Ajal Mary Theodorah
Invest in finding who you’re which makes it easier to get your place in the world rather than duplicating someone else’s Life .
You have something special in you, let it shine, don’t strangle it because of self ignorance & Misdirection of efforts.
Happy week ahead 🥰
Author: Ajal Mary Theodorah
THE ROLE OF INDIGENOUS FOODS AND PRACTICES FOR FOOD SECURITY -SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS
Uganda is one of the top 10 most biodiverse countries in Africa (Butler, 2016) with at least 1,742 known terrestrial vertebrate species, 4816 plant species, 600 fish species, and 24 vegetation types. However, this has greatly declined due to land use and habitat changes (BIODEV2030 project launch 2021).
Growing up my family home was just a few Kilometers from the iconic Tororo Rock which is home to various kinds of animals like monkeys etc.
About 22 or 25 years ago, I remember one evening my uncle never returned home, he worked at the iconic Tororo cement industry then. My grandmother was greatly distressed, phones were not very common so there was no way to communicate with him to find out what had happened. At about 7 am early the next morning, my uncle came home pushing his bicycle and had several bruises all over his body. He narrated to us then, that the hyenas had attacked him, and he ran and climbed a nearby tree that’s where he stayed the whole night.
As a child then, I laughed, let alone I had never seen a hyena and the way he described the events was hilarious in my native language. However, we had also been cautioned by adults that while walking you don’t swing your hands because hyenas can grab it.
In the late 90s, I had the privilege of seeing different kinds of animals at Tororo Rock because that’s where we gathered firewood, wild fruits, and some herbs too. I remember seeing various animals like Kwach it’s a kind of big cat maybe like a leopard or cheetah or something in-between, maybe if any of our readers recognize the name will help me translate it into English.
Other animals included deer what we call amuthe, tortoise what we call ofuk, etc. Most of these animals cannot be found visibly except for the monkeys that have now become a terror to the communities around. The Iconic Tororo Rock is being mined for making cement and gradually it has shrunk in size and the fauna and flora around it have disappeared too.
I could say as a young apprentice to my grandparents, they always emphasized never leaving the land bear with crop rotations relay cropping, fallowing, and incorporating shrubs and trees in the land.
Also, whenever we went to harvest food whether it was millet, bananas, or cassava, etc., we always left some for other wild animals to feed on.
Those were the golden days.
Author: Ajal Mary Theodorah
Photo Credit: Isabella L, Busitema Forest Reserve
Don’t be discouraged by how things have turned out or don’t be taken up by how great things are to forget to set your priorities right.
Author: Ajal Mary Theodorah
THE ROLE OF INDIGENOUS FOODS AND PRACTICES FOR FOOD SECURITY -SUSTAINABLE FOOD SYSTEMS
Today about 735million people are undernourished according to the FAO et al. (2023) global hunger index.
As a little girl a couple of decades ago, in the small community where I was raised, as the planting seasons began, different indigenous crops like millet, climbing yams, oyster nuts, Bambara nuts (Kalin), Oko (I don’t know the English name), pumpkins, ground nuts, sweet potatoes etc were planted for harvest at different times of the year to ensure a continuous supply of food. Some of these crops like oyster nuts, yams, and Oko were planted beside indigenous trees like ober (I don’t know the English name) which are strong enough to carry the heavy fruits and still grow well. Many of the trees available today are weak and can snap even before the climbing crops begin to bear fruit.
In my small community, food preservation for times of scarcity or drought was a big deal. Families dried sweet potatoes, vegetables, mushrooms, and packed them in sacks, and stored them in granaries. Every family had at least one granary and bigger families had more and bigger granaries where both dried and fresh foods that lasted longer were kept. For instance, the indigenous pumpkin can last up to 6months in the granary without getting rotten, but the new varieties can hardly last a month. Yams, oko, and oyster nuts can last even up to two years in their fresh state. These practices were a norm in the community in preparation for droughts and famine (every family then grew these foods).
To deal with famine or drought, in Uganda, we have great rainy seasons that bring great harvests but most of it gets wasted because of the nature of the crops we plant.
Can we integrate indigenous foods in our gardens for the drought or famine periods as communities not just individuals?
I remember as a young girl sometimes the season harvests wouldn’t be that great, the food from the previous harvest that was stored would sustain the family until the next harvest.
And still, the community stood by each other, in my community those days, one could be mingling our traditional millet meal and if flour wasn’t enough, you ran to the neighbor and they would give you flour but today, it’s another story.
Author: Ajal Mary Theodorah
Photo Credit: A.Davey
The Two Sides of Theodorah 