Hands of a Nation

Their touch tough and coarse like the mud houses in which they live.
Calloused and dry like the sandy rocks making up the narrow pathways of their village.
Splintered by the wood they use to pound the millet stalk.
Wrinkled, weathered and worn from the sun and the sand.
Jagged pieces of skin, adrift from the palm like a rusted nail emerges from rotted wood.
Charcoaled and crisp like the rocks that sizzle under the cooking pots.
Hands weathered from the 'wahala' of women's work.
Dawn til dark, the women pound the millet, carry the wood and buckets filled with water, farm millet and corn, and tear branches from the trees.
Their hands constantly in motion, constantly at work,
The same hands that gently latch their babies to their breasts for milk.
The same hands that come together to pray five times a day.
The same hands that glide through the soapy water to wash their sequined scarves.
These are the hands that feed the nation.