“You will never learn,” my mama said to me.

She sat me down at the kitchen table with a sack of potatoes and a paring knife and told me to get busy.

But I did learn. So did she.

Never make a kid mad and then hand him a knife.

Joe Malone is living with a Wora woman and her three sisters in South Sudan. Read more of his writing at joem18b.wordpress.com.