The Bitter Side of Sweet

I count the things that matter.

Chop, twist, toss, check. Chop, twist, toss, check. Two more pods make twenty-five total.

Neither Seydou nor I have eaten anything since breakfast, but Moussa is working too close for us to be able to sneak one of the cacao pods out of the sack. I take a moment to wipe the sweat off my forehead. You’d think it would be cooler up here, but some days there isn’t a breeze even halfway up a tree.

I scrub at my face with my wrist and look out over our work area. Moussa is collecting pods off to our right, though he’ll leave in a second to make another sweep to be sure everyone’s still here. The other boys on crew with us today are just smudges of noise through the green. Directly below me, Seydou scrambles around as quickly as he can, picking up the pods I’ve cut and putting them in our sacks. They’re lying worryingly flat right now.

Only twenty-five pods. Our sacks need to be full, at least forty or forty-five each, so I can get Seydou out of a beating. Really full if I want to get out of one too. The bosses usually look the other way when I give Seydou lighter work since he’s only eight, but that kindness only goes so far. We still need to bring in about the same as the other boys.

I slide to the ground and push the sack onto my shoulder. The bunched bag digs in, pressing through the bruises there, but I don’t let Seydou carry things that are too heavy if I can avoid it. Instead, he carries the machetes.

“Moussa! We’re finding new trees!” I call out.

“Awó!” he shouts, looking to see which direction we’re going. In a few minutes he’ll wander over to check on us. I try not to let it bother me.

Seydou and I walk past tree after tree. They taunt us with their clustered pods, all the wrong size, none of them ripe enough to cut. I don’t count how many trees we pass because I don’t count the things that don’t matter.

I don’t count unripe pods. I don’t count how many times I’ve been hit for being under quota. I don’t count how many days it’s been since I’ve given up hope of going home.

In the next grove I heave the sack onto the ground and shake out my arms. Seydou stumbles a little as he shuffles up behind me. His thin shoulders slump. I can see how tired he is and it makes me mad, because I can’t do anything about it. More than seventy pods to go and it’s already late morning.

“Give me my machete.”

He scowls at my tone, his thin eyebrows scrunching down in his round face, making him look like a cranky old man, but he hands it to me even so. Then he heads straight to the nearest tree with low pods and gets to work, a frown line still between his eyes.

I clench my machete between my teeth and pull myself up a smooth trunk with my bare feet and hands, counting the shiny pods that are the right size for cutting. When I get high enough to reach some purple-red ones, I knot my legs around the trunk, grab one in my left hand, and hack at the tough stem that holds it to the tree.

One strong chop and with a twist it comes off, surprisingly light in my hand for its size. Twenty-six.

I turn to toss it to the ground and check on Seydou. I notice that he’s still trying to saw through the stem of his first pod. His skinny little body is sagging from exhaustion and his blade keeps slipping. I want to scream at him to be more careful. In stead, I slip down the tree and don’t add the pod to my sack.

“Come on,” I say, walking to him. “Let’s take a quick break before Moussa gets too close again. Then we’ll get to work. How does that sound?”

“I can keep working.” He straightens and glares at me as if I’ve just called him a baby in front of the whole camp.

I grind my teeth in frustration but keep my face smooth. Tremors of exhaustion are making his blade wave slightly in the air as he argues with me.

“I need a break,” I lie, and sit deliberately in front of him. Balancing the pod I just cut in one hand, I aim the machete and swing. One, two hits, and it cracks. I wedge the pod open with the blade until the whole thing splits in two. Inside the thick rind, the seeds are packed together in a tube, each in a squishy skin. I drop my machete, scoop the seed-mess out with my fingers, and shove some of it in my mouth. Then I hold out the other half to Seydou.

“Eat.”

“Okay,” he says, and slides down beside me, resting against the tree.
While I chew on the slimy, crunchy cacao seeds, I look for a place where the leaf litter is deep, to hide the empty husk. There’s no way I want Moussa catching us eating the crop, but all of us boys do it when we can. We don’t get fed much and chewing the seeds makes you feel better and gives you enough energy to keep working.

Seydou chews his handful, a little at a time. I’ll let him finish it before I make him get to work again, but I get up. I need a new twenty-sixth pod and the day is only getting shorter.