Banana Chronicles

I live in my own small house in a suburb of Mombasa. I chose to live where I do because I wanted to be both close to work and to a church. My house fulfills both these requirements. Although it took me almost four months to finally find this place in September of last year, I’m so happy I persevered.

My HOPE Project ministry office is in the Community Center on the grounds (in Kenya they would use the word compound as it is behind walls and a gate with security) of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. My house is directly behind the church and I can walk from home to the church and the office in about five minutes.

St. Mary’s has daily Masses and a Eucharistic Adoration Chapel, where the Blessed Sacrament is always exposed. It is a vibrant parish with a large religious education program. There is always some sort of activity going on and lots of kids around doing chores or activities after school and on Saturdays. This is one of the two locations where we run tutorials for HOPE students. The parish is staffed by three priests. This is my spiritual home here in Kenya.

Although a supermarket has opened within walking distance of my house, and I’m happy it did as I used to have to travel to “town” to get certain things, I try to support my neighbors by buying most food and home items from local shops and street vendors close to the house – everything from bread and eggs to bananas and cabbage to soap and toilet paper.

My house is also behind its own wall and gate, that is, it is in its own small compound. Although I don’t have a security guard, I feel completely safe here. Although I don’t know everyone on my street or in the immediate vicinity, they all know who I am as I not surprisingly stand out. The houses are very close together and everyone looks out for one another.

One thing I did not want when I came to Kenya was to do yard work. After taking care of houses my whole adult life, I was done with it – mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, raking the leaves, etc. OK, there are no leaves to rake in Kenya, but after living in Massachusetts for twenty years with a yard with lots of trees and abutting conservation land that had lots more trees, I’ve done enough leaf cleanup to satisfy several lifetimes.

Yet here I am living in a house with grass (granted more weeds than grass, but still needs to be maintained) and partially surrounded by hedges that need to constantly be trimmed (as things grow fast here.) My sister likes to remind me of the fact that I chose to live in a house with maintenance whenever I complain about it. Fortunately, I have someone, Caro, who comes help with the yardwork, although I was doing everything myself when travel wasn’t allowed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

There are no lawn mowers to be found in Kenya, or at least that I’ve seen. Not that I would need one for my little patch ground. This means that the grass/weeds need to be trimmed by hand using what is called a “slasher” in Kenya. I don’t know what it’s proper name is – perhaps a sickle or a scythe. Every time I have to “slash” the grass, I first say a prayer asking God to let me complete the work with as many digits as I started. Luckily, with travel restrictions relaxed and Caro coming again, I can leave this dangerous work to a pro again.

In Kenya, the renter is responsible for pretty much everything. If a faucet leaks or breaks, you have to get a plumber replace it. If a power outlet or overhead light stops working, you need to have it fixed. Insect problem, you have to hire a service to remedy the issue. As a landlord of property in the US, I wish things worked this way there! I always end up on the wrong side of things!

With a yard and tropical weather in which most fruits and vegetables can grow year-round, I thought it would be a good idea to grow some of my own food. Caro and I planted some vegetables last year – butternut squash, kale and spinach.  Although the vegetables grew well and tasted great, I decided it was entirely too much work. I would have to spend well over a half hour picking the greens, washing them, pulling the leaves off the stems, and then chopping them. Or, I could just walk to the roadside stand few minutes away and buy enough to last me a whole week already chopped and bagged for less than 50 cents.  There are only so many hours in a week and I can barely get want I need to get accomplished done.

I’ve now shifted my strategy to growing fruit and have several papaya trees in progress. They are coming along well, although still a way off from any potential fruit. That is, if they do produce fruit. As I’m told (I don’t know any of this stuff), there is no way to tell if the tree is female, and thus will bear fruit, or male, and just stand there spreading its seeds, until the tree either produces fruit or not. So, all this effort could be in vain if all my papaya trees end up being male. But what are the odds of that? I’m guessing 50%. I already inherited two apparently male papaya trees when I moved in. We got already rid of one them as it was taking up needed space.

By this point you are probably wondering why I titled this post the Banana Chronicles when there have been no bananas in sight (except for the fact that I buy bananas from a local street vendor.) Not to worry, we’re finally there. 

Before I moved into the house, my landlord had planted a banana tree in the yard. When I moved in over a year ago, the tree was already pretty much full grown, but with no signs of bananas. I watched this tree just sit there for six months. Nothing. I then threatened to cut it down. Nothing. Then one day, before I even knew what happened, there appeared a whole bunch of growing bananas on the tree. Yes! Success! I love bananas and eat at least one and many times two a day.

But then … the bananas got so heavy that the tree was bent over by the weight of the bananas so that the bananas were resting on the ground. Oh no.  What do we do now? We got a local shop to make a piece of wood in the shape of a “Y” that we could use to prop up the banana tree.

Problem solved. Or so we thought. Although the propping up the tree with the “Y” worked well for several months (yes this is a long process), eventually as the bananas continued to grow, their weight caused the tree to snap completely in half and the bunch of bananas to crash to the ground. When I noticed the situation one morning on my way to the office, I was in full panic mode. All that time and effort and my dreams of virtually unlimited bananas up in smoke. I was worried all was lost. 

However, I was told to calm down and that everything would be fine. Although still very deep green and hard, the bananas were apparently far enough along that they would just ripen on their own removed from the tree. (Again, I don’t know anything about this stuff. I’m a city boy.)

So, we cut the bananas from the fallen tree and placed them aside to ripen. I waited impatiently for a banana, any banana, to ripen. After what seemed like eternity, but was in reality only one week, a few bananas seemed ripe enough to eat. I picked one out of the bunch, peeled it, and took a bite. Perfection! In fact, it tasted better than the bananas I normally buy. I am told (again, I don’t know anything about this stuff), that there are different kind of bananas and that some taste better than others. I don’t know what kind of bananas these were, but they were very good.

Unfortunately, now all the bananas were starting to ripen. Panic sets in again. What am I going to do with so many bananas? The obvious answer was to give them away. So, I gave a bunch away to Caro and some of the students – my neighbors already have plenty of their own banana trees with bananas. I’m the only one on my street who is fruit deficient, but I’m on a mission to change that.

However, I didn’t want to give all the bananas away. All that work. All that anticipation. I didn’t want everything to be gone in an instant. Although I ate my fare share, even a lover of bananas couldn’t keep up. Eventually the bananas were starting to get past the point that I like them.

What to do now? Well what else do you do with overripe bananas but make banana bread. But this was going to be a lot of banana bread.  As those of you who bake banana bread know, you want the bananas to get pretty nasty so that the starch is pretty much all broken down into sugar. So, I waited until they were completely black and started baking.

I gave some banana bread to Caro and some to my neighbors. I also brought two banana breads to tutorials for the students. After lunch we launched into the banana bread. I bought a 2L bottle of soda for them to drink. As if the banana bread didn’t already provide them enough of a sugar fix!

Kenyans love Fanta – especially Fanta Orange. They much prefer it over Coke or Sprite. I guess because it’s sweeter. I don’t really like soda to begin with. The idea of Fanta Orange, well I won’t go there. But Fanta Orange it was—for the students, not me. Fanta Orange and banana bread. Yum? I’m not sure what soda goes with banana bread anyway.

Even though the students never had banana bread before, they really liked it, evidenced by the fact that they all had pretty generous helpings.  Like when you bring something good into the office and everyone seems to know about it, it was like there was a special alert that went out notifying everyone we had desert. So not surprisingly, some of the parish staff who were around magically appeared. But we were happy to share.

There is no more banana bread left. I don’t have room to freeze it, so that was not an option. There are sadly no more bananas on the horizon either, at least in the short term, but we are making plans for more banana trees. This time we need to figure out a better way to keep the trees from falling over and breaking. My dream is to have a constant supply of bananas all year round. I know that’s probably not possible, but I can always dream.

Mungu ni mwema. God is good.