Wednesday, October 22, 2008
"Tuubaaku wadi tayre"
3:12 pm |
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"The white person is harvesting!" These words rang out in the village of Mondé Sô as I endeavored to help my friend, Lobbo, harvest some of his millet. It's not a familiar sight to see an Englishman out in the field making his ears go redder than usual and getting his hands dirty. All some folk could do was laugh as they weren't quite sure in what other way to express their astonishment. I don't think it helped by my rather unorthodox method of cutting millet stalks. My preferred tool was a machete, rather than using the short sharp blade which had the potential of removing ones fingers if one was unskilled in this area, of which a certainly was (unskilled that is).
Often when asking whether the harvest is good or not I tend to get a rather guarded response as they like to leave a little room for the possibility of future help later on in the year as grain stocks run low. It is quite evident, however, that this year's harvest was not going to be great with the rains having been very stop start. The rains began very early, but then stopped for a month and then started again causing people to plant twice rather than just the once. Nevertheless, by mid August folk seemed unusually optimistic as the rains had been a little more consistent, but then at the start of September the taps were turned off and people's crops were left to dry out yielding a minimal crop.
We are now in mid October, and over the past few days we have seen over 40mm of rain fall in Djibo which is highly unusual this late on. Sadly these late rains will only serve to cause more loss of crops, for once the millet dries out the wind that accompanies the rains will just nock the crops down leaving the heads rotting in the mud. To add insult to injury this year has seen large swarms of birds making a meal of people's already waning food supply for the following year. From most quarters the message is clear this year. People are going to suffer.
Often when asking whether the harvest is good or not I tend to get a rather guarded response as they like to leave a little room for the possibility of future help later on in the year as grain stocks run low. It is quite evident, however, that this year's harvest was not going to be great with the rains having been very stop start. The rains began very early, but then stopped for a month and then started again causing people to plant twice rather than just the once. Nevertheless, by mid August folk seemed unusually optimistic as the rains had been a little more consistent, but then at the start of September the taps were turned off and people's crops were left to dry out yielding a minimal crop.
We are now in mid October, and over the past few days we have seen over 40mm of rain fall in Djibo which is highly unusual this late on. Sadly these late rains will only serve to cause more loss of crops, for once the millet dries out the wind that accompanies the rains will just nock the crops down leaving the heads rotting in the mud. To add insult to injury this year has seen large swarms of birds making a meal of people's already waning food supply for the following year. From most quarters the message is clear this year. People are going to suffer.
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About Me
- The Gibsons on-line
- I live in Burkina Faso with my wife, Cheryl, and three children and have not yet found a house for us to live in and I work amongst the Fulani people.
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