Seeds and nuts

One of the four kinds of food which in combination can provide protein as good as meat, together with grains, dairy and legumes, is a puzzle to all my groups. 'What are nuts?' 'What do you mean by seeds?'

Sunflower seeds are said to be used as a paste in sauce/gravy; I have not yet found any to buy. Sesame and pumpkin seeds I brought with me from England. They are viewed with suspicion and tasted reluctantly, even when toasted. It's sometimes conceded that pumpkin and similar seeds are eaten in Congo, but peeling them is very troublesome. I was once offered sesame seeds roasted with peanuts as a snack and have located them in the two big supermarkets and two Indian shops, both raw and browned. They are called 'simsim' and seem all to come from Kenya.

The same shops also stock almonds and cashews, but they are very expensive and probably bought only by ex-pats. I had searched in vain for macadamia nuts till Matt told me to look with the potato crisps and not with the raw nuts. Nakumat has five or six different brands, some organic. I was on the trail because somebody had mentioned that macadamia nuts are being introduced here. When I started asking around, a couple of gardeners asked if I could find seeds or saplings for them.

Driving with Antoine on Thursday I noticed a new hotel on the outskirts of town was named Macadamia. He told me he has five young trees in the garden of his little country house. There was a government project in Eastern Province to introduce them a couple of years ago. He doesn't know when they will start to yield.

We had been making various plans for my visit to his family on Friday. The tea plantation owner with an interest in fuel-efficient cooking would not be at home. Much of the day was taken up with a visit from the head of a school near Ruhengeri who brought letters and photos from some of her students for an exchange with a London primary school. At half past three, with three hours till dark, we set out to find a nursery selling macadamia trees.

The first site was one I'd been past several times. They had various kinds of citrus as well as papaya and mango but no macadamia. I bought two small orange trees – a valencia and a mandarin – for Antoine’s town garden. He got instructions for driving to the place where we'd find the macadamia.

We soon turned off the main road, heading towards the organic training institute at Gako that I'd visited two years ago. Before we reached it A asked for more directions. We retraced our route, turned down a narrow track and ended in a school yard. Various children and adults shrugged their shoulders. On the way back to our road we noticed the nursery and primary school was named 'La Pepiniere' (sorry, no accents), which is the name for a plant nursery in Kinyarwanda as well as in French.

The next side turning took us past the organic institute, where the gatekeeper confirmed we were headed in the right direction. I don't know whether A was warned about the state of the road or not. I do know we lurched several times at angles that I thought must result in overturning. Deep puddles sucked at the wheels. Somehow we kept going, down to the valley bottom, across bridges made of tree trunks, and part way up the other side.

Would we have to return by this route, I asked. 'Oh no, there's probably a better road.' I hoped so.

The track broadened out in a village. Further directions took us parallel with the hillside, through more troughs, along the edge of more drops, past more excited children. Then we saw a large area covered with black netting. We've found it, said A.


By now it was after five. Rain threatened. Antoine stopped the car and a solitary worker appeared. Following him we walked past thousands of macadamia saplings, perhaps as many as fifty thousand. Another worker joined us, then another, but the office was unstaffed when we reached it. 'This is a government project', they said. 'We don't sell to anybody.' Antoine quietly asked how many I wanted. 'Well, three would be good. I'd settle for one or pay for ten if necessary.'

I wanted to plead my case but A's body language said I'd better keep quiet and let him do the negotiating. He took his time. One of the workers phoned the manager. I went to photograph the notice board. When I returned the deal was done. We could take three. I paid generously 'for the phone calls'.

We didn't need to turn the car. The rain, as all too often this year, didn't fall. After perhaps three or four miles of adequate dirt road, passing macadamia trees, we rejoined the main road a mile or two from where we'd first turned off.
Antoine said he could do with a drink – non-alcoholic, of course. I said I'd be happy to treat him. We went to the very restaurant where I'd bought drinks and brochettes two years ago. Sitting outside in the fading light, we ate a fish kebab each and drank non-alcoholic beer before returning to letter writing and supper.

Next morning on the way up to the teachers' house, where I was to borrow a couple of novels and Sandrine a couple of DVDs, Antoine pointed out a macadamia tree, about four metres high, behind a garden wall. I wondered how they'd managed to buy it. Could there be a nursery selling the trees somewhere? 'They must be part of the government project', said Antoine.

This morning, Sunday, I bought roasted peanuts and sesame (in packages with Rwandan phone numbers) to add protein to the meal to be prepared by the women at Gahanga on Wednesday. I also got roasted and salted macadamia nuts, and sesame bars with jaggery (what's that?), sugar and edible oil – Kenyan again. Perhaps in October I'll find somebody growing simsim.