Banana Harvesting

Bob pointing out the banana spider

So this week so far has been pretty routine.  Waking up early in the morning and driving out to the Northrise farm to harvest bananas for about 3-4 hours, and then coming back to the Northrise Caravelle house to eat lunch.  So far it has been great everyday.  It has just been farmer Bob and a couple of the local workers, who I have been having a lot of fun with.  We both ask a lot of questions to each other... mostly them asking me about California, the ocean (which they have never seen), and how much everything is in Kuacha (the Zambian currency.) They are teaching me the local Bimba language, which I am getting pretty good at.  The farm is out of the city where it is more quit and breezy.  The harvesting has been different this week because the air has been dryer because it is there winter time, which is causing the bananas to ripen on the tree.  Instead of the regular harvesting routine (which is cutting down the bananas and packing them in the crates right in the fields), we have to walk around the fields looking for the ripened banana trees and taking them back to the farm house to quickly cut them up, dip them in ripening solution, and throw them in the refrigerated container.

No spotting of any black mambas yet, but we found a large tarantula looking spider hiding in one of the banana branches.  Bob and I were taking some photos of it and eventually killed it.  He didnt know what it was, so I researched it and found that it was a Brazillian traveling banana spider, which I guess is pretty gnarly. 

Chima has been made for the workers and I this week, which is similiar to corn meal.  You have a plate of that and then a plate of sauce, vegetables, and some sort of meat such as fish heads or chicken.  I actually got laughed at for eating the chima with a fork.....  supposedly its custom to eat the chima with your hands by rolling it up with your fingers and dipping it the sauce (a mans dream come true).




This weekend should entail cruising out the one of the lakes a little ways away to fish and hopefully another round of golf.

chopping bananas with my machete

I hope everyone is doing well and miss you all.

-Alex

“Too often. . .I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.” – Louis L’Amour