Eat dodo (now with pics)

Saturday morning, 12 Feb

What is dodo? It's the Kinyarwanda name for leaf amaranth, an African indigenous vegetable (AIV). It's the one AIV commonly grown, harvested in the wild, sold in markets and eaten without wincing all over Rwanda. I had it for lunch today, at the house of Rachel's parents outside Kigali, where she and I had gone to try cooking in a solar cooker donated by an American organisation but not used. (Rachel Bugenimana is the wife of the couple where I'm staying, a keen vegetable gardener and for this visit my most frequent translator and co-trainer.) It was picked from the garden, rinsed and chopped, and boiled with green banana and a little finely sliced beetroot.Caption:Rachel peeling the bananas

Caption: The dodo ready for chopping


Caption: the black cooking pot and the round thermometer can just be seen through the reflection of the cooker lid


The rice from the solar cooker, put in a black pan with 2 parts hot water to one of rice and left for 4 hours through sunshine and cloud, stayed pretty much at a temperature of 150F, once heated. It was a strange combination of mushy and grainy – what should we have done differently? The dodo dish was delicious. It cooks and tastes much like spinach. The few people who do eat the other local AIVs mix them with spinach to soften the bitter taste.


Why the exhortation? On Wednesday a group of Rwanda Yearly Meeting leaders – not the formal executive committee – was meeting for planning and general exchange of information. The preferred venue for such occasions now is the small conference facility at Gasharu Church, called the Peace Garden. I was there to look over the fairly extensive piece of ground, with the caretaker and a couple of other church members. David Bucura's contribution to the current FWCC (Friends World Committee for Consultation) initiative on the environment is to encourage better use of the space. Here his two roles as pastor at Gasharu and clerk of FWCC Africa Section come together. I had talked with him in October about 'the edible garden': now I was to be put to the test.

I had forgotten to do much specific preparation for this role, and there was no internet connection on Tuesday evening so I couldn't mug up. My draft programme had 4 days for this activity but there was nothing actually to be done until it rained. I agreed to meet the small group and give them some seeds from my garden and from Agrotec in Kigali. In the event most of our time was taken with talking about trees and hedges with edible leaves and/or fruits, and devising ways to proof new planting against child trespassers. I am to return near the end of my time to see how things are going.

That done, I was invited to take lunch with the YM planners and take 15 minutes to tell them about Growing Together. I invited questions at the end but was thrown by the best: 'What can we do in 2011 to cooperate with your project?' I'm sorry to say I waffled.

Later in the day David asked me to give the message (20-30 minute sermon) this Sunday, introducing a few weeks' focus on the Quaker testimony to simplicity. I hope I shall manage to do that without hypocrisy. Next morning I woke with the answer I could have given the planners – eat dodo. It's cheap or free, palatable, local, rich in micro-nutrients, health promoting. It's not grown in monocultures drenched in fertiliser, it's not trucked in using precious and expensive diesel, it's not evident on aspirational TV, it's not an imported luxury. So – step one, eat dodo.


I'm posting this in a hurry without pics. I'll add some later.