The things I can do are not important.
They are not revolutionary, they do not change the world.
They barely change my life, because thanks to the things I can do I can survive.
The things I can do are mostly invisible things.
But the visible ones everyone likes: I stuff and seal potato samosas, I roll out chapatis and heat them in a pan, I fry maandazi in oil.
I know by heart the cooking time of the corn polenta and how to avoid the acidity of the tomato sauce.
I can distinguish herbs from yards away, I know how to choose a ripe mango by the shades of the three colours of its skin, the goodness of a pineapple by the weight of its sharp leaves, the papaya sweeter to the touch.
I can tell when a child or grandchild is crying and screaming about something serious or if it is on a whim.
And if it is not serious, I can bear it and let it go, until it gets tired.
If it is serious, I am able to extract the venom of a scorpion, put back a collarbone or straighten a wrong.
I can talk to goats and dogs, and they understand me.
Also because I do not pretend to tell them anything.
But I am sure that if I decided to tell them stories, and I had the culture to do so, they would listen to me. Animals, like me, can do so many things and repeat them every day, but hardly anyone notices. Similarly, if you repeat the same things to them every day, they understand them and learn the reasons for your every gesture and the meaning of words from the sound of them.

For most of the things I can do, it takes patience above all.
With patience and the experience of doing them again every day, you learn to do them better and better and at some point it is so easy to do them that you can learn more.
I know how to walk straight, every morning, with a twenty-litre can of water on my head, I know how to cut thirty kilos of dry branches a day and bind them, I know how to choose medicinal herbs to cure dysentery, gingivitis, coughs, gout and other small illnesses.
I know how to repair leaks in the roof of dry palm trees, patches in the house of mud and cement, cracks in the rammed earth floor. I can make a doghouse, a fruit basket, a shopping bag by myself.
I can weave palm leaves and make them into our bedding, carpets, curtains and walls.
I can count up to a thousand, I don't need more than that.
I have known how to be a mother and I have wanted and had to be a wife, I have been a scrupulous sister, a sincere friend, an envious and gossipy comrade.
Only one thing I think I don't know how to do, brag about the things I know how to do.

Even if I could afford a mobile phone with video, I would not be able, and above all I would not have time to show what I am capable of or incapable of, to make my invisible things visible.
I am not at hand, I do not appear and disappear with a click.
You must seek me out, come and observe me.
Like a plant, like the goat, like the dog, like the sky and the clouds.
Someone else must tell you what I do and what I can do, but I warn you!
It takes time, patience, and above all you risk learning things that most people, and you can see this in the way they live, consider useless, especially because they are invisible.
So many think that invisible things should only be those things that one cannot tell others, those that one should be ashamed of, those that appease one's frustrations. The selfish actions, the instinctive opportunism, the subterfuge, the profiteering. Everything else is worth putting out there.
There are also invisible things that are good, but they cost too much effort, too much altruism and too much thought, and one always tries to get someone else to do them, especially when one can make money on them and even more.
I know how to do many things, but please don't tell anyone.