good luck, africa.

here it is! it looks like very little, but considering how much information will come from these few benchtops, it is remarkable! the peanut samples are weighed and ground right there, and immediately tested instead of shipped to South Africa avoiding possible contamination and strange storage conditions that might give false positives. I am very optimistic about the possibilities - it is a very exciting little room.

the medical university where the lab is located. there are no other functioning laboratories, teaching or otherwise, in the entire school.

sugar cane market next to the university

Africa's having a rough time with the internet today, and I still have a lot of photos to show... I leave Sunday at 10 am and won't be back in America until Tuesday afternoon. If you can wait that long, I'll post some more hopefully on Wednesday. The laboratory is beautiful and I definitely want you all to see it!

in the meantime, here is the overarching message i've gotten from africa:

watch what you buy at the grocery store. everything has a story. and nothing is as cheap as it seems.

that, and i'm really even luckier than i thought i was before.

joys and prides

my technicians - that's Rafique, Yanina, Charle, Assame, and Ibraimo.

sorry the photos have been sparse lately - mozambique's first agricultural analytical lab is up and running as of tuesday!

here's what happens when you roll down the window.

ooooooh noooooooooo!

the usual dinner 'round here: xima (that polenta stuff) dipped in an oily stew of peanut oil and little fish bits. in the lean times you eat just xima and peanut oil; in the good times you throw in some carrots or onion.

chapel de sao paolo

inside the chapel of our lady of the bulwarks

someone's still in there.

please forgive the awful photograph... but chickens on heads! amazing!

i think they've suddenly realized this situation is not in their best interest.

don't you dare eat me, says the parrotfish. i bite back.

mozambican scouts!!! my icy heart melted in the face of all this cuteness.

when i asked the teenaged leader if i could take a photo of his badge, he grinned so big that i think i saw his molars.

this amazing thing is an african tulip tree's inflorescence - the buds store water and kids use them like squirt guns. it is roughly the size of my head. the tree has some lovely architecture on its own, and when its got these things resting on every branch it is just too much to handle. too bad i'm too much of a wuss to be a plant-cutting mule.

for catherine! toasted coconut-ginger goodness in a pastry cup.

peanut = amendoim

how to be a mozambican peanut farmer step by step:

buy your seed from the IKURU co-op. you'll probably be planting the same variety you've planted for the past eight years and you'll be planting in already-poor soil that has grown only peanuts for the past twenty.

and then 120 days later, they're ready for harvest. this is a particularly good lookin' plant.

this is a new technology we are trying to spread in the countryside. drying peanuts on A-frames before shelling brings down the rate of aflatoxin infection rates dramatically.

then you pick the peanuts off the plants, one by one. it takes a lot longer than you'd expect. good thing farmers with lots of land also have lots of wives...

i found these instructions for this peanut stripper online from thailand and brought it to the blacksmith - a week later, this little gem showed up.

it is bewildering when things happen quickly here.

picking peanuts off the plants with this thing should be 80% quicker than by hand. thanks, thailand!

the farmer is paid by the co-op when he brings his crop to the intermediate warehouse.

here's one of the intermediate warehouses in sorry shape from last winter's cyclone. whole villages are still in shambles.

then it'll be shipped to the co-op's big warehouse in the city. 20% of the crop is gonna get eaten by rats and this is where the mycotoxins go to town.

and in the end you are left with teensy little peanuts that are good for only peanut butter, but the mycotoxin levels are too high to be exported.

peanut farmers average about $100 USD a year.