A Poem by Jack Mapanje

BAOBAB FRUIT PICKING (OR DEVELOPMENT IN MONKEY BAY) (for Mary and David Kerr)

'We've fought before, but this is worse than rape!' In the semi-Sahara October haze, the raw jokes

Of Balamanja women are remarkable. The vision We revel in has sent their husbands to the mines

Of Jo'burg, to buy us large farms, she insists. But here, the wives survive by their wits & sweat:

Shoving dead cassava stalks into rocks, catching Fish in tired chitenje cloths with kids, picking

Baobab fruit & whoring. The bark from the baobab They strip into strings for their reed wattle,

The fruit they crack, scoop out the white, mix with Goat milk, 'there's porridge for today, children!'

The shell is drinking gourd or firewood split (They used to grate the hard cores into girls'

Initiation oil once). 'But you imported the Boers, Who visited our Chief at dawn, promising boreholes!'

These pine cottages on the beach shot up instead, some With barbed wire fences fifty yards into the lake!

(What cheek!) Now each week-end, the 'blighted-tomato- thighs in reeking loin-cloths' come, boating, grinning

At them baobab fruit picking. 'My house was right Here!' Whoever dares check these Balamanja dreamers?

biobibliographical note: jack mapanje is a renowned poet from malawi

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