December, it's planting season. Our community development work is winding down a little. Y and I are focusing on administrative odds and ends, the garden, and studying.
The rains have come, half the village have retreated to their ancestral lands in the hills south of Vatunau to plant maize and groundnuts. Over the next two months to the harvest, many will remain to weed, and to fend off the gangs of delinquent monkeys that would gleefully eat or tear through the entire plantation.
This crop is critical. There is no irrigation system, so dependence on the seasonal rain allows only two planting cycles between November and April. Vatunau lives off this harvest for the remaining half of the year.
I'm winding down too. It's been a challenge to remain awake and productive through the day. The oppressive heat and humidity is sucking the life right out of me. We haven't had electricity for a week, so midday activity grinds to a standstill as we collectively bake outdoors or marinate in sweat indoors. And if it's too hot to work in the day, it's too dark to work at night. The unholy hordes of bugs that congregate around the smallest of lights make study by candlelight an intimidating prospect.
-raj
2 comments:
Speaking about coffee.. Have you got the second shipment I sent you? (Ok, not a shipment, a parcel ;) PS: You don't have to wait til Christmas to open it. Hope it has arrived safely with the rest of the Christmas goodies! :)
don't we all :). don't you get some from dili? i remember getting some from the back of an old factory the last time..
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