Training Day

Tuesday was training day for the IISOH project. This means that lots of women from one of the local communities on the other side of the lake come over by boat and have a day being trained on one of Seeds of Hope’s courses. Diana, Naris’s wife is a key person in this training, she speaks the local language and is very assertive with the women and cares very much about improving their lives. This time she also brought a lady called Faith with her who has a lot of experience teaching such groups. Diana is also in charge of making sure everyone gets a really good lunch.

Today’s course was about nutrition and all the women came with their babies/toddlers. Babies never really leave their mother’s side here – they are either nursing, sitting on their knee or being carried on their backs, wrapped in a large piece of cloth which keeps them close and safe. They sleep very well like that. While the teaching was happening some mums did put them down for a snooze in the corner.

To be honest not much sleeping happened! It was a very noisy session. We began with singing for everyone and the babies really liked that. They were less keen on sitting still during the teaching.

The women discussed food varieties in groups and made lists of different types of food on large sheets of paper.

They clearly understood about protein, vitamins and carbohydrates but they are not always able to give their families the variety of food they need. Protein is a particular problem. They only eat meat such as chicken very occasionally though some families might have a goat which they can milk. The lake does not have large amounts of fish either. But they do grow beans and use them. Diana is encouraging them to grow green leaf vegetables for more vitamins and they eat fruits such as guava, passion fruit and sweet bananas. Once finished Barham ( the assistant training officer) put the sheets of paper up on the wall and a representative for each group spoke about what they had suggested.

The women had also brought samples of different foods which they had grown and there was quite a large variety, though not if you compare it to the average Western diet.

Matoke is a staple here. It is made with green bananas and has a consistency similar to very thick mashed potatoes. These bananas are savoury not sweet and there are always many many bunches of matoke in the markets and on the back of trucks.

The matoke, once prepared is yellowish. Sweet potatoes are another staple which make up a lot of the diet but neither of these are very high in protein.

it is a tough life here for these young mums who often have to decide to go without in order to feed their children and who sometimes struggle to produce enough milk for their babies. By getting them together like this they begin to support one another with ideas and this can be transformational for them.

Lunch when it arrives is a veritable feat and the women pile up their plates with matoke, sweet potato, yams, meat, peanut sauce and green vegetables. I am amazed how much they eat but they spend their lives doing very physical work in the fields and at home and today is a day when they can really fill themselves up for a change.

At the end of the day they sing their way over the lake to home with many smiles all round. Once more IISOH are making a difference.