Old or new idea?

Tuesday evening, 6 Oct
With the group of non-teaching school staff this morning I decided to start the bag garden routine in a different place, with ‘What vegetables do you like eating?’ Nicodeme, the pastor from Cyangugu, now based here, was my translator and he said the names would be difficult. I took out my seed catalogue, brought for the purpose of naming plants, then changed tack.

Prompted by an article forwarded by Dave Zarembka, the AGLI co-ordinator, who lives in Western Kenya, I became interested a few months ago in African indigenous vegetables (AIVs). My friend Anne did some internet research and made contact with Mary Abukutsa-Onyanga, a professor who has been analyzing the benefits of AIVs in Kenya and sent some leaflets. Anne and her husband Rob did a splendid job re-arranging the information and making two-sided laminated sheets.

On the spur of the moment I got out the AIV sheets and passed them round. ‘Do you eat any of these?’ Yes, amaranth is available in the markets sometimes. They also recognized spiderplant. It’s a free growing weed on disturbed land. It tastes bitter. Only old women and old men eat it.

I showed Nicodeme the table on one of the sheets, comparing the nutritional qualities of several AIVs with ‘exotics’ such as cabbage and spinach. He read out some figures. The class quickly realized that it was likely the native plants are well suited to the local conditions and do better than imports.

It would be a pity if such good foods were reserved for the old, when young energetic poeple could be benefitting from them too, I suggested. ‘But they taste bitter.’ The Kenyan professor had offered Anne some recipes, but we hadn’t wanted to risk undermining traditional methods here. Now seems to be the time to take up the offer, and give thanks for the internet.

I told the group that in Kenya these vegetables are now being sold in supermarkets. Since ideas often come here from Kenya, perhaps they should be on the lookout for a marketing opportunity in a year or two.

We prepared two sacks. I went into town this afternoon to buy a stock of seeds for several groups. Both seed shops had amaranth in their ordinary stock, though neither recognised two further plants from my photos, both said to grow in the Lake Victoria basin.

In my photo of the info and the seed packet at the top of this post you’ll see the base of a solar powered table lamp I brought for Antoine’s family. I’m experimenting with charging and functioning times. I hope what I’m offering is useful.