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Koumbit, And Getting Your Goat
The other day Tim was invited to work with a Koumbit (pronounced "Kom-beet"), which is a communal work team that hoes the soil and prepares it for planting. Usually every Saturday a different farmer will host his neighbors and friends to work with him to prepare his fields. The day starts at 7:00 with a blast from the tombou, a tin horn that loudly reverberates through the mountains. "Boop, boop, bee, boop, boop!" Everyone who is going to work that day heads over to the fields, with a hoe or pick. The man hosting the koumbit provides food to the workers, and they are fortified throughout the day from a huge jug filled with clairin, a moonshine made from sugar cane and to which each man adds his own herbs and roots for taste.
The man work in a line, picks and hoes swinging, often singing and telling risque jokes about each other. The sun beats down, the sweat trickles, the earth flies and the fields get planted. The work is hot and hard, but each man who works knows that he will be able to ask his neighbors to come help him plant. At noon, the work stops, the clairin flows more freely (you don't want to let them have too much while they are working!) and the meal follows, usually taken sitting in the shade of a tree at the edge of the field.
Posted by Christy and Tim at 01:27 PM on March 25, 2003 :: Permanent link
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