COCOA HARVEST

this is a film about a village in a shanty a shanty is part of the Gold Coast one of the British colonies in West Africa the country is mostly jungle and forest it's only a few degrees north of the Equator and in the humid tropical atmosphere giant trees bushes creepers and plants flourish all year on there are hundreds of little villages scattered throughout the great forests little village is where the trees and the dense undergrowth have been cleared away little villages linked together by footpaths and tracks but linked to the tongues by fine straight highways this village is called in cowie and it's market day here people have been arriving since daybreak some come by Lori or bus or bicycle but most people walk carrying their wares on their head and the mothers carry their babies and a sort of sling on their back they come from outlying farms and from other villages mostly the cell as well as to buy you can buy or sell almost anything at the market as food such as plantings cassava and rice as fruit and spices that are goats and chickens and smoked fish which has come from villages on the coast and there are all kinds of things for the house pots and pans jugs and basins sides clothes and cloths and hats and ribbons Market Day is the most popular day in any village because it gives people a chance to meet talk blah at the far end of the village is the school like many others in a shanty it was founded by missionaries many years ago but now it's assisted by the government and run largely by the village chief and his elders education is not compulsory on the Gold Coast nor is it free but all the same roughly one child in every four now goes to school from about the age of 5 to 15 they have very much the same kind of lessons on the same kind of games at the children in British schools but the cocoa harvest is now ready and the farmers and their families set off into the bush where the cocoa trees planted in small clearings are shaded from too much sunshine by the towering trees of the jungle it's a busy time for everybody when the harvest comes around and there are two harvests a year the main one in November and a small one in May you the cocoa pod is something like a small millen in size it grows straight out from trunk or branch and it turns from light green to gold and yellow when it's fully ripe the average tree eels about 25 pods that's roughly enough to produce a one-pound tin of cocoa pods are cracked and open by the men and the beans are scooped out by the women and children usually is about 40 beans to a pod and they're covered with a white juicy pulp now the beans have to be matured or fermented as it's called and this is done with the aid of broad green planting leaves a patch of ground is cleared in the shade and the leaves cut from the soft stem of the plant entry has spread out in readiness meanwhile the work of gathering and cutting open the pods goes on steadily you now the first basket Falls of white glistening beans are carried to the fermenting bed when they're all heaped up the pile will be covered over with more planting leaves and left for five or six days until the juice and pulp have disappeared you back in the village let's visit the farmer's house compound where he and his large family lived you his wife is preparing food she's making what's called foo foo a sweet stodgy paste of cassava or Plantin which will later be fried in oil those children who are not helping in the harvesting have their own jobs to do such as peeling Clanton's for the stewpot and keeping the kitchen fire alight these two youngsters have managed to find time for a game of war ii along with Ludo and draft it's a very popular pastime for grown-ups as well as children and now the cocoa beans have matured they've been brought to the village from their bed of panty leaves in the forest caring and spread out on long tables to dry for five or six days farmers and their families will be busy turning over their crops so the scorching Sun shall dry them thoroughly a final check by the farmer and his head man and the beans are ready to be sold not in the village market but to brokers and buyers who have offices and storerooms and many of the larger villages the harvest is packed into keene new sacks and carried off to the nearest cadbury depot an African Clark is in charge of the depo he knows most of the farmers in this district they chat together while samples of the beams are taken from every sack then the crop is weighed sample beans are split open and put on a special trade so that their quality can be judged the price paid to the farmer depends of course on the quality of his crop and the more care he takes in maturing and drying the beans the more money he'll get for his pains all the cocoa nowadays is bought by the government so that a steady price is given to the farmer and he's protected from the violent price changes which used to occur you now by tracks or trains the sacks go to the coast to one of the ports to be shipped to England here at the busy port of Accra there is no deepwater Harbor so the ocean-going vessels had to stand out at sea a mile or so from the land the sex must therefore be loaded into small sturdy boats which take them out through the heavy Atlantic rollers and into the karma deeper sees the Africans who manly surf boats are famous all over West Africa for their skill and for their great strength you you it was as each surf boat is emptied the head man climbs aboard with an invoice on which must be written the number of sex his crew have brought from the shore at the end of the day he and his men will be paid according to the amount of work they've done all day long the surf boats ply back and forth from the beach to the cargo liners and more and more sacks are hoisted up and stored away in the holes ready for the long journey which may end in your home