my Grandmothers garden... a land I want my children to SEE!

 

my Grandmothers garden  

… a land I want my children to see. 

I grew up in the shadow of the tallest mountain in Africa. It was covered in snow from the top to the bottom of the clouds. It was always there, the mountain towering like a sentinel watching over my grandmother’s land. Looking back a few decades I see a series of changing events in that lively and vibrant country. One can tell that something very tragic has happened. The mountain is sad and dry. The dense views of landscapes, the dark colours of the soil, sounds and movements of millions of species of plants and animals are now rare to locate. Dark grey clouds that ran up the mountain and poured down clear water every day are no longer grey but smoky white. The ever-flowing rivers and forests, a far cry from the bare rock, are a story my children never get tired of listening to.“Mama!", they ask, "Was it a dream?  tell us once more about your grandmother’s country, was it real?”

Those who grew up in the rural areas can relate. There are still old men and women in the village who can tell this story. We saw bees, wasps, scorpions, birds and varieties of butterflies. These were our companions on the way to and from school. They told us the time, sunrise, midday and sunset. They wished us well and told us that God had given us the gift of another day. They supplied us with food and even pointed us to where more food and fruits were available. Going to school, we latter found out the functions of plants and animals in the environment. They were called “flora and fauna”, not that it mattered much to us. We just ate and enjoyed the plants and animals. But I tell you, in Africa, everything and everyone is related so we associated with plants, animals and insects as neighbours respect each other’s territory and share the general blessings of sun, rain and natures garden. We chewed shrubs and flowers, fruits and several varieties of plants. We could easily distinguish between the poisonous and edible. We were not clever. We watched the birds. If the birds ate the fruit, we would eat them. If the birds did not touch them neither would we. Thanks to instructions from elder brothers, sisters, uncles, neighbours, parents, and grandparents we understood that everything in nature had its place. We saw a kind of environment that we could not imagine would be missing in a few years to come. For you, young ones, I must tell you what happened in my grandmothers’ garden so that you may know it was true. I lived it, I loved it, I touched it. 

I experienced bee colonies flying from one corner of the garden to the other in perfect harmony, freedom like a buzzing whirlwind. They always announced their departure and arrival. They knew when to go and where to stay. Each beehive was established on trees some near roadsides and homesteads in my grandmother’s country. I remember a story of a cow dying of bee stings. My own brother was seriously bitten by bees in his attempt to harvest honey from a Jacaranda tree under the noon sunshine at the age of eleven. He knew there was need for smoke and he had a fire stick, and a container to harvest honey. He learned from our grandfather who would harvest up to six beehives per night, with his friend, using a certain type of smoke that would not actually kill all bees. Although in the process some would die of course. The knowledge about the best trees for bee colony establishment, techniques for averting bee stings and safe harvesting was a science my grandfather had mastered. He would tell us about the importance of planting trees, and taking care of insects, not only bees, by establishing and maintaining their habitats and for the sustainable harvesting of medicine plants. I remember the garden was full of thousands and thousands of butterflies. I even remember accidentally stepping on a slowly moving chameleon. I had not seen it as we walked on the trail - that made me very sad. 

When it grew dark, we had to change the paths we would use to get home because of the thick darkness in the forests. At night, you never knew what you might meet. The night belonged to the animals of the forest. People only came out of their homes at the announcement of the bird that saw the first ray of sunlight. I think that bird also told the animals that it was their time to go home. The oxen were called out to plough the fields from first light to the middle of the morning then let out to pasture. The aroma of freshly turned earth, roots, grubs and the morning dew is a far greater wonder than brewed coffee.   

Another is a story I remember is waking up to search for mushrooms from hotspots that we could easily locate in different parts of the garden.  We knew their varieties, and we knew the difference between edible and poisonous shoots. Some mushrooms grew in the middle of banana trees, this was one type. There were bigger ones in the forests, and still others in the open fields during the heavy rain season at around weeding time. There were also many types of edible foods growing naturally. Some looked like weeds, others like pods while other fruits ripened in specific seasons and were only available for a short time. We had to share the fruits with the birds. Anyway, like I said, if the birds ate them you knew they were safe. We would store the harvested mushrooms in water to avoid rotting before cooking them. In between planting and harvest season, the only things farmers carried along with them when going to the farm were hoes, knives, containers of some foods to eat close to the end of the farming day and empty bags. Empty bags were meant to collect food stuff growing in the fields and along the way home such as vegetables, bananas, pumpkins, and fruits that grew along the farm boundaries. There were times we would go looking for forest delicacies while our elders showed us the various medicine trees. Hoes were for cultivating and knives for chopping branches here and there in the field and collecting firewood on the way back home. Naturally growing and sown seeds helped fertilize the soil and filled the soil with humus. Yes, the soil was rich volcanic red, moist and softly dark crawling with worms, ants and I can’t tell you how many other ugly things. The soil was properly positioned to give different varieties of food during the year. It was a pleasure to feed from nature and its great variety of foods and medicine. 

In my grandmother’s place. We never missed ripe bananas, avocados, and peaches, which she rarely sold in the market. We enjoyed these fruits each time we went. Especially on Sundays when we passed by from school. She complained about some being stolen, but still, plenty were available. It was in the lower dank garden that we located ripe bananas by their aroma in the middle of a dense field covered by bananas, avocados, sugarcane, peaches, and many other seasonal fruit trees. 

When I stand in one corner of my grandmothers’ garden today, I see all four corners of the field. It was a fun place to play with so many things you could do and a lot of things going on under your feet. It was the busiest place I could imagine. Back then it was very big and took a long time to walk around. We never went to buy food from the shop, but sometimes we would ask or exchange food with the neighbours. There was enough for everybody. 

The sky was sea blue and the cotton white clouds rolled into balls of mist as it ran down the mountain side and turned into due that covered the grass, flowers, slugs, snails and snakes that crawled along the undergrowth. The air was clean, mint and pristine. Later in the morning, if you stood still in the fields, you would see Guinea foul, squirrels and mole hills, grasshoppers, termites and safari ants each going about their business like nothing else mattered. There was a place where the water came out of the rock. In the afternoon you could join in the warm laughter of the river as it ran down from the mountain over pebbles and into the stream.  In the evening, downstream, there were fish, frogs and all sorts of insects that would gather in chorus to welcome the evening sun. We always wanted to stay until sunset, but we knew we had to run because we had wandered far from home. That, my friends, was my grandmothers garden in my grandmother’s country... a land I want my children to see.

© Angela Mkindi, 2022

Edited by Allan Bukusi

"Stories from our changing environment"

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