The neighbour's axe

It seemed to be difficult to buy the specific tools we wanted to use for our new garden. Until yesterday, we had managed to dig the holes for the plants with wooden sticks and straighten the soil with an old half broken rake. One of the guards found it enough and went to the neighbour to ask if he had one or two tools we could use. This particular friendly neighbour lives right next to our building, in our back garden so to say. His house is actually a small hut made of a few twigs, carpets and plastic. Interestingly, he has given the priority to a big flat screen satellite TV, instead of reconstructing his home and open-air toilet. But anyway, this neighbour was very willing to lend out his axe for our garden activities. In exchange for borrowing the axe, the neighbour asked if we could provide him with some electricity and water. We agreed on this ‘deal’. It was a very solid (self-made-) axe which proved to be very useful for digging. While we were working and sweating in the evening sun, a few children from our area came to our gate. They were very curious to see us work, but they also came to ask if they could borrow the neighbor’s axe for 5 minutes. This axe seemed to be popular! We really wanted to finish our work before sunset and while saying so, the children happily came into the garden and helped us with planting the remaining grass. After this ‘group activity’, the children left with smiling faces while carrying the axe with them. This precious axe clearly seems to cut both ways: it provides our neighbour a source of natural income and it has surely proven to be a good garden help for the people around!