Cotton Picking

It is Saturday and I just got home from work. I drop my things off in my room and help put lunch on the table. Dilber (sister-in-law) asks me if I want to pick cotton after lunch. I immediately reply, “yes!”.
I have been asking various family members for the past few weeks since the cotton harvest has started to take me with them out to the cotton fields. I even had one date all set up but because of some language misunderstandings it never happened.
Several hours later Dilber knocks on my window and says they’re leaving. I have a koýnek (long dress) on with a white long sleeve shirt over the top and I’m wearing a scarf over my hair. I grab my very large bottle of water and run out the door. Outside my family’s truck is sitting. In the bed of the truck I see nearly 15 women and young girls. My host father is driving. We head east out of town. We pass field after field of cotton, many of which have women and children already picking. We weave through dirt back roads for about 20 minutes and then my host father stops. I can’t see any cotton fields which is rather odd since that is what we have come to do.
Dilber jumps out of the truck and wanders to the side of the road and peers into a very large ditch. The dirt on the opposite side of the ditch is built up higher than our truck. She yells, “no water!” and all of the other women proceed to jump out of the truck and trudge through the ditch that is filled with weeds and grasses that are over my head. After we’ve descended and ascended this huge ditch I finally see the cotton field stretching out in front of me. I smile to myself and then greet various family members, friends and acquaintances who know me. I even get a hug from a host sister.
After the initial greetings I stand around awkwardly while everyone is prepping to pick. They are tying long aprons to their fronts, then tying one, two, or more bags to their front, back, and sides. Many put gloves on (these appear to be pairs of socks where the toes have been cut off and a slit has been made for the thumb). I am beginning to think I am not nearly prepared enough.
Another sister hollers at me and I follow her. She starts to walk into the field and I mention the fact that I don’t have a bag or apron. She passes me onto another sister who provides me with the essentials. My apron is a striped white and grey that covers from the outside of one thigh to the outside of another and goes all the way down to my ankles. I am only given one cotton picking bag but it is rather large. I have no idea how much cotton will fill this bag or how much work it will require to fill this bag so I don’t ask for another.
With around 40 women on my left and another 10 young girls to my right I walk bravely into the field and the row that has been assigned to me. The cotton plants start at around waist height and continue growing in height as I reach further and further into the field. Very quickly the plants are at my eye level and I have to jump in order to see over them.
The cotton we are picking today is on the bottom of the plant. This is the second time this field has been picked and I later learn that it will be combed through at least four times before the harvest is considered done. I take a step forward, bend at the waist and reach down, form a claw with my hand and pluck at the cotton. Every move I make in the field releases hundreds of small bugs from the plants and clouds of dust that bellow up around me and make me feel dehydrated and cause me to sneeze. (I did have the forethought to take allergy medication before I left, but still am feeling the effects)
Each plant has about 4 – 8 cotton bunches ready to be picked. Some come off very easily and are then stuffed into my growing sack tied to my waist. Others I have to pry each individual pod of cotton away. Some cotton pods have molded and are rotten. Nearly every pod is covered by a spider web and I pray that I don’t run into any of the poisonous spiders that live in Turkmenistan.
Very quickly my back and upper thighs begin to ache with all the tension and it gets worse as my bag gets bigger. I resort to squatting each time I venture to new plants and find new body parts that begin to ache.
I glance back toward where the large truck that will take the cotton away is parked. It keeps getting smaller and smaller.
I’m keeping pace with all of the children to my right but the women have forged ahead and I wonder if it is simply because I’m so slow or if I should only be taking the cotton that comes off easily. If I had to wager a bet I would probably go for the first option.
After just over an hour my bag is filled. Now I have no idea what to do. If I go back I’ll probably not be able to figure out exactly which row is mine and it looks like the women are expected to finish an entire row. I’m only about 1/3 of the way through my row. As I weigh my options one of my host nieces appears behind me with an empty bag and offers to take away my full one. I gladly give up my burden, don the second bag and get back to work.
The second bag fills slower than the first bag.
Some of the women who started around the same time I am are headed back toward the truck, they pass and yell hi.
The women from the kindergarten yell at me across the field, it takes me a while to realize they are talking to me. Their laughter and joy waves over me and I smile. This is truly place for women to gather, gossip, and grab cotton.
My second bag is slowly filling up, the truck is even further away, I can’t tell if I’m closer to the far end of the field or the truck. The cotton is so high here it is hard to see anything other than what is right in front of me. My previously white sleeves are black and my hands are covered in mud and stains. I can’t see the bottom of my dress as the bag in front of me is getting so large.
Several hours after I initially set out my second bag is full, my body is aching and I need water. I decide to head back with my full bag for a break.
When I return to the truck my bag is immediately weighed, my niece adds the weight to what she weighed my previous bag at and it turns out I have picked 9.5 kilos of cotton! I’m surprised by the weight, it seems like a lot to me.
I sit down on top of a random bag for my break. The people by the truck are all family members – a host sister, niece, and nephew. I begin a conversation with Gülçer (the sister) about the field and cotton business.
This field and one other cotton field are both owned by my family. This field and the other will both be picked through 4 times before considered done. A very strong young woman can pick on average between 120 – 150 kilos of cotton a day. (My 9.5 kilos is seeming like nothing now) The government pays 500 manat (old manat) for every kilo picked. As I do the math in my head I realize I would make about $.30 for my several hours of cotton picking. Even one of those strong young women would only make about $3 – 4 per day. The families who own the fields take people out to their fields, record how much each person picks, drop the cotton off at a local processing plant, and when the season is done the government pays each family accordingly, the families then pass the money onto the pickers.
Our family has 1 field with grain, another with watermelon and two fields of cotton (my host family is very wealthy in Turkmen standards, especially for a village).
I pass nearly as much time talking with my family members as I did picking. No one seems to care if I go back out to the fields or not. After spending 4 hours in the field all of the women are called in to the truck and madness ensues. Each woman/girl is gathering around the scale. My sister-in-law is weighing each persons’ cotton, my sister is recording them all in a small book, the women/children then take their bags of cotton and toss them up onto the truck which is by now overflowing with cotton. My niece and nephew are trying to grab the bags, empty them onto the huge pile of cotton in the truck and squash the cotton down in order to fit it all in without blowing away on the trip to the processing plant. The next hour is spent in this way. I help out where I can.
Finally, we’ve picked most of the cotton off the ground that fell and the cotton on the truck is sufficiently pressed down I make the trek back across that huge ditch to find my family’s truck with nearly 30 people all packed into the bed. I don’t know how they fit in any more, but somehow another 4 women find places in the back. I am sitting safely in the front of the truck. We make the trip back into town as the sun is glowing bright red and rapidly disappearing beyond the horizon and I am smiling.