Poems and Vignettes(Featuring Daenerys Targaryen's 'If I Look Back I Am Lost')

Pounding Fufu

As I sat on the kitchen stool, peeling the cassava of my relationship, I thought about all the times my mother and I had pounded fufu. I was the pounder and she was the turner which meant that all she had to do was prepare the soup, cut the cassava and plantain and 'ka" (turn) the inchoate fufu while I was pounding it.
I did most of the work; after all, I had to use most of my energy to hold a heavy pestle and strike the mixture (cassava and plantain) with it at approximately thirty-five centimetres per second for about thirty minutes. Sure I took short breaks, but work like that expended a lot of energy and all I asked in return was that my mother trust me not to use the speeding pestle to hit her hand as she was turning the fufu.

That was all I asked.

Years have passed and I am about to pound a different type of fufu but now I am the turner and he is the pounder. I realize that I understimated my mother's job as I cut the meat and prepared the light soup. I realize the folly in my thinking as I judge the number of ingredients to invest in the meal.

When the cassava and plantain are cooked, he will wash the equipment and then hold the pestle-like a weapon- while he waits for me to make the first move. It will be his turn to contribute and all he asks is that I trust him not to crush my hand.

My mind went back to my mother again: How did she do it? How could she put her hand on the line like that when she knew I might aim wrongly? How could she not vacillate even as I switched hands in the middle of pounding, just to impress?

Trust.

She trusted that I would be accurate even when I was not wearing my glasses. She trusted that I would never intentionally hurt her even when I used my seldom-used left hand. Then again she'd known me all my life- enough time to build a lot of trust- and even if her hand were crushed, the meal would not suffer; my sister could always takeover.

But I had known him for barely six months and I did not have a plan to fall back on if he failed. I also could not back out now because I had invested in too much time and energy; I had already prepared the soup and cooked the raw materials. I was in too deep. I also knew that my hand could not afford to be wary, to be afraid of getting hit because if it did, it would not take risks, it would not 'ka' the food well, and the fufu would come out lumpy and rough.
No one likes lumpy fufu.

I look up at him, and he smiles, urging me to put the first cassava piece into the mortar, to take the first step. I could just trust his accuracy, trust his timing as we pound and mix the cassava and plantain, our love and commitment, produce smooth and soft fufu- free of any lumps- and eat our succulent reward with the light soup and the goat meat the soup contained.

Or he could betray my trust and strike my hand and I would lose everything. And he would walk away whole, with his pestle in hand, leaving me- broken and helpless-to pick up the pieces of the fufu he destroyed.

He would walk away whole, with his pestle in hand, laughing at my naiveté, my gullibility and lastly my stupidity.