tobacco

So being from NC I thought I’d seen tobacco growing…and then I arrived in Malawi where the tobacco plants are taller than I am and the leaves are absolutely enormous. We’ve just gone through the harvest season and have seen them hanging up in shacks to dry all along the roads. Sometimes the structures are just for drying tobacco and other times it is under the roof on the porch of a house.

One afternoon I got the opportunity to go to a tobacco warehouse. We were warned before we entered that it would be hot and that all the nicotine in the air would sting our lungs even though it isn’t actually burning. It was hot when we walked in but the first breath was fine and then it hit—stinging the throat and lungs with every breath. Wow. We walked straight across to an open door and stepped outside for some fresh air. Then back in to walk the row in between all the racks…as you walk down it gets hotter and hotter as the heat is coming from the other end. The tobacco is extremely brittle after drying so they wet it a little and then dry it again which helps it to keep (I think). I can not imagine working there…walking up and down the rows constantly in the heat and burning in your chest. It took a while to feel like I was breathing normally again after we left.