During the dry season, all of the unmarried men and women meet every Thursday morning to sweep the town. Its called Sate Fito- or town sweep. They tackle all the main streets, and a few side ones. The trash and leaves they sweep up will eventually blow back in by the time the next week rolls around, but thats okay. After breakfast someone will go through town with a whistle that notifies everybody to meet in the center of town and start work. The men carry rakes, and the women bring brooms, dustpans, and buckets to put the trash in. The men go first and rake everything into piles, then the women come behind, sweep up the piles and take them out of town. Since the rain started, all of the work has been on the farm, so no one was around and the tradition kind of dies down for a while. With the rains though, also come alot of weeds. So the edges of all the paths in town were grown over in grass. After all the fields are plowed, planted, and then weeded there is a little break from farming while plants mature and people gather their strength for the harvest. It also is a little time to catch back up on town chores. On this day all the men, married or not, went through the whole town weeding. Sate Baro it was called. It was the week before Tobaski, the biggest holiday here. We had a fresh town to celebrate on. Our compound is at the far end of town, once people reach our door they are done for the day. Consequently, the job is not always super thorough, but the town looks nice.
