Orphans of the sugar cane fields

There are only a few hectares left. The last parcels are being harvested. The dry season has started, and the summer sun is beating down on the sakadas. They hack away at the canes, piling them neatly in rows between the canes. They will carry these to the carabao sleds, which will fill up with harvested cane, which in turn will take them to the trucks. The sakadas will then load them in neat stacks, and the truck, once it is full, will then deliver it to Central Azucarera de La Carlota for milling. And this is how it goes every day, since November, when they started harvesting sugar cane in Hacienda Dos Marias.

But once in a while, something disrupts the monotony of harvest—maral kittens! This is how it was for a group of sakadas on Parcel 15 earlier this afternoon. They came upon a ‘nest’, under a clump of cane. Either the mother has abandoned her kittens, or she left them there to hunt for food. The sakadas got the kittens, and because they were already feisty, one of them tied each of the kitten’s legs and put them in his rucksack. He surrendered the kittens to the Maral Project, and we turned it in to the Negros Forests & Ecological Foundation, Inc. (NFEFI) in Bacolod. But some kittens, or mothers, are not so lucky.

Often, when a nest is uncovered, and the mother chooses to fight, she gets killed by the cane cutters. Kittens are taken home by the cutters, sometimes divided up amongst themselves when there is more than one kitten. Some of them turn up in the local wet markets being sold as pets, while others were simply brought home to the children. Either way, these cats do not survive because they are fed table scraps, and children can sometimes be cruel to animals. At about three to four months of age, these kittens start getting feisty, and can no longer be petted.

This is the story of the orphans of the sugar cane fields of Negros. And this is how IT all began.



NB: We thank William Oliver for letting us borrow the title "Orphans of the sugar cane fields", which is the title of his unpublished article about the leopard cats of Negros.

All in a day's work

It was the second transect day of the month. Transects 3 and 6 are on the northern part of the hacienda while 15 and 16 are on the southern edge; a very long walk. As my eyes scoured the ground for tracks and scats, and as I walk from one transect to another, my mind collated what had transpired and what hadn’t during what I considered, the First Half.

We mapped the entire hacienda, established our transects, put up our hair snares, and put out our live traps. We found scats and tracks, and in rare times, what we suspect to be bird kills by leopard cats. The hair snares never attracted anything but dust and mud. And the traps remained empty save for the live bait. We got sick on field, thankfully, quite rarely. Some of our live bait died and had to be replaced. One sakada (cane cutter) was killed by another sakada, and since no one knew who it was, or more accurately, no one would speak up on who it was, the person involved in the murder is still working in the hacienda. And the cane is almost gone.

I passed by a group of women in one of the newly plowed fields. Some were sorting planting materials, while some were distributing planting materials between rows, and the rest were on their hands and knees, planting cane. It was a little past 10 in the morning, and the sun was high up. Most of the women looked up as I passed, so I called out a ‘good morning’ and waved a friendly hand. They wave back. They were wearing long-sleeved shirts, skirts or shorts over trousers, and head protection consisting of a t-shirt draped over the head tied securely around the forehead by a towel or another piece of t-shirt, or hats.

I approached one sorting party and chatted with them. They’ve been on the field since dawn, and they’ll be there until the afternoon, when they finished this parcel. It was only past 10 in the morning, but the sun is scorching, and there was no cover to be had. It must’ve been around about 32 °C, and it will only get hotter as the day progresses. These women will get burned. And they do, every day, working in these cane fields since harvest started in October. But at least there is work. Come off harvest starting June, and while cane is growing, the cane fields of Negros are usually empty, save for some maintenance activities.

I bid them goodbye, and turned towards Transect 3. The continued their work under the scorching heat. All in a day’s work.



 

A hectare a day

It’s only been a week since harvest started, and already, it has changed the landscape dramatically. It’s not that I have not seen a harvested field; it’s that it feels quite different to see what used to be vast expanse of sugarcane turn into fields of dried cane leaves, flat on the ground, one hectare a day.  The sound of the wind as it rustles through the tall cane is no more. I no longer hear the sounds of the birds shuffling under the cane, nor do I see them perching amongst the leaves. It is unsettling to walk through these fields without the cane overshadowing me. I remember taking shelter amongst them, when one rainy transect day, lightning hit close to the ground. What if we have another one of those lightning-happy days? There will be no more cane to take cover in.

As I gaze upon these harvested fields, I am frustrated by my continued inability to answer one of the fundamental questions of this research: where do the leopard cats go?

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.