Harvest

I realise that my usual flow of Blog posts has dwindled recently. This is due to a couple of things. One is the internet connection has been dreadful recently and secondly, I have been busy with harvesting!

The amazing maize is now spread out and drying in Louisa’s yard under the watchful eye of her mother. Once dry and stripped from the cobs it will be ground and ready for use. There will be TZ and Banku enough to feed the population of Ghana!

We were waiting until it was dry enough to pick and that seemed to coincide with the weekend. The school children did a wonderful job on Friday afternoon whilst we were at a Headteachers’ meeting. As the closing prayers were being offered a procession of girls appeared across the park laden with bowls of corn cobs, all heading for my garage. Load after load were tipped into the corner until we had a veritable mountain. 

You would not believe the weights these girls can carry, and over a distance too. I tried it later, the bowl, nowhere near as full, was so heavy I managed to haul it about 30 metres and my arms ached by then, not to mention my neck!

It all stayed in the garage over the weekend waiting for the truck to transport it to Jirapa.

Meanwhile we scoured the devastated field searching for missed cobs. There were plenty. We filled a couple of bowls on Friday evening and another on Saturday morning. Once the locals think you have finished your harvest, it is a free for all! Anyone can come in and chance their luck. I’m fairly sure there was little to be found. Mind you, people are cheeky enough to help themselves, under cover of darkness or even in broad daylight, before the harvest starts.

We are doing a few calculations now to see whether the whole farming business has been financially worthwhile. When the sacks of flour can be counted and we know the going rate, our profits can be counted……. or not!