How They Harvest Peanuts and Make Peanut Butter

Peanuts are planted at the beginning of the rainy season, from mid-June to early July.  The fields are cultivated with the short-handled all-purpose tool called a daba, from its name in the Dioula language predominant in the western part of Burkina Faso.  It can be a hoe, a shovel or an axe, and it is most often employed in the bent-over (oh, my aching back!) position that is used for most jobs, from weeding to washing dishes, to be referred to hereafter in this blog as “the Position.”

A Burkinabe 'security system' (their words, not
mine) watches over the peanut field.  The innards
of a calabash are purported to ward off thieves. 

In early to mid-October the peanuts are ready to be harvested.  Women assume the Position to pull the peanut plants out of the ground, shake off the sandy red soil, and pile armloads of plants in the fields.  The kids then come out with bushel-sized or larger aluminum or plastic tubs, and fill them with the bundled plants to carry home on their heads. Often the filled tub is taller than the child.

This field is nearby, just behind our courtyard.

In our case, we harvested the peanuts of both families in our courtyard, along with those of two other families in the area.  Everyone (except the men and older boys, of course) gathered under the trees outside our courtyard to pull the peanuts off the plants.  Kids traded off carrying tubs of plants to dump at our feet and joining in the peanut-plucking. 

While tearing peanuts from the roots, you can eat as many as you want.  They aren’t all that tasty at this stage, though, and difficult to shell, but the kids consume quite a few.  I put in a good three hours under the trees, listening to the women gossip (I’m assuming that’s what they were doing), and laugh, and holler at the kids, and laugh some more.  They also rocked and breast fed the babies while plucking peanuts. The plucked plants went back in the tubs and onto kids’ heads to be dumped back out in the fields as fodder for the roving cattle and goats.  The peanuts themselves went home with their owners for the next step in the process:  drying.

It takes about a week of lying in a single layer in the hot sun for the peanuts to be dry enough to store.  The girls come out early in the morning to spread the peanuts on tarps or simply on the ground.  This has to be done after sweeping the courtyard with a handle-less broom, starting a fire, and hauling and heating water for the families’ bucket baths, and before washing, eating and leaving for school (which starts at 7 a.m. for high school and 7:30 a.m. for the younger kids).  In the evening, and any time there’s a threat of rain, all of the peanuts have to be swept up and piled into tubs and sacks and taken indoors.

During the harvest, people are very generous with their bounty.  Several of the kids I’ve been helping in small ways brought me sacks of peanuts, claiming they were “for you from my mom.”  On my way to school one morning, a family returning from the field with a donkey cart piled high with peanut plants shouted, "Nipela! Please take some peanuts!  We have plenty!"  If you see an acquaintance or are introduced to someone on the street, chances are he’ll pull several handfuls of peanuts out of his pockets and force them on you.  Walking, talking and eating raw peanuts.  It’s what you do.  The ground is littered with peanut shells wherever you look.  At least this is biodegradable litter.

Sometimes you’ll see a big mound of peanut shells, which indicates that someone is going to roast them and sell them in little 25 f bags at the market, or make peanut butter.  The shelling process calls for another communal, or at least family, gathering.  Each little shell is cracked and emptied by hand.  These are not your big ol’ ballpark peanuts; they are the size of Lesieur tiny peas, extra fine, and only rarely will you find three in one shell.

                   

Pretty in pink party dresses, perfect
for processing peanuts.

The next step is roasting.  You sit by a wood or charcoal fire, continually stirring the peanuts in a marmite, until the desired degree of roasting is attained, and then you turn them out onto a tarp to cool, and loosen the blackened papery skins.  Tossing the nuts and skins repeatedly in a shallow basket will separate the skins from the nuts.  At this point, I figured they would pound the nutmeats into a paste in a big mortar, but when I asked, lo and behold, the answer was, “No, we take them to the mill to be ground.”  Transport to and from the mill is, of course, on one of the girls’ heads, but there is at least this one mechanized step in the process. No oil or sugar is added.  This is the real thing.

There are several peanut butter vendors at the market.  They spoon their brown goo into small plastic bags.  It’s normally sold by the spoonful, but I have them fill my Bonne Maman jelly jar, and it costs 300 F, or about $.60.  The flavor varies from vendor to vendor, as some roast the nuts longer than others.  I’ve found a vendor whose peanut butter I like, in the shade of a colossal tree, so I’ll stick with her.  And I get a kick out of her traditional chair -- lashed together with blue string!
  

Patience

Patience was a dog.  He looked like every other dog in this part of the world:  pointy snout, shades of brown and white, slowly healing, scabby wounds at the tip of each triangular ear, oozing, fly-paper wound on the top of his head.  Maybe he was a little better nourished than most.  Patience belonged to one of the families in our courtyard, and therefore he belonged to all of us, since private property, and privacy, for that matter, are foreign concepts here.  Patience guarded the courtyard and barked loudly at strangers entering or simply appearing outside the gate.  He chased away other dogs and any pigs, goats, sheep or chickens that didn’t belong here. He accompanied us to the market or the library, bounding joyously through tall grass but never straying far, and growled at would-be aggressors, either human or canine.

I was probably the only person who actually touched Patience, petting him and applying Neosporin to his wounds.  He really started liking me after I let him eat the heads of my friture (small, whole fried fish), for which I was reprimanded because I was spoiling him.  His family did feed him, but kept him chained much of the day so he wouldn’t stick his nose in the corn flour spread on a tarp to bleach in the sun of the courtyard or the rain water so carefully collected in basins and buckets during a deluge.

[I probably should have eaten the fish heads myself (no way!), or at least left them for one of the kids.  No matter what I leave on my plate, be it half of the much too large serving of rice they offer me, or just the bones from a piece of fish, even if I’ve spit them out, someone will eat it.*  When the first riz gras (risotto) prepared in a new pot stuck badly, I added water and soaked my cooking spoons with the mess for a while.  Once I’d scraped the rice loose I offered the neighbor this brew to give to Patience.  The dog never had a chance; the girl ate it herself.  There’s no point trying to cook enough for more than one meal at a time, since there’s always someone wanting to ‘taste’ whatever I’ve concocted.  They are equally generous with the foods they prepare, though.]

Patience was only a dog.  Monday evening he accompanied (‘followed’) the other courtyard family (not his true owners) to the market.  When he was hit by a truck and badly lamed on the paved road, his owners contacted a Dagara family who administered the coup de grace and ate him. 

Muslims will not eat dog, but several other ethnic groups do.**

It was somewhat gratifying that the girl who fed Patience every day wept at his demise and at the fact that he had become someone’s much appreciated dinner.  During PST, one of our cultural awareness activities called for American and Burkinabe groups to illustrate their vision of family and friends in a graphic with concentric circles.  The Burkinabe chuckled when Americans included the family pet or pets in the inner circle.  For the HCNs (host country nationals), all animals, even Patience, belong ‘either way off the chart or in the freezer with the rest of the meat.’

Young dolo drinker. A calabash full, or about a liter, costs a dime.

As upsetting as the loss of Patience may be, I can’t help feeling some relief that the casualty was ‘only a dog,’ and not a child, or one of the many cripples who cross the pavement at a snail’s pace to get to the market.  The goudron is the main drag of the village.  It is lined with shops, cafés, cabarets (where people hang out enjoying a fermented millet beverage called dolo), repair shops, etc., and at any given time it is populated with pedestrians, bikes, scooters and the occasional automobile.   People socialize in the middle of this road.  Mechanics lie under vehicles with their legs sticking out into the road.  Children race along the road propelling hoops, bike tires or wheels with sticks.  Women with babies on their backs and loads of firewood on their heads make slow progress and lack the luxury of rear-view mirrors.

The big truck that hit Patience did not even slow down.  The trucks transporting goods to and from Ghana are the reason the road is paved at all.  Sometimes they blast their horns as they enter the village, but not always.  They own the road.  Why are there no speed bumps?  I’m told the village does not have the right to install gendarmes couchés (policemen lying in bed) on this international highway.  Without speed bumps or outright road blocks, the local police on their motorbikes are about as effective as the ‘slow down’ signs at either end of the village.  I’ve been advised to try writing a letter to the ministry of public works, and to have patience.

*/**  If you’re not tired of reading, here’s a description of traditional Dagara eating habits from Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Somé, a man between cultures:

“Indigenous life is a constant physical exercise.  From plowing the earth with your bare hands to running after an antelope during the hunt to carrying huge stacks of wood for the fireplace, the body is constantly involved in expending energy.  It is not surprising that my people don’t have weight problems.  The energy each person burns during the day is incalculable.  No wonder the amount of food available always seems insufficient.  My younger brothers always behaved as if they were starving.  They would gulp down an enormous dish and yet keep sniffing around as if they had not eaten anything at all.  Guillaume told me one day that he never knew what satiation felt like.  He said he stopped eating when there was no more to eat.

When my mother prepared meals, she always made two servings, one for the males and the other for the females.  Father presided over male meals and she presided over female meals.  We always sat in a circle around the dish.  The grown-ups sat on stools, and the young sat with their left legs folded under their butts as a seat.  The evening meal, about ten o’clock, was the most important of the day.  It gathered together the whole family, including visitors, since in the Dagara tradition no visitor can be denied food.

Dinner began with the hand-washing ceremony.  The male leader was first, followed by the next-oldest person and so on till the youngest had washed.  The first bit of food was always offered to the spirit of the earth shrine.  This is called a clearance bite.  My father always performed this ceremony.  He would take a bit of cake [corn or millet cake, akin to corn-meal mush] and dip it into the sauce, say something rapidly between his teeth, and then throw the thing away as if he did not want it.  The dog loved it – even though it was not destined for him but for the Spirit of the earth shrine.  Sometimes the dog would catch it in midair and swallow it at once as if he did not want to know what it tasted like.

To, or millet cake, and sorrel sauce.

Then my father, who pretended not to pay attention to the fate of the first bite, would prepare another for himself.  I noticed that his portion was larger.  He would stick the whole portion into his mouth, hold it in there for a few seconds, and then nod his head before swallowing it.  This was the signal that the dinner was safe to eat.  Seven hands assaulted the dishes, determined to empty them, and the meal was enjoyed in silence.  For the Dagara, there is no such thing as a plate for each person, because in the context of a real community, separate plates cultivate separateness.  The older people were supposed to stop eating first, allowing the youngest to finish it all up.  Anyone who burps is expected to stop eating immediately, as that indicates that he or she is full.

Eating with one’s hands is a fascinating art.  You are supposed to lick your fingers one by one after each swallow, starting with the front of each of the four fingers, then their backs, and finally the thumb.  Then the entire finger must be taken into the mouth and carefully sucked.  The person presiding over the meal is in charge of making sure that these rules are followed carefully.  Consequently, any voice you hear during a meal is the leader’s voice correcting bad eating habits mostly related to finger-licking.  Children who are very hungry don’t take the time to lick their fingers properly, so someone must be there to instruct them in good table manners.”

Malidoma Patrice Somé, Of Water and the Spirit, ISBN 0-14-019496-7:  tedious and at times downright freaky, but a fascinating look at the Dagara culture, spiritual initiation and rite of passage, the pain and damage wrought by colonization and missionaries, the ability to commune with ancestral spirits, and spiritual travel to other worlds.  Healers, diviners, ritual initiation….  A grain of salt wasn’t quite sufficient for me!  But there is going to be an initiation here in Dissin this year.  Nowadays they only perform the initiation every few years, when enough eligible young men are available.  Not everyone is suited for it, and it can be fatal.

Around Town

(This was written early in September)

The first few days at site were exciting and confusing, and an introduction to the art of WAITing, which came in handy at the bank!

The Bakery

Destination:  the Mairie, or mayor’s office, or city hall.  This lies at the western edge of the village, about a 20 minute walk from my house.  No one can understand why I’d rather walk than ride the bike, which, especially now, after 3 minor falls, is still a white-knuckle horror trip for me.  These people are engaged in physical labor 8 – 10 hours a day, but they consider walking a chore.  Florent was willing to make the trek with me, though, and we intended to stop at the electric company, just this side of the Mairie, to transfer the meter and account into my name.  En route we met the Chef de Terre and several of Florent’s relatives, and learned that the mayor was actually going to be present some time that morning (she does not live here in the village) and that the electric company was closed because they had no electricity.  There has been no electricity at the Mairie for quite some time; when I was here in July, city business was conducted at the Prefet’s office at the top of the hill.  Whereas the electric company relies on computers, forms are typed at city hall, and births, marriage and deaths are entered into the big état civil register by hand.  I was able to observe quite a few such entries, along with the issuing of stamps for school registration, while waiting in a blessedly drafty corridor and trying to understand a word or two of the conversations that buzzed around me in several languages.  The French spoken here is not ‘school French,’ and it travels at the speed of light.  La blanche / Nasara / Nipela were the distinguishable words that prevailed, as is usual in my presence.

Madame Mayor, however, a cheerful woman in her 50’s, I’m guessing, favored me with school French liberally laced with English.  She had lived in the Washington, D.C. area for some time.  After a short, pleasant chat in which she expressed the village’s gratitude for the past, present and future contributions of Peace Corps volunteers, Mme la Maire granted me ‘the road.’  That’s how you indicate your readiness to leave:  you ask for the road.  ‘Je demande la route.’    Normally it’s readily granted.  It’s also how you toss someone out, by giving him or her the road.  ‘Je te donne la route.’

On the subject of demands, they are constant.  People are continually asking for food, money, the clothes off your back…  I’m used to it now, but the first request came as a shock.  A kid outside the school superintendent’s office greeted me politely and then said, ‘Je demande ta casquette.’  I was wearing my credit union baseball cap, a gift from my host mother in Sapone, and I wasn’t about to part with it.  I try to be polite in my refusals, but I made an exception for the young man who wanted 25 fr (about a nickel) to buy a beignet because he was starving; his outstretched right hand was empty, but his left hand clutched a newly opened pack of cigarettes.

Next stop:  the hospital.  Like the schools, the hospital consists of a number of gray concrete buildings with gray concrete rooms strung together motel-style. All of the rooms open onto covered concrete walkways, and there are concrete benches built into or onto the walls outside each door.  There are no screens, just the louvered metal windows and doors that are the norm everywhere, but a fabric curtain hangs in each open door to discourage flies.  The Major, or head nurse, gave me a tour of the maternity building.  In addition to a delivery room with stirruped table and a second metal table, there is an 8-bed ward that’s almost as nice as the upper-class Tibetan dwelling in the Heifer Ranch Global Village II.  All of the babies had gone home that morning, and there was only one woman in labor at the time.  She sat outside on a low stone wall, wearing only a skirt.

While I sat outside the consultation room with Florent waiting to introduce myself to the doctor, I observed the row of rooms opposite.  Some visitors sat on the benches chatting with the patients inside.  A man led a strikingly beautiful woman towards the last room in the row.  She was slightly too buxom to be a super model, and she was staggering a bit.  It took me a moment to realize she was blind as well as very ill.  She groaned, squatted down and vomited into the sand.  The man dragged her on up to the concrete bench outside one of the rooms, and a visitor rose to kick sand over the vomit.  After a while a nurse came along with an IV pole and started a drip for the blind woman.  She was still there, outside on the bench, leaning on her companion who steadied the IV pole, when the doctor gave us the road.

On the way to the bus depot, we passed what had been the original Catholic mission.  It is now a complex that houses maybe a dozen families.  The Dagara people, native to this region, are Catholic, and there is a Catholic grade school and agricultural lycee, as well as an orphanage run by nuns.  There is also a sizeable Mossi population.  The Mossi, who make up much of the population of the rest of Burkina Faso, speak Moré and are Muslim.  At the same time, everyone is Animist, and everyone gets along.  Often there are both Catholics and Muslims in the same family.  One of the families in my courtyard is Catholic, and the other is Muslim.  I live close enough to the Mosque to hear the calls to prayer that start at 4:30 a.m., but not close enough to the church to hear the bells.  When I hear drums, I know someone has died.  More on funerals later.

The chef de gare at the bus station is a good man to know, since the bus companies serve as the informal postal service.  There are post offices, but no mail carriers or home delivery.  For that matter, there are no street names or house numbers.  I live in the courtyard with the yellow gate ‘over behind the gendarmerie and the credit union.’  Everybody just knows who lives where.  If you are looking for someone’s house, you ask the next person you meet, who will then point you or even lead you to the right courtyard.  In order to get mail you have to have a post office box or use someone else’s.   When the PC medical officer sent me my prescription meds from Ouagadougou, she sent me a text message telling me to expect the package at the TSR Gare sometime the next day.   What she didn’t tell me was that I should alert the chef de gare to expect the package.  As a result, he didn’t run out to ask the driver for it and it went on to Ghana, but it was still on the bus on the return trip the following day.  The ‘package’ was a brown paper lunch bag with my name and the name of the village on it in black marker, stapled closed at the top.  I now have the chef de gare’s phone number in my portable, or mobile phone.