Bibi

A Bibi (grandmother) doesn't retire. While the Babus get to sit at the market playing checkers, drinking tiny cups of coffee and talking the afternoon away, Bibis gotta go collect firewood. They make sure the cassava fields are planted. They take care of grandkids. They are fit. Their feet are wide and cracked, their hands like leather. Their thin arms could still kick the crap out of me.

This Bibi shuffled up barefoot to the house while I was talking with her son there. She can barely see, her eyes are clouded blue. She must only eat porridge since she's got no teeth left.

"That's my mother," my host explained as she walked past us in search of a stool. "She's got to be over 90 years old," he said proudly.

"Ah yes," my colleague commented, "in the village people can live a long time."

I asked how her health was. "Oh, pretty good," her son answered.

Where had she been--seems like she still walks around pretty well? "Just out farming cassava all morning."