Once a bag was pushed out onto the ground, our father was following the Kigethi closely behind in his pick up truck. Two of my brothers ran beside the pick up like Presidential Escort personnel, stopping only to pick up the bags of wheat and loading them on the pickup. Once loaded to capacity, our father drove home, while the boys ran as fast as their legs could carry them, to go unload the bags of wheat, then headed back to the wheat fields for more.
My fathers pick up was for work not for leisure ride along, and we knew that pretty well. So, with the senior driving, and the juniors running along, father and sons did this all day long. No bag of wheat was left in the fields. Our 20 acres of wheat produced an average of 100 bags of wheat, give or take. They worked until the last bag of wheat was home and stacked up high in a neat pile.
There was no storage place big enough to accommodate 100 bags of wheat. A makeshift platform outside the house was put together and the bags of wheat were stacked there and covered with a tarp (Kiandaruwa). I still remember that smell of freshly harvested wheat, and it stayed in the air at our home until the wheat was finally transported to the Cereal Board.
Proud of My Brothers: I always had deep respect for my brothers because I knew how tough those jobs were on their teenage bodies, but you could never tell looking at them work, because they performed every task with skill, dedication and never complaining. They went toe to toe with adults on any given task, often times out performing the adults. I was confident their lives would turn out OK wherever the tides of life carried them, because they knew how to work effectively with both their brains and their hands, with a good attitude to boot.
