From: norsgerm@a...........
I hope the 'mystery' never leaves mushrooms. It surpasses even astronomy and
it's consellations for me.
Kurt
"Kurt" wrote in message
news:9PidnRwhsK8ahiPZnZ2dnUVZ_q2dnZ2d@onvoy.com...
> Gunilla
> Thanks for sharing your expierience. I lived next door to an elderly lady
> when I was living in south Florida and she shared her expierience of
> living on the east coast of Africa before they went communist (Somolia at
> the time I think?)
> I understand your commpassion for people and would you believe that even
> in the middle of this huge (rich) North American continent there are
> hungry people? Much smaller scale, but corruption and 'oversight' occur
> everywhere.
> I will give away things from our gardens, and often do. Dissapointing
> though when some able bodied person who may be out of work, and enjoys
> fresh vegetables, won't come to help tend the garden. Then it's time to
> read them the story of THE LITTLE RED HEN.
> I think your kindness and knowlege is the best thing you left in Africa.
> Are you familiar with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein? His quote about
> saving the world was 'Don't try to shit above your arse'
> Please don't take that wrong, but even at our southern border with Mexico
> people suffer because of corruuption (govenment) and religion
> (overpopulation), and how do you change that.
> Envy your adventures and admire steps you take to do what you can.
> Kurt
>
> "Gunilla Fagerholm" wrote in
> message news:44bde18c.3887480@news1.telia.com...
>> Hi!
>> If anybody is interested here is the story of how our interest in
>> growing mushrooms started.
>>
>> "Mushrooms only grow where snakes have been breathing"
>> That was what the locals told us when we started talking about
>> mushroom growing in Shinuyalu, Kakamega District, in late 1999. When
>> we left Kenya in mid 2001 they all knew the truth. Many of them by
>> that time had been growing mushrooms themselves or seen other people
>> growing them.
>>
>> We lived in Shiasava, a small village within Shinuyalu.There we had
>> built a small hotel, with local materials, for tourists wanting to
>> visit the Kakamega Rainforest. For the hotel restaurant we used a lot
>> of mushrooms in the cooking. When the Eldoret factory closed down it
>> was impossible to buy any mushrooms (the chinese canned mushrooms had
>> not yet appeared on the market). The only solution then was to grow
>> them ourselves in order to satisfy our own needs.
>>
>> We managed to buy a kilogram of oyster mushroom mycelium and started a
>> trial-and-error experiment together with our staff. One day, quite
>> some time aftwerwards, one of our staff members suddenly discovered a
>> small oyster mushroom on the ground and we realized that we were on
>> the right track. We ordered a couple of mushroom growing books from
>> the USA and started reading while continuing experimenting with
>> humidity, light, growing materials, etc. After some time the yield
>> increased and the mushrooms were better-looking. By the time the
>> mycelium we had bought was finishing we had built a glove-box and
>> started producing our own mycelium.
>>
>> At that time we had found that the cultivating in itself was very easy
>> and inexpensive and, since we lived among the poor people we knew how
>> they suffered. Therefore we decided that we should teach them how to
>> grow mushrooms. Our staff brought material for growing mushrooms
>> outside their homes in order to show their neighbours that it was
>> possible to grow them. One of our friends put a big bag with substrate
>> outside his shop in Shinuyalu and people started asking questions.
>> (Initially many thought there was some witchcraft involved.)
>>
>> Rumour spread and groups of visitors came to our Rivendell Gardens
>> (named after the book "The Hobbit" by J.R.Tolkien) in order to see for
>> themselves that it was true - that no magic was involved.
>>
>> Oyster mushrooms spoil easily and since we were living without
>> electricity we constructed a solar dryer in order to dry the mushrooms
>> in a hygenic and cheap way. We produced a lot of spawn (mycelium). We
>> went to a sugar company and loaded big sacks of sugar bagasse in our
>> car and we started chopping banana fibres. And we trained our local
>> staff hard, both in the process of spawn making and in preparing the
>> growing bags.
>>
>> The free full-day seminars for the rural people could begin. We
>> selected, to start with, individuals, men and women, from different
>> parts of our own village. Many of them could only speak luhya and were
>> illiterate. Our own staff were the teachers. It was a big success. The
>> participants were trained in the actual bag-making and were sent home
>> with enough material, including spawn, so that they could continue
>> training at home. When showing us their first harvest and getting it
>> approved by us they were told to teach their own neighbours. They were
>> not allowed to ask for any fees, since they had gotten all material
>> free from us.
>>
>> After that we called people from other villages and areas and there
>> was an enormous interest. People came from far, even from Butere,
>> Mumias, Malava etc. And we ourselves drove around in the countryside
>> showing our growing bags in small villages, inviting people to come to
>> our seminars. We also went to some of the participant villages on
>> follow-ups in order to help the people with any problems.
>>
>> We issued IDīs which were needed when people wanted to buy mycelium
>> from us (which we sold at a low cost to everybody with an ID - the ID
>> was a proof that the buyer had been trained either by us or by one of
>> the village instructors) or delivering mushrooms to us. For each
>> ID-number a delivery list was started.
>>
>> The fresh mushrooms were delivered to us, classified in different
>> classes depending on how good they were (different payment for
>> different classes) and the weight noted on the list. When the grower
>> wanted he/she would come to us and ask for payment for the deliveries
>> made.
>>
>> The payment was out of our own private money. It was fantastic to see
>> all the old 'mamas' and 'babas' coming to get money. It was a help
>> with school fees, food etc. One grower even bought a bicycle. Those
>> were happy days for all of us!
>>
>> We told the growers that they should also eat the mushrooms
>> themselves. It is good protein-rich food which is also
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