COMMENTARY: Not One Blade of Grass

by Dr. Lester CN Simon, GOM

1. Here I am, an innocent child, doing what my Tantie tells me to do. I cut the bush broom. I am sweeping the yard as clean as I can. This yard is far too big, and it has too much junk; junk that comes over here from our neighbours. I am planning to sweep it into a corner to make a compost, which I am learning all about in school, but Tantie says that will be too much work to manage. So, I must sweep it back over to our worthless, filthy neighbours.  

2. When we moved from Old Village to New Village, our family got this huge, prime house spot at the entrance. At first, everyone would pass around or near to our yard, or we would give permission to some to walk through, but then they started loitering and walking right through as a shortcut, bringing their garbage, dropping their garbage and leaving their garbage, for poor little me to sweep up. 

3. Tantie says our yard must be the cleanest yard in the whole village. It is very close to the village church, and she reminds me every day that cleanliness is next to godliness. Tantie thinks she knows everything about cleanliness and godliness, but there are some things I see adult church goers do that her weary, old eyes cannot see. I have to keep these ungodly things to my poor little self so as not to burden Tantie.

4. Our yard doesn’t have a fence, as yet, so it is a good, easy, right and proper thing to send back the garbage to the neighbours since almost of it came from them in the first place. Even their dogs and other animals dirty up our yard. One awful church-going dirty old man is walking his donkey laden with wood right through our yard, without permission. He is beating the donkey with the flat part of his cutlass, but the poor, weary donkey refuses to move along after having a bowel movement and messing up our yard, again. When asked what is wrong the donkey why she is not moving, he says the donkey is an ass! Poor little me. I have to stifle my laugh, when I remember Palm Sunday and Jerusalem and Jesus. 

5. I tell Tantie all the neighbours are resisting taking back their own despicable garbage. They claim their original garbage is now adulterated. I look in my little dictionary to see if adulterated is something adults do. They say the garbage is now so mixed up that any one neighbour will be getting their own personal, original garbage plus garbage from the other neighbours, all adulterated by us. 

6. Tantie thinks that since the neighbours are always trying to unite, they can unite over mixtures of garbage. However, I have to report to Tantie that I am getting some serious pushback from all the neighbours, especially one particular one. 

7. This one neighbour is Mr. Browne. He is playing very smart, and saying he is just being logical and looking out for the entire village. I am trying with all my little might to share the garbage equally, but he is refusing to take his equal share and says he will only agree to take smaller tranches and useful branches. He thinks he is the leader of the 365 people in our village. He and Tantie are having some very serious big people talk. My school children friends say she tells him that he can use the garbage as fertilizer to get and make huge tranches of money, like the CIP (Citizen by Investment Program). They say he quickly fires back at her, calling it a dirty CIP, a Crap by Investment Program, up with which he will not put. 

8. Poor little me get caught up in all this big people palaver and melee and I don’t know what to do. My school children friends say some villagers say it is a dilemma and a paradox wrapped up in one big barrel of confusion rolling all over the neighborhood. Since our yard is on a hill at the entrance of the village, the garbage and the wind and the rain will mess up everybody. 

9. School children say there is only one solution. They say the villagers are going to demonstrate, not against Tantie, whom they fear and love simultaneously, or against poor little me personally, but against the very idea of sweeping adulterated garbage back over to them. Secretly they are also saying we behave too hoity-toity and have septic tank and flush toilet and all they have is pit latrine or a doo-doo hole in the ground, or nothing at all and some of them have to go into the bushes and use stone “at the end” of their business. Tantie says all we want to do is to make the village great again, like the old village, and show them how a yard should look and run. They can learn so much from us. 

10. Demonstration? I am waiting to see if there is going to be a real demonstration. Poor little me may have to hide. I get to thinking that if the villagers come together and demonstrate against Tantie and me, it might be a very good thing and save me from getting into trouble with my friends. But my little girlfriend tells me a secret, saying there may not be any demonstration at all. I ask her why. She says if the villagers come together and demonstrate over this, they might come together any time in the future and demonstrate against anything they do not like and want. I ask my sweet little girlfriend what is wrong with that. She looks at me quizzically. She is smart.

11. She says such a demonstration with villagers coming together, including ones who argue and hate and fight each other all the time, will change the way the people in our village solve problems. I ask her what is wrong with that. She looks at me even more quizzically. She is super smart. 

12. She gives me a hug; poor little, innocent me; and says I should ask Mr. Browne. 

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