Tobacco cultivation and refinement

To grow tobacco, water, sweat of the brow, and the song of women were needed. The song dissolved the fatigue, which was at once laughter, weeping, and the pain of love, so that at least the heart would be light, to hold up the tired arms. In the factory, however, at the manufacturing plant, one could neither sing nor speak, only the roar of the machines, of the conveyor belt that silenced everyone, the women like the humblest among the gears. But when they strung the tobacco leaves, sitting outside, it was a celebration: all young, even a hundred of them, talking about everything, in an autonomous task and marked by ‘cuntare’ (recounting), by narrating and telling each other stories, stringing together hopes, desires, secrets, prayers, with thoughts of when “faimu vecchi”, when we grow old.