Waiting

[poliphilo]

The baby is due today, but there's no sign of it yet except that Odi is super-energised. She sent us back to the little African shop in Newton Heath to buy what we described to the shopwoman as "that soil that Cameroonian women eat when they're pregnant". It comes in chunks like home-made toffee- only it's grey. I don't know quite what it is but I'm going to guess volcanic mud. I nibbled a corner. It has a very strong mineral taste.

Comments

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Geophagy! Guy Davenport's black nurse kept a pailful of blue clay "under the bed, for the cool. It was blue clay from a creek, the consistency of slightly gritty ice cream. It lay smooth and delicious-looking in its pail of clear water. You scooped it out and ate from your hand. The taste was wholesome, mineral, and emphatic."

This was in South Carolina in the thirties. Her roots, not quite severed, would have been West African.

Best wishes for a safe and swift delivery, and a healthy child.

Nine

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Odi loves the taste. "Emphatic" would be a good word to describe it. I thought it was horrid, but I can see how one might grow to like it.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

It's probably got a lot of good stuff in there.

I hope all goes well!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm sure it's full of minerals.

Thanks.