6 - La Chira: participation in a banana-growing community

Summary

On days when there is corta (cutting), the men who cut bananas rise at 4 a.m. to dress quickly. Their tee-shirts and shorts are permanently stained with black juice from the banana trees. A truck passes at 4:30 to drive them to the plantation three miles away. By the first light of day they are already at work in teams of two, measuring the hanging stalks of fruit with a calibrator to check whether the bananas are the right size for shipping to Germany, or Italy, or the United States. If the bananas are the right size, one man stands underneath the stem with a cushion on his shoulder (to avoid bruising the fruit), while the other cuts the stem with two or three swift swings of his machete, taking care to avoid hitting his teammate. The carrier hauls the 60 to 90 pound stalk to an overhead cable gridwork that crisscrosses the plantation. Together they hang the stem from the cable and go back to find another. When they have collected 25 stems, another worker comes by and hitches himself to the front of the line. He is the sweat-drenched human tractor who pulls the fruit to the central packing plant (empacadora).

The women get up at 5 a.m., fix a breakfast of bread and coffee, and get their children up and dressed. The truck passes again at 5:30 to pick up the women and the few men who work in the packing plant.