Three days in October

12th October

Mid-afternoon I’m shown by Jenny how to give a subcutaneous injection to one of our sheep Beatrix as she is very lame with arthritis now, a daily injection along with a pill are given to help manage her pain.

It’s after school club today, children from the neighbouring school come by and we sit with a snack before walking the donkeys up to their stable.

After a quick visit to the rest of the animals, we split into two groups, some help muck out the trailer while the rest sit and pot on mustard seedlings.

After work I head to the house of Annetta where I am taking a Sylheti language class.

13th of October

Members of the coriander club (a group of Bengali women who garden here once a week) and a few other volunteers commune around a large picnic bench by the kitchen and chop vegetables. Farm grown where possible, this veg is being prepared for the harvest meal tomorrow.

Onion, garlic, kodu, potato, squash, lablab beans, carrots, shark fin melon, chillies.

Kodu being cut using a Datari sickle.

Tupperware feels laughably small, so the cubed vegetables are packed into big bags and are sent backstage (into the fridge for tomorrow).

14th of October

Both gas rings are on high and chopped onion and garlic meet with hot oil and not a single person at the farm doesn’t catch the smell of their union.

Another pot tells the beginnings of a Dahl, the recipe for which can be found in the Coriander Club cookbook.

scan of the red lentil and chickpea dahl recipe

I’m called over to guide Emma reversing the van up to the farmyard gates, Beatrix has just been put to sleep by the vet, an expensive heartbreak.

She is peacefully still, and still warm.

It’s decided it will take five of us to lift her into the van with dignity. Two hands grip around each of her legs and mine cradle her head.

She is lain on towels with another to shroud her face. We shut her into the body of the van and she is taken away to the knackery.

a drawing of Bea by Natalie

As me and Kirsten wash our hands of her lanolin, Lutfun spots us and asks us for some help in the kitchen.

Turning the corner into the kitchen area, I see the flames from the outdoor gas rings lick high on the silver pots.

She asks us to remove the pot of Dahl, which is bubbling vigorously in the embrace of the hot metal.

This is known to be a two-person job.

We lift it out the way and the next pot is placed on the ring. In here the vegetable curry quickly comes together.

pre prepared kodu, carrot and lab lab beans being added and mixed in the pot with various spices and vegetable ghee

The other ring is tasked with the rice; slow and steady two batches are cooked to perfection in stock and spices.

The farm becomes busy with familiar faces who loiter around the tent for the lunch bell to ring, and once it does a long line is formed aside the row of pots.

I practice my Sylheti on the coriander club, reciting a prewritten message of thanks. Not only for the cooking but for their ongoing dedication to the gardens.

Seconds are had and then the tupperware comes out and food is packed up to be ferried home, in various directions across the city.

collage of photos of people filling up tupperwear boxes with leftovers

words and photo’s by Izzy