The caterpillar harvest belongs to the community. There are no rules about who can collect, or where – they are for ‘tout le monde’. And during the caterpillar season, from 3am to 7am every morning, every woman, child, and many men are out by torchlight carrying buckets and scouring the fields for their tiny prey. So, as soon as the season began, I decided to join them.
I woke at 1.56am with a strong conviction that I had to be somewhere, and I was already as good as late.
Somehow combining haste with being still half asleep, I pulled on my clothes, grabbed a bucket, and started to walk out into the moonlight.
By 3am I had reached my destination - a small village a few kilometres from where I am currently living. On my way, passing some familiar trees, I switched on my torch a few times. My eyes did their best to adjust as I scanned the lower trunk and base of each tree. I did so hastily, not expecting to see anything as it was not yet 3am, not quite yet. But on the fourth or fifth tree, I saw them - unmistakably striped caterpillars, each one larger than my little finger, shuffling down the bark towards the soil below.
‘If their spit is green, they’re not ready. If it’s chocolate-brown, take them’.
I remembered the words of my teacher and picked up one of the descending caterpillars. They spit on defence, so I quickly saw brown discharge splash across my palm and knew that my poor captive was indeed ready to be harvested.
I dropped it into my bucket. At this point I had a mixture of emotions - awe (the caterpillars are beautiful, fascinating, and for the moment prolific - a rare and awe-inspiring combination), guilt (it’s not my tree, it’s not my caterpillar, yet I’ve just taken it like a thief in the night, and in one way or another I will profit from having done so…), pride (I have been looking forward to this moment!), and of course greed (now I have collected one, I know where I can collect so many more…).
I continued on my path. One by one little pools of light began to light up the bark on each of the many shea trees that dominated the landscape, and I could see the outlines of many, many figures - head down, eyes to the ground - pacing the fields.
I retreated to the forests that I knew well, anxious for this short while to make the most of the anonymity given to me by the night, and knowing that my GPS would save me if I were to get lost. The forest was empty of people – but the trees, albeit surrounded by thorns, were plentiful in caterpillars! By 5am I had quite a lot at the bottom of my bucket, and I decided to go and find my friend. She took me to the fields and I began to understood why no one collects in the forests – the shea trees in the fields are larger, evenly spaced, easy to find, and surrounded only by bare soil and young crops. This means that caterpillars are at a higher density, and are easier to spot. We wandered the fields, eyes to the ground, as a classic, enormous and spectacular sunrise flooded the sky above. Walking back, I met nearly every woman and child – and several men – whom I knew in the village, and we compared our bucketfuls. I resolved that today I’d go along to sell these caterpillars with my friend, and find out a bit about the local trade.
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I woke at 1.56am with a strong conviction that I had to be somewhere, and I was already as good as late.
Somehow combining haste with being still half asleep, I pulled on my clothes, grabbed a bucket, and started to walk out into the moonlight.
By 3am I had reached my destination - a small village a few kilometres from where I am currently living. On my way, passing some familiar trees, I switched on my torch a few times. My eyes did their best to adjust as I scanned the lower trunk and base of each tree. I did so hastily, not expecting to see anything as it was not yet 3am, not quite yet. But on the fourth or fifth tree, I saw them - unmistakably striped caterpillars, each one larger than my little finger, shuffling down the bark towards the soil below.
‘If their spit is green, they’re not ready. If it’s chocolate-brown, take them’.
I remembered the words of my teacher and picked up one of the descending caterpillars. They spit on defence, so I quickly saw brown discharge splash across my palm and knew that my poor captive was indeed ready to be harvested.
I dropped it into my bucket. At this point I had a mixture of emotions - awe (the caterpillars are beautiful, fascinating, and for the moment prolific - a rare and awe-inspiring combination), guilt (it’s not my tree, it’s not my caterpillar, yet I’ve just taken it like a thief in the night, and in one way or another I will profit from having done so…), pride (I have been looking forward to this moment!), and of course greed (now I have collected one, I know where I can collect so many more…).
I continued on my path. One by one little pools of light began to light up the bark on each of the many shea trees that dominated the landscape, and I could see the outlines of many, many figures - head down, eyes to the ground - pacing the fields.
I retreated to the forests that I knew well, anxious for this short while to make the most of the anonymity given to me by the night, and knowing that my GPS would save me if I were to get lost. The forest was empty of people – but the trees, albeit surrounded by thorns, were plentiful in caterpillars! By 5am I had quite a lot at the bottom of my bucket, and I decided to go and find my friend. She took me to the fields and I began to understood why no one collects in the forests – the shea trees in the fields are larger, evenly spaced, easy to find, and surrounded only by bare soil and young crops. This means that caterpillars are at a higher density, and are easier to spot. We wandered the fields, eyes to the ground, as a classic, enormous and spectacular sunrise flooded the sky above. Walking back, I met nearly every woman and child – and several men – whom I knew in the village, and we compared our bucketfuls. I resolved that today I’d go along to sell these caterpillars with my friend, and find out a bit about the local trade.
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 |  Left: Bertine adding the caterpillars to the cooking pot Above: Prepared caterpillars, ready for sale |
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