14. From the Earth

Standing in the middle of this peanut farm in Myanmar reminds me of my grandmother, who was a farmer.  She had more than 100 acres of apples and pears.  I learned the value of growing food at a very young age, and I learned that some people made their livelihood from that.  As I watch this group of peanut farmers working in the warm sun, I think about how my grandmother also worked in the warm sun.  She reached up into her trees to tend to the fruits she was growing.  The farmers in front of me are doing the opposite because they work with food grown underground.  I can see that the field was once robust with green peanut plants, but it has been harvested and cleared.  The soil looks dry, and when a slight breeze brushes over me, I can feel dust in the air.  The woman closest to me happily works and offers me some peanuts, which I accept.  “Thank you,” I say.  I crack open the shell and pop a couple in my mouth.  “They’re so fresh!  Yum.”  She flashes a big smile and extends the bowl toward me, offering more.  I take a few and put them in my pocket.  “I’ll enjoy them later.  Do you mind if I take your photograph?”  She shakes her head, “no,” and I take a few images before she goes back to work.  Time is money, and the peanuts they’ve grown and harvested will soon be pressed into peanut oil or sold in the marketplace.  Agriculture is the main industry in Myanmar, contributing 60 percent of the gross domestic product.  The nation’s main food exports are rice and legumes to neighboring India, Thailand and China.  I see those foods and also spices, nuts and an array of colorful vegetables for sale in the congested marketplaces.  Farmers use huge scales to weigh food, and they welcome their familiar customers with wide smiles.  The congeniality is a refreshing change of pace.  But it’s the colorful produce in the markets that also reminds me of my grandmother, who would have bushels of apples and pears in baskets after the harvest.  She would place them in front of her barn, next to the large crates that were to be picked up by a produce vendor.  As a kid, I marveled at the people who drove up and put a bushel of her apples in the back of their cars or trucks.  It made me wonder what they were going to make with so many apples.  I watched my mother make canned applesauce and put it on shelves in the basement for us to enjoy through the winter months.  I always liked to take a spoon and eat right from the jar.  It had a fresh, wholesome taste, just like the peanuts I’m munching on in the field.