Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Harvests

December is the month of the harvest. Guatemalans who had planted corn kernels in prepared fields in March and walked away, allowing the rain to care for their crops, returned again to the fields. About two weeks ago the corn was doblado, chopped in half to let it dry further. This last week, the harvest began. We entered the fields with bags around our shoulders and stalk by stalk, row by row removed the dry ears of corn. The corn was separated into piles by kind; yellow, black, red, white, and sweet and left to dry further on cement rooftops. The dominating feature that has covered the landscape of Guatemala will soon be no more as again Guatemalans return to the fields to work the cane into the ground and wait for March to come to plant again. 
My personal harvest (that I had nothing to do with, but nonetheless am very excited about) is the one lime that the tree in my yard has provided. 
Henrik has become quite a buddy. We know have daily dates, 4 pm sharp to play Go Fish. He is about to turn 5 and I don't know what the recommended age for this game is, but he does a decent job at it. He's still working on learning his numbers, so this is an excellent game to work on that. He doesn't quite have the strategy down yet, showing me the cards he does have when I ask for a card he doesn't have. So sometimes we play a game we named 'ambos', or both. We both take a card from the stack and show each other what it is. When there is a pair, we set it aside. At the end of the deck, Hendrik decides who wins. It really is kind of exciting. 
 

1 comment:

Ray and Sarah Schafer said...

your blog is AMAZING, katie. I have been wanting to see a picture into your life there, and I got it! thank you so much for taking the time and energy to keep it up. you are missed and truly blessed...