The Daily Grind

Farming goes on daily, which means lots of bending over at the waist for weeding. Just yesterday my host brothers and sisters and I finished up on my host dad's big peanut field, so they were feeling pretty good. I spent a blessedly cool afternoon weeding in a few other people's fields, just to keep busy. Though it's hard on the back, there is something inherently relaxing about monotonous physical labor; you can let your mind wander and you complete the repetitive task, row by row, back and forth across the field. I am getting better at it, my body slowly growing accustomed to straining different muscles, but I still lag far behind most everybody when we're farming. There have been three good rains this past week, so the soil is heavy and damp. The crops look really good for the most part. Some of the corn is stringy, because the soil is not rich enough to support it, and farmers didn't add fertilizer (probably most could not afford to buy it) but the peanuts are thick and growing taller - they are the priority crop in this area - and the millet is puffing out into thick, many-tillered bushes. Hard to believe just a few weeks ago it looked like tender blades of grass, scattered tenuously around a huge brown field. Now you can't see the ground in most places, for the concentration of sprawling millet leaves. Cowpeas are so far the most satisfying crop for me to watch. They're so quick to mature, one farmer already has green pods starting to develop! We'll be cooking beans in no time.