In the hut where the fifteen-year-old Amimba is living with her mother, brothers and sisters, Mama Leida throws a handful of dried herbs into a gourd and pours boiling water over them. The leftovers from the previous evening s meal serve as breakfast. With loincloths slung around their wet bodies they return to the huts, mostly in small groups, the children following on, naked. Alongside the boathouse, where the river shore slopes gently, they enter the water to bathe: the adults more serious, the children laughing gaily and splashing each other until they re wet through. Eventually they make their way to the southern edge of the plantation, where a canal has been dug at right-angles to the river, serving for both the supply and the drainage of water. Now, outside all the huts, men, women and children are standing, some talking, some just looking around. Here and there an appetizing scent arises from a cooking pot, signalling the presence of an aniseed leaf or some herbs in the water. Faya watra is being made: hot water into which a shoot of molasses is stirred. MettamĢ CHAPTER I THE HÉBRON PLANTATION Dawn is breaking on the Hébron Plantation, and while the eastern sky is blushing at the caress of the rising sun, the doors of the slave huts begin to open one by one, and small fires can be seen under their lean-to shelters. 1 Cynthia McLeod THE COST OF SUGAR Translated by Gerald R.
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