Your Man in Malawi: Reaper Man

The rains have stopped and the country is on the move: digging; picking; cutting; shelling. In a country where 85% of the labour force are farmers, harvest time is a major event.

I've just got back from Nepear's village, where I was making some token gesture to this year's haul. Back in December, as the rains began, Nepear planted maize, cotton and groundnuts. Maize is Malawi's staple food crop; once harvested, it is ground into flour and - all being well - will feed a farmer and his family until the following year. The cotton is for selling and the groundnuts will be split - half eaten, half sold.

Everything is done by hand, so even a clumsy, sun-burnt Mzungo can make a useful contribution. Farmers who can afford it (including Nepear) hire 'piece workers' to help with the effort. Piece workers might not have land of their own, or need the extra income to provide for their families.

With the cotton still growing, and the groundnuts already dug up and drying in the sun, our job for the weekend was to harvest the maize. The first step in the process is to cut the maize stalks down and pile them up around the field. This had already been done, so our job for the day was to work our way through the piles, pulling the ears from the stalks and stripping them of their husks (see diagram below for terminology). By the end of the day, we had several large mounds of picked and stripped maize ears, ready for transportation back to the village. Our transport - a hired ox-cart - was loaded up, and we made our way back across the fields as the sun set.

My evening shower was a bucket of cold water - if you want it hot, it's heated on the fire. Dinner was cooked, by the light of the full moon, on a three-stone fire; rice for me, with two eggs, tomato and onion relish. With no electricity and not much to do, I went to bed at 7.30pm. I woke the next morning at 5am, possibly as a result of the sun streaming through the empty window frame above me; possibly as a result of the cocks crowing outside; possibly as a result of the unyielding bamboo mat I was sleeping on.

Before we came home, we decided to treat ourselves with a trip to the Lake - not far from Nepear's village - where Robert and Patience had a great time eating ice cream and playing in the waves. It was a great weekend, but now I'm back with my home comforts - lights, hot water, the internet - which most Malawians live permanently without.