LIFE BY LOUIS: A place where maize shortage was unheard of

Harvesting season started with the real removal of the dry cobs from the maize stems. Then you had to carry the maize cobs up the hill and spread it to dry near the granary. ILLUSTRATION | IGAH

What you need to know:

  • Maize shortage has made eating your favourite meal of ugali a luxury.
  • Maize shortage is a new vocabulary that I only learned when I landed in this city. Where I was born and raised, it was unheard of.

This great country is constantly undergoing cycles of maize shortage to a point that eating ugali has become a luxury.

If you can serve your family ugali consistently for a whole week, you are among the upper middle class members.

UGALI

If you carry lunch to work and the bad boys discover that you have a bowl of ugali in your boot, you are likely to find your car broken into and nothing stolen; but the bowl containing your delicacy would be empty.

Maize shortage is a new vocabulary that I only learned when I landed in this city. Where I was born and brought up, maize shortage was unheard of. 

Recently the good government announced that is can no longer afford to feed us on subsidised ugali, and the price of the scarce commodity went through the roof.

It took me back to my days with my late grandmother and the memorable experience of the maize harvesting season.

She used to plant acres of maize and would not harvest the green cobs that comes to the city to be converted into roast maize. 

Green cobs is that roadside delicacy that Man Chege, of Mei Roasts and Shoe Shine Services, sells at my matatu terminus. He always cuts incredibly thin slices for five shillings despite protests, but he applies pepper and lemon as added value.

But I digress.

MAIZE HARVESTING

Harvesting season started with the real removal of the dry cobs from the maize stems, an exercise that left your fingers sore.

Then you had to carry the maize cobs up the hill to a safe place near the home for drying. This was a daunting task as the cobs sat awkwardly in the sack, poking your shoulders and back like you were carrying spears.

Outside the granary you would spread the maize to dry, and woe unto you if you went for your evening date and forgot to come back early enough to return the maize into the granary.

Sometimes nature would conspire against you and it would begin to rain from the seemingly clear skies. The flurry of activities to return the maize back to the granary before they got wet left you drained.

The biggest nightmare were the cows that considered dry maize a favourite delicacy.

One notorious cow would jump over the fence and by the time you showed up to chase it away, it would have munched several mouthfuls and left the rest in a total mess.

FEEDING THE NATION

The last phase was threshing the maize after it has dried. This involved putting the maize in a sack and beating it with a thick stick until the maize seeds dislodged from the cobs. This required muscle and nerve.

Some maize remained stubbornly stuck on the cobs even after repeated threshing, and you had to forcibly remove them with your fingers.

This caused painful sores on the thumb that would leave your palms full of hard scones, effectively scaring off prospective dates.

For a whole week you avoided greeting your crush by hand, lest she thinks you had begun walking on your hands.

The threshed maize still had to be dried, after which my grandmother would gather a few sacks of the dry ones and take them to the market.

She never forgot to thank me with a few crisp notes that I used to finance my evening visits to the shopping centre for my Valentine’s Day escapades.

The season came and went but it left me physically hardened, lean, with tough biceps, a sinewy back and flat abs.

This government should come to me for lessons on feeding the nation.