The year of bountiful harvest
After experiencing one year of drought and famine in Malawi, It has been exciting for everyone to have a second consecutive season with consistent rains and a bountiful harvest. As 90% of the population are subsistence farmers who rely on the annual harvest of maize for their year supply of food, maize is treated with great respect and seriousness. Nsima (maize porridge) is eaten with every meal, and tobwa (maize beer) accompanies every village ceremony. In a typical village setting, everything revolves around maize.
Since I have been in Malawi, I too have become slowly obsessed with maize. While I am still not a huge fan of the bland mushy texture of nsima, what fascinates me is the great amount of time and effort put in by the average person into growing maize, and the numerous environmental challenges faced in order to secure a decent harvest.
Starting in November each year, everyone is busy preparing their fields. Starting at the crack of dawn, men, women and children are clearing and plowing their fields by hand with rudimentary hoes, and forming ridges in the hard packed depleted soil. This back breaking work takes an average family 3 -4 weeks to prepare an average of 1 acre of land. By December, the land is generally prepared, and everyone eekes out the last of their savings to buy seed, and eagerly waits for the rain. Rain dances and rituals are performed around the country in great anticipation.
After the first heavy rain fall, everyone rushes back to the field and plants seeds, and hopes that the rains will continue, before their seeds shrivel up and die. If they are lucky, and the rains continue, after the maize starts to sprout, the farmers take out loans and buy fertilizers to spread over their gardens. Fertilizers are now necessary due to the poor quality of the soil, which never lays fallow to regenerate. The rest of the rainy season (December to March) is spent weeding the field daily, and praying for more rain, yet not too much rain as maize seeds are also easily suseptible to drought.At the same time, farmers continue to go into more debt as more money is sought to buy the second application of fertilizer, and many times insecticide for their fields.
By April, the tune of the rain dancers and prayer warriors change to prayers of sunshine, to dry out the maize and cob and prevent rotting. When the maize is appropriately dried, the farmers and their families spend long days harvesting their maize, and transporting it (generally by foot, and by bicycle if lucky) back to their homes.
Jim and I were asked by a friend of ours if he could use our truck to help transport his harvested maize from his field back to his home, which was about 7 kms from his house. So on Easter Monday, we spent the day painstakingly harvesting by hand an acre of maize with Thomas, Aurelia and their four young children, and his brothers in the blazing sun. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, sun burnt, with blistered hands and chafed skin on my arms from the plants. To Thomas and his kids, it was just another average day in the field. To me, it was but a small taste of the large amounts of time and physical labour expended in order for them to get their daily "bread". 
It took us 3 truckloads of maize (about 1 ton) back and forth to Thomas' house to get all the cobs transported to his house. To us, the job was done, but to them, it was just another small step in the process. Next, Thomas and the kids will spend every evening for the next few weeks removing the kernels from the maize cob by hand.
After that long process, the maize will be further dried out in the sun on straw mats, before being taken to the maize mill, where it is ground up in to ufa (maize flour), then stored into bags (sprinkled with insectide) as food stock for the whole year. Every day for the next year, Aurelia will buy a few sticks of wood from the local vendor, then fetch water from the water point 500 m away, then boil the ufa with water, mixing furiously to make a batch of nsima for her familys meal. The nsima will be accompanied with relish (relish means anything from eggs, beans, cabbage, vegetables and a bit of meat when lucky), and served to Thomas first, to the kids second, and finally any leftovers for herself.
While Jim and I participated in just a small step in the whole process of growing and harvesting maize, it made me appreciate how much time and WORK the average Malawian puts into getting their daily meal. The simple fact that Malawians still hoe thier fields by hand (instead of with animals or tractors), and rely on unpredicatable rain fall (as opposed to simple irrigation technologies) demonstrates how much still needs to be achieved in terms of development.
Nsima with relish, enjoy!
posted by Tess and Jim O @ 12:11 PM
2 Comments:
I don't think we could ever imagine what it would be like to have to work like that for a meal. I will think about that next time i think Lipton sidekicks take too long cause I'm hungry NOW.
oh , and what a lovely malawian manicure you have there tess!
Post a Comment
<< Home