I had to go to Africa to discover pigweed. But -- once
smitten, never forgotten. I was smitten with the country, the
people, and the tiny green plants that gave me my first “aha” moment
about the connection between agriculture and human culture.
It was our first assignment overseas. We were
sent to Botswana by British Quakers to assist a rural village near the
capital city to initiate small-scale agricultural projects appropriate
to desert conditions. We had received some rather remarkable
training in small-scale biodynamic agriculture at a
Rudolf-Steiner-based adult learning center in England (see Can You
Double Dig It, Ruth Stout, the No-Dig Dutchess, Farmers of Forty
Centuries, and Buddhist Economics at
www.Homestead.org for more about my adventures with bio-dynamics).
I did my homework: Botswana’s predominant population is
the Batswana (one person is a Motswana and the language is Setswana).
The Batswana are noted for their tolerance; they were so neighborly
they helped the British invaders transport cannon and other materiel
into the country so they could be taken over as the British
Protectorate of Bechuanaland. Batswana women make beautiful
baskets. The country is widely considered one of the most
comfortable for visitors – no wars, stable government, pleasant
climate.
When I was there in the early 1980s the effects of
modernity were only visible in the capital city. Beyond that,
where we were assigned, was the vast Kalahari Desert. To understand
the degree to which development was needed, one had only to observe
that times of famine were accepted as the norm, blindness from
malnutrition was common, and the village clinic generally stocked
nothing more than rudimentary first aid supplies except when a doctor
might, or might not, visit on no known schedule.
Our first dwelling there was a 3-room block structure
with polished mud floors, no running water, and no electricity.
There was a privy out back. We moved in as soon as we could,
anxious to begin our work. We had the usual adventures
associated with life in Africa. I encountered a scorpion in the
bathtub, and we found something that resembled a tarantula on the
front stoop. One night we heard a strange humming and clacking
and looked out to see the windows of our hut covered with cicadas
whose onslaught continued for about an hour and then just as suddenly,
stopped. By morning the bugs were all dead, their thousands of
corpses littering the ground around the house.
What kept us charged up from day to day was the
apparent intense interest that everyone in the village had about us,
and their willingness to do just about whatever we suggested. We
thought we were making great headway as we talked to the village nurse
and even the chief about plans for big projects: a community garden, a
chicken house, and a childcare center for pre-schoolers. It was
pretty exciting stuff for the times.
But we were ignorant. We had never lived in a
desert, and it soon became obvious to us that we had no idea what to
do to improve crop yields. In fact we had no idea what crops
would grow in the rocky sand in a place where moisture was so scarce
that the same word – “pula” – means money, luck, and rain. And
the puzzling thing was that, even though there did appear to be some
itty-bitty green leaves peeking out of the sand that spring, all the
locals told us that they never, never ate any indigenous plants.
No, no, never! The only crop they cultivated, the only food they
grew, was mealies, aka corn, which fed the skinny cattle and provided
to the people a mush of sorts appropriately called mealie meal, cooked
a bit thicker than grits, eaten whenever food was eaten. In
fact, white corn meal was THE food. Without it, we were solemnly
assured, the Batswana would die.
