Did you all know it is peanut
harvesting season in Senegal?!?! Very exciting for me because it
involves a new variety of snacks. My favorite is fresh ,
roasted peanuts. So fresh I first pull up the plant out of the
ground, carry it home and give it to my sister who then gets some hot
coals ready while I individually pull the peanuts off of the plant. Ever had peanuts that fresh? Delicious.
It is almost worth going to the fields
for this perfect snack. Peanut farming is tough work!!!! The actual process pre-harvesting is long and extensive so I will save you from hearing about that until another time. But, if you are interested, here is what it takes once the
plants are ready for harvesting.
First, the woman have to hire men (4
dollars a day) to 'tiga jaxuu' or go around with a hoe and dig around
the plants, pulling up the roots. I tried to dig up one plant and was
sweating sooo much, took me about 5 minutes while my mom does it in
30 seconds. But still, this is man's work so the woman have to hire
men to do most of it.
I had 2 wonderful American university
students from Dakar visit me and while they were here we helped with
the next step of peanut farming- 'tiga nekelo' or the gathering of
the plants into large piles. For them, it was an eye opening
experience and were very impressed as I did all of the work,
WHILE carrying a baby on my back. (I was impressed with myself as
well.)
The next step is 'tiga tiumbo' where
you comb through the dirt to pick up individual peanuts that had
fallen off of the plant and are a individually hiding in the dirt. After 2 hours
of this my neck was killing me from leaning over and preforming this
tedious task. Following this, the smaller peanut plant piles are
collected and placed into larger peanut plant piles. Then people hit
the piles with sticks, making most of the shells fall off.
I am not totally sure what happens
after this step... but I am guessing that is the point when the
majority of the peanuts get brought back to the village on a donkey
drawn cart. Once in village women wash the shells with water
(tiga kuu), crack open the shells (tiga woto), toss the peanuts to
separate the shell and the peanut (tigo tofe), sort through the
peanuts for the bad vs. good ones, and FINALLY go to the market to
sell them.
Sound exhausting? Think about that next
time you snack on some peanuts while watching TV or eat a PB sandwich
(oh dont even get me started on how many more steps it takes to make
PB). But I must say, I am very glad I am in a peanut producing
culture because at least I get some protein from them and can never be sick of eating too many peanutst!!
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