Shea What?

During training last year the Natural Resource Management (which has now been renamed to just plain Agriculture) volunteers used ‘Shea what?’ as their slogan of sorts so I decided to use that as my title.  They’re very proud of their involvement with the shea industry here as they should be.  Right now it’s the season for shea nuts which contain fruit that can be eaten, turned into shea butter to cook with, or processed to make soap or lotion.  I almost wrote soup instead of soap which reminded me of an answer one of my students gave a while ago during a test where I asked a question about hand-washing.  They answered that you should wash your hands with soup before eating and I really hoped that it was a spelling mistake rather than a comprehension misunderstanding. 

In my village there are shea trees (I don’t have a photo of one) out in the bush but people don’t really seem to intentionally plant them.  As I’ve been going for my weekly bike recently I’ve seen people climbing trees to pick the nuts.  Then some of my students found out I like eating the fruit and have been bringing them to school for me.  I recently learned the Buli word for it ‘chaama.’  The fruit on the outside of the nut and is really sweet; I like It but would love it more without the green outer skin which is kind of chalky tasting.   I also regularly buy the shea butter to cook with and it’s known as Builsa paam (Buli word for oil) in our district.  I don’t always use it to cook with because it has a pretty distinct flavor but it works well with a lot of food.  For example, yesterday I made pad thai (with spaghetti noodles mind you) and used shea butter (melted into oil) instead of vegetable oil.  I’m sure most of you have seen shea products in the store and a lot of the shea comes from West Africa.   A lot of times the raw shea is bought for cheap here and then processed in Europe and America.  Some villages do have women’s groups who make shea soap and pomade to sell for a profit. 

The rain has finally come here which means the farmers can sow.  It also means that the temperatures are really nice; gets down to 78-82 at night and mid-80s during the day.  Definitely nicer than the heat wave temps I’ve been hearing about back in the US.  But I think I’ll be just fine when I come home because of air conditioning!  During the big rains I set buckets outside to collect the rain water to use for bath water and to wash dishes.  I think my lower threshold for cold water bathing with cold is around 85 degrees.  Below that I’ve started boiling water to bathe with to spoil myself.  People think that’s funny here because I’m always commenting how much I like the cooler weather- but I just explain that I do not like cold water.   That’s different. 

Later this week my students will start writing exams so we’ve been in revision (review) mode recently.  I can tell it’s time for the end of the term because I’m started to get frustrated by school.  It’s perfect timing though because each term when that happens then it’s time for vacation.  And this time vacation means the USA- in two weeks and couting!