Fun with the machette

"You need to sharpen that machette"--Villager
"You need to sharpen that machette more"--Another villager 2 days later
"You should get another machette!"--Another villager one week later

There are a lot of important things Volunteers do in Peace Corps. Probably none more so than wielding a sharp machette. Why is a machette so important? Because it's pretty much the all-purpose tool in the jungle. You can cut sugar cane with a machette, hunt fish, skin fish, cut coconuts, cut termite tunnels, scratch yourself when no one's looking--but you'd best be careful, cut grass and trees and bushes and chase bats and rats around your house. The coolest thing you can do with a machette is cut a cinderblock in half. I learned this art from one of the Peace Corps staff. We took a cinderblock, lightly tapped the machette on all four sides in the middle of the block and then took one big swing down. This yields two cinderblocks and a feeling of awesomeness.

The hardest part of machette-ing is definitely cutting grounds. Total pain in the ass. Infact, in the three or four hours of labor I spent cutting my grounds--where I'll plant my garden, in the 95 degree heat with humidity, I felt that I earned my Peace Corps salary in that time period for the next two years. And I looked utterly ridiculous cutting my grounds in my rubber boots and Pete Newell Challenge baseball cap, next to some village with sandals and no hat who I towered over by a good 6 inches and probably had at least 20 pounds over. And yet, this little guy, who is probably pushing 50, made me look look like a schmuck. Clearing the grounds, I noticed that while it took me 20 hacks with the machette to cut down a tree, it was taking him no more than 4, that was humbling and embarrassing. Anyways, this lad has been helping me refine my machette yielding ways and I picked up several new techniques for swinging the machette while cutting grounds.

The techniques of the machette vary on the work but at grounds one mostly uses the one-handed overhead thurst to clear out all the eye level vines and then the side chop to clear out the innummerable bush that gets in one's way of walking. Once you've cleared a path to walk through one must clear out all the weeds on the ground so that the weeds will dry out and the ground can be burned a couple of weeks later. This involves the underhand swipe at the grass roots. I have almost lost a few toes attempting this action; it's not my favorite. The most tedious swipe that gives the back a good workout is the angled downt thurst for cutting tree trunks. It is hard work to cut down a tree with a machette but it is really fun to watch them fall over, especially if you knock over like 5 trees in a row. It's like watching really big dominoes fall over and that's pretty entertaining. Finally, there is the double handed overhead flailing with the machette that is usually reserved for when dehydration and heat exhaustion start settling in. My first trip at grounds, this was after about 30 minutes, my next trip, I lasted about 1 hour and 30 minutes before I started flailing the machette around like a mad man.

The most interesting experience I have had with the machette has been hunting the rats that come into my house and terrorize my rice cakes. I have tried setting traps but they stole the bait and did not spring the trap. So, I have had to rely on my trusty machette to drive those sneaky, smart rats from my house. The rats, usually late night visitors, were mightily surprised to see me walking around with only my underwear and a handlamp at 4 am. After chasing them through the house and village and taking a couple swings at them with the machette their appearances have been much less frequent.

And that's pretty much the beauty of the machette. I suppose if there is any way to make it more fun I could get a second one and do some dual-wielding-jedi-action-machette-ing (you can check that word in the dictionary, it should be there). It would definitely make for a great Youtube tutorial. Until next time mi mati (my friends)!