Our beloved household helper, A, is our kids' biggest source of local language lessons and traditional local foods during morning snack. Here I. and A. look over the morning's tuwo da miya. The tuwo was a porridge made from pounded and boiled maize, thickened enough to cut into pieces. Over it was poured miya, or sauce, made from dried, pulverized okra and black-eyed peas. A few weeks ago, I was struggling with the lack of fresh fruits and vegetables that seemed to be available. Around that time, as I was discussing with A. the ingredients for various recipes of miya, I was astonished at the number of local plants that could be used in making sauce. During the rainy season, ground that is brown and dusty for the rest of the year bursts forth with many kinds of haki, or weeds. A. led me outside and around our yard and the neighbor's (where two Hausa friends were at that moment picking haki), pointing out and naming over ten different weeds that could be used for sauce. I wished my mother was there to give me further horticultural insight! But, it challenged my perception of what fresh vegetables were or were not available.
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