On the Edibility of Luffa Leaves and Other Subjects, Horticultural and Otherwise

Happy New Year! If Zambians ask you to give them New Year "peleniko new year", they are asking for a gift of money in the spirit of the season. I tried to ask some Zambians for new year but they wouldn't give me any. They should instead resort to Wassailing the rich.

Anyone know if smooth luffa leaves are edible? I guess I just have to invent more challenging phrases for google to hunt on other than "edible leaves loofah". Don't worry I shall look it up. See, our garden is entirely grass (much to the envy of all suburban families in the US) and very tall (much to the frustration of the Neighbourhood Committees of the aforementioned suburbanites). However, there are 3 locations free of the insidious grass; 1. The plant nursery (one bed of 8) 2. The tree nursery (where we have baby tamarind, white sapote [delicious fruit similar to and surpassing the pawpaw], and an avocado growing) and 3. The luffa plant.

The luffa is so crazy. It seems to be attempting to reach Mt. Olympus the way it is climbing. Attractive plant too. I suggest you all grow them in your backyard as they need little attention (but lots of area to climb) and produce biodegradable dish/bath scrubbers. Funny how those plastic puffballs are named after the natural ones. Anyway, it seems to be the garden's foremost success story the way it is growing. Also completely pest free. Yet it has no flowers (which are edible along with the immature fruit, which are kinda like cucumbers or zucchini) and thus no fruit. What it does have is a lot of leaves. Zambia has shown us that most cucurbit leaves are a good substitute for the more insect-plagued and tenderer plants like spinach etc. So the luffa plant would make a great food source if its leaves are edible. We don't really want to eat the leaves our our pumpkins in the field, cause we prefer a good yield of pumpkins to the leaves.

Sorry to blab about that so much. Our field has a good bit of grass as well, but not so bad as the garden. Plus we weeded half of it recently. Most of the field plants have such big leaves that they are able to trump the grass for access to sunlight. The banana tree is supporting many leaves now, no doubt in preparation to provide us with a preponderance of bananas before rainy season ends. It also has produced a new sucker shoot which I hope to transplant. We already transplanted one bananas sucker and it's growing quite nicely among the wild amaranth (which has delicious leaves - relative of spinach and the larger-seeded "super-grain" quinoa).

In other agricultural news, the internet told us how to "break" broodiness in chickens so they will stop trying to sit on invisible eggs and start laying again. You put them in an airy cage so that their undersides are cool. This initiates a change in hormones that puts them back into laying mode. It worked well for New Chicken - just 3 or 4 days in the "prison" (we try and let them out during the day until they try and sit on the laying area, and of course they get food and water). Fireball and Pocahontas went broody shortly after New Chicken finished. With them both caged though I think they kept eachother's bellies too warm, so it's taken longer.

We got a cat! When Peter came for this Jatropha training we scheduled, he brought us a surprising and unsolicited cat. The training didn't happen because it absolutely poured rain. In Zambia rain is as good as 4 feet of snow in regards to meetings and school days. Peter drove us back from the school to our hut and put a box into my hands. I felt the box shifting and hissing at me. "Oh god" I thought, cause Carrie is allergic to cats. All was well though, we figured it could be mainly an outdoor cat. As soon as we let the cat out of the nearly literal bag, it ran into a dark corner and attempted to evade all contact. Peter said he had just been weaned from the mother (who is nearly wild) and is part Wild African Cat or Jennet or something. He had looked for the kitten to give us before he came but couldn't find it as the mother hides it every day. As he was driving for the meeting, he heard it meowing in the bed of his truck, so he boxed it up for us.

He became 'tame' almost immediately though. Going from sitting on top of a shelf all day to sitting in our laps. He started using the litter box from day one amazingly. Carrie named him "Professor McTiddlywinks" or just "Professor" for short. He looks like a striped black/grey/white tabby. Generally I'm not a big cat fan, but the kitten is pretty cute. His main drawback is that he only operates in two modes: Attack and Sleep. If you try to play with him or pet him for any length of time, he will resort to clawing and biting your fingers. He likes to climb up people too, which is a painful ordeal if one isn't wearing full body denim or kevlar.

Okay, back to the last post. I met the guy in Kabwe and he said he was powerless in regards to offering me a volunteer position. He claims I must apply in Serenje. So ridiculous. Serenje MOH told me I had to apply in Lusaka a long time ago, and that is when all the confusion and bureaucracy started. The guy who let me use his computer greatly admired my willingness to volunteer in 'such poor conditions' as a thatched roof house with no electricity or running water. He was also impressed with my face, as he complimented me at least 3 times on that; "Your face is just beautiful" etc. Since Zambians are a generous, frank, and kind people (and homosexuality is illegal), I imagine his compliment to be in the same vein as the American "I like your shoes".
Damn, I have to meet Carrie at the Black Night for pizza now. Dunno if I will be able to finish the post. Ok, love everyone!