Hope for harvest

We did the usual things we do every morning when we check traps: make coffee, get the chicks that will be replacing yesterday’s bait ready, prep some food and water for our live baits, and then take off. This morning was different though. Today will be the blessing of the cane.

It started only about three years ago for this hacienda. People come to pray for a good harvest season, which will last from November to around June of next year. One may think that with the onset of harvest, the crop year has come to a full cycle. It hasn’t. Many things can still go wrong during the long harvest period. The female pastor’s prayer revealed so much of the dynamics of cane harvest, and for someone who didn’t grow up in a farm, it was fascinating for me. It wasn’t only inclement weather, or pest, but the people themselves, who are involved in harvest.

In a few days, the sakadas (cane cutters who were hired by a middleman from another place or island) will come to the hacienda. They will be housed in the quarters solely their own in the middle of the tiny hacienda village. Having so many people in such a small place for an extended period of time creates negative energy sometimes, and it was not only once that we were told of fights breaking up between the locals and the sakadas.

But today everyone is hopeful. That this harvest season will bring not only the owner, but also the people, a bit of blessing, and the hacienda, peace.