Paid in Produce

Two of the Bible school instructors examining millet
and a farmer with a fascinating decorated hat!

Here we find lots of reminders that this culture often deals with important things in an indirect way and so it will take several meetings or at least one very good sit-down meeting to really get to the heart of a matter. My most recent reminder was trying to nail down on which day I’d be teaching classes this fall. My English class that I’m continuing at the one Bible school is on the same day and same time, but the Principle of the school was unable to tell me that when I saw him at a wedding or called him on the phone. I needed to drive out to visit the school in person to do official greetings, see first-hand some of the problems they are dealing with, and get the schedule news. It was the same with the other Bible school, but this time I had to drive an hour to visit and have a good meeting. They had told me they were saving a space for my teaching CHE even though they had started classes a few weeks before I arrived. But when we actually met it became apparent that there wasn’t time for me to begin teaching because they were about to have a four week break to let the students and teachers focus on the harvest. After that the school year would only be another month and a half long, so they were hoping I could start in January instead. It worked out fine, but felt very round-about way of getting to the necessary information. 

Instructor showing off the peanut field.  

Showing off sorghum head close-up.

The other outcome was that I also got a really nice tour of the extensive fields around the Bible School. The students help to work these fields for various pastors or other people who rent them cheaply from the Bible School. Having so much land is a blessing and they have been blessed with a good amount of rain-fall in the area this year, so people are happy with the way the fields are coming. Some of the peanuts and beans have already been harvested and a few people have “cut” their millet fields. But most of the millet is left to dry a good bit on the plant so it has already started that process before it’s cut down, although that does risk letting it get damaged by wind, bugs, or animals. Most of the sorghum is not ready yet, except the Principal told me she had some red sorghum that she had already brought in. When I mentioned that red sorghum was our favorite (because we find normal sorghum rather bland without much taste), she insisted that she would measure out some for my family. We also discussed how they like let their corn dry out on the stalk and grind it up into flour to make their porridges and hard grits-like-starch to put sauce on. But they said they know we like to eat it fresh off the plant, so at the end of my visit they also insisted on picking some of their field corn and sending it home with me. I said five ears was perfect for our family but they included a sixth because “you always have someone stopping in a meal time that you didn’t expect” – at least in this culture. My parents joked that now I’m getting paid for my work at the Bible schools in produce, just like my grandfather who was a pastor in the rural plains of the US almost a century ago!

Walking the lush fields with the Principal in the lead.

--El Padre