Maize Harvest in Malawi

Maize harvest is now nearly complete. The once tall green plants are now dried yellow stalks with skirts of papery leaves. Out in the  villages, women have been harvesting their crops, and laying it out on large plastic sheets to dry in the sun.

This process of drying takes several days. Afterwards, the kernels are ready to shell.  Shelling  can be a tedious process, taking hours, so the women like to sit together in little clusters to do this work. A few days ago in Pahuwa, I picked up a few ears of corn  and plopped myself down in one of these circles of friends. I began to wring the kernels from the cobs.  Ouch! That hurt. The women laughed as they watched me struggle. I wondered how they could work twice as fast as I could.  Then they showed me the thick callouses on their hands.

After the maize has dried for several days in the sun,  it is treated with insecticide and stored in 50kg bags. Then as needed, the women take their grain to the mill to be ground into very fine flour. This maize flour is used to make Malawi's staple diet, nsima.

As we travel the  rural roads, we pass many women and girls returning home from the mill balancing bags and bowls of maize flour on their heads. I recently saw a woman carrying a large bag (probably 25-30kg) of maize flour on her head stoop to pick up something she dropped, then rise gracefully and continue walking.