the hundred-year-old man
oct. 10
It has not yet rained tonight, and so I did not re-plant my sunflowers, hoed up for the second time by the hundred-year-old man next door. I should have planted them yesterday after it poured rain.
The old man hoed up my sunflowers because he was clearing the dirt around the house of weeds. So of course i cannot be mad at him, not only because he looks to be about one hundred years old -- wrinkly and bent over and constantly dripping saliva -- but also because he did it for me. In spite of all my urgings to leave the manual labor to those of us less advanced in age and decrepitude, her persists in a strange belief that I am his "patron." That could be loosely translated as boss, but what it truly amounts to is that I am an obscurely important foreigner and a guest, so he feels obligated to do things for me. Viewed in all its manifestations, the rigid heirarchy of status here is an unfortunate system that has so far been mostly impossible to subvert. It means everything, and through no virtue of my own I have a very high status. And so we each argue that the other should not work and periodically he hoes up my flowers while I try to do yard work secretly and quietly so that he doesn't come over to help. Then he brings me oranges or peanuts and many thank-yous are said before we argue again about who is happier to know the other.
It has not yet rained tonight, and so I did not re-plant my sunflowers, hoed up for the second time by the hundred-year-old man next door. I should have planted them yesterday after it poured rain.
The old man hoed up my sunflowers because he was clearing the dirt around the house of weeds. So of course i cannot be mad at him, not only because he looks to be about one hundred years old -- wrinkly and bent over and constantly dripping saliva -- but also because he did it for me. In spite of all my urgings to leave the manual labor to those of us less advanced in age and decrepitude, her persists in a strange belief that I am his "patron." That could be loosely translated as boss, but what it truly amounts to is that I am an obscurely important foreigner and a guest, so he feels obligated to do things for me. Viewed in all its manifestations, the rigid heirarchy of status here is an unfortunate system that has so far been mostly impossible to subvert. It means everything, and through no virtue of my own I have a very high status. And so we each argue that the other should not work and periodically he hoes up my flowers while I try to do yard work secretly and quietly so that he doesn't come over to help. Then he brings me oranges or peanuts and many thank-yous are said before we argue again about who is happier to know the other.
posted by amandab at 8:20 PM
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