Harvest

The "recolte" or the harvest is gathering momentum. Donkey carts leave town each morning with laborers of all ages bound for the surrounding fields. Each family has their plot that has been passed down by family lineage, so like our properties, they know very well the boundaries that mark their fields. Huge sacks bulge with the grains winnowed from their cane like stalks and excess is sold to the government stock warehouse. This is sold to those who don’t have fields. In a big family or if you are orphaned, not everyone gets a "champ" (field) handed down to them and they must make a living another way or rent a field from a friend or pay someone to herd a flock of goats for you and spend your days driving vehicles for NGO's (like my driver).
Friday's market was obviously swollen with the harvest in progress. Almost exclusively sorghum and millet. Other veggies are potatoes, yams and "traditional potatoes" which are hearty and a satisfying sweet. Melon types are also grown here, like summer squash, watermelon, cucumbers. I think the tomatoes come from Nigeria. Beans are the other local crop and are dried and stored like the grains in beehive shaped buildings with a pointy thatched roof. Each family has one to store their winter food safely from the birds.

P.S. You might be surprised how much the fields here resemble the fields of drying corn at home. Here they harvest the grains off the top, and the stalks are made into fences and buildings and roof covers, to replace the decrepit ones from the previous year's harvest.