Food, Glorious Food !

In this episode, we touch on the Climate and Food options of my new home town, Xai Xai.

Climate….

Like just about all of Mozambique, Xai Xai has a tropical climate year round. Temps in winter hover around the 70’s while summer can push the thermometer over 100 F, nao problema. Temperatures are well-moderated, though, by the long coast line with the Indian Ocean. Rain is plentiful, but the “rainy season” is a bit different. In many other tropical climes (Central America, Southeast Asia) the rainy season begets a day with monsoon-like downpours, followed by intense sun and heat all in the same day. Hereabouts, we seem to get a stretch of 4 or 5 hot, rainless days, followed by 3 or 4 overcast and wet ones. kind of a good mixture, I think, though the rain can be quite intense and accompanied by high winds. Floods are not uncommon and my home neighborhood is on higher ground, to where many Xai-Xaiáns moved after an especially bad storm a few years back. Report that, Willard Scott!

Agriculture…

At heart Mozambique is predominately a rural, agricultural economy and my home town and province are no exception. Xai Xai has access to a huge variety of plants, vegetables and fruits. Unfortunately, the soil is very sandy and takes a lot of work for local gardens (“machambas”) to produce crops, many of which are of low quality. Better crops can be imported at higher cost from other provinces, or, most frequently, from South Africa (e.g., apples, and strawberries and pears, oh my).

For one of my Peace Corps projects I visited the local branch of the federal Department of Agriculture. With the help of Sra. Francisca Joaquicene, the Department’s agronomist (with a specialty in Cashews!) we prepared a graph of all the growing seasons for the major crops in the area. Among the notable crops hereabouts, harvest seasons are:

All year: Rice, sweet potatoes, banana, papaya

November: Mango

December: Coconuts.

January thru March: Oranges

August: Garlic, tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, carrots, onions, and peppers.

P.S. I forgot to ask her about her specialty cashews, but I think we’re pretty much talkin’ May and June is cashew season. (About the same time as pineapples…delicious, but rather scarce round here.)

Availability…There is a terrific mercado grande here in town. It has just about everything you’d ever (or, never!) need – clothes, electronics and, of course, food. If the big market is too overwhelming there are plenty of street vendors, small shops and a few “supermercados” with a variety of western goods. I use ém all, including a local youth who stops by my house (a little too) regularly to vend his onions and tomatoes…gotta keep the money in the ‘hood and the local youth happy!

We’ll touch more on food and nutrition in a future entry. As we’ll see, the planting, harvesting and consumption of nutritious crops is of critical importance to all Mozambicans, but especially to those with HIV and related disorders.

So, until next time…”Ate Ja” (See you soon!)