Farmer Ryan?

So with the rainy season only weeks away, many farmers here in Northern Ghana are busy preparing their fields. Baba recently started to prepare the field outside our house, so I thought I’d give it a try! With my digger in hand I headed out to the corner of a piece of our land and began ‘ploughing’ the area. Arc by arc my back started to break; another reminder my endless moto riding has got me out of shape! As I ‘plough’, Baba begins to create single holes for planting some Nara (a.k.a. red millet) right away in case we get lucky with some early rains.

About half an hour goes by and I then notice Baba looking at me with a big grin on his face. “He’s impressed” I thought to myself, starting to pick up the pace with some excitement. Boy was I wrong! He begins to laugh a bit and says “Toh” multiple times, meaning ‘OK’ … but not as in I was doing ‘OK’, but rather ‘OK’ that’s enough. I hand over the digger to him and watch has he REALLY ploughs through the land and even goes over the part I did. A point proven that this city boy has a lot to learn before he can take on the life of a farmer!

Realizing that ploughing aint my thing, I then take a shot at planting seeds. Let me tell you, this is where I proved myself! Taking a hand full of seeds and dropping a few in each whole may seem easy… heck who am I kidding, it is easy! Hole after hole I dropped seeds in and covered them with dirt; proud I had now accomplished some farming. Ten seconds later I realize my sister doing the same thing, except a hundred times faster. Looks like this amateur has a long way to go before he can be called a farmer… lucky for me, there’s still 6 months to go!