Down on Baay Waly's Farm

Written on July 14th, 2010

Since the rains really started to fall at the end of June almost everyday my compound empties out from about 8:30 am to 12:30 pm as everyone goes to work in the fields. In my village the main crops are groundnuts and coos (a type of millet-like grain). For the first few weeks only Baay Waly and the boys went to plow and sow the seeds but now that seedlings are beginning to pop up everyone goes out to weed and hoe. Today that included me.
Now that school has finished I'm much less busy with health lessons and peer health club meetings so why not spend the morning "working the land"?

Baay Waly's coos fields are about 1/2 kilometer outside of KJJ so after breakfast Yaay Amie and I walked into the bush. Once at the fields we all spent the morning bent over at the waist weeding and thinning the coos. For the record coos and grass/weeds looks exactly the same so in my mind this was not an easy process. As usual I was quickly deemed slow and incompetent so my host brother Ous had to lead me up and down the rows saying "Ramatoulie start here." While Alhagie walked beside me assessing and correcting my work. "Ramatoulie, get rid of this. Leave this. Reduce this. NO!!! Don't get rid of that, that's coos"

It was a beautiful day with a blue blue sky, white white clouds and green green fields and trees. I realize that I had the luxury of reveling in all this beauty because I will not be going to work in the fields everyday for the next few months. But nevertheless it was a nice day to be out in the bush.

We worked for about three hours pausing every so often to squat in the shade. After about an hour consensus was reached that I knew how to farm. Phew! I was relieved to know that at least for today I was considered a productive member of the family. After three hours of running after Ous I was told that I needed to rest and was sent to collect bissap leaves for the sauce for lunch. Upon returning I found some very antsy host siblings sitting in the shade of the donkey cart, so what's a good toubab to do? Teach them a song of course! So I proceeded to translate and sing "Old McDonald had a farm" in Wolof. The "eeyah-eeyah-oh!" was every ones favorite part and Yaay Amie even joined in the fun at one point doing a killer impression of a goat. So that was my day on Baay Waly's farm.