Full of Beans, Literally

Full of Beans, Literally
Originally uploaded by ancho and lefty.

Yesterday I went with some neighbors to a plot of land where they had planted red beans. The beans had already been pulled up and left to dry on the stalk. We just had to consolidate them all into one big pile so that someone could beat the living tarnation out of the stalks in order to get the semi-dried beans to fall out of their pods. It was quick but taxing work, as you can probably tell from the sweat on my brow. Part of the difficulty was the steepness of the grade of the hill upon which the beans were planted. From yesterday’s work we garnered more than 50 kilos of red beans. The family already had about 50 other kilos harvested. My neighbor told me that she uses about 30-40 kilos per year, so she will gift some to her mom, sell some (although prices are lousy), and keep some to plant next year.

While I was over there talking beans this morning, Shakira’s latest song, which is all the rage here in Costa Rica, was blaring in the background. A great juxtaposition to the conversation about beans. Many times we think of people who still grow all their own beans for a year as being antiquated relics of the past, but the family I assisted yesterday, speaks to the contrary. She is a young woman who also cuts hair in this community. She wears trendy clothes and uses Avon products. But she also knows a heck of a lot about beans. In the house next door, her sister’s husband works as a detective for the judicial branch, her sister sells trendy clothes in neighboring pueblos, but they also have a 50 kilo bag of maize that they grew on their land underneath the kitchen sink in their very modern kitchen. Just something for you all to chew on I suppose.