palm. Kaikare points to the next field. Potatoes. I smile, although I need to relieve myself first.

Pointing to the jungle, I leave her and wander to the edge of the field. I weave around tree trunks, dodging the unruly vines, all while maintaining my balance on the black decay covering the tangled roots. Yellow butterflies erupt before me, the cluster forming a cloud. It’s no surprise since the butterflies are everywhere, and even still, I smile every time it happens.

Inside the green walls, the sunlight tightens, and I’m thankful for the added privacy. A moan comes from the distance to my right. A younger voice. Female. I walk the opposite way even though defecating with an audience doesn’t seem to bother these people as much as it does me. I stop walking and hear a deeper masculine moan. I turn and spy two figures leaning on a tree for support, one leaning on the other’s back. Realizing what I’m witnessing, I still in shock. In seconds, the boy sprints away weaving through the wide trunks until he’s out of sight. The girl straightens. My position makes vision difficult though she seems calm. She grabs a handful of leaves and attends to herself. She adjusts the beads around her neck before strolling toward the jungle edge of the fields.

Her hair is short in a bowl-cut like many of the other girls, so I wouldn’t recognize her anyway. I have figured out the girl’s hair is cut when she first menstruates, as the young girls in the village have longer hair. The older women have long, gray-streaked hair with thinning ends, longer because they are menopausal, maybe.

I keep walking, stumbling in my sneakers, my concentration hazed thinking about the young couple. There would be consequences if they were caught. When I find a palm adequate for my hygiene, I squat, checking the ground for poison ants, snakes, and anything moving.

In a vulnerable position, I hurry through the paces and rethink the path I took to get here.

I leave and walk back. The fields are near empty. On the far side, the last of the women with baskets on their heads disappear into the trees. Feet barely touching the ground, I sprint through the potato rows reminding myself not to be a dependent child and be mindful of the tasks of the day.

I reach the younger girls at the back of the rank, catch my breath, and follow the procession of baskets to the long hut. The men sit cross-legged on the ground weaving baskets and fishing line. The children play with a coconut, rolling it along the ground, jumping out of the way as though it’s an object of tag.

Kaikare finds me and leads me to a space on the hard ground beside her. She coaches me to chop potatoes. She wraps the vegetables in palm leaves or chops others to boil. Curiously, I watch the women prepare the yuca root. Kaikare sees my interest, points to me, and shakes her head. “I know,” I say, nodding. Aware I don’t have the skill.

Damn, I nod a lot.

I continue to observe the process of grating the root and soaking it in a clay pot of water. Outside the hut, there’s an area consisting of beams and ladders. I first presumed it to be a child’s playground. The overhead poles are used to secure a long, tightly-woven tube where the root is stuffed inside and left to drain the deadly juice. Kaikare joins some of the ladies to empty the contents of the twine- woven tubes hanging for, I assume, several days. The vegetable is now flour-like and placed on a long clay tray spread out to cook on the fire.

“Heating it removes the last of the poison,” Samuel says. I sigh, hearing his voice. “Next, it will be turned into bread.”

“How are you?” I search his face.

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