Eat coconuts while you have teeth: Firewood

Today I went out to collect firewood with the young girls of my household and the surrounding neighbors. My family protested strongly at me participating in gathering wood because it is tiring, it hurts your body, the trees and thorns give you scratches, and it is a long walk in the sun with no water. Despite their objections, I decided to go anyways to see what this was all about.

Collecting firewood is a typical activity that many NGOs highlight as a household activity that school-aged girls are forced to do which limits the amount of time they have to study. There is a lot of NGO work done to improve cooking methods and fuel sources in order to cut back on this time girls spend away from the house (for PC/Senegal examples, see the rocket stove and paper briquettes). In my household at least, which is fairly progressive towards women, the girls only go out on the weekends or when they don’t have school. The girls I went with are between the ages of six and 12 and are in elementary or middle school.

The tree line

They head out either in the mid-morning or mid-afternoon and walk out into the bush where there are more trees. The area around the village has long been cleared of dense vegetation, but it is only about a 10 to 15-minuet walk into a heavily forested area. There is a distinct visible line where the trees start compared to the sand dunes near the village. It was striking to see how clearly deforestation has shaped the landscape around Taredji.

On our way out, we spot a goat that has clearly been attacked and eaten by something. I am warned by one girl to run if I see a dog, because they eat people and goats. For some reason I still don’t understand, the girls laugh in disbelief when I say that I am able to run.

Jeri Bah collecting wood from the bushes

Along the way to the forested area, the girls stop every now and then at a bush to see if it is dead and dry. Only dry branches can be used as firewood, and I was horrible at distinguishing the light yellow from the light brown branches. If there was a dead branch, the girl who found it would pull on it or step on it in any way possible until it broke off. This usually resulted in several minor scrapes and occasionally a fall into the sand when a branch unexpectedly snapped. This continued until we reach the tree line. As all of the trees in our region have thorny branches, I was told I was not allowed to collect wood from the trees and only the branches of the bushes. Of course the girls are adept at carefully picking of the thorny branches with only minor scratches from the thorns, while I sustained major cuts when I tried. Each girl would gather her own branches and as the branches became too much to carry at one time, she would leave them in a pile for her to pick up on the way back and continue further out into the bush. All of the while, the girls are joking with each other and singing songs.

Jeri Bah, Ana Bah, and Mara Bah bundling their piles of wood

When the girls have collected enough wood, they return to all the piles they have made, break up the branches into manageable pieces, and use scraps of fabric to try them into bundles to make it easier to carry. These bundles are sometime larger than the girl herself. Then the girls take other strips of fabric or their skirts and wad them up into a ball, place it on their heads, fold their bodies in half so that their heads are upside down, and deftly flip the wood onto their heads as they stand up. Then we walk the rest of the way home and drop of the wood to the respective families.

All the girls carrying wood on their heads standing on sand dune

Some of the highlights of the trip were me trying to collect wood and failing, me trying to balance the wood on my head and failing, and the girls finding a dead lizard about 2 feet long. My family got a kick out of me going out and collecting firewood with the girls and how dirty and scratched up I got when I really didn’t collect much wood at all. While it was really fun for me, it was just another chore like washing the dishes or folding laundry.