Mama Elinora: Woman Crush Wednesday

 #WhereDoesYourFoodComeFrom:  I am currently working on an agriculture project in the agricultural hub of East Africa: Arusha, Tanzania. This is a significant journey for me as I have always been only a consumer of food. This is my first in depth foray into how it is produced, and where our food comes from.

Mama Elinora (pictured below) runs an orphanage and leads a group of widowed women farmers in Tengeru, on the outskirts of Arusha, Tanzania. A graduate of a polytechnic in the area, Elinora has formally studied organic agriculture. She fiercely believes that agriculture can be a way to financial independence for women too.

She teaches women of her village care group (a group of 12 women who rely on each other from things like healthcare advice, to agricultural trainings) several simple agricultural technologies that are both cheap and sustainable (as they use materials common even in a kitchen.) She is encouraging these women to be self-reliant, and ensure their kids learn these practices as habits. A few cool things I learnt from her (pictures below):

• Space Smart Recycled Gardens: She also uses the keyhole garden (made with bricks) and the recycled tire garden, in addition to her own bio-gas fuel project. (These were innovations I was first introduced to at ECHO International).
• Sack Garden: This is a vertical garden that can be made out of the average household sack. It is filled with soil, manure, vegetable waste, and halfway in the middle it is filled with rocks to allow easy water flow. Poke holes in the sides, and stuff the seeds. Good for greens like spinach, rocket, and herbs. Very useful advice for those of us who live in urban holes and claim we lack space!
• Inverted Mineral Water Bottle Gardens: Using the standard water dispenser bottles, she had created a slow water drip system.
• 100% organic, including pesticides: This is the most fascinating part. She uses ZERO chemicals. For getting rid of pests, she uses sprays of crushed chili peppers (pili pili ho ho), and crushed tobacco leaves, and the humble moringa plant (pervasive in South Asia), the scent of which is known to drive away pests.

Moringa Flowers: Functioning as natural organic pesticides

Zucchini Blossoms

Bananas

Sack Garden

Tobacco: a natural pesticide

Mineral Water Bottle Garden

Elinora and her friends make these bracelets and necklaces out of seeds

She grows several medicinal plants and herbs, some which even increase the CD4 count in HIV patients, others which she laughingly tells me help “man problems.” She knew the nutritional value and medicinal purpose of every leaf, twig and seed in her farm.

Elinora also grows zucchinis, tomatos, papayas, bananas, amaranth (mchichi) and four different kinds of onions. The zucchini blossoms in her farm were stunning!

Here, she is pictured in her kingdom of all-organic produce and simple agricultural technologies:

Mama Elinora