Harvest Time

Aluel in her garden early one morning

We've had a good growing season in our immediate area this year, with a good balance of rain and sun. It's always a joy to see people harvesting and processing the fruits of their labours. Aluel, one of my close neighbours, has been harvesting and drying okra, sorghum and beans.

The picture below shows some of the first heads of sorghum that she harvested this year, which will typically be used for seed next year, as well as okra in various stages of the drying process.

Bottom left: freshly cut okra; top centre: okra that has been drying for a few days; bottom right: beans still in the pod.

One of my neighbours, Nyibol, has had a great harvest this year of a kind of cucumber that folks here grow. It is oval-shaped and has quite a thick rind. I find that when it is cooked it tastes a lot like zucchini, a vegetable I really like but can't get here.


Nyibol has given me cucumbers several times in the past few weeks, and this week she also brought me some of her first groundnuts (peanuts).