Buchunya Primary School,our partner school is in an area called Bududa which is very mountainous and green. The main crop there is a green banana which is boiled and mashed or fried (this is called Matoke). It tastes quite like potoato and they eat it with cabbage or kale with a peanut sauce (if you're lucky!).I had some every day at the school and ate it like the Africans - with my hands!
Although I was fed at the school as I was a guest, the children did not have anything to eat or drink all day. Some children had pieces of sugar cane (the outer layer is peeled off and the sugar juice is sucked from the inside) but most had nothing. This upset me quite a bit as I know that they walk a long way to school each day. We would see children on the road at eight o'clock in the morning walking to school and then in the evening at about 5 o'clock walking home. So I was thrilled when the headmaster of the school took me out to the garden to see the fruit trees we had raised money to buy last Christmas in Ffynnon Taf. In a few years' time these trees will bear fruit that the children can eat during school time.
Photos : Matoke dinner, Young Mango tree
