A new pot maker is born

A year of failing. The next year Arenla took Sentila to the riverbank. She taught her to dig the clay with a dao, carry it home, soak it and pound it. Sentila learnt all that quickly, but she could not shape a pot. For almost a year she tried and failed, while her mother silently watched and then made the pot herself. Sentila felt frustrated and ashamed.

Onula's help. By custom, Sentila was sent to stay some nights in a girls' dormitory, supervised by a kind, middle-aged widow the girls called Onula ('Aunty'). Onula knew about the family's troubles. One evening she found Sentila practising alone, saw that she was far too tense, and showed her how to relax and work. Sentila made a beautiful pot, but Onula said the mouth was not right, and told her to watch her mother shaping it.

Watching closely. In the next session Sentila noticed everything: how Arenla held her left hand and the spatula, how she slowed down for the mouth, and how she added a strip of dough for the rim.

The last day. One sunny day, Arenla made a batch quickly, said she had a headache and backache, and left Sentila to carry on alone. Sentila found her rhythm. Like a sprinter who suddenly finds momentum, she made pot after pot with the same speed and dexterity (skill) as her mother: just one short of her mother's number.

A new pot maker is born. When she went in for lunch, Arenla lay still on the floor; she had died. As the body was carried away, Sentila cried out: Mother, I did not wish it to happen this way. It simply came to me. Please forgive me. Only Onula understood. In the shed she found two rows of pots that could not be told apart, the work of two pairs of hands. A new pot maker was born.