Banana Farm in Ngarash Juu

The road up to Ngarash Juu

Late one afternoon, Tammy and I drove up a little side road along the road to the school.  The neighborhood around the school is called Ngarash; up here a few hundred feet further up the side of the mountain is called Ngarash Juu (Upper Ngarash).  At first glance, there doesn't seem to be enough up here to warrant naming the place, but as we parked by a little lane I could see small houses hidden in the trees.  It turns out the hillside is dotted with little farms, mostly growing bananas. 

We walked down a side lane not wide enough for the car a couple of hundred feet from the dirt road.  The lane is bordered by high hedges that mark the edges of the properties.  We stopped at a gap in the hedge and called out "Hodi!" to enter.  

Those who live in Ngarash Juu have an incredible view.

Tammy and my shadow on the path.  She's carrying a rake, not a walking stick. 

We're further up the side of the mountain than the school, but still a good ways to go to the top.

We stopped to see Baraka, one of the students from the school.  He is an orphan, but has two older brothers who have watched out for him.  This is the banana farm of his oldest brother, and he was helping out during the school break.  He had asked Tammy if he could borrow a rake, so our visit was to deliver it.
  

Baraka hard at work between the banana plants.

I learned several things about banana plants while there: the central part of the plant is actually an underground section of trunk (which I later learned is called a rhizome); the banana tree is actually in the herb family, and the aboveground trunk is actually made up of leaf sheaths and is more of a very large stalk than anything like a tree trunk.  This stalk can grow ten to twenty feet high.  Each stalk can produce fifty to one hundred and fifty individual bananas.  After the bananas are harvested, the whole stalk is cut down to the ground, because each "trunk" only produces one bunch of bananas.  The underground base sends up new shoots every six months or so and continues to do so for years; it only takes nine months for a shoot to grow into a ten feet high stalk and produce bananas.  

Baraka got right to work with the rake, cleaning up all the bits of leaves and debris from harvesting bananas.  Tammy knew I hadn't been to a farm like this before, and she asked Baraka if he minded me taking a few pictures around his brother's place, which he didn't.  His brother has a small mud house with two rooms.  Outside, there is a little log building, unchinked to let the smoke out, with an outdoor kitchen area.  His nephew and two nieces were playing outside; one of the girls is Stella but I didn't catch the other two's names.