Soy

Lately I feel like any time I have talked to anyone it has been a short conversation, and I have said that I had to go because I was busy. Now that the two projects I was working on are over I feel like I should make a post to explain exactly what it was I was up to. One of the projects I have been working on was soy, and my work with soy has been in my opinion one of my main successes as a volunteer.

For those that do not know, soy is basically a miracle plant. It fixes nitrogen, and so it is good for the soil, especially when mixed with cereal crops like corn. It has very few biological or fungal diseases that attack it in Africa, and it is a complete protein that is cheap to produce, and easy to incorporate into traditional diets because it can be transformed in so many different ways. I could talk about the virtues of soy for hours, quite literally, and in French to boot, but my audience isn't Cameroonian farmers so I can leave it at that.

Pictured: me talking about soy

My soy project has been based around seminars. The idea to do a full day “seminar” came from the fact that when I was talking to people about soy they had a lot of questions. Those questions came only from those brutally honest enough to voice their concerns. I am sure everyone had the same concerns, but most just listened politely and then continued doing everything exactly the same they have been. Their questions where; why should I grow soy? What can I do with it? Will it grow here? These are all completely legitimate questions that need to be answered, and I felt like I could answer them better if I had a full day to talk about it.

I have been blessed to be placed with a counterpart, and supervisor (Florence) that have made all of the work I have done in my village possible. I had heard before I came to the South region that people in the South are lazy, and that it is hard to work in the South. I can't say that I share that opinion, and that may be in large part because of the people I work with. The work I have done with soy is as much Florence's doing as it is mine.

Florence, who is generally referred to in my village affectionately as “Ma Flo” (I don't think the moniker has the decidedly menstrual connotations it does in English) is someone you could describe as a matriarch. She is the master cook, medicine woman, teacher, and mother to the whole Essomba clan which makes up most of my neighborhood. She somehow has the ability to play all of these roles without accepting for a second the “Cameroonian truth” that women are worth less than men, or losing the smile on her face. I have never found the bottom of her well of empathy or the end of her patience, and the longer I know her the less I think they might exist.

Florence in the kitchen with two of her daughters

The seminars start early, eight in the morning, because cooking with soy takes a long time. That is not a bad thing, in fact in Cameroon most dishes take all day to to make. It also gives me time to do lessons on general nutrition, the nutritional benefits of soy, and soy cultivation. During the seminars I also sell soy seed (at cost) to anyone that wants to plant. I have distributed 32 kilos of soy for planting which should yield about a half ton at harvest. That is pretty good for villages that have never planted soy before.

Florence stirring some soy milk

Did you know that a kilo of soy has as much protein in it as 60 eggs?  Well now you do.

There where times that Florence and I where doing 3 of these seminars a week in the time leading up to, and the beginning of soy planting season (August 15^th to September 15^th). It got a bit stressful because with the logistics of getting everything together the seminars can take up all of your time. There where always new groups interested in doing the seminar, and for this season we trained 109 people in the surrounding villages. I am glad that planting season is over because I have a little more time to do things besides talk about soy, but I will start doing the seminars again for the next planting season in March.

This has nothing to do with soy but this kid is pretty cute.  He was completely amazed by my camera, and the fact that I had candy.