Tigers just jump on prey

Dear Diary,

Like I said last week, and as I will keep on saying, greetings from Munda wa Chitedze Farm, where I have relocated from the hustle and bustle of your city. Don’t worry if this is my farm, or I am just one of the farm workers here. That is a matter of little consequence.

And, even if I told you where this farm is located, would you care a hoot?

So, as I write, I am in one of the greenhouses here where we are growing, in controlled circumstances, buffalo beans, locally known as chitedze. Apart from the many crops and animals we have on the farm, chitedze is our mainstay.

Currently, we are adding value to chitedze and making some products from the itchy powder which can be used by the police instead of teargas and gunpowder. The formulas for that are as secret as that for Coca-Cola.

Of late, we also have a lotion from chitedze, which we are selling, especially in South Africa. We sell to the people there as a product to cure baldheads. When the clients come back to our agents that the lotion is so itchy, we tell them that the itching is evidence enough that the healing process has just begun.

So, I have been in the greenhouse all morning, tending the chitedze plants.

Dear Diary, you may be wondering why we grow chitedze in a greenhouse. You see, we are no simple farmers. We found that Mucuna pruriens, that is the scientific name for chitedze, is a tropical plant and matures well in very dry and hot conditions. So, the temperature, humidity and other factors are well regulated in our greenhouses so that even if it is as cold as it is right now, we are able to harvest chitedze pods all year round.

You may ask: Why am I boring you with all this about what happens at the Munda wa Chitedze Farm? Well, simple, why not?

You see, the other day, the guys from the district agricultural office came around with a kind offer. They said they could sponsor our farm to be at the Trade Fair Grounds in your town to showcase whatever we have to offer. They told us that they would sponsor our trip to the fair on condition that we would be at the stand where mega farms would be exhibiting what they are capable of producing.

Before I left your town, I was a regular visitor to the trade fairs. I used to enjoy Mr Kachimanga at the Admarc stand, the model electricity generation process at the Escom stand, and the turning of sugarcanes into sugar at the Sucoma stand.

I can’t forget that man who could lay down and with a mortar on his belly, women would pound maize as heavily as possible. Then, there was the fire-eater and that man who could make sounds of all the beasts of the field.

Of course, there were live bands. I still recall how at one point the MBC Band was performing covers of Jambo’s songs. To say the truth, I told family and friends that the band is the best in the land. Forget their anthem, Asungwana a kwa Chitedze, I was made to believe, from that performance, that they were behind the hit She is my Baby.

The farm makes me reminisce a lot. It does, Dear Diary. All that was brought by the visit from the Dado, to coax us to go to the trade fair and showcase even the recipes people can make from ground chitedze seeds. You see, chitedze has a lot of health benefits!

My thoughts run wild because my feeling of a trade fair since I left town, would bring exhibitions of black outs, empty silos and extremely expensive sugar.

So the Munda wa Chitedze Farm management agreed to turn down the offer to be used at the mega farms stand. For that matter, haven’t trade fairs turned into flea markets?

Another reason we declined was that we are not into talking and expositions. We are more into practicing what we don’t even preach. We let the works of our hands speak for us.

Dear Diary, my grandmother told me a lot of things. As I sit in this chitedze greenhouse, I still remember one thing that she told me.

“A tiger, my boy, does not proclaim its tigritude. I tell you, a tiger doesn’t go around the bush claiming it is fierce. A tiger doesn’t go to the hare and talk about its strength and agility. A tiger just jumps on its prey,” she said.

Today, I reckon, my grandmother was always right. Sometimes, at the farm, I dream of tigers that just growl and growl. Such tigers, sadly, think they are lions. Talk is cheap.

Dear Diary, all is well at the

“A tiger, my boy, does not proclaim its tigritude. I tell you, a tiger doesn’t go around the bush claiming it is fierce. A tiger doesn’t go to the hare and talk about its strength and agility. A tiger just jumps on its prey,” she said.