The Olive Bowl

Behind every loaf of bread is a wheat field. I would often go to watch the farmer ploughing the terraces set aside for wheat growing beyond the northern wall of our large garden. Looking over the terraces , I saw two oxen being yoked and the farmer hitching the plough to the yoke, ready to start his work. After an adjustment or two and some swinging around by the oxen, they began moving in my direction. I made my way to the terrace as the team was starting and made myself comfortable. I sat on the terrace wall with my knees under my chin, watching. The rounded sandstone terrace rocks were covered with moss and between the rocks the fleshy stems of cyclamen poked through clumps of dark green leaves producing a burst of soft colour. The delicious smell of newly turned soil filled the air. Slowly, steadily, the two grunting oxen came towards me with the ploughman walking purposefully behind. As they came past me, filling my vision, my eyes were drawn to the shining top section of the p...

  Opening the bottom gate and shutting it carefully behind me, I turned right, along the lower road of the village until I was next to the church premises, which overlooked the square. Every Saturday morning, the village square was packed with interest. A large crowd of villagers were milling about outside the butcher’s shop. I knew this area would be teeming with activity and I, together with many other children, wanted to get as close to the action as we could. This was the butcher’s moment and he performed silently, with a flourish of flashing knives and solemn skill. We watched with fascination when Antoine’s father, the butcher, cut the throat of the cow and the blood dripped into the bowl under its severed neck. The time for killing the cow came once, sometimes twice, a week, and was accomplished very efficiently. Death was quick with a very sharp knife. After leaving the slaughtered beast to drain for a while, the butcher skinned the carcass and cut it into portions, cho...

  Village life had its own rhythm. I loved to keep alert to every bar change and every note within each movement even up to the quarter notes. It was a symphony of which I was part. It was my village, my community, my Shemlan. I woke up early, listening to the silence and waiting. It was dark still and bed sheets and blankets were warm under my chin all the way down to my toes. I listened a while longer and found the morning quiet inside the house and as the light began to filter into the darkness, I watched, expectant, as the light drove the darkness away. Tantalizing noises outside beckoned me: a bird scratching on the ground near my window; our cock crowing and his hens clucking their way out of their boxes, as if to startle the day into life; a donkey braying in the fields close by with its brash baritone giving pitch to the early morning practice session, and finally, the distant bleating of the sheep as they followed the shepherd playing his twin reed pipe as he led them ...