Slow day on the ranch; I am dealing with the Volunteer's curse today.
Anyway, I put together this film of the Faidherbia albida trees near my office as they've lost and found their leaves.
It's a real thriller.
Have a wonderful day.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Agroforestry ... to be seen or to be done?
March has certainly done it's best to come in like a lion and evolve into a rampaging bull elephant. Some seriously worrying thunderstorms have come ripping out of the east recently. The Senanga Safaris Lodge (where I take all my sunset pictures) had the roof ripped off the kitchen; numerous trees have lost limbs, etc.
They start innocently enough; late in the afternoon, you look out over the eastern sky and see absolutely picturesque cumulus clouds that reminiscent of the beginning of Columbia Pictures movies; exquisitely detailed shapes that fill half the aerial hemisphere (there isn't really any air pollution here). Somewhere during this reverie, you notice that the locals who usually walk around because it's the best way to kill time. The leaves start to flutter, then you hear the distant roar of air moving upwards at an alarming rate. Then you see the locals running. A good note for visitors; when in Zambia, do as Zambians do, esp. when massive convective storm is oncoming. Run.
It was between storms today that I went up to the District Forestry office to plant a couple hundred Faidherbia albida seedlings. It's the wrong time of year for planting, but you have to jump on your opportunities when you get the chance; me working with them on a small project now may mean a bigger project later, and who cares whether you end up with 320 seedlings with really skewed root-to-shoot ratios.
A little boring background here; from what I've seen so far, F. albida [along with most other tree species] that are raised in nurseries usually have to be maintained in order to keep them from sending tap roots into the soil underneath the planting pots which are open on both ends to aid transplanting (I'll post a picture when these trees germinate). Therefore, you have to do something to prevent the roots from gaining a foothold in the underlying soil. Mostly that involves manually moving all the pots from one place to another to break any roots that form before that breakage becomes fatal to the seedling. This means once a week, you are shifting however many trees you've planted, not a fun job when you've got 100 hectares of gum [eucalyptus] trees to move around. Some alternatives are raised, permeable nurseries (platforms) in which the tap roots are air-pruned. I've noticed that a 3-5 cm thick bed of rice hulls also works quite well in keeping the roots from descending. However, your trees tend to keep growing to the limit of soil nutrients and moisture; if you have plenty of both, you end up with a relatively unwieldy tree at planting time. This can be problematic if you're transporting the seedlings, doubly so with a thorny tree like F. albida.
Again, oh well. Guess we'll prune them and see what happens.
Anyway, it was shortly thereafter when speaking with a forestry officer, we had a discussion about where to locate potential tree nurseries. I opined a distant village east of Senanga where we have received good reports on Conservation Agriculture and they have paid their share capital for our cooperative almost entirely in full. They are the hardest working; they'd obviously be good candidates for mobilizing a nursery, maintenance, planting the trees, etc. Though my counterpart acknowledged their capacity for work, he thought it would be better to put the nurseries near to the East Bank (the eastern shore of the Zambezi), as those could more easily be seen given their proximity to the road. Seen by whom? Bosses. Chinondos. Big men. MPs. Donors.
It's one of the ironies of "development" that the people who are arguably the most qualified with regards to need, motivation, ability, etc., are stymied because of distance, lack of infrastructure, etc. It's an even more bitter irony that this is often keyed to how easy it is to get to a place. No one likes a bone-jarring ride through the bush; as you climb the ladder, those teeth-rattling rides get even less appealing. Therefore, it's no surprise that most "development" work in Senanga District heavily favors the areas adjunct to the tarred road that runs north to Mongu. The roadside is punctuated by signs that proclaim some "development" project undertaken in a nearby village. Needless to say, that stripe of villages is our most problematic; they rarely pay their shares, complain acutely about a "lack of attention", rarely self-organize, and so forth. Reason: they've seen too many NGO's, too many GRZ projects, too many handouts, too little follow-up, and zero accountability. "Development" in that area is as regular as the sun; if some project doesn't suit you, just wait: another one is sure to come.
So it goes. The tree nursery will be where it can be seen; people will be "trained"; an "action" plan will be written; the seeds, the tubes, and the soil will be gathered and planted. All this will be done at no small cost. In one or two years, the project will end, with the nursery neglected, half the trees unplanted, and most of the villagers chalking up agroforestry as a failure.
That's alright. I'd rather find those individuals from wherever who are willing to stick their necks out a bit and gamble on some trees. No inputs; no workshops; one-on-one training and seeds, then it's up to them. I've been happily surprised by this approach so far.
They start innocently enough; late in the afternoon, you look out over the eastern sky and see absolutely picturesque cumulus clouds that reminiscent of the beginning of Columbia Pictures movies; exquisitely detailed shapes that fill half the aerial hemisphere (there isn't really any air pollution here). Somewhere during this reverie, you notice that the locals who usually walk around because it's the best way to kill time. The leaves start to flutter, then you hear the distant roar of air moving upwards at an alarming rate. Then you see the locals running. A good note for visitors; when in Zambia, do as Zambians do, esp. when massive convective storm is oncoming. Run.
It was between storms today that I went up to the District Forestry office to plant a couple hundred Faidherbia albida seedlings. It's the wrong time of year for planting, but you have to jump on your opportunities when you get the chance; me working with them on a small project now may mean a bigger project later, and who cares whether you end up with 320 seedlings with really skewed root-to-shoot ratios.
A little boring background here; from what I've seen so far, F. albida [along with most other tree species] that are raised in nurseries usually have to be maintained in order to keep them from sending tap roots into the soil underneath the planting pots which are open on both ends to aid transplanting (I'll post a picture when these trees germinate). Therefore, you have to do something to prevent the roots from gaining a foothold in the underlying soil. Mostly that involves manually moving all the pots from one place to another to break any roots that form before that breakage becomes fatal to the seedling. This means once a week, you are shifting however many trees you've planted, not a fun job when you've got 100 hectares of gum [eucalyptus] trees to move around. Some alternatives are raised, permeable nurseries (platforms) in which the tap roots are air-pruned. I've noticed that a 3-5 cm thick bed of rice hulls also works quite well in keeping the roots from descending. However, your trees tend to keep growing to the limit of soil nutrients and moisture; if you have plenty of both, you end up with a relatively unwieldy tree at planting time. This can be problematic if you're transporting the seedlings, doubly so with a thorny tree like F. albida.
Again, oh well. Guess we'll prune them and see what happens.
Anyway, it was shortly thereafter when speaking with a forestry officer, we had a discussion about where to locate potential tree nurseries. I opined a distant village east of Senanga where we have received good reports on Conservation Agriculture and they have paid their share capital for our cooperative almost entirely in full. They are the hardest working; they'd obviously be good candidates for mobilizing a nursery, maintenance, planting the trees, etc. Though my counterpart acknowledged their capacity for work, he thought it would be better to put the nurseries near to the East Bank (the eastern shore of the Zambezi), as those could more easily be seen given their proximity to the road. Seen by whom? Bosses. Chinondos. Big men. MPs. Donors.
It's one of the ironies of "development" that the people who are arguably the most qualified with regards to need, motivation, ability, etc., are stymied because of distance, lack of infrastructure, etc. It's an even more bitter irony that this is often keyed to how easy it is to get to a place. No one likes a bone-jarring ride through the bush; as you climb the ladder, those teeth-rattling rides get even less appealing. Therefore, it's no surprise that most "development" work in Senanga District heavily favors the areas adjunct to the tarred road that runs north to Mongu. The roadside is punctuated by signs that proclaim some "development" project undertaken in a nearby village. Needless to say, that stripe of villages is our most problematic; they rarely pay their shares, complain acutely about a "lack of attention", rarely self-organize, and so forth. Reason: they've seen too many NGO's, too many GRZ projects, too many handouts, too little follow-up, and zero accountability. "Development" in that area is as regular as the sun; if some project doesn't suit you, just wait: another one is sure to come.
So it goes. The tree nursery will be where it can be seen; people will be "trained"; an "action" plan will be written; the seeds, the tubes, and the soil will be gathered and planted. All this will be done at no small cost. In one or two years, the project will end, with the nursery neglected, half the trees unplanted, and most of the villagers chalking up agroforestry as a failure.
That's alright. I'd rather find those individuals from wherever who are willing to stick their necks out a bit and gamble on some trees. No inputs; no workshops; one-on-one training and seeds, then it's up to them. I've been happily surprised by this approach so far.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Anthropologizing
A old tale I heard from a Peace Corps staff member who arguably qualified as a journeyman for all his work in various U.S. government was about how people who had been to Africa wrote about their experience. It appeared to him that there was an inverse relationship between actual time on the ground and volume; people who came for a 2-6 week visit would write books; 2-6 months warranted an article; anything over a year and you might squeeze out a paragraph or two. Though it's not canon, it does reflect how hard it is to take the square peg that is life here and round the corners in such a way that someone back home can grasp it, particularly after some years of understanding why 1) the peg is square, and 2) presenting the peg as round isn't fair to the peg.
The people who do the best at it (from my current paradigm) are the anthropologists; Lisa Cliggett, Elizabeth Colson, Thayer Scudder, and Kate Crehan, who have written about ethic groups I have spent some time with ... the baKaonde and the baTonga. Hell, I'll throw Nick Sitko in their as well; he's not an anthropologist per se, but he writes well. The point is, they present the square peg in the form of sometimes exhaustively comprehensive narratives that compose the fraction of "development" writing that chokes up on the ash-handle and takes a swing at the structural basis for life here (i.e. familial, kinship, community relationships, perceptions of nature, etc.) Which is to say they don't rely on simplistic narratives for why development creeps along in most of the rural portion of The Continent.
However, I will admit it is a stretch to read any of their titles ... anthropologists utilize nomenclature and qualitative research methods that are every bit as nuanced, complicated, and yawn-inducing as any of the "hard" sciences. Usually you have to plow through a lot of sociological / anthropological background to get to where they elaborate on the social contexts that make up the muscle and sinew to adorn the skeleton of theory. And without a healthy idea of the entire context (including the physical landscapes that are arguably as important as the social landscapes) it is beyond my capacity to visualize a hint of what they are getting at; for example, I really appreciate Crehan's description of the "Fractured Communities" primarily because I spent two years in buKaonde; she spent close to six.
The point of all this meandering is that the stereotypes that are trotted out to pull at the heart[and purse]strings of donors are often a cosmetic representation of the full story. Just as their is far more to you and I than a picture, or our relative GDP, there is similarly far more to the typical rural African. It's a matter of looking hard before giving. Just cut us old salts a break when you ask; as I've said, the context takes time.
The people who do the best at it (from my current paradigm) are the anthropologists; Lisa Cliggett, Elizabeth Colson, Thayer Scudder, and Kate Crehan, who have written about ethic groups I have spent some time with ... the baKaonde and the baTonga. Hell, I'll throw Nick Sitko in their as well; he's not an anthropologist per se, but he writes well. The point is, they present the square peg in the form of sometimes exhaustively comprehensive narratives that compose the fraction of "development" writing that chokes up on the ash-handle and takes a swing at the structural basis for life here (i.e. familial, kinship, community relationships, perceptions of nature, etc.) Which is to say they don't rely on simplistic narratives for why development creeps along in most of the rural portion of The Continent.
However, I will admit it is a stretch to read any of their titles ... anthropologists utilize nomenclature and qualitative research methods that are every bit as nuanced, complicated, and yawn-inducing as any of the "hard" sciences. Usually you have to plow through a lot of sociological / anthropological background to get to where they elaborate on the social contexts that make up the muscle and sinew to adorn the skeleton of theory. And without a healthy idea of the entire context (including the physical landscapes that are arguably as important as the social landscapes) it is beyond my capacity to visualize a hint of what they are getting at; for example, I really appreciate Crehan's description of the "Fractured Communities" primarily because I spent two years in buKaonde; she spent close to six.
The point of all this meandering is that the stereotypes that are trotted out to pull at the heart[and purse]strings of donors are often a cosmetic representation of the full story. Just as their is far more to you and I than a picture, or our relative GDP, there is similarly far more to the typical rural African. It's a matter of looking hard before giving. Just cut us old salts a break when you ask; as I've said, the context takes time.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Buy high, sell low
The rainy season tends to (at least in my short Zambian memory) blows itself out in an apocalyptic death rattle, swinging with both arms as it collapses. After nothing but sprinkles for five days, we we hit with what I can only describe as a blizzard-like rain storm. It was raining so hard and in so many directions, that it was impossible to see to the far side of the highway. The monstrous stump of the mungon'go tree directly in front of the office divested itself of one of its few remaining branches in a crack and a thump; thankfully, the mother that sells "talk-time" (pay-as-you-go cell phone time) broke for cover well before it flattened her pasteboard stand.
This was a suitable metaphor for how agriculture in Zambia can be ... things are floating along okay, and then, calamity. Too much of the farmers' maize that made it through the February drought undoubtedly got flattened by the intense convective winds this storm brought with it.
A similar calamity happened two weeks ago, though not necessarily an act of God; the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) posted its prices for selling of maize and rice last week. It bears mentioning that the FRA is a government agency that is by design and nomenclature intended to ensure food security in Zambia; it serves as the primary agent for purchasing maize from small-scale [subsistence] farmers and stockpiles this maize for the "short" months immediately preceding harvest-time in May/June. Considering that FRA sets the rules for importation and exportation of maize, Southern and Eastern Africa's majority staple, it wields something of a big stick in agriculture here.
One major headache for agronomists / ag. economist types is the politicization of maize in Zambia through the FRA. As my previous posts have mentioned, maize is a big deal here. Maize is everywhere. Maize is food. Maize is the crop you grow if you are any kind of farmer. Part of the reason, though, that farmers grow maize in the contemporary context is that the FRA sets maize prices artificially high to "help" small-scale farmers; for the past two years, it has been around K65,000 / 50 kg (roughly $4.25/bushel). This is a pan-territorial price, meaning that at any FRA depot / collection point in Zambia, the payment for a 50kg bag of maize is the same. This price is set regardless of location, yield, external prices, time; during the maize-buying exercise period (July - Dec) the price is fixed at this rate.
One might say, "Hey, that's a middle-of-the-road price ... $4.25 a bushel; not too great, but not bad." Ah, but the hidden expenses! This maize is stored (no small feat in a tropical climate) at government expense. It is moved around (again, no small feat using LDC infrastructure) at government expense. And now, it appears that it will be sold at government expense ... the sale price of maize at the depots across the country is K50,000 / 50 kg ($3.05 / bushel).
To put this in perspective, FRA buys maize at roughly K15,000 to K20,000 higher than local market rates during the harvest season; it is now selling at the same level below market prices in the "hunger season." Really good for the farmers, who need the dough then and the maize now; not to mention the rest of the populace.
Conniptions for my fellow numbers-based folks ... how can you sell at such a blatant deficit after incurring a mountain of storage and transport expenses? Ah, but you must not forget ... it is an election year.
This was a suitable metaphor for how agriculture in Zambia can be ... things are floating along okay, and then, calamity. Too much of the farmers' maize that made it through the February drought undoubtedly got flattened by the intense convective winds this storm brought with it.
A similar calamity happened two weeks ago, though not necessarily an act of God; the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) posted its prices for selling of maize and rice last week. It bears mentioning that the FRA is a government agency that is by design and nomenclature intended to ensure food security in Zambia; it serves as the primary agent for purchasing maize from small-scale [subsistence] farmers and stockpiles this maize for the "short" months immediately preceding harvest-time in May/June. Considering that FRA sets the rules for importation and exportation of maize, Southern and Eastern Africa's majority staple, it wields something of a big stick in agriculture here.
One major headache for agronomists / ag. economist types is the politicization of maize in Zambia through the FRA. As my previous posts have mentioned, maize is a big deal here. Maize is everywhere. Maize is food. Maize is the crop you grow if you are any kind of farmer. Part of the reason, though, that farmers grow maize in the contemporary context is that the FRA sets maize prices artificially high to "help" small-scale farmers; for the past two years, it has been around K65,000 / 50 kg (roughly $4.25/bushel). This is a pan-territorial price, meaning that at any FRA depot / collection point in Zambia, the payment for a 50kg bag of maize is the same. This price is set regardless of location, yield, external prices, time; during the maize-buying exercise period (July - Dec) the price is fixed at this rate.
One might say, "Hey, that's a middle-of-the-road price ... $4.25 a bushel; not too great, but not bad." Ah, but the hidden expenses! This maize is stored (no small feat in a tropical climate) at government expense. It is moved around (again, no small feat using LDC infrastructure) at government expense. And now, it appears that it will be sold at government expense ... the sale price of maize at the depots across the country is K50,000 / 50 kg ($3.05 / bushel).
To put this in perspective, FRA buys maize at roughly K15,000 to K20,000 higher than local market rates during the harvest season; it is now selling at the same level below market prices in the "hunger season." Really good for the farmers, who need the dough then and the maize now; not to mention the rest of the populace.
Conniptions for my fellow numbers-based folks ... how can you sell at such a blatant deficit after incurring a mountain of storage and transport expenses? Ah, but you must not forget ... it is an election year.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Where Good Friends Meet & Make Sence
A little humor for the weekend:
10 Aid Proverbs for the 21st Century
Also, I saw this coming back into town after a bike ride:
10 Aid Proverbs for the 21st Century
Also, I saw this coming back into town after a bike ride:
... at least for the first two drinks.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Food
The F. albida trees that grace the small harbor nearer to town have been blooming since the end our drought in mid-February. It's like deja vu in reverse; the trees faded slowly into their bare state with the rains, and are now fading back into green. Reminds me of the old analog TV's, how you could fiddle with the tint and make the newscasters look like space aliens, or with the color, making them look like the first part of the Wizard of Oz. This transition is far more imperceptible ... I've done a rather poor job of photographing it, but at no regular frequency. When the God's of the Internet (in the guise of Afraim and Mahmood, our IT wiz-kids) bestow us with connectivity again, I'll try to post some of them.
....
For those of you who know Zambia (and Southern Africa, and possibly most of sub-Saharan Africa) a bit, you might be familiar with with the porridge that form the backbone of the local diet. Usually made from white dent maize, it can also be concocted from flint maize, sorghum, millet (both finger and bulrush), and cassava (ugh). Yes, the ubiquitous NSHIMA (aka ubwale [ciBemba], nsima [chiNyanja], sima [chiTonga], buhobe [siLozi], and for those fringes along the northeast border, ugali [kiSwahili]). Lovely stuff, really ... it's served as a very thick, malleable porridge which serves the same function as a fork and/or a spoon; you grasp a slightly-larger-than-egg size portion in your right hand, roll it around a bit to mold it into a semi-spherical shape, and then, utilizing your thumb, make a small depression in the lump. You then scoop up whatever relish is served (beans, cabbage, rapine, pumpkin leaves, beef offals, etc.), dip the mass in whatever sauce [soopu] is added, and pop it in your mouth. Repeat until nshima and relish is finished. The only notable departure I've seen from this routine is among the Lunda and some Luvales in Northwestern ... they grasp a larger mass, form a lump, split it in twain, place one lump under the last two digits of their hands, and proceed as described above with only the thumb, index, and middle finger.
How and what type of nshima is served is symptomatic of place and/or wealth (or the presentation / perception thereof). When I grab lunch at a restaurant or within the market in town, the nshima is served in three or four preformed lumps. It is the same setup when I eat with friends in town. Invariably, this nshima is pure white, made from “breakfast” meal; essentially, the skin of the maize kernel is removed (bye-bye vitamins, protein, fiber, etc.), and the remainder (hello, carbohydrates!) is ground into meal. This is considered the “best” nshima, a fact which drives outsiders working on nutritional improvement into conniption fits.
The further you venture out of town, the greater the chances that the lumps become somewhat browner, grittier, and singular. Out in the willies, making breakfast meal means about two to three days of work for the womenfolk, so chances are you will be chowing on “roller” meal, i.e., maize that wasn’t skinned prior to grinding. Furthermore, this nshima (aka “mealie meal”) issues from hammer-mills (grinding mills for maize that utilize a revolving flail to make flour) of varying upkeep; hence some crunchy pieces.
It’s only way outside of town that someone such as yours truly can get millet or sorghum; these are considered “lower-class” foods, another conniption fit for nutritionists-cum-agriculturalists. Though millet and sorghum are considerably more tolerant to the vagaries of rainfall, they don’t share nearly the prominence of maize in Zambian food culture. These crops have almost no economic benefit for the farmer; maize has the support of a para-statal (government-run) market via the Food Reserve Agency [FRA], whereas sorghum and millet have essentially no market beyond the brewing and sale of local beer. Furthermore, “native” crops such as sorghum and millet were historically denigrated in speech and in practice; for example, in my dog-eared Kaonde dictionary that dates from the long ago, there was no entry for sorghum (the crop that Kaondes stereotypically prefer). It is referred to as “kaffir-corn” [my apologies for the epithet]. When reading literature on the history of agriculture during the colonial era in Southern Zambia for my thesis, I found most practices surrounding native agricultural practices involving millet and sorghum were referred to as “primitive”, “backwards”, etc. [FYI - The sing exception to this rule is one ecologist named C. G. Trapnell].
Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that maize [and its derivative, maize meal] is a mark of status, wealth, and modernity that transcends its ecological appropriateness. (One should read either Nicholas Sitko’s work on the “Social Life of Maize in Zambia” or James McCann’s “Maize and Grace” if one is truly interested in the topic). Serving a visitor anything but the whitest nshima you can manage, though not a high insult, reflects poorly on the host.
Sorry for the tangent, but context is a heavy set of shackles to bear.
Regardless of its origin, a lack of tableware usually results in village nshima being heaped together into a single, huge, steaming mass colloquially referred to as an “nshima mountain”, surrounded by one or two relish dishes. After washing of hands and prayers, guests (me) are looked at expectedly until our right hand is plunged into the mountain, signaling the others’ onslaught upon the redoubtable summit. Within minutes, the mountain devolves into a few pebbles, the flotsam and jetsam of a Zambian meal: small white remnants of nshima, a strand of cabbage, the unblinking eye of a lone piece of kapenta fish.
The difficulty in describing nshima consumption in this country to those without context is the sheer volume consumed daily; it is the lone staple, a social definition, to eat at least two meals of nshima per day, sometimes three, though breakfast is not common. Zambians tend to eat more in the way of carbs than Americans; nshima constitutes at least 70% of each meal. The very nature of food description illustrates the focus on the staple, nshima … nshima is considered “food”, whereas everything else, including other carbs, are described as “relish”. A Zambian who has eaten a week’s worth of rice, sixteen pounds of mashed potatoes, a loaf of bread, and so forth will complain that he / she “hasn’t eaten” as nshima has been lacking.
With all that said, imagine my response when the third or fourth of the canon of questions occurs: “What is the staple food in America?” I used to go into a spiel about how America has many tribes, how we have many foods, we don’t eat the same thing everyday, etc. It engendered blank stares (similar to what I get when describing Zambia to Americans), signifying disbelief, boredom, or incomprehension. Now I simply say “Bread” or “Irish Potatoes” or “Rice”, which gains at least a nod and a smile, as that’s what we are supposed to eat.
Imagine how disconcerting it is when they ask “Is there nshima in America?” Breaking the horrible truth seems to be the most effective deterrent to any future immigration.
....
For those of you who know Zambia (and Southern Africa, and possibly most of sub-Saharan Africa) a bit, you might be familiar with with the porridge that form the backbone of the local diet. Usually made from white dent maize, it can also be concocted from flint maize, sorghum, millet (both finger and bulrush), and cassava (ugh). Yes, the ubiquitous NSHIMA (aka ubwale [ciBemba], nsima [chiNyanja], sima [chiTonga], buhobe [siLozi], and for those fringes along the northeast border, ugali [kiSwahili]). Lovely stuff, really ... it's served as a very thick, malleable porridge which serves the same function as a fork and/or a spoon; you grasp a slightly-larger-than-egg size portion in your right hand, roll it around a bit to mold it into a semi-spherical shape, and then, utilizing your thumb, make a small depression in the lump. You then scoop up whatever relish is served (beans, cabbage, rapine, pumpkin leaves, beef offals, etc.), dip the mass in whatever sauce [soopu] is added, and pop it in your mouth. Repeat until nshima and relish is finished. The only notable departure I've seen from this routine is among the Lunda and some Luvales in Northwestern ... they grasp a larger mass, form a lump, split it in twain, place one lump under the last two digits of their hands, and proceed as described above with only the thumb, index, and middle finger.
How and what type of nshima is served is symptomatic of place and/or wealth (or the presentation / perception thereof). When I grab lunch at a restaurant or within the market in town, the nshima is served in three or four preformed lumps. It is the same setup when I eat with friends in town. Invariably, this nshima is pure white, made from “breakfast” meal; essentially, the skin of the maize kernel is removed (bye-bye vitamins, protein, fiber, etc.), and the remainder (hello, carbohydrates!) is ground into meal. This is considered the “best” nshima, a fact which drives outsiders working on nutritional improvement into conniption fits.
The further you venture out of town, the greater the chances that the lumps become somewhat browner, grittier, and singular. Out in the willies, making breakfast meal means about two to three days of work for the womenfolk, so chances are you will be chowing on “roller” meal, i.e., maize that wasn’t skinned prior to grinding. Furthermore, this nshima (aka “mealie meal”) issues from hammer-mills (grinding mills for maize that utilize a revolving flail to make flour) of varying upkeep; hence some crunchy pieces.
It’s only way outside of town that someone such as yours truly can get millet or sorghum; these are considered “lower-class” foods, another conniption fit for nutritionists-cum-agriculturalists. Though millet and sorghum are considerably more tolerant to the vagaries of rainfall, they don’t share nearly the prominence of maize in Zambian food culture. These crops have almost no economic benefit for the farmer; maize has the support of a para-statal (government-run) market via the Food Reserve Agency [FRA], whereas sorghum and millet have essentially no market beyond the brewing and sale of local beer. Furthermore, “native” crops such as sorghum and millet were historically denigrated in speech and in practice; for example, in my dog-eared Kaonde dictionary that dates from the long ago, there was no entry for sorghum (the crop that Kaondes stereotypically prefer). It is referred to as “kaffir-corn” [my apologies for the epithet]. When reading literature on the history of agriculture during the colonial era in Southern Zambia for my thesis, I found most practices surrounding native agricultural practices involving millet and sorghum were referred to as “primitive”, “backwards”, etc. [FYI - The sing exception to this rule is one ecologist named C. G. Trapnell].
Without going into too much detail, suffice it to say that maize [and its derivative, maize meal] is a mark of status, wealth, and modernity that transcends its ecological appropriateness. (One should read either Nicholas Sitko’s work on the “Social Life of Maize in Zambia” or James McCann’s “Maize and Grace” if one is truly interested in the topic). Serving a visitor anything but the whitest nshima you can manage, though not a high insult, reflects poorly on the host.
Sorry for the tangent, but context is a heavy set of shackles to bear.
Regardless of its origin, a lack of tableware usually results in village nshima being heaped together into a single, huge, steaming mass colloquially referred to as an “nshima mountain”, surrounded by one or two relish dishes. After washing of hands and prayers, guests (me) are looked at expectedly until our right hand is plunged into the mountain, signaling the others’ onslaught upon the redoubtable summit. Within minutes, the mountain devolves into a few pebbles, the flotsam and jetsam of a Zambian meal: small white remnants of nshima, a strand of cabbage, the unblinking eye of a lone piece of kapenta fish.
The difficulty in describing nshima consumption in this country to those without context is the sheer volume consumed daily; it is the lone staple, a social definition, to eat at least two meals of nshima per day, sometimes three, though breakfast is not common. Zambians tend to eat more in the way of carbs than Americans; nshima constitutes at least 70% of each meal. The very nature of food description illustrates the focus on the staple, nshima … nshima is considered “food”, whereas everything else, including other carbs, are described as “relish”. A Zambian who has eaten a week’s worth of rice, sixteen pounds of mashed potatoes, a loaf of bread, and so forth will complain that he / she “hasn’t eaten” as nshima has been lacking.
With all that said, imagine my response when the third or fourth of the canon of questions occurs: “What is the staple food in America?” I used to go into a spiel about how America has many tribes, how we have many foods, we don’t eat the same thing everyday, etc. It engendered blank stares (similar to what I get when describing Zambia to Americans), signifying disbelief, boredom, or incomprehension. Now I simply say “Bread” or “Irish Potatoes” or “Rice”, which gains at least a nod and a smile, as that’s what we are supposed to eat.
Imagine how disconcerting it is when they ask “Is there nshima in America?” Breaking the horrible truth seems to be the most effective deterrent to any future immigration.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Ketchup and Mustard
Sorry for the hiatus ... our Internet crashed on the 15th or 16th, and its still lying prostrate. I thought it would be good to live without the Information Superhighway; it's not ... partly because I need the damn thing to do any work, partly because I like news that comes from outside Zambia, and partly because being able to keep in touch with family and friends via Skype is nice, and mostly because I got a positive response on one of my journal articles I submitted back in July and I need to be in contact with my adviser more often.
I read in the Guardian an article about how social networking sites (i.e. Facebook) has in a weird way allowed people to form communities similar to those historical small neighborhoods that gave way once American people started shifting around so much for work. In a sense, I miss my community a bit; being the lone white in Senanga, I have a role to play and feel very welcomed, but being fully part of the community I live with may take more time than I have.
Lord, I'm going soft; I used to mock people with cellphones and Internet. Oh well ... can't be a bush-rat all the time. The Luddite is coming around, but don't expect a Blackberry anytime soon; my barely-opposable thumbs can't manage those tiny keys.
Anyway, will post periodically using our overpriced Internet cafe until we get repaired.
I read in the Guardian an article about how social networking sites (i.e. Facebook) has in a weird way allowed people to form communities similar to those historical small neighborhoods that gave way once American people started shifting around so much for work. In a sense, I miss my community a bit; being the lone white in Senanga, I have a role to play and feel very welcomed, but being fully part of the community I live with may take more time than I have.
Lord, I'm going soft; I used to mock people with cellphones and Internet. Oh well ... can't be a bush-rat all the time. The Luddite is coming around, but don't expect a Blackberry anytime soon; my barely-opposable thumbs can't manage those tiny keys.
Anyway, will post periodically using our overpriced Internet cafe until we get repaired.
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