Page 21 - Barefoot guide

STORY

OUR WAYS WERE GOOD WAYS

While Ruth was showing Martha the garden, Sarah had been talking to her aunt, Ma Abigail, inside the
house. Now they came out with a tray of sliced mangos from the trees on Ma Abigail’s farm. They sat
under the tree, enjoying the sweet, cool mango, while Ma Abigail told them about her ways of farming.
She had a small farm twenty miles out of town and was here to sell her vegetables and visit Ruth.

“Yes, Ruth learnt from a great teacher,” she said, laughing and patting her own chest. “All these
methods, I use on my farm. I plant seeds saved from the previous season. My goats and chickens make
manure for my plants, my ducks eat the snails. I grow a nice mixture of crops, not just one, and especially
the traditional crops like sorghum and spider weed plants. They are the children of African soil, these old
grains and vegetables, and they grow strong and proud here. And look how strong I am, from eating my
own food all these years!”
Ma Abigail did look strong. Her greying hair could be seen peeking out of her headscarf, and her face was as
lined and weathered as an old boot. But she was sturdy on her feet, and her eyes were as bright as a bird’s.
“Those young men from the government come and tell us our ways are backward,” she said. “They keep
trying to give me these hybrid seeds, and all these chemicals, tell me I can’t save my own seed… Imagine
I must spend money every year on that rubbish!”
Martha wondered if her brother was one of these young men. She felt sorry for him if he was … Ma
Abigail would have sent him packing!
Ruth laughed. “Yes Ma, I learnt much from you. But you can learn from me too, you know. We have
some new ways that build on the wisdom of old knowledge, adding new scientific research to help
understand how best to work with nature and grow things naturally. Like the way I make my compost.
The science of the agrochemical companies is about maximising profits for themselves not our health.
But the new science I am talking about is
interested in health, and if we marry it with
traditional knowledge like yours we get
the best of both worlds!”

“Well maybe you can teach me
a few things,” Ma Abigail said
drily. “But my ways seem to
work, too.”
Traditional farming uses natural
methods to farm, and traditional
food makes people strong and able
to resist disease.

CHAPTER 2: NATURE’S FOOD GARDEN 13