Chapter Three
“We usually finish branding and selection earlier,” Hussein explained to the two men watching as he held a calf for Charlie to brand. “We’ve encountered some minor setbacks this season.”
The group had arrived some hours ago to learn a bit about work with the cattle. He had agreed upon Jessica’s insistence to guide them through. Jessica herself had not stayed to watch something she had grown up doing. And Kimberly had not so much as cast him a glance before trudging off. So, Hussein was left with the two men.
While Kuma was really interested in what was going on, Ladipole looked like he would rather be anywhere else than under the open sun.
“Exactly how many cows do you work with?” Kuma asked.
“The numbers keep changing. Some die, new ones are born and some are sold in the markets. It is hard to give an exact number but approximately I’d say fifty thousand heads have been branded so far. Those that don’t get branded will most likely end up as beef.”
“Fifty thousand and counting!” Ladipole exclaimed. “Man, that is filthy rich. If I were you, I’d put my leg up and take life easy.”
“It’s the exact opposite,” Hussein replied. “The more the cattle, the more the work.”
“Can I give it a try?” Kuma asked eagerly.
“Sure,” Hussein grinned, “we’ve been short of hands for a while now and any help is welcome. What about you, Aryetey?”
Ladipole laughed. Holding down a skittish calf in the dirt for branding was the last thing he imagined himself doing. “I don’t know,” he said. “It looks like serious business.”
“It is,” Hussein replied, still urging him, “but I’m sure you can do it.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” Ladipole glanced at Emma who was already holding down his second calf to be branded.
The first calf was easy to handle, and Ladipole had it pinned down in no time while Hussein did the branding. On the sixth cow, Hussein said, “You must have been a cattle farmer in your other life, Aryetey.”
“I don’t know about another life,” Ladipole said, “but I now know why an architect would choose to rear cattle in the North. It sure beats sitting in an office for ten hours and answering to Bosman or Newton.”
“That bad?” Hussein asked. He wondered what kind of man Newton was. A man who apparently did not get along with his employees. The man who had been Kimberly’s boyfriend till recently.
“Yeah. The only reason I kept going back was because I needed the money.”
“They do pay well,” Emma chipped in.
“Yes, but you only go because Jessica is there every day.”
“Come on, man,” Emma laughed as he struggled with yet another stubborn calf, “you don’t want her cousin to kill me here and blame it on the cows.”
Hussein laughed with him. “She can do a good job of that all on her own.” For some unknown reason, he could not imagine Jessica with this perfect southern gentleman.
“Yeah,” Emma muttered absently. “She is a wild one, that woman.”
“What about Kimberly?” Hussein finally asked the question that had been uppermost on his mind.
“What about her?” Ladipole asked.
“Does she go for the pay as well?”
“No, I don’t think so. She and her mother are probably richer than half of Accra. She can easily buy BozCo if she wants to. There are times when I wonder why she even bothers”
So, she didn’t need the money. Hussein remembered Emma’s words about Kimberly being the most hardworking at the company. Why would she be dedicated to a job that did not pay up to a meagre of her worth?
Was it for the same reasons why he chose farming over architecture on a daily basis? Was it for the love of the job? Or was it for the pleasure of seeing someone at the job? Someone like Isaac Newton. He pressed the branding gear harder than he had intended.
“Careful,” Ladipole said.
Hussein put the gear down and straightened. “That’s the last of them.” He called out to the workers around them. “The rest shall be meat.”
There was a collective hoot as the workers around them threw down their branding gears and shears.
“That reminds me.” Emma stood from his position on the floor. “I’m starving.”
“You are always starving,” Jessica replied from behind him. To Hussein, she said, “Grace has been waiting for you. All the workers are done and having lunch under the tent”
“I don’t think I can join them.”
“You don’t have a choice. She said specifically to make sure you come. Besides, I thought we could all sit and have lunch together.”
“If I may ask, who is this Grace?” Emma asked.
“She is one of the women who cook for the workers.”
“If her food is as good as Rueda’s, then I’m definitely in. Where is Kimberly by the way?”
“She said she’ll wait while I got you. Are you coming, Hussein?”
“Can’t say no to Grace, can I?”
Several makeshift tents had been put up to provide shade for the men and women who sat under them to have their lunch. There were little children playing around in the sun. Several in baggy T-shirts and others rolling around in clothes dirtied by the dusty land.
Kimberly had asked one woman why they were not in school and the answer had been shocking. According to the woman, the only school short of being a death trap was several kilometres away from town and the children could not make the journey on their own.
Moreover, they were needed to help their parents with household chores and work on the farms. So, they stayed back to help and only attended the reading and writing skills which was organised by the community every month. It was the best they could do under the circumstances.
But Kimberly disagreed. She believed that every child had the right to education. Proper education. These children would not be deprived of their rights if she could help it, and she could. Already, an idea was forming in her head. Money might not give her the answers she sought, but it could bring enlightenment to these children. The thought was exciting. She would discuss it first with Jessica, then she would know how to go about it.
The truck pulled up by the tent and Jessica got out of the driver’s seat. The rest followed, but it was the tall man with a day’s growth of beard that grabbed Kimberly’s attention. She could feel the butterflies in her stomach and the slight increase in her heartbeat just by looking at him. What was it about this man that flustered her so much? Whatever it was, she would not stick around long enough to find out.
The woman who had been introduced to her as Grace went out to meet him. “I was beginning to think that you would not come,” Grace said to Hussein.
