Early bird gets the word…

By Stacey Joseph



It’s 6am and my alarm is calling out to me to get moving and wake with the new day. But no, how can sleep be over so soon? Defiantly, I reach over to the bedside table, frantically fumbling for the phone to hit that snooze button and take in tenmore minutes of glorious sleep.

But in what seems like a flash, that familiar melody sings out again and this time I’m up and getting ready, slipping on my gumboots and finishing off my go-to morning coffee brew before heading out to the shamba (farm).

Harvest day starts at 7am each week on our organic farm. We are gathering our produce to sell at a local store, Meat King, in Arusha town centre later that morning. Buckets, trays and tarps are collected, all ready to be filled with an array of fresh, homegrown, delicious organic vegetables and herbs.

The veggies grow plentifully here and inspire many local cuisines. The farm has a variety of vegetables including lettuce, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, beetroot, spinach, garlic, leeks, fennel, rocket, radish, carrots, a mixture of herbs (basil/coriander/parsley/mint) and a load of local greens (cooked very similar to spinach) called mchicha/chinese cabbage/sukumawiki/mnafu which are usually served with ugali (cooked maize meal).

Harvesting is a new and foreign activity for me. Back in Australia, the only harvesting I would be doing would be with my shopping trolley in the veggie aisles. So it is quite a enlivening activity that gives you the chance to learn the different types of vegetables; practice the techniques of picking each vegetable (e.g. cutting off the heads of broccoli to breaking off the spinach stems) and ways of taking care of the produce using organic pesticides. After the harvest, the produce is washed and laid out on a huge tarp ready for bundling and packing, ready to go the store.

The whole process is quite therapeutic, a time for reflecting on the week that was and your plans for the weekend. It is also a great chance to greet your neighbours and the kids walking past already on their way to work or school.

But probably the most rewarding part of it all is engaging with the fws Tanzanian farmers. A warm and hardworking team each with their own story to tell. It’s a chance for us to get to know one another and our lives outside of work. So there we sit, washing and bundling the freshly picked veggies, all the while sharing stories about our families; our culture and traditions; our hobbies and dreams; teaching each other new English/Kiswahili words and sometimes just having a good laugh.

It’s these special moments that get me out of bed each Friday harvest (and every other day)—slowly coming to know the people that make up our surrounding village and this diverse country. It’s harvest tomorrow and I can’t wait!