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Farms between Kisumu and Kakamega in the lush and fertile, far west of Kenya; April 1979.
This western part of Kenya lies just to the east of Lake Victoria, and benefits from the big storms that form over the lake and then drift eastwards, bringing plentiful rain. Add all this water to fertile soils and high, year-round temperatures, and this is wonderfully productive farming country. But on the downside there is malaria here, and this is where it first got its claws into me.
The tall plants in the foreground are bananas – there were many varieties of bananas of all sizes and colours here, including simply delicious ones used for cooking. It may be more a dish from Uganda, but I simply adored cooked banana – matoke, I think it was called – with groundnut sauce.
Some of the local people can just be seen, up to the left of the two houses with metal roofs in the foreground.
This image is best viewed enlarged: click onto it to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.
Technique: OM-1 with 28mm Zuiko lens; Agfa CT18 colour slide film, rated at 64 ISO; Lightroom.
THE ARCHIVE KENYA SERIES
I’m re-posting photographs that I took in Kenya over 30 years ago. You can find more context here . Click onto the “Archive Kenya” tag (below) to see more of these film images from Kenya.
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FATman Photos 
How lush! Your composition brings out the design of the farm plots—so much more attractive than what I see here in northern Ohio! I found a recipe for matoke online. Does this look like what you remember? (Sounds delicious.) https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/matoke-in-peanut-sauce/print/
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Yes, this is it, for groundnuts read peanuts I imagine. Of course this is quite a sophisticated version, what I had was more basic, but still delicious – I can remember being in some distress after three helpings! One of the cooks was Ugandan, and the other Rwandese, and so this dish was a part of their usual diet. 🙂
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Beautifully lush and verdant – it looks really idyllic (apart from the malaria!). It’s interesting to think that bananas can be grown in sheltered parts of the UK these days. I think Bob Flowerdew has successfully had fruit from his.
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Wow that’s news about UK bananas – are they specially cold resistant types or is this climate change?
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I think it’s climate change. As a follower of gardening TV shows, blogs, and twitter accounts, it’s not uncommon now to see a variety of exotic plants including fruits and vegetables grown in the warmer parts of England.
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Here’s a link to an article from Bob Flowerdew’s website. Granted, he grows them in his polytunnel, but even so it seems amazing to me!
http://bobflowerdew.com/true-you-can-grow-bananas
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Loving all that green as we slog on through wet, brown winter.
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Very glad its giving you a boost, Ellen! This area is always green. 🙂
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That looks like quite a family gathering, and a gorgeous day for it, too.
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Yes definitely! 🙂
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