In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

69 Specialisation Lawrence Hoba One man straightens the wire, another puts the head while another sharpens the tip. In this way all men make more pins than they would if each was to make the whole pin. Adam Smith SUDDENLY, EVERYTHING SEEMED TO have gone wrong; but no one could tell what the cause was nor what had really happened. We sat down – Chimoto, Baba Nina and I – and in hushed tones discussed what might have occurred. But exactly five hours and two gallons of thick home-brewed opaque beer later, we’d only succeeded in getting ourselves numbly drunk and raising our voices to height-of-hot-summer cicada highs. We could have gone on. But Mama Nina came into the study crying and saying that she couldn’t stand men that knew how to do nothing except drink and argue. Why didn’t we ever think of consulting the spirit medium, after all? It was hot and a Saturday when we all crammed into the 4 x 4 single -cab truck that we had taken over along with the farm and all the other equipment. We could have gone on a Sunday, but I’d said that I would never dare insult God. Baba Nina had been the white man’s driver and he still drove the truck, though I was unsure of whether it was for himself, Chimoto or me. Baba Nina had grasped specialisation with gusto and had undertaken to master the art himself. Every morning he woke up to the sound of the first singing bird. He washed the car spotlessly clean, and checked the oil and the fuel gauge. By kicking each tyre with his booted feet, he could tell which one needed more pressure, so that he could take the pump and do just that. His ritual took him until about tea-time, though tea was now rather scarce because of the countrywide sugar shortages. Afterwards, he checked on the tractors, all three of them. He cursed and ranted every time Chimoto brought back a tractor covered in dust, mud and grime. ‘Can’t you even plough without muddying her up? Look at yourself,’ Baba Nina would size Chimoto up and down, ‘you’re as dirty as the plough itself. You even leave mud on the seat!’ He would pause and then turn to me. ‘How can specialisation ever work if we keep frustrating each other’s efforts? I’m a driver, a vehicle engineer, not a cleaner!’ I’d decided to sit next to the window where the rushing wind would cool my face and I could gaze at the vast expanses of repossessed land without straining my neck. Here and there fences that once restricted wild animals and cattle from moving onto the tarred road lay rotting on the ground or had been completely removed. It had been a rush, just like the gold rush. Everyone had wanted to take the closest entry into and onto the farms to grab the juiciest piece of ancestral soil they could find. No one had thought about tomorrow, life after the rush. The hunger had been too great and finding gates was just a waste of time. Everywhere the land now lay bare and black, the skeletons of charred trees standing where forests had not yet been cleared. Almost everyone burnt the grass when they thought they had seen the first signs of rain. Traditional habits die hard, even when you haven’t tilled for a century. The whole countryside had caught fire but no rain had followed. Not then; not now. But we could never be charged with destroying the forests with fire – it was a cultural practice. And there had always been grass-burning even before we took over the farms. It was only that now nature had decided to show us her harsher side and, of course, we had not had time to repair the fireguards, a colonial institution . ‘Stop here, Chimoto,’ commanded Baba Nina. We had passed the turn-off to the main road. The spirit medium’s hut stood alone in the mountains, on a plateau where mermaids were said to be heard singing each morning at a spring well. Baba Nina braked hard, reversed and got onto the faint track. He manoeuvred the truck among the stones and burnt tree stumps. This way we could only take the car as far as the foot of the mountain. We got out and trudged towards the hidden hut. I felt...

Share