And as a last memory:
I found my journal and thought to provide a long excerpt. This anticipation happened pretty much every work morning:
Bonite is known for Bonite Bottler Ltd. and for the carrot washers in the Bonite River. The daladala turns a corner and the bridge comes into view. Everyone looks right to see the height of the river at the area where the carrots are washed and the heads shake and comments flow. The nightly rains swell the river and change the dynamics of the washings. Even before we reach the river, you can hear the discussions revolving around the mboga mboga (vegetables and prices in the Mbunyi Market that morning) and carroti.
The process of the carrot washings are as follows:
emphasized textA large truck comes with bags of carrots, still with tops on straight from the fields. They are filled in such a way that the top layer of carrots extend past the top of the bag making it about 4 or so feet tall. A man moves up to the back bed and 3 others 'spot' him while the guy in the truck tips the bag onto the man's shoulders and the others help balance it. It must way close to 100 pounds and you can see him strain under the weight. He duck walks as fast as he can down a slope to a flat area and tips the bag so that it stands up again. There, more men spot him for this process. If it is carried, it takes 4 men, one at each corner to carry this bag. Men and women then remove the carrots from the bag and rip off the green tops. The carrots are tossed onto tarps then put into smaller bags; maybe 40 or 50 pounds. These are carried down to a cement ledge by the river where the river often runs over in a shallow flow and men grab the bags and shake them while the water runs through the bag. This is another arduous job requiring strength. If the river is too high, pails of water are scooped and tossed over the loose carrots to wash them, then they are bagged. The bags are then carried up the slope for draining and then packed into another truck for delivery. Sometimes the carrots get away, so enterprising youths go downstream a bit and wade in and catch the carrots floating by. The entire process is labour intensive and a back breaking process. In the middle of the area is a large strangling fig tree with large roots that sit above ground. It is not uncommon to see someone nestled in the depression between the roots sleeping on the hard ground. Tires are planted upright in an area for sitting upon, though how much leisure there is, is hard to tell. Again, today, while waiting for the workday to begin, a woman is sleeping on a cement bag with a kanga draped over her head and body. Tanzanians have learned to take their sleep where they can get it.
Where all the carrots are grown, and where they are delivered, I haven't been able to figure out. Supposedly, carrots are hard to grow, but considering the numbers that are washed every day, someone is making a success of it. This is Africa. Everything takes more manual labour that in the Western world and intense labour is taken for granted. Could some conveyor belt system in a wash tank by employed? Probably, but then there are the power outages to consider, and this method does employ more people than a mechanized version would.
The area's colours vary depending on the time. Against the rust of the packed dirt and the brown of the muddy swollen river, there are large splashes of orange from time to time. The colour is intense enough to dull the colours of the women's kangas which are often bright with reds, yellows and oranges. In the stark white of Canada winters, these scenes will return – with the intensity of colours, sounds and smells. I may be 14,000 kilometres from Bonite, but Bonite will always hold a place in my heart and memory.
