Tag: nature

SHADES OF GREEN

I was raised right in the city of Kampala,Uganda and in a village about 70 kilometres west of Kampala, along the Kampala-Fortportal Road.
My parents never feared getting their hands dirty especially when we were on holiday on our 100 acres mixed farm in the village.
Now that I have been forced to use my land other than forfeit it to the squatters who settled on it while I was away, the childhood memories of being immersed into nature keep flashing back in quick succession.
My father, being a top official of the Lint and Coffee Marketing Board of the time, focused more on the coffee and cotton fields on the farm. He would ask us to go down with him to engage with the workers. He taught us how to harvest selectively the ripe coffee berries and rewarded us on the quality of what we picked other than the volume.
On the other hand, my mother was required by tradition to ensure food security for the family throughout the year. One particular memory that has stayed with me all these years : is how I was kept busy while on holiday from the prestigious boarding school in Kampala. Early morning, several times a week, I would accompany my mother to any of her three banana gardens at different stages, to prune the stems. The banana stems stretched as far as my eyes could see, they were well mulched with elephant grass by the workers and trenches to retain the rain water were dug between the long rows. Cow manure from the kraal nearby, would be used to enrich the soil. Indigenous trees like the muvule and mutuba (bark cloth tree), planted between the stems, provided shades from the scorching sun. Vines of passion fruits and indigenous yams climbed over these trees. My mother would carry my young sister, May, about three years old, over her shoulder while I followed her along carrying the African reed basket /cot and a mat. She would find the right tree shade and set up base there. She would cut old, dry banana leaves and use them as the cushion over which she would rest the mat and the baby in the cot. My instructions were simple: “ Play with the baby and watch over her. When she falls asleep , cover the cot with this net. Call me if you have any difficulty.”

Since the gardens were meticulously maintained, I never worried about snakes or rats.

For the next two hours or so, she would prune the banana stems ; cutting off old leaves and extra ones using a sharp knife fixed onto a long wooden pole. Initially I had asked her why she had to remove these leaves and she explained that removing them left the stem to focus on producing big bunches of matooke and the old leaves helped to mulch the garden. Mulching kept the soil moist. She also had a big plot under shade for growing indigenous vegetables like Nakati( solanum aethiopicum) Doodo( amaranthus dubius) Jjobyo( cat’s whiskers and the smallest bitter African eggplants.
Left on my own, I would then sing May all the nursery rhymes and Christian choruses that I had learned in Sunday school at my school. She was easy to look after and fell asleep fast. Then I would be free to roam in nature. I would look around for fresh purple passion fruits, some fresh guavas and some yellow sweet-tangy gooseberries. I would fold the front of my free dress into a pouch to carry my fresh harvest , ran back to May, sit down and enjoy the delicious

fruits to the full. Before returning home, I would pick wild flowers of different colours to decorate my bedroom. Looking back, I would gladly claim that I was nurtured by nature. I always looked forward to these wanderings.

Unknowingly, my mother was giving me the gift of appreciating the ability to work with one’s hands , the freedom, curiosity and spontaneity of engaging with nature and caring for the vulnerable like babies. The running between the rows of banana stems could have played a role in turning me into an outstanding athlete at my school. I remain eternally grateful for this gift. Up to today, when I feel that I am close to losing myself, I just go out into nature to find myself and my place in the universe. Nature sharpens my five senses of touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste and stretches my imagination. It calms me down.
It also heals.
After 12 years as a homemaker and delivering six of us, my mother chose to go back to work as a senior midwife for almost 40 years. Astonishingly, she still has her green fingers. She is now aged 94 years. She still complains when her backyard banana garden and vegetable plot are not well-tendered. Amazingly, she still herds her cattle remotely using her phone!
The psychologists tell us that:

• A natural wild environment reduces stress by providing a calm space that allows sensory engagement and emotional regulation.
• It has the ability to trigger positive psychological and physiological responses- little wonder then Sir David Attenborough of UK who has been engaged in protecting and saving planet Earth , celebrated 100 years on 8th May 2026 despite having lost his wife of 47 years in 1997.
• A natural environment calms the brain and enables it to rest and restore itself unlike the bustling urban life that most people live today.
• It is associated with increased creativity and problem – solving skills, increased self-esteem and happiness. To live is to be alive: aware of who you are and your surroundings and engaging fully with life.

” I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.”– Henry David Thoreau


Over the years, my love for nature has grown by leaps and bounds and I keep collecting photographs of the natural wild which I share often.

Enjoy a few of these:

THE POST –RAINS DIFFERENT SHADES OF GREEN AROUND MY AREA.


The open grassland in my home village

A bunch of Matooke( plantains) in my garden

Young Coffee berries

A lemon tree in full bloom

A flourishing fern.


My mother’s back yard turned into a bush within the ten days that the part time gardener has been away tendering his banana and coffee gardens in the village during the heavy rainy season.

The earth has the power to renew itself after a drought or a bush fire, we too have the ability to rediscover ourselves after a tragedy , huge loss or a period of intense pressure.
Engaging with nature consistently is essential in this healing process or rediscovery.


QUESTION :

How often in a week do you go out in nature to unplug and recharge your mental batteries?

Has this post enticed you to do it more often?

WHEN THE RAINS WREAK HAVOC 

Part 2

Yes, Kampala was  initially planned for not more than 500,0000 inhabitants but available data shows that during the day Kampala’s population is estimated at more than three million people!  The development in infrastructure, drainage channels, protection of wetlands and increase in tree cover has not matched its growth. The planning of the suburbs is no exception.

As the flash floods have become a perennial problem, there is a pressing  demand for specific planning, preparedness and quick responses to the impact of the problem.

I have just been to my home village in Mityana, 70 kilometres West of Kampala.

The extreme heat of February dried up many maize fields.

Currently, the frequent rains mean impassable roads and have laid waste to some of the crops.

By simple observation, while growing up our fields used to have trees as  boundary trees  or hedges. Trees like Calliandra( Kaliisambuzi), Grevillea Robusta, Albizzia( Mugavu).

 In the banana and coffee gardens there were always Mituba trees (used for making bark cloth) and others to provide shade and to support climbers like yams and passion fruit. Mituba trees also provided fodder for the goats.

Others included mangoes and Mivule(African teak)trees. They served as windbreaks- reducing the speed of strong winds and minimizing the soil erosion and crop damage. When pruned, the wood was used for cooking or building simple structures on the farm.

Some of them had medicinal purposes and others improved soil fertility by the bacteria in their roots fixing nitrogen for the crops.

Most fields I pass by are in the open, all trees cleared; rendering the land and crops vulnerable to floods and strong winds.

Farmers should be encouraged to plant indigenous windbreaks like Mugavu, Kaliisambuzi, Mukoge                as hedges or boundary trees.

I can recall visiting my sisters in South England in October 1987. On the night of 15-16 October, we were woken up by howling winds followed by heavy rains, power went off and we feared for our lives. There had been no warning of this severe weather event.

Early the next morning, peeking through the kitchen window we could see  huge trees uprooted all around us.

When power was restored, we learned that South England had suffered the worst storm since 1703 and the damage was estimated to be a billion pounds!  It took several weeks to clear the fallen trees. 15 million trees were destroyed, a number of them were a hundred years old and 18 people had died.

The UK MET office had missed the storm and at the same time, there was no way of warning the people about the severe storm.

After the storm , 500 million trees were planted and this time , trees with broad- based leaves were preferred to the pines and other conifers that made up the majority of those destroyed.

Among the lessons learned was the setting up of a National Severe Weather Warning Service to improve the quality of weather forecasts and to improve preparedness and response to the likely impact. Technology has also improved the quality of the forecasts.

Uganda and all countries have to devise locally appropriate strategies to reduce the main human activities that increase global warming and involve the people at the grass roots in campaigns for tree planting and adopting clean energy.

My geography teacher’s   voice still echoes: The higher you go, the colder it gets- for every 1000m climb, the temperature drops by 6.5 degrees Celsius.

Kigezi region 490 Kilometres South West of Kampala of altitude 1200-2000 metres above the sea level, has been the coldest region of Uganda. Mgahinga Gorilla National Park between 2,227-4,127 metres   above sea level has average temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius during the day while night time temperatures can drop to around 9 degrees Celsius!

In the 60s and 70s Kigezi region had an average temperature of 15-18 degrees Celsius. Currently it’s getting warmer due to deforestation and population pressure.

Kampala city at an altitude of about 1190 metres above sea level has an average daytime temperature 26-28 Celsius  and 16 degrees in the evening. During the February heat wave, temperatures  as high as 34 degrees Celsius were recorded in Kampala by the Uganda National Meteorology Authority.

In the 60s and 70s, Kampala’s daytime temperatures ranged from 21- 23 degrees Celsius.

 For now, due to global warming, the rains are wreaking havoc in both the cities and villages and the ordinary people are the worst impacted. More collective efforts and actions are demanded from everyone, everywhere to protect, save and preserve the environment.

“ The truth is : the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.’’ – Sir. David Attenborough (world environmentalist and climate activist)

QUESTION:

How are you participating actively in stopping the polluting of the environment in your community?

A clean, safe environment starts with you and I.