Earth's Eulogy, page 7
Honestly, they had never seen anything like it. He took out an iron pot, put water in it, and then began cutting up fruits and vegetables. Then he rolled his dough together, made it long, folded it in half and made it long over and over again, then cut it, then he put all the food in the pot.
The kids were entertained watching him cook. While he was waiting for the food to cook, he pointed at himself and said, “Paul.” They didn’t know what he meant. Then he pointed at himself again and said, “Paul.” Eventually, Chazia figured out that it was his name and said, “Paul?”
He got real excited and nodded. When he did that, Chazia pointed at herself and said, “Chazia.”
He repeated, “Chazia.”
Then they went down the line, and he learned the name of all the kids and went down the bench, pointed at them individually, and said, “Eulalia, Badru, Dashiell.”
The kids were thrilled that an adult had called them by their name. Usually, only an adult family member did that. This Great Warrior was really nice.
After he learned their names, he pointed to himself and said Paul, and then he would point at something else, or pick something up as if to say what’s this? And they began helping him learn the name of stuff in their language.
When the food was done, the kids were surprised when he gave them food in clay things. Eulalia said, “Mom, I don’t ever remember eating twice in the same day.”
Her mother said, “Honey, this is probably just the time of day he eats, and because we are his new family, he is feeding us as an act of kindness.”
Eulalia said, “Your probably right, mom.”
He then took the boiled water and poured it into several cups and put it in front of the children, and Chazia. He blew on his, which the children copied, then he drank his, and the kids drank theirs, and this was the most delicious water they ever drank.
He showed them how to use forks and eat out of a bowl, and they had a wonderful meal. Everyone thought it was the best meal they ever had.
After their bellies were full and the sun started falling, the kids started getting sleepy. The man brought them back to his hut, and let the kids lay on a really soft floor and took out his musical instrument and played songs till the kids fell asleep. After they fell asleep, the Paul and their mother got to know each other better.
Chapter 10 June AD 71 Marriage at first sight
Paul was expecting a return visit from the African tribe sooner rather than later, so he wasn't willing to go very far. As excited as those boys had been about seeing his iron, Paul figured he best go ahead and turn all his pyrite into iron, and then turn that iron into bars. It would save him a lot of time once he figured out what the people wanted him to forge it into.
It took him an entire day to turn all the pyrite he had into iron, and he had a lot of unsightly lumps of iron, so three days after those boys came, he had the furnace going, and he was banging away on the iron.
All-day, all you heard from his hill was "ting, ting, ting" Paul thought that with all this hammer swinging, he would have some pretty big arms soon… then realized that without meat, it was going to be hard. Thankfully he grew a lot of beans; otherwise, his lack of protein would really be hurting him at this point. Maybe one of those kids who brought him that antelope could show him how to hunt.
With all the excitement about those young villagers, he had forgotten all about the antelope carcass until it started smelling yesterday. Well, it's not like he had a good way to preserve the meat. If Paul remembered right, smoking meat only allowed meat to be preserved for a few days, although you could salt meat and have it last a lot longer. If only Paul had access to more salt.
Paul just kept hammering until late in the day, when between his hammer swings, he heard voices. Paul figured its time to meet more of the neighbors and walked out. He stepped out and saw a couple of adults, and of all things, three children. As his eyes adjusted, he noticed that it was one of the adolescent boys he met three days prior and a… naked girl.
Paul averted his gaze and thought to himself, "not a girl, she is definitely grown, but still pretty young. If her parents catch me with her, when she is clearly naked they will not be happy with me. Well, not totally naked, she has a grass skirt or the like on, but nearly naked."
At that moment, Paul went into his shelter and grabbed a purple shirt for the girl. It was the closest thing to a girl's color he had. He kept his gaze somewhat averted as he came out to greet them. He opened up the purple shirt and delicately put it over her torso. Everyone in their party looked confused. Paul decided to show them how a shirt worked. But he had to unbutton his shirt and take it off first.
That's when the children started screaming and ran away. Paul was dumbfounded. What is so scary about taking a shirt off? Paul thought, "Y'all run around nearly naked, why is seeing my chest so scary?" But at least the two older ones were not screaming and running away.
Paul lifted up his shirt and pointed at the purple shirt and hoped they would see the shirts are the same. Then he slowly started putting his arm through the hole and motioned for the girl to do the same. She started coping him, and before long, they both hade their shirts on.
That's when Paul realized that he was experiencing culture shock. In his time being seen with a girl like that might get him arrested, although she was likely a lot older than she looked since improper diet tended to make people small and tiny. But Paul didn't feel bad getting the girl in a shirt, considering all the bugs, in Africa, that can kill you with a bite. He probably just added years to that girl's life.
While Paul was contemplating that, he noticed the girl and boy started talking. Paul thought to himself, "Aww they are boyfriend and girlfriend, isn't that cute." Then he saw the boy take the girls hand. Paul smirked at that and thought, "Public display of affection. don't let daddy see that." Then the boy took the girl's hand and put it in his his……"
Paul thought, "What?"
Then the boy pointed at them then pointed at Paul's shelter. Then he pointed at them and at the shelter, a couple of more times. And slowly, Paul thought, "Did I just get married?" and as soon as that thought hit his brain, the adolescent boy walked off. And then she kissed him.
And then it hit him again. Paul was no longer in America or even in the twenty-first century. Then a memory of Lewis and Clark came across his brain. On their expedition, they couldn't speak to the Indians, but one of the men married an Indian woman who translated for them, even though they could not talk to each other when they first got married or something like that. They must want to be able to talk to him because he made iron! That has to be it, and this girl he married will teach him the language. But why her?
Then those kids came back. Paul thought to himself, "They were not with the boy; they were with this girl. No wonder the village gave her to me, she had to take care of her siblings. I bet her parents died, and none of the villagers are willing to marry her because they would have to take care of her siblings."
That's when the kids hugged him out of now where. And then they noticed they could get their hands under his shirt, and they started feeling under there and looking at his skin and touching him. They were fascinated. Paul smiled, he bet these kids have never seen a white man before. To a certain degree, Paul was happy those adolescents didn't act the same way. It would be really weird to have twelve to fourteen-year old's touching your skin just cause they never saw that skin color before.
One of them started touching his shoe, so Paul lifted his foot off the ground, and as the kid played with it more, Paul's shoe came off. And then everyone started screaming. They were terrified. Paul couldn't help it; he started laughing. Who would ever think a shoe was terrifying, but it scarred these people so much!
Paul fell on the ground, laughing and started rolling. He couldn't help himself. They were all screaming because of a shoe. Oh, the looks on their faces!
After a little while, Paul stopped laughing, and they calmed down. He grabbed his shoe, put it back on his feet, and after that, the kids seemed awfully nervous. But Paul was in a great mood now. Its been too long since he laughed like that.
Paul took them up to his smithy and had them sit on the bench. He had to show them how to sit on the bench like the other boys who came a few days ago, but at least they were fast learners.
He put his pot on the furnace and began boiling water. Then he got out his tomatoes, herbs, a couple of vegetables, and chapped them up. Paul didn't have enough tomatoes or experience yet to make a great sauce, but he could probably do something that would work well enough tonight.
Then Paul made his dough and put on a show for them. He started swinging the dough around, elongating it, then he twisted it together, and elongated it, and twisted over and over again until he had a bunch of noodles. Paul learned this trick when he was on a long project in china. Once the noodles were thin enough, he cut them in half and put everything in the pot that was now filled with boiling water.
Since they had time to kill until supper was ready, Paul decided to start his language lesson by pointing at himself and saying, "Paul." It took a couple of tries, but they figured out what he was doing pretty quickly.
Paul found out his wife's name is Chazia, and the children's names are Eulalia (which turned out to be a girl to Paul's surprise, girls that age look just like boys), Badru, and Dashiell. Paul figured out what a couple of more words meant before the food was ready. He was glad once the food was prepared, as he didn't think he would be able to remember any of their words.
He took out some bowls he made and put food in it and set it before everyone. Then he took the water that was still in the pot and poured it into some cups. It was still hot, but that just met the microbes were dead and not going to give them dysentery. He blew onto the hot drink until it was cool and took a sip showing them how to drink hot… well, broth. Then Paul showed them how to use a fork, and they had a nice quiet supper.
Afterward, he took them into his shelter and put the kids on the mattress and started playing Silent Night on his guitar because it was the most lullaby-like song he knew off the top of his head. Once they were asleep, he got to know his wife better.
Chapter 11 September AD 71 African Family
Since June, Paul had been working hard. His new family's health was his first concern, so at the bottom of the hill, he made a simple bathhouse. He had three kids, so he figured they could carry water from a nearby stream to the tub to fill it up. Afterwards, he had a cork at the bottom of the tub that could be taken out and let the water seep into the ground. To get the water hot, he chose to do what the Japanese do. Put rocks in a fire, and when they get hot, add them to your bath. The new bathhouse only took a week to build, and after showing his wife how the bath worked, he bathed with the boys, and she bathed with the girl.
Drinking clean water is necessary for health. Without wells or water treatment faculties, the only way to get clean water is to boil it. To encourage that he started raiding the tea trees that were basically sprouts at this point. He had dozens of them, but he hoped none died, as you are not supposed to start harvesting from tea trees until they are two years old, but a tea leaf here and there shouldn't hurt too much. Paul required his family to only drink water after it boiled in the tea, or in a broth when he cooked. They liked the tea, but at times he caught the children being too lazy to go and get the boiled water, and he spanked them and made them get boiled water.
After a few weeks of marriage, he learned the language well enough to tell his wife that you can not get sick from boiled water, as long as the water was still hot, but unboiled water or water that was cooled off, sometimes had bad things in it that gave you diarrhea. During the conversation, Chazia said she had noticed that neither she nor the children had had stomach issues since they came. She thought it was his magic but was surprised it was the boiled water.
It took about two weeks for Paul to toilet train his wife, and a month or so on the children. Truth be told, it only took that long due to the language barrier and the reality that they had never done anything remotely like defecate in a specific spot away from their home. It took a while to get to the place where he could explain that the body was releasing stuff that could make you sick, and so they needed to keep it away from their home and keep from touching it.
Paul was pleasantly surprised to learn that his wife made thread and knew how to weave it. She made the thread by twisting fibrous plants together and wrapped them around a stick. Paul had a faint recollection that this was called a distaff. She was making thread because she was unhappy with the metal barrel Paul had used as a door. She was making a cloth to hang in the doorway as a cloth was easier to move than a metal barrel.
After she put it up, he saw the need to clothe the children, so he cut it in half and made a shirt for the girl. Chazia was not happy that her door hanging was used to make a shirt, but by now, Paul had enough grasp of the language to explain that it was more important to cloth the children than have the door hanging as many bugs could make them sick. Chazia was still not happy, but Paul would explain more in time as he better understood the language.
With a family landing in his lap, he had to have a bigger and nicer place to live. He built a log cabin. Chazia was a hard worker and helped a lot, although most of the work fell squarely on Paul's shoulders. Paul figured this would be a long-term home, so he did his best to build this right, unlike his shelter at the top of the hill. He dug several holes, built a wheelbarrow because it allowed him to move large rocks to those holes, then he put logs straight up out of those holes, making his foundation. Where the foundation logs where vertical, Paul put horizontal logs as his frame, built a floor on top of that, and then built the walls, some rooms, and finally a roof. The roof was made with a layer of logs, and then a layer of clay tiles put on top of the logs.
The log cabin ended up being twelve hundred square feet, with a fireplace for cooking. Paul's family was astonished by how large it was. And the kids were amazed they got their own rooms. Paul still had some ropes from the seed vault, and so he made some hanging beds for the children. The kids thought they were way more comfortable than the ground, but Paul was just happy they were sleeping off the floor and out of reach of bugs and snakes.
Chazia was irritated when Paul started raiding her thread until he showed her a small screen. It was about half a foot by half afoot. He stuck a bunch of those together to make a window that the bugs could not get through. Paul decided to make the screens small so that they were stronger in the center of the screen, and if one broke, it would be easier to replace a small one than a large one. The screens were awesome; they let in light and breezes while keeping bugs and critters out.
Paul even made a couple of hinges with the iron. Then he made a screen door out of 72 of the little screens. Chazia was thrilled! A screen door was far better than any hanging cloth.
During the last few months, Paul made a point to teach his family the most important song in the world, the ABC song. At first, they didn't get it, but he sang it enough that the kids started following along with him, and eventually, his wife did too. As he learned the language, he learned that there were no words to express what reading was in their language, but he did his best to show them.
When they got the song down pat Paul made a game where he would draw out the letters and asking for them to find the letters. He still had a lot of things from the seed vault, and nearly everything had letters on it. They would search all over for something with that letter and whoever found the letter first won the round! Pretty soon, they remembered what the letters looked like, so he didn't have to draw them anymore, just had to say the name of the letter, and off they went and found something with the letter on it.
Then he started the process of teaching them what noises the letters made. That took a bit longer as they had no concept of reading at all, much less phonics. The first word he got Eulalia to sound out was mkate, which means bread. He would have done girl, but it's a super long word in their language. She was so excited once she discovered the secret! With the boys, he got them to sound out the word mtu, or man. Once they figured it out, they were stoked. His wife figured out the trick last.
The kids needed things to read, and he had a lot of paper and notebooks leftover from the seed vault so after the kids went to sleep he stayed up late telling his wife stories of his homeland, like the boy who cried wolf, David and Goliath, the turtle and the hare, and she helped him put it into their language. Then he drew pictures alongside the words. Paul didn't have many books, so he made them sound out the words and figure out the story themselves.
As Paul and his wife got closer, Paul finally found out her story. She wasn't the children's older sister. She was their mother. Paul broke down crying when she told him that she had her daughter at eleven. When she told him lots of girls have children even younger than her, Paul's heart broke. Paul asked her how many girls die giving birth, and Chazia said about a third of girls die giving birth to their first child, but it's a lot less after that.
She told Paul how her first husband had died of the sleeping sickness, and Paul told her the sleeping sickness comes from a fly that lands on people. Paul decided to tell her it poisoned them, although Paul was sure the fly let in a type of parasite. Paul didn't tell her about a parasite because that might have made her think a parasite was a spirit.
Paul told her that he had them wearing clothing because the fly could only poison them where their skin was exposed, which prompted Chazia to make more clothes for everyone. Paul instructed her on how to make a set of gi pants like martial artists wore in karate classes. That type of pants had an extra layer of cloth so you could have a full range of motion with your legs. She made shirts with long sleeves and even made a type of hat for everyone. She was so worried about their feet being exposed to this fly that Paul went ahead and harvested from his rubber tree way early, killing the tree, but he harvested enough rubber for shoes. Then Paul used sulfur, from his large stockpile, to make vulcanized rubber 1800 years earlier than they did in the last timeline so he could make rubber-soled shoes for the children, and Chazia.
