Grass and Feet

A Story in Which I Play the Fool, and There Are Consequences

 

            I winced as I walked, trying to Not Think about the searing, pricking, itching pain in my feet. I wasn’t very successful. The grass around us was gorgeous, golden grains rustling in the wind, much like that scene in Nausica, Valley of the Wind. Birds and bugs flitted around in it, judging by the cud, cows stamped through it too. I watched in awe as Rambol, our Datoga guide, led us through the grass gracefully and unflinchingly. He ignored the pricks of the grasses against his bare legs, and as they stuck in his cloth. He even seemed to ignore most of the acacia thorns, ranging from a half centimeter to two and a half inches.

            I was the only other one without long leg coverings at this point; everyone else had zipped on their long pants, or pulled on their gaiters. I didn’t have any left. The only pair of long pants I had brought on this part of the trip was already full of prickers. I was not subjecting my legs to that, regardless of how nice it would be to have another layer between me and the sticky, pricky grass. I really couldn’t wait until I was out of it and could paint its beauty without having to deal with its sharp reality.

            We walked through the grass for hours. Anywhere between three and six hours is my guesstimate. At this point we had given up asking exactly how long until we were out of the atrocious grass and bushes. Don never had an accurate answer; it seemed he’d always moved through this section with much more ease than we were. Then again, he admitted he usually came after the cows had come through, decimating most of the grass.

            At some point the pricking and itching became background pain, and I stopped feeling it so much. When I realized this, I felt like Pocahontas, like I could run fast and furious through the sharp weeds without a care in the world. And I did, gathering seeds in my shoes and socks, and marks up and down my legs from where the thorns stabbed me as I ran.

            Then I stopped running, because I had caught up with the group. Eventually we sat down for lunch, swapping food like in Elementary school. I immediately regretted my Pocahontas impersonation as I tugged thick patches of seeds from my socks and shoes after finishing lunch. But there was more fields to walk through, and by the end of the day, I was a weepy mess. I had slept with my shoes and socks on the night before, trying to avoid the pain of taking them off, and wasting my expensive socks. A really stupid decision, but at the time, I didn’t think it would cause more pain later.

            The shoes and socks were gently peeled off, and I fully admit there were tears involved. I aired out my battered ankles, still full of seed threads. That night I soaked my feet in a bucket of warm water, while Mohammed was heating already heating water for showers. It stung and then felt incredible, but I have no idea how much it helped. I went to bed with seed threads in my feet, irritating my red, slightly puffy skin every time they rubbed the smooth sleeping bad fabric. It took the rest of the trip for the threads to fully work themselves out, and my feet weren’t fully healed until a week after I returned to the states.

            Next time I’ll bring gaiters… and those weird zippy pants.

 
Update: I still haven't figured out how to get the grass out of my shoes (or the socks, those were tossed after much huffing).