The cost Episode6

Cost of my unspoken words 

Vs

Cost of my spoken thought!

Episode6

Chill! I am going somewhere with this. Trust me.

Before the popularly known ‘FUFU’ get to the stage of the meal you are salivating for, it has really gone through different stages. And at every stage, you may find it difficult to believe what can bring out such delicacy out of it. Maybe you don't understand what I am talking about. Let me tell you the processes it has to pass through before getting to that delicious stage:

"Paaki" has to first grow. Growing cassava-the raw material-is of a process and cannot be done by an anyhow means and person. Planting it requires ‘Ebe’ or what English man called ‘heap of soil of domelike shape’. 

Thereafter, the stems of cassava that has been cut into appropriate sizes (400mm long or  thereabout with the two edges sewn in a particular style) is then inserted into the heap.

 Since it's a root and tuber crop, it is harvested by digging, and what you see is a long, slender and brownish cassava with soil on it. 

The environment for fufu production has features unique to it. You will be welcomed by the perfume produced by it. Around it are whitish tiny sticks, raw cassava and ‘Epo paaki’. At one side are drums of different sizes filled with water and the incumbent cassava-for softening. 

We have to remove the bark called ‘Epo paaki’ and this is done by professional Women and children in the midst of the harvested cassava with baskets at their sides. They sit like letter ‘L’ on a low stool holding a knife and a cassava. I can’t find words to explain how they perfectly slice off the bark so fast and then immediately cut it to smaller sizes into a brown and wooden basket. Ready for the next stage!

In this stage, the cassava is soaked in water and left for three days or thereabout to make it soft. After it becomes soft, it is then removed from the water and sometimes, it is rinsed to remove its sourness. 

Then in extracting our fufu from what we have now, it requires a sieve of a very small sized mesh. A very big bowl is filled with water and the sieve is placed on it. With contact with the water, the soft cassava is rubbed against the sieve and after a while what will be left on the sieve is a tiny and slender white stick and it is then poured away. 

What is left is the fufu and water in the bowl. So to separate them, the solution is poured in a sack or big cloth with tiny pores and tightened with our unique style of tightening-at Ilaro, it's by getting a stick of 500mm long, insert it in the two open sleeves of the sack and then rotate the stick until the sack is very tight. It is then compressed  by any means to extract the water-also in ilaro, this is done by placing heavy stones on the tightened sack. 

It is left for some days until we have a complete fermentation to give us a wonderful fufu that is ready for cooking.

Still very confused and curious, Laurel responded as follow: “Baye, i must commend your effort for teaching me how to get this product. I think i can now boast on how to make fufu. But then, i am really trying to relate this with my own waterloo. Please can you go straight to the point?” 

Thank you for the response. It shows you are not just attentive but also actively listening. this is the last stage of our discussion and i do believe that after i take you through this last process, you will by then start healing, but i am sorry it will not anymore be tonight, because i have to go to sleep now. You know as early as possible tomorrow, i will be going for my interview in your school. I promise to come straight to your house after the interview.

Lest i forget, when next i come, you will be sharing your experience of making fufu by yourself so that you can grasp better the expository of this healing process

Watch out for the last episode!!!

Note: for formal episodes, check this web page for all of them...