Khadija

Farmer: Khadija

Interviewing team: Halema, Farida, and Ali

Interviewer’s notes: When we were interviewing Khadija, she was hurrying so she could go back to working in the fields. She had hurt her hand in a fall and she was weeding the grass at the same time she was talking to us—she couldn’t stop, with her one hand. She wore two big beautiful purple rings on her good hand, and hid her hurt hand under her hijab for the interview. She talked with her hands a lot. She loved talking about her husband, her cousin, who she married when she was fifteen. He was a good farmer, he had a farm, too, and they learned how to farm together.

It was a sunny afternoon, and we were sitting under a tree in the shade on the grass, by her fields. We could hear crickets in the background. She told us we could have whatever we wanted that was ready on the farm. She told us, “If I make money from the farm, I would want to buy a goat, a cow, something.” She has two sons, two daughters, and a lot of grandchildren. Neither of her sons wants to get married. One has a mental problem and the other is in college.

When we were describing all the potluck lunch food we made—lots of ethnic foods from where we’re from, Sudan and Somalia and other countries—when we got to the lobster salad that a Maine farmer had made, she made this sound—oof!—to say she didn’t like it. She said she’d only eat the rice we made, and the goat meat.

“If a human has five fingers, they will understand each other.”

Khadija’s interviewer was conducted through a translator.

Interviewer: Where do you originally come from?

Translator: She originally came from Somalia.

Interviewer: What do you think you need to live a good life?

Translator: For that she doesn’t have a good knowledge except that she knows about farming, and she just wants to continue what she knows already. She said that the first time she came here she didn’t know anything about farming, but after, year by year, she was thinking, “I’m getting better and better and better. I think, though I don’t know how to speak English, I think pretty much I can keep going on what I’m doing.”

[For a good life,] she’s just asking that she can have more tools that she can use. She’s a female so she feels she needs someone to help her…. she’s asking for more help and more tools if we can help her.

She’s explaining that she felt bad because she was taking care of a lot of the farm and she didn’t get much to the market. There’s a lot of zucchinis and they are all dying—they are overgrown she needs someone to help her harvest.

Interviewer: Do you have any kids or grandchildren?

Translator: She has grandchildren and she has four kids. One is in middle school, another one in college, another one has a mental problem, and she has a lot of grandchildren. Her oldest daughter got married and had kids so she can’t help, I think, that much, because she’s kind of busy with her own family.

Interviewer: Do you think it’s important for them to know how to farm?

Translator: She doesn’t think they would need it. Her kids were all, “Why do you need this thing?! You were in Africa farming, now you are here…” so, she doesn’t think they would be interested in it. She can’t live without farming, it’s what she does, she’s proud of herself. That’s why she goes with it. Any human in America, anywhere, eats, we all use the source from the earth; it doesn’t matter if we’re in America or Africa, wherever you are.

Interviewer: Wow. That’s a powerful thing to say. I agree. Do you remember the first time you farmed?

Translator: She can’t remember. It was kind of part of her life, it was her great- great- great- grandparents’ [occupation], so it’s something that goes along with her generations.

Interviewer: When did you become a farmer?

Translator: When she was fifteen or younger, she got married and then her husband was a farmer, too.

Interviewer: Does she farm to earn money? Does she sell her crops?

Translator: No, and that’s what she was talking about a little while ago. She doesn’t have marketing and she doesn’t have the CSA thing, so she’s having a hard time.

Interviewer: But you want to sell your food, that’s part of why you grow?

Translator: She thinks this year is ending, but if she can have marketing help that would be great.

Interviewer: Do you dream of doing something else someday?

Translator: She said she would just want to retire and become an expert for farming—she’s not going to go to school to become a doctor or whatever—she just wants to improve her farming and education for that thing. She wants to get money to buy a cow or camel or chickens. She said people used to buy her fruit, her vegetables, and then she would go get a camel or cow. So now she’s dreaming, that’s her dream. She said she knew what to do, how to do all kind of things, but now you plant the thing and grow, and what else do you do? There’s no language, she doesn’t have the language, so what do you do?

Interviewer: Has your farming helped or saved your life, or your family’s life?

Translator: She said that she’s having a hard time…she’s just explained again, she doesn’t think she will receive money because she didn’t sell her produce, and it’s going bad, so it won’t help her family and her.

Interviewer: In the past, when you were living in Somalia, did the food that you grew, did it feed your family?

Translator: In the past I used to sell some and get money, maybe sheep or chicken, get something.

Interviewer: Can you tell me more about when you and your husband first were together and started farming? Because it made you laugh (laughter from everyone).

Translator: He had his own farm, and they both took care of the farm. It was really good; he helped her and showed her the good ways.

Interviewer: Tell me different places that you farmed.

Translator: She farmed in Somalia, Kenya, and Maine.

Interviewer: How is the land in Maine?

Translator: She doesn’t think this is real soil. It is not the soil that she is used to seeing. She’s never seen the place where they put the fertilizer. They just plant things and they grow. In Africa, they use irrigation to water the farms and it was easer than this.

Interviewer: What food do you grow for yourself?

Translator: She plants for herself corn, beans, cucumber, tomatoes, but she didn’t used to plant, what do you call it, the broccoli. She said she doesn’t eat it and she just sells it here. It’s for the Americans to eat. She loves milk. She used to have milk from her farm, meat, and all that stuff.

Interviewer: Do you know how to make cheese?

Translator: She used to keep the milk and then make butter out of it. But she did that back in her country, not here.

Interviewer: They used to make butter here, too. They would, like at a farm like this, they’d have a cow, they’d make butter, but they’d put it in a wooden bucket with a stick. (Whoo, whoo whoo!) How would you do it? How did you make butter in Somalia?

Translator: They’d put it in a big bucket, a kind of wood container, called han. It’s about bucket size, with a little hole in the top and a lid. They put the milk in, and then they hold it in both hands and rock it back and forth for thirty minutes or so. And then you do like this, like she’s doing (Khadija rocks with her hands and says “shhh, shhh, shhh”). And that’s how you make the butter. You separate them.

Interviewer: What is the strangest part about trying to farm in Maine?

Translator: The question is not clear for her. Is it how they are different, here and Africa?

Interviewer: How is farming here weird?

Translator: Africa is not cold, first of all. (Laughing.) It doesn’t have ice or snow! When it is snowy here, it’s raining out there. They don’t make the rows, the beds, they don’t measure their plants or rows or the beds. When the rain comes, you just plant your seeds and they come up. Here is much harder. You have to make the beds, all this and this, you have to measure. Africa is not like here. You cannot even take off your shoes here. Here it is much harder. If you don’t take your shoes, everything will stick your feet. There, it’s so flat, it’s nice, it’s smooth. It’s better.

Interviewer: Farmers do go barefoot here (in Lisbon) in the fields, in the earth. Do you like to have bare feet?

Translator: Here you cannot walk without shoes. Something is going to hurt you, or you are going to die. You can’t go without a jacket, a coat. In Africa, there’s a season in the fall when it’s not cold, it’s not hot. The weather is perfect, so you can walk without anything on your feet. They don’t care, they just walk. It’s free.

Interviewer: What is the best part about farming in Maine?

Translator: What she likes here is that she doesn’t know English, and so she can’t work in the factory or do something else. All she knows is being a farmer, and that’s what she chooses, and she likes it. She has to do something else, though. Yeah, she has to do something else, that’s what she said.

Interviewer: Take me through a day of farming. Take me through your routine.

Translator: She comes out here at ten. First, she looks over what needs to be done. What has been eaten, what needs to be done. If the vegetables on one part of the farm are fine, then she will take the other side, and do the other side. In the evening, when the sun is going down, when one of the fields needs watering, she waters it when everything else is done. At six, she will be done with the work.

Interviewer: When do you start your day at work?

Translator: She gets up at nine, she calls someone to pick her up because she doesn’t drive, she cannot drive. So she has to find someone to come and take her to the farm. She calls the other farmers and asks them, “Can you come get me?” Then they give her a ride. At twelve she gets a little bit of lunch time and then she starts the work.

Interviewer: Do you have any advice or anything to teach the young people?

Translator: First, she wants to say thank you for all the hard work you have done. We helped her a lot today a lot and after you leave she will keep working. She said having three of us weeding in the corn helped a lot. She says she believes that in her mind: “They will be doing better than us, because we don’t know the language, and they do. They know the farming and the language at the same time, so they will plant the crops, and then they could sell them.”