Fields on Fire

Yesterday we visited our friends in Xiabe. The plan had been to cook some tamales in the ground. A pit is dug, a fire built and big rocks put in the hold the heat, then the tamales wrapped in plantain leaves. All gets covered up with dirt and the tamales slow cook in there till they get dug up and eaten. But it rained Saturday and the ground was to wet to do this. They tried to call us Saturday, but we had our cell phone off. So Sunday we ended up just hanging out. Oddly enough Saturday Rebecca out of the clear blue suggested that the whole thing was canceled. Perhaps she subconsciously understood that with the rain, the original plan was in jeopardy. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Perhaps it was just one of those flashes of insight that happen so commonly here.

Rebecca made a big batch of oatmeal cookies and a big batch of chocolate cookies. This was a big hit. Several people asked me if she made them, and told me they were good. I brought a bottle of rum and we had rum with coconut water, which is very good. In the afternoon, Reuben asked if I wanted to go along to the cane field. I am always like to go places, so I climbed up the wheels and side of the giant cane truck. He had hired a crew of cutters and loaders to come and harvest cane the next day, and they had come Sunday, the day before to prepare the part of the field that was to be harvested.

We arrive and these men of course know exactly what they are doing. Cane grows in cultivated rows, just like corn. Using machets they cut one row down and tossed it to one side. This path they continued out into the field then made a 90 degree turn and cut the path toward the road. They youngest man and I followed behind and swept all the brush and dry leaves out of this path so that the fire would not jump from the section being worked on to the rest of the field. I later learned that the man is 15, but 15 Belize is older than 15 American. When the path was cut and cleared the workers cut green branches from trees leaving the leaves on, almost a broom. They cut one for me. Others made a torch out of dried cane leaves and set fire to row after row of the area they had isolated. With the branches we walked along with the fire to beat out any fire that tried to escape into the rest of the field.

The idea is to burn all the dried cane leaves to make it easier to cut the cane. The fire also serves as an eviction notice for any poisonous snakes. The fire does not hurt the sugar cane which is at this time swollen with sugary water. Sugarcane is a type of tall grass. Imagine a lawn with grass seven feet high. The build up of the dried leaves provides a lot of fuel for a fast flash fire that rips through the field with an increasing roar and popping. There is a great deal of smoke and it smells very good. Soon enough the men setting the rows on fire have lit up the entire perimeter of the area and as the fire moves from all sides into the center of the field, there is an rather loud roar and for a moment fire leaps in a column high into the sky. Very suddenly it becomes quiet as the fire has burned itself out. The perimeter is checked and the job is done, the cane ready to be cut the next day.

One of the things I noticed was how clean this field was. There were virtually no weeds in the field between the rows. The soil was almost a dark red and I believe that it is very fertile. Herbicides are not used as they are just too expensive. I know that these fields are cleaned by hand and that is done year round. The amount of manual labor expended in producing sugar is enormous. And there is risk to the farmer. In creating this post I have been searching for images of cane fields, and burning cane fields. I might find such images, but instead what I have found is economic data regarding the sugarcane industry. Apparently Europe currently preferentially imports sugar from the Caribbean and that is scheduled to change. Globally sugar is over supplied, and while at some point ethanol production may support sugar farmers, it looks like there will be a collapse of the sugar industry worldwide between now and then. Despite all their work the future of these men is largely dependent on policies of the European Union, the World Trade organization and other factors that they have never heard of. Twenty years from now there will still be sugarcane growing here. Perhaps much of it will go to fuel production instead of sugar. Between here and there is a gap, a time when, for a few years at least, the fields will not burn. On the other side of that gap, I suspect the landowners will not ride the truck to the fields with their hired men. As the machet flashes through the cane, the owners will not be found anywhere in the field. Things change. The forms and structure of the past might come back in force, or perhaps people will find a new path into the future.