The Tools of Democracy

This morning, still sleepy and coffee in hand I was met with news from Southern Africa.


News that a shipment of small arms had arrived off the coast of South Africa en route from China to Zimbabwe. The Chinese vessel is docked just outside of Durban harbor, waiting for a row to pass over whether it should be allowed to dock, be unloaded and have its cargo transported across the country and on to Zimbabwe. The ship contains millions of rounds of ammunition for AK-47s, thousands of rocked-propelled grenades and mortar rounds. South Africa's government has said that there is nothing it can do to prevent the cargo from being transported across their territory and on into the hands of Robert Mugabe. Meanwhile in Zimbabwe, opposition supporters endure beatings as they wait peacefully for election results.

Churning over this news with coffee slowly making its way round by system, and with it bringing the clarity that comes with caffeine, I began to feel sick to my stomach. This all sounded terribly familiar. I reached for the bookshelf and a copy of 'We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families' by Philip Gourevitch , but scouring the pages of the journalistic novel on the Rwandan genocide, I could not find what I was looking for. To google.

A keyword search using 'rwanda machete china' quickly turned over the pages of my memory to the information I was seeking as dreadful confirmation:

In 1993 the government of Rwanda imported, from China, three quarters of a million dollars worth of machetes. This was enough for one new machete for every third male. Machetes were used for many of the murders committed during the genocide.
- BBC

Arms from China. Used to by Africans. To kill other Africans.

Sprouting is Good for the Soul

Sprouting is really easy. And sprouts are tasty.

Not having a garden or an allotment, the only thing I could really grow (except my window box of herbs and a pot of lavender, see post below) was sprouts. I started small and grew some Puy lentil and chickpea sprouts. And you don't need one of those fancy sprouter thingies they sell in health food shops.

Here's how you do it.

1.Get an old plastic see-through container (you don't need the lid)and an old pair of tights (preferably nude-coloured).

2. Select a seed or bean to sprout - so far, I've only experimented with puy lentil and chickpea, but there's a whole host of stuff you can sprout out there. Some of it you need to buy seeds for, like broccoli sprouts (which apparently contain 50x the antioxidants than the heads we usually eat). You can also sprout a lot of stuff in your cupboard though - any kind of dried bean or pea, like aduki beans, or seeds like mustard.

3. Soak the lentil/pea/ overnight in a jar of water so that they swell in size.

4. Rinse them and spread them out (not too thickly) in the bottom of your plastic container.

5. Squeeze the container inside the old pair of tights and place in daylight or in the dark, but not in direct sunlight.




6. Rinse the sprouts twice a day and leave them slightly damp, but not sodding in the container. Watch out with the chickpeas, cause they tend to go a bit mouldy.

7. They'll be ready after a few days - when they look long enough to be tasty.
I guess you're probably supposed to cut the sprout part off from the main body of the lentil or pea, but the Puy lentils were pretty tasty attached to the sprout, so I left them on.

8. Eat the yummy sprouts on a salad, sandwich or whatever...

Growing Things

Every spring I have an urge to get my hands dirty in soil, planting things, digging things and poking things with sticks. When I was wee, my parents would spend entire days gardening at this time of year. Inevitably, being Scotland, it was freezing and would rain most of the time. I didn't have much choice about getting involved though - they would ban t.v. and order my brother and I outside for 'fresh air', and to help with digging and weeding and planting things. So I would be out there, up to my elbows in compost, dirt under my finger nails and mud covering my clothes and face. In those days, our family had a decent sized garden and vegetable patch in a clearing in the middle of a forest within a national park. Mum grew leeks and potatoes and carrots, I think. I grew strawberries. The rhubarb grew itself. We even had our very own swamp and meadow.

Nowadays, I live in a one bedroom flat near the centre of Manchester, a grey place. The only vaguely green space anywhere near the house is a patch of neglected, litter-strewn grass outside of our patio door and the park across the road. Nick and I have been talking about appropriating these fertile stretches (that is, if Manchester's concoction of litter, dog crap and other stuff i don't want to think about hasn't destroyed the soil's ability to grow stuff)and using them to grow our own food for the next year. I daydream about it a lot. I think we'd be good at it. There are allotments near by, but the waiting list is 26 people long and there are only 40-odd patches so I doubt we'll get one. I would grow carrots, potatoes, leeks, beans, strawberries... I watched Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage programmes with envy. Imagine being able to grow all that stuff to eat. The idea of never having to go to a supermarket ever again is deliciously exciting.

For the mean time, we bought a wee trough that can sit at the window in our flat, and planted it with coriander, tarragon and mint. The mint's gone crazy and taken over. We're not sure why we decided to get mint, since we don't really use it in any of our food. I think I was just looking for something easy, that would instill confidence in my ability to encourage plant growth. We've also planted some lavender in a pot by the window, that's growing strong.

But that wasn't enough... I was still longing to help in the production of new life. That's when I thought about sprouting.