Groundnuts

At the NGO women are often working on their little projects to make a little extra cash on the side and one of women is always shelling groundnuts and then roasting them to sell them as a kind of snack. Groundnuts are similar to peanuts but a bit smaller. She soaks the groundnuts in a huge bucket of water and then to shell them squeezes them out of the skin. She makes it look very simple and she is very fast at it so I thought I would give it a try. I washed my hands off, I have a cut on my left index finger so I have a turtle band-aid on it which made her laugh at me, but then I sat down with a handful of groundnuts and observed and then tried it. On my first squeeze the nut went flying across the bench and onto the ground where it was quickly swallowed by a chicken. After four of five I learned how to control the slipper little suckers, but I think about 15 or so made their way to the ground, the chickens thought I was the best. I tried it for a while but then told the woman I probably owed her money after all the nuts I had lost and gave up. I saw her sit there and do this for four hours once, and she sells them for basically nothing but it is so labor intensive. She said I could try again tomorrow……