Rufaro Makamure

A puzzle has been solved. I have always wondered why dried nyemba bean leaves or rather most traditional/ local vegetables aren't common in our households. It's the labor it takes to pick them up and process them. It has been difficult for me to sell the dried nyemba leaves and I only found out it's because of the soil still in the dried leaves. I never used to understand this, because I would cook the vegetables the wrong way. One old lady I visited and asked more on how to cook the leaves explained perfectly.

The leaves that are picked are the tender new leaves which you see because they are shiny and the green color is not as deep as the old ones. After picking, the leaves are thoroughly washed to remove any soil and this is something I learnt a few years back. (My mistake: I was not too bothered about a little bit of soil remaining, because I would then thoroughly wash the dried leaves just before cooking a meal). The wet leaves, still fresh from the field are then left to drip and dry a little in the sun, before they are boiled until they turn brown and then they are dried. When cooking the dried leaves, they should not be rewashed, because it takes some rich flavor away. So apparently it is so difficult to find these dried leaves without soil in them and this is why people don't buy them.
But because I believe we are at a point where we need food accessibility, crop variety and plants resilient to changing times that can protect our soil, we need to revisit some of the old and traditional ways of cooking even if it might be labor intensive. Now that I have learnt this, I will work on our dried leaves and have people trust me, the community I am in has mostly the elder people who grew up eating these leaves and they have a higher chance of buying. Once they do, they will expose their grandchildren to the leaves and this in turn will reintroduce the leaves into our lives. People in the rural areas still eat these leaves.

I had a call with mai Kumbi today and it went well. The issue was mainly on productivity, our field is now for the nyemba beans, so unlike most maize fields we still need to weed our beans and the grass was so high and the field needs weeding, this is something I needed to communicate. Also with the vegetables, in as much as I have left it all in their hands, we need to do things with targets and it seemed as if the replanting of vegetables was being done but slowly and I had to point this out. It felt uncomfortable delegating but she took it in so well. Her request was that we need a lot of onion seedlings when the time comes for us to plant onions and I have to make sure the seeds I planted grow well, otherwise we won't  be able to cover the area which we agreed to grow onions on, if we are to rely on buying seedlings from elsewhere.

The three plants from some of the seeds that were sent to me have produced fruit and now I have seeds for next season. The long Thai bean looks so amazing when it grows vertically, it adds so much character to the garden. The seeds I now have are long Thai bean seeds, bottle gourd (I have not broken them out of the shell) and pumpkin which is still in the field and we haven't harvested.

In the field, the cow peas has spread nicely. It actually is so similar to the long Thai bean.

I have started a garden at home, which I have nursed onions in, from seed I harvested from the plot more than a year ago. If mai Kumbi and her son, manage to prove that they can grow things on their own, we can grow the onions on a big space, so that we also grow in terms of income.

I borrowed the keyhole irrigation idea, so I have a new use of my kitchen waste. Everything I used in making the bed I got from around the house. Organic matter was from the banana plant and some subsoil came from underpinning which was done on our house which had developed a really bad crack and was fixed during the rainy season. Then for top soil I used all the soil I was collecting as I was trying to grow seedlings as well as from under the organic matter by the banana tree.

Asher has not been found yet,  but there have been more than 3 reports of him having been seen. I hope he decides to go back to his aunt.

With everything at the plot, the set up is good enough for a family to survive at a subsistence level. This time I have taken a step back and instead of leading the way, the guys at the plot are. The vegetable we have been growing is what's grown by almost every house hold in their backyard, so I told mai Kumbi to apply her knowledge of growing this vegetable and prove they can grow things, as opposed to me dictating the pace. This way I believe they will be more accountable to the outcome of their efforts and the feeling that was there,  where the guys at the plot were under the impression that they were the needy ones and I was okay will be erased. I  was also specific about no use of fertilizers. So for the next months I am a spectator of things and the place has to benefit mai Kumbi and her family as well as my siblings and my self as the owners of the place.

I am preparing to host various children from my family from April going onwards, mainly to share what I got from our school system when it was so much betterthan it is now. I hope I can help the kids develop confidence, where the setting is as if it's so as to crush their confidence. So I will share progress at the plot as well as my preps for the kids and what I think might matter during their stay.

I reflected over my attempt to create a system , which is people and environment centered, that runs parallel to the existing one and it seems it is an epic fail. How do we lose a child...? I met with mai Kumbi telling her to find another place to live and she has nowhere to go. I now feel like I am not the one to help her with this even if she says she is going to be doing a lot of things differently.

My sister surprisingly is protecting my project and she says I am in an emotional state. I couldn't believe it when she was defending the staying of mai Kumbi at the plot. A few days ago, they were on my case with this issue. It's been so many years of me trying to see if we cannot live abundantly and I still believe there is enough to go round for everyone, but what it takes to get to this is what I don't know anymore.

Last night was a very difficult one for me. I got a call and was told that what I did to help Kumbi's situation is potentially going to be canceled. I felt so helpless with no hope and I needed anything to help me know what to do. I don't know what to do yet, but one of the ladies from my neighborhood, from nowhere, shared her life story and how things do work out if we strive to do good and we only need to remain persistent and hopeful. I had not told her about my situation, she just said these things in general. At the moment I  feel like the protection I thought would be there for people as we develop, might not be there, and this is because of what I am seeing with Kumbi and Asher.

I was not lucky, but I passed by the peanut butter business owner's place to share pictures with him since he is in town, he said a child was looking for work and he found it very odd because he has never had children wanting to work at his place. The child is around Asher's age, and I am hoping it's him. He once went with his aunt and he heard that people are employed to recycle bottles for packing peanut butter   so he knows there is work like that there. The peanut butter business owner was skeptic about giving the kids a job but he had just told them to come on Wednesday as he was battling with his mind, what the right thing to do was. So I am now waiting to hear from him on Wednesday and also to understand what Asher's family is really doing to find their child.

Today, I will  be moving around town looking for Asher. I did not tell my sisters that I will be putting some of my time to look for him. I know it's not really "my business" to be looking for him, from how we are supposed to be doing things, but from how I view things, we are each other's business. So from the time I can bank, from how I am doing things, Asher deserves some effort and time because I believe we are all each other's business, if we want to create a world which is not a lonely place. The child was said to have been seen in town a number of times just walking around in the clothes he left home with and without bathing. So my plan is to just walk in town looking for him and if I fail to find him at least I would have tried.

The current situation has sparked some truth to be said. My sisters have been honest about their feelings towards my project and how they don't see how I am benefiting from it, but rather they see how I am being taken advantage of. There is a lot of truth in the points they brought forward, but I felt disappointed, maybe because I thought one of my sisters who stays with me would bring out the fact that, just yesterday, I addressed that issue as one positive move in shifting from an unbalanced relationship. It is not easy to be criticized even when it is constructive criticism. I also think that the time the project moves beyond breaking even, it will make better sense. Otherwise the fact that we are coming from a very negative place financially is kind of being acknowledged, but it is not being given weight, I am still working on this. At some point in the past, the costs included, amongst other things,
-fertilizers
-salary and food for those staying at the plot which was money being taken from elsewhere.
These things are not there anymore, as we are using what the plot has to cater for these costs.

The other costs that are not direct are costs that come with constantly changing people who stay at the plot and also,  it's common for projects to have a very short span,  as owners focus on what brings in money regardless of the different things that are attempted. Growing something to a point of stability I think can build a long term income generator which withstands the changing times.

I admit that I have a problem in separating a business from social responsibility, but are these two things really separate. If I can build a business that brings social and economic benefits that are real, I am so sure it will be a steadier project. There are just somethings I  cannot stay away from even if there is no economic benefit.