Every day from dawn to dusk, she would clean the house and yard, chop firewood, weed the garden and tend to her bananas and maize and millet, before cooking her evening meal and eating alone.
One night, she prayed, “My life is so hard and lonely, please send someone to help me!”
The next day, she found some strange seeds outside. Puzzled, she planted them in a patch of earth behind her hut and tended them carefully. Over the next few weeks, shoots sprang up, which grew into lush vines that sprouted a crop of fine calabashes. When they were ready, Shindo carefully harvested the calabashes, cut off their tops, scooped out the pulp inside, and then carefully put them on the roof of her hut to dry in the…
