Sweeping Compound

The first time I saw women sweeping their home compounds was a few years ago in Zambia (three and a half, to be exact, though it feels so much longer than that). It didn't make sense to me then: it seemed strange to think of sweeping dirt. After all, wouldn't it still be “dirt”-y?

Last year, as I watched my younger cousin sweep our compound every day, I learnt to tell the difference between, shall we say, “clean” dirt and “dirty” dirt. Where Americans have their front yards, Ugandans have compounds: the cleared space in front, beside, and around one's house where much of life takes place. The compound is kitchen, laundry room, meeting place, playground. It is here that groundnuts are shelled, potatoes peeled, dishes washed, babies fed, decisions made.

my hut.

Throughout the day, the compound is littered with the detritus of daily life: discarded beans, loose grass and leaves, groundnut shells, chicken droppings, and of course, all of the bits of plastic, wood, and rubber dragged in by wind and children at play.

And so, every evening, we take up a broom – made of cut grasses or even sticks – and we tidy up the place. The process must be repeated in the morning, to brush away the remnants of bottle caps, alcohol packets, goat droppings, and wind-blown leaves [I live now in a busy trading centre, if you couldn't tell by the types of litter I'm describing] – or even just to smooth the dirt which has settled during the night.

Because, you see, the compound is not just piles of lose dirt. Years of passing feet and scorching sun keep these portions of earth hard and firm. So a compound littered with life's rubbish, or even just lightly dusted with soil, like a poorly kept house, tends to signify that the inhabitants (particularly the female ones) are not bothered to keep their space well.

These days, I keep a small grass broom by my door for tidying inside my own hut and front step. And I daily take up the outside broom to sweep our compound. I suppose this should be added to my list of marriageable traits (not that most of my Ugandan suitors seem to worry about much more than my beauty!).

shoes.