Matoke & Mangos

My days start at 5.30am with a morning jog down to the Embu town – there is an aerobics class at the ‘gym’ here, Kenyan stylee! A free banana for all after class. I run past eucalyptus (you can smell them for miles) and Embu’s famous Jaracuranda trees, a bit different from my usual route! Definitely harder here too as the air is thinner. There is a swimming pool within walking distance – a bit of a Westerner’s haunt so pretty luxurious and deckchaired-up. I am trying to learn Swahili, and also photograph the yellow Weaver birds in the garden, this has not been a success so far (although the local cat seems to be doing alright at catching them).  The Easter weekend is a public holiday, so no hospital – I don’t know this means for the in-patients, but there’s certainly not going to be any ward work.

I go with Gilbert to visit his mother who is a farmer in the rural highlands –the land here is extremely fertile and is divided into shambas (small-holdings) of coffee, bananas, papayas, and at higher altitudes, tea. Agricultural communities here are primarily from the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu tribes. The road to Meru is beautiful and hilly, with so much lush vegetation and waterfall (and speed bumps! – best to follow the Matatu drivers who know where they are). It has rained so hard this morning that as we turn off the last long stretch of track is almost impassable, but luckily we arrive in our borrowed car! There is a recent burnt patch on the road – here a man was set alight for taking a machete to his wife. She owns 25 hectares of land and is managing to grow aloe vera, tomatoes, and tobacco, as well as the usual banana/coffee set. There is also a cow and some friendly goats, a fish pond, space for developing a paddy field, and several mud ovens for firing the clay bricks pressed in this soil. It’s a fantastic place, and the sun is mysteriously concentrated by the clouds here (maybe it’s the altitude) so it’s extremely hot. There is a small diesel mill (there is no electricity out here) for grinding maize, so other farmers can bring their own flour for a small price (everyone here works the land, and it feels much more remote than Embu). We eat ugali and sukuma and beans, all from the farm, and Gilbert’s younger bro fetches us sugar cane – you chew it and swallow the juice, amazing! More incredible flowers (one tree with white flowers is snapped off and a milky sap literally pours from the stalk – apparently this is a good wound healer); and a giant turquoise butterfly which moves too fast for my camera. In the car boot goes a stem of green bananas; they will ripen within 3-5 days if a teaspoon of salt is pressed onto the cut end. Today is Good Friday so we drive back via her church, where the procession for ‘The Way of the Cross’ has just arrived. Long-drop loo stop. The church is packed today, and we stay for a bit at the back. It is a lovely building, and all the African saints are painted around the walls. The first sermon is in the local language (I’ve got no chance) and lasts 20 minutes; the second is sung and lasts even longer!

The drive back is a bit tense as we are very low on petrol! We stop at Gilbert’s older brother’s house – he is an English teacher, and his 6-month old daughter Lititia is extremely cute and happy to chat. Proper sweet Kenyan chai and mandaazi. A cousin shows me the tea plantation – it’s almost ready for harvest (the top two leaves are picked along with the bud; these are sent locally to be processed). There are also coffee bushes, which are ripe when the berries are red, AND macadamia trees – amazing! Cousin climbs a mango tree and throws them down ‘for the road’ – you peel them with your teeth.

Easter Saturday, and everyone is invited to a local wedding between an Embu man and a girl from Australia. Service due to start at 10am, but TIA (‘this is Africa’) so it’s after 12 when the bridal car arrives. A group of hired women greet the bride and process the last section of road with her, singing and dancing and waving ferns. Great voices! The floor outside the church is strewn with fallen bougainvilleas – instant confetti! The wedding reception takes place in the field of a local college – there are white tents set up, and a catering company manages to feed the whole crowd with a beautiful African feast – Irio, matoke (a green banana stew), chapattis, pilau, and piles of melon. Entertainment comes from the Women’s Institute from Stephen’s (the groom) village, who sing and dance dance dance, pretty awesome. Slightly embarrassing as being white I am assumed to be a honoured guest of the bride and am insisted to sit at a table for shade and special treatment – I did try explaining that I had only met her that morning!

I can hear the drums from the church for Easter Sunday which go on all morning. There is a TV at the house too – hymns are being broadcast by Her Excellency the First Lady’s State House Choir. At the bottom of the hill is an orphanage for HIV positive orphans, called ‘Toto Love’ – there are 19 children at the moment, and the youngest is one. They are absolutely gorgeous kids, and I am properly welcomed and beaten up, my watch goes AWOL. They know a surprising amount of Christmas songs! (and more of the words than I do). Really a top place, gonna go back tomorrow.