Robert takes us to his farm

Today was one of my favourite days since I have been in Ghana. Robert took Miki and I to his farm to harvest yam. “Today we are in the classroom,” he told us. Yes, we learned a lot.

We went in the late afternoon. We walked all the way through the forest and out the other side, arriving at a great expanse of wide-open farmland, dotted by great towering trees- the leaves were glowing in the sunlight and the shadows were starting to stretch. With great pride and a terrific enthusiasm, Robert’s tour began. There on the right, Robert pointed out, was his wife’s farm of groundnuts, and here on the left was the queen mother’s farm, this one there was Mr. Jacobs farm, and this one here was his farm – could we see how the land goes as far as that big tree over there?  We stopped to see his wife’s groundnut farm. She had made the mounds already, in nice rows, and did we know how to make the mounds? Robert showed us, so that we could try planting some groundnuts ourselves at the guesthouse, and then showed us how to plant the nuts, and how his daughters would be coming tomorrowwith his wife and would help by covering the nuts with dirt by walking carefully on the mounds. On we went: here on this farm could we see how the groundnuts had germinated? And soon there would be nice yellow flowers, and many new groundnuts growing below. And here next to it, can we see how to plant the old stalks of cassava and see how the new plant has begun to grow?  Robert’s flip flop broke as he passed down the trail - an opportunity for our next lesson: how one can fix a shoe using a piece of grass. Next lesson: yam. Robert took great pleasure in having an audience to teach the art of harvesting a yam, and we delicately dug the yam out with our hands. A superb specimen. We learned about the other types of yams, and also about Robert’s sneaky strategy of hiding the biggest and best yams from his wife until she has cooked all of the small yams. We encountered one scorpion, and even that turned into a lesson about how one can see the eggs on the underbelly of the scorpion.  Then we learned about how to harvest cassava, we tried eating raw cassava right out of the ground, and also had a detailed lesson on how to cook it. Robert was especially adamant that I did not try to go about removing the root with a machete by my self, and to please ask my cook to do it so I don’t mame my hands. Not to worry.

Talking to Robert about farming techniques was really interesting, particularly because much of what he had to say had also been taught to me in my environmental science lectures on sustainable farming. He whole heartedly believed in manual labour farms, and wouldn’t dare use fertilizer or pesticides on his land and instead lets his farm fallow and then slashes and burns in order to keep the soil in good order. He is mainly a subsistence farmer, and proudly feeds his family from his land.  It was moving to see his face light up, his smile spread wide as he talked with great passion about his land and his yams; I think I might describe it as tender love.

Before we left Robert cut a few cocoyam leaves for us so we could make palava sauce to eat with our just harvested and very prized cassava and yam. Then he taught us how to cut grass to make into a doughnut to rest the yam on top of my head, like a true Ghanaian. Robert said that good men let their wives lead when they go back from the farm, and so with a yam ontop of my head, I proudly lead the parade.