Tag: Uganda
-
A BOWL THAT BROUGHT A SON BACK
The room in Naluwoli was full of women as we entered – babies on hips and laps, a lively chatter amongst mothers. My colleague Scott Christiansen and I were in Uganda to document the amaranth value chain research conducted by the World Vegetable Center with support from the Crop Trust’s BOLDER project. We wanted to document how to build markets and nutrition around lesser-known crops. This room was where the whole chain finally arrives. After a welcome song and dance, one woman rose. She has come, she says, because she wants…
-
SEKAKO
While in Uganda, I repeatedly asked our host partner, Moses Owori, for the word ‘smile’ in Lusoga. ‘Sekako’, he told me. Over and over … I’d hear it but spit something different out of my mouth: ‘Sikayo’ … ‘Sickaku’ … ‘Sykuku’. A simple three syllables but I mangled it every time. I was hopeless. But the results were brilliant. My Ugandan subjects thought the way I butchered their language was hilarious. I’d get my nice smiles in the end. No one found more hilarity with my speech impediment than Annet in…
-
THE PUMPKIN PROCESSOR
When our host and partner Moses Owori said our first of seven visits on the day would be with a “pumpkin processor,” I immediately began visualizing my photo opportunities. I saw workers in white coats and white clogs and hairnets checking stainless steel vats in a tidy factory. So when our Land Cruiser powered down on a narrow dirt road in the town of Balawoli in Uganda’s Kamuli District and Moses announced we had arrived, I was a bit bewildered. I didn’t see anything that looked like a food processing plant.…
-
AMARANTH MAN
Down a muddy path in a smallholder farm near Kamuli in Uganda, past rows of cacao and towering maize, my colleague Scott Christiansen and I found Samuel Ngobi standing in a field that seemed to glow as storm clouds rolled in overhead. Samuel grows amaranth. And in these parts of Uganda it grows well. As the sky darkened and thunder rumbled in the distance, Samuel, along with his sons Steven and Emmanuel, moved quickly through the chest-high plants, harvesting armfuls of the brilliant yellow-green seed heads before the rains came. Back…
-
THE SWAN AND THE SEAMSTRESS
A Swan is a life-time investment. In fact, it’s a multi-generational investment. It’s a rip off of the classic treadle-powered Singer sewing machine of the late 19th century. As soon as the Singer lost its patent, the Swan company in China started mass-producing them and selling throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Every bit like the Singer but without the hefty brand-name price. Without a motor and with an abundance of spare parts in Africa, a Swan will outlast its owner. For Benitah Prossy the Swan is her livelihood. The seamstress from Entebbe, Uganda…
If you see this after your page is loaded completely, leafletJS files are missing.