The Small Nursery School

A Small Nursery School

There was a catch-cry from The Agency whenever I applied for funds or saw a need for a project that might benefit the rural folk of Arusha. The catch-cry was ‘sustainability’. But the trouble was, I couldn’t really hang my hat on the sustainability peg. Of course you have to be responsible and have acceptable, achievable outcomes, but there are so many intangibles that can make sustainability unsustainable. A prime example was the notion of a counterpart or co-worker. I had two and as part of The Agency’s sustainability criteria, I had to train them up so they could take over after I left. In reality, both were capable and well able to do the job before I came on the scene, what they were lacking was the ability to source finance and resources. They didn’t carry on after I left, possibly disappointing The Agency, but I was perfectly comfortable. Through our work together, they established new networks, and both went off in unpredictable directions but serving their people. Any project might have brilliant aspirations, but the real goal is to give as many people as you can, a hand up, to head off in a direction of their own choosing.

There was a small parish on the road to King’ori called Nkwakiringa. We called into the church to talk to the pastor about encouraging his parishioners to attend our environmental seminar, but the pastor was late, which was more usual than un! The sound of children singing took me to a back room of the building where a tall, lean woman was leading a class of pre-seven year olds singing their national song. Info: There’s a national song and a national anthem, which are quite different.

Entrance to primary school is at age seven and these kids were attending a chekechea – translated as preschool, kindergarten, nursery school, call it what you will. This teacher was untrained and unpaid, but the parish had pre-empted government policy which was shortly to announce that before primary school all children must attend a chekechea. The teacher herself, probably had a limited education and was simply doing her best to keep her charges amused and to teach them values rather than keeping to any curriculum. The kids were a sincere rag-tag lot but stood to attention to sing the national song to me while saluting – it would’ve melted anyone’s heart.

The teacher had heard that we were running environmental programmes and told us that she and the kids had a small tree nursery beside the water tap. Sure enough, they had about forty plants, all michongoma, a thorny hedge plant that was very popular as a security screen. By this time the pastor had arrived and he asked if we could help the chekechea, so I asked the teacher what was needed. She said she would like a blackboard, some chalk and perhaps some slates for the kids to scribble on. They weren’t a difficult ask, but I explained that they needed a small income to keep being able to buy chalk. I asked them if they wanted to enlarge the tree nursery. 

The father of one of the infants had experience working in a tree nursery and he told me that they would easily sell all the michongoma and migrivea, silky oak, they could grow. From my stocks I supplied them the polythene tubing to make the pots, fresh supplies of seed, marram, a couple of sacks of sawdust, a watering can and a shovel. He and the teacher undertook to oversee the project and the kids would do all the manual work. I taught them my method of direct sowing instead of sowing into a seedbed and pricking out. Pricking out tends to put the seedlings under stress, especially if it becomes hot, also small kids handling delicate seedlings is a recipe for disease. The sawdust helps to hold in moisture and the marram-stones hold the sawdust in pace when watering.  

We passed Nkwakiringa on our way to other areas, so we were able to call in regularly, but we didn’t need to comment, they were progressing just fine led by the teacher and the girl’s father. He had listened to our advice and was raising a very nice crop. The kids seemed to be enjoying the experience too. The planting season came and the nursery was quickly emptied, and shortly after, some new forms for the kids to sit on appeared in the chekechea. I didn’t ask but presumed they came from the revenue generated by the seedlings. They had managed to salvage about ninety percent of the polythene tubing/pots and requested more seed so they could grow another crop the following season. 

The handiness of the Nkwakiringa site proved useful to me because big noises from The Agency and the High Commission often wanted to visit somewhere to be able to say they had checked on my assignment, but they never had adequate time to go to the more distant sites. The kids did their bit by singing and melting hearts, plus the well maintained nursery resulted in cameras clicking raising the likelihood for further funding proposals to be looked upon kindly. 

My arbitrary hope was that one person in a hundred might keep up an interest in the environment and tree planting. At Nkwakiringa, including parents, maybe a hundred people might have had something to do with the nursery project, so achieving my target was a bit iffy, however a number of families now feel secure because they have a stout, thorny hedge around their properties.  Maybe a kid or two will grow up remembering an old bugger showing them how to grow a tree, or teach their own kids the environmental song we taught. In twenty years, the silky oak will be ready to harvest which will put money into pockets injecting a little cash into a struggling economy.

No I couldn’t say the project was truly sustainable, but it fitted my own criteria just fine.

Granddad's Bread

Granddad’s Bread

Henry was in charge of the young’uns, his grandkids for the day, well ‘in charge’ were his official words, while most would mundanely call it ‘child minding’. It wouldn’t be difficult, the kids enjoy walks down to the river, making splashes with stones, climbing up the gravel heaps and perhaps lighting a bonfire. The fresh air does them the world of good and physical activity is what helps them sleep and night – well that’s the theory.

They’re good kids, Blue, nine and Lacie not far past her sixth birthday. Actually they’re well-able to entertain themselves by writing stories, drawing pictures, reading, doing puzzles and playing board games. Henry enjoys watching the odd DVD with them, although some are over and over and over… but their parents limit screen time in preference to actual fun.

‘Let’s cook a cake!’ Lacie suggested brightly, always testing and always keen to learn new things. The idea brought back memories of old black and white movies Henry had seen when he was a nipper about monkeys or bears getting into people’s kitchens and the mess they made with flour or sugar going everywhere including over them! But still, he wasn’t about to disappoint the kids, so he gave them the job of finding the recipe books. They looked everywhere, but they couldn’t find one anywhere! Which wasn’t surprising, because their granddad had told them to look in the wrong places. He doesn’t like following recipes.

‘Well,’ said Henry, putting on his remembering hat, ‘I used to cook bread in a camp oven, maybe we can cook some bread.’

‘We can’t cook bread!’ Lacie screwed up her nose.

‘Yes we can,’ affirmed Henry, ‘but I have to remember back fifty years how we made it, but don’t worry, what I can’t remember, we’ll make up.’

A second thought popped into his head. ‘Where on earth would the yeast be?’ he thought, knowing they hadn’t used it for years.

‘What do we have to do?’ asked Blue showing some enthusiasm wielding a wooden spoon from the drawer.

‘Lacie, you look for a big basin and a big cake tin.’ Granddad put them to work. ‘Blue, do you know where the flour is?’ He thought he could trust Blue with it.

Blue shrugged, no.

Henry showed him where the flour was while gathering milk powder, sugar, salt and baking powder. Yeast was the problem. He scratched his head thinking, and remembered one of the boys was going to try his hand at brewing beer, full of enthusiasm he had bought the equipment but for some reason had never got around to actually brewing anything. The gear must be somewhere... He told the kids to look out for a brown jar with DYC on it. But they hunted in all the unlikely places spending more time laughing than looking – and acting the goat with some of Henry’s ‘bits and pieces’! Left to Henry, he at last found it on the bottom shelf of the laundry cabinet, right at the back. What it was doing there he had no idea, but thought nothing more about it once it was to hand.

‘Ok, here we go,’ said granddad, ‘Blue, can you bring me a small pot?’

Into the pot, Lacie measured some warm water, two cups. Blue, as instructed, put in two tablespoons of sugar, Henry wasn’t sure that sugar should go in but was prepared to gamble on his memory. Blue stirred it until it was dissolved, then Henry had second thoughts so started again adding just two teaspoons instead. He sprinkled in one of the jar’s capful of yeast, and with a shrug added another half capful. After a cursory stir, they put in the sun to do its thing. He noticed the use-by date was some three years earlier, but what do the manufacturers know?

‘Now Lacie, can you tip some flour to half-fill the cake tin?’ Henry asked.

Tongue sticking out, she filled the tin and spilt nearly as much on the table, but Blue helped her put it back – well most of it, the pair wore a good coating in the process! A bit like those naughty monkeys!

‘Good oh, that’s about the measure’ said Henry smiling, pleased to see the fun but not wanting things to get out of hand, ‘now tip it into the bowl – careful now!’

Blue did the tipping and most went in, so they scooped the rest up with their hands and plonked it into the bowl.

‘Did you guys wash your hands first?’ Henry knew by the guilty looks. ‘Too late now, I suppose the heat of cooking will kill any goobies - hopefully.’

By now the kids had flour up to their elbows and Lacie had some on the point of her nose and in her hair. And obviously Blue had wiped his hands on his shorts.

‘A mug of milk powder.’ Henry instructed eyeing the bowl, ‘Actually make it a mug and a bit and the same amount of sugar.’ He nodded to Blue.

Blue managed all that without incident.

‘Lacie, can you put a teaspoon of salt in?’

All fingers and thumbs, she managed to spill some so Henry told her to toss a pinch of it over her shoulder and more than a few grains flew over and onto the floor. He never explained about the luck part.

‘Blue, can you gently put some baking powder in,’ said Henry, ‘same the same spoon Lacie used, its cheating a bit, but I’m not sure how good the yeast is. Baking powder will help fluff it up.’ They laughed at anything remotely referring to fart!

‘I’ll add some cinnamon and a couple of handfuls of raisins.’ Added Henry as the kids watched, not sure if they liked raisins. He noticed they were dubious, so he stopped.

They checked the yeast and it had bubbled and swelled like a good chemistry experiment.

‘In with your hands and mix up all the stuff in the bowl.’ granddad instructed.

The kids enjoyed mixing and spilling and wearing.

‘Keep that up,’ said Henry, ‘while I add the yeast mix. It’ll be a bit like play dough.’

Slowly the mix stiffened with no dry bits, so Henry divided the dough and they each kneaded their bit as he demonstrated on the floured table. Lacie was getting a bit tired so her granddad added her’s to his pile.

‘While we are doing this Lacie, can you put a spoonful of butter in the cake tin?’ Henry asked.

Soon the dough was in good shape, so they left it in the sun while Henry spread the butter thinly over the inside of the cake tin. ‘We don’t want the bread to stick.’ He explained to them.

Together Blue and Lacie plopped the dough into the cake tin and patted it lightly.

‘Ok, we’ll sit on top of the oven and let it rise, before we pop it in the oven - I used to cook it over a fire-coals with coals on the lid.’ Henry told them, knowing they would’ve liked to do that too.

When the dough had risen nicely, showing the yeast was still working, Henry popped it in the hot oven and they watched through the glass door as the bread rose, turned brown and developed a mirthful crack on top. The smell was enticing, so once the bread was out of the oven, the three went down to the river and picnicked on hot bread with lashings of butter and raspberry jam – Nana’s latest batch! The kids tossed the few raisins they found into the river as their granddad gave them false frowns.

When Mum and Dad arrived back with Nana, they too enjoyed the fresh bread, but it’s never as good when it’s cooled down. They had arrived too early and were greeted with the mess and unwashed utensils and a floured table. As a reward, ‘for being good,’ Mum and Nana tidied the kitchen while Henry and the kids fed the sheep some sheep-nuts.

Mlonge

 Mlonge

It doesn’t matter what it is, there are trends. Fashion’s a good example, kid’s toys are another, furniture, motor cars, and even Dr Seuss highlighted one in his story The Sneeches. Even in my work relating to trees I’ve seen many a trend. The Eucalyptus, Silver Dollar Gum comes to mind. The juvenile leaves are disc-shaped, so look like a dollar coin, and people thought it would be good in their garden to be used in flower arrangements. The thing is though it is the juvenile foliage people were attracted to. Four or five years later the adult form emerges and the foliage elongates. The tree grows way too big for gardens and not very attractive. And large trees are expensive to remove.

In my role of encouraging people to plant trees, I had to look at trends and make judgements – and I had my pluses and minuses. In our Tanzanian project it was the same, local farmers preferred species were the indigenous species, yet they were the very trees I wanted to promote. So I had to negotiate a little. We grew about sixty varieties, most of which I hadn’t known before, included in the sixty-odd, there were bougainvillea, papaya and passionfruit. all of which could hardly rate as trees but they were among the favoured. I was happy with sixty-odd as far as diversity was concerned for our tree planting programme.  Out of the blue, there was a sudden, widespread interest when a ‘new’ species that was introduced.  This tree was touted to be a money maker.

Wired into my brain is a tiny cynic button and that button self-activated. We’ve all seen new, profitable enterprises crop up in agriculture and horticulture over past years which invariably flop. This one has the botanical name, Moringa oleifera, which has a proliferation of common names, among them: drumstick tree, horseradish tree, ben-oil tree and the Swahili, Mlonge. I came to use Mlonge because the name was understood by the people I worked with. I was first introduced to the tree and offered some seed by the National Treeseed Project up in Lushoto so I bought some to try. The oily seed goes off quickly and if the seed doesn’t germinate soon after sowing it will rot away. We were successful in raising some seedlings but my research revealed that climatically, we were just out of its range.

At least one person climbed on the bandwagon, and was extoling the profits to be made from the species, and of course any alternative source of income interests subsistence farmers. There was also an Indian fellow roaming around telling farmers that he would buy all the Mlonge seeds they produced. This was encouraging for me too, because greening the area was my goal, so I didn’t want to dampen any spirits, but I was still dubious. We continued to tend our seedlings, which was easy because the weather was warm and we kept the water up to them. Meantime the bandwagon-person, brought in some seedlings from Dar es Salaam and sold them off to farmers where we were running our environment programme, which gave me the opportunity to observe.

I began distributing a few seedlings to areas where I thought they had a chance, to people I was sure would give them their best care. I was surprised when, at our seminar in Valeska village, when an Indian woman told me she had a Mlonge tree in her garden and used the foliage, flowers and roots on a daily basis. She showed me and we supposed she lived in a small microclimate, and she didn’t think the tree would do well elsewhere in the village. It’s usual to find an Indian person living rurally, a long way off the beaten track, so I asked her how she came to be living there. With a shy smile, she told me it was a love story.

During the warmer months, the Mlonge seedlings on the whole grew very well, but when the early mornings dipped to 14°C they were no longer happy. By the time the warmer mornings returned, most of the trees were misshapen and I noticed that a few farmers had turned their goats into their trees. However as always, there were exceptions and some trees survived and a few people began to use the foliage, seedpods (drumsticks) and roots. The Indian man and his promise to buy seed had disappeared, and so had the bandwagon-person. Enthusiasm quickly slipped from the farmers because Tanzanians aren’t quick to change from their traditional diet. I recall a time of food shortage when instead of maize flour being given out, sweet corn flour was supplied and the yellow colour simply put the people off.

All of which is a pity. There’s potential for a long term project trialling Mlonge. The tree growing at Valeska was worth breeding from because although the woman and I thought it was growing in a micro-climate, it may not necessarily have been. Perhaps it was of a provenience that could withstand cooler climes. By careful selection we could have been able to breed a provenience suitable for the Meru region, which would have been very worthwhile. Because the tree is no dud! Most parts of the tree are edible but importantly, the tree produces weight for weight; twenty five times more iron than spinach, nearly twice as much vitamin C as oranges, fifteen times more potassium than bananas, four times more protein than eggs, ten times more vitamin A than carrots, and seventeen times more calcium than milk. Although Tanzanians might be slow to accept Mlonge into their diet, they would quickly the nutritional value of it and eventually accept it. The oil from the seed is useful for lubricating fine machinery, and probably cooking, but more important for a third world nation, the seedcake, left over from the oil extraction process, when sprinkled on top of muddy water will actually clear it by forcing the impurities to the bottom. But it does not sterilize the water, it simply makes the water more suitable for boiling!   

Nowadays, you can find Mlonge in heath shops under its botanical name, Moringa. Usually in powdered form or in capsules. I’ve never tried it or even seen it but its there, on line. You might be tempted to try it, you never know, it might fix what’s wrong with you!