"Bazaar" Experiences in Batumi

Each time I have been in Georgia, I have wanted to visit a fruit and vegetable market. Earlier this week, on the way back from one of the farmer trainings, I asked at just the right moment, as we happened to be passing it, and we had a little time. It is a covered market in a huge open hall, with everything under the sun.

This is just the right season, as the produce is abundant and absolutely beautiful. So, we walk in, and the first thing you see is the stall of cheap Chinese plastic junk...with one bin of apples and pears. I suppose the junk is to keep the kids happy while Mom is shopping. I was a little concerned about what we would find when that was the first thing I saw!

No worries! The next thing was the stall of watermelons and Persian-type melons. I was lucky enough to be passing just as the proprietor cut a melon open to show to a customer. I wanted to eat it right then & there...it was so red and looked so good! I just can't eat enough watermelon here. The interesting thing about it is that for some reason, Mamuka cannot tell me why, watermelon is called "winter melon" in Georgian! It's high summer now and they are at their peak, so it does not make sense to me.

This is hazelnut harvest season, and they are for sale everywhere...raw, not dried or roasted. The Georgians call them "white" hazelnuts. This vendor has several different kinds...some are longer, looking more like an acorn, some round like what we are used to. He gave me several to taste, hoping for a sale, but I didn't think I could bring them home as they are not processed. So he looks a little disappointed.

Every small farmer in this area has a plot of hazelnut trees, just like they have plots of mandarins. Yesterday and today the trainers and the mandarin farmers were asking me about the "American white butterfly". It is a caterpillar attacking the hazelnuts, and other trees. I told them I didn't know what it was, but I would look it up. So I did my homework online and found out that it is called "fall webworm" in the US...it is a kind of tent caterpillar. The good news is that it does not attack citrus, and that it can be managed with B.t. Apparently in some places here, they are using what I call the "nuclear option" - spraying the heck out of it in hazelnut orchards. And are likely killing bees and natural enemies at the same time.

Mamuka (r) and tobacco sellers in Batumi vegetable "Bazaar"

I thought this was very interesting...I've never seen tobacco for sale like this before. Most Georgians smoke, and in the countryside, a lot of them roll their own cigarettes. So they sell tobacco like this in the market, alongside rolling papers. There are apparently different kinds (the dark pile and the light), and it is grown in Georgia. It is very heavy smoke, like Russian Sobranie cigarettes...the tobacco for those probably came from Georgia in the Soviet era. Interesting, but I could do without the clouds of smoke everywhere!

The market reminded me of the huge covered markets in Morocco and Tunisia. Beautiful vegetables and fruits as well as cheeses, sauces, pickles and a meat section and fish. The vegetables looked luscious, with the huge pinkish tomatoes, Armenian cucumbers, etc.

 

The processed foods fascinate me...they make all kinds of things at home here, not just jams and jellies, but wine, sauces for meat made from sour plums, a liqueur made from the fruit of Cherry laurel...it tastes like almonds because its a cherry & almond relative. The soda bottles to the left contain sauce or the liqueur., not sure which.  

And everyone in the countryside makes chacha, the vodka -like spirits made most often from grapes.  I don't think they were selling it in the market, but pretty much everything else. This week, I have had chacha made from honey and from pomegranates, as well as grapes. And I have been given several bottles of it. I'll share when I get home!

Georgians really like their chacha, and take any occasion to drink it, but I'm not one for spirits, especially for lunch! And not in the quantities they drink it! We were invited to a dinner by some of the trainers last night, and it would have been toasts all evening with chacha, but Mamuka's sister was there and neither she nor I wanted to drink that much chacha, so we toasted with wine. 22 times, I think, if I didn't lose count, which I may well have! It was wine made with Rkatseteli white grapes by one of our mandarin trainers, Afto. This one was more like a chardonnay than a lot of the Rkatseteli I've had. I've had various homemade wines as well as commercial wines, which remind me of our foothill Syrah and Barbera wines, with the same richness of flavor.

I found these pickles fascinating...When I showed interest, the seller just took out a knife, sliced off a piece and gave me a sample, hoping I would buy. There were not too many customers in the market mid-afternoon. and no one back in this section. The cucumber pickles were not quite dill, but a combination of herbs and spices. I liked the look of the stuffed tomatoes on the left, and the pickled garlic on the right. From experience, I know the beets are delicious!

Today, Saturday, is the first day we've had off since I've been here, and it was a real pleasure. The Minister of Agriculture invited Mamuka and me to lunch at a seaside restaurant called San Remo (!), which, as always, involved multiple dishes of meat and fish...as well as multiple toasts, only with a nice red wine this time, not chacha.

My other "bazaar" experience...
After lunch today, I asked Mamuka to take me to the goldsmiths' "bazaar". That seems to be  the name for any market. I was unaware it existed until I asked Mamuka to find us hand lenses for our training last week, and he had had no luck finding them anywhere. Finally I suggested he talk to jewelers or gold/silversmiths, so he went there and bought up all the hand lenses they had for sale - 5 , I think.

I was curious to see what it was like, thinking it would be tiny shops individual shops in little old streets like in Istanbul or Cairo. He pulled up to a huge, multi-story modern building that looked more like a movie theater with posters all over it. It looked like a combination mall/exhibition hall. The bottom floor was given over to products from India, but up an escalator, there was a huge room with hundreds of people sitting right next to each other on benches behind glass display cases about 2.5 feet across. The cases were full of jewelry...all kinds, gold, silver, platinum, stones, costume jewelry, all jumbled in together.

At first, I didn't want to stay because there was just too much, I could not really take it in. Finally, I saw some earrings I liked and we asked to see them...and to look at them with the jeweler's loupe. I was ready to buy them, but Mamuka insisted that we look for other ones first. Good thing we did. We found similar ones for a lot less from a woman who looked like she needed the income. With the loupe, we could see the 585 stamped on the clasp, which means 14 carat gold, but Mamuka wanted to be sure they were real. So the vendor took us upstairs to the smiths, the experts. There were little tiny workshop/shops up there with guys making all kinds of gold jewelry. We went into a shop and the goldsmith rubbed the back of the earring catch on this black stone until it left a little path of gold. Then he took a tiny pen-like instrument with a gold tip out of a drawer and rubbed another line next to the two from my earrings, and looked at it carefully with his loupe. Then he dropped some kind of solution on all of the lines, blotted it, and then looked at it again. He told us the gold was actually only 583...not quite 14 carat, but it next to it. Close enough for me. That whole process cost a whopping $2. So I bought the earrings...after a tiff with Mamuka...Georgians want to pay for everything, even my souvenirs! I told Mamuka to go away and just talked to the woman, so she took my money. It was some experience, and I have some lovely pink gold Georgian earrings to show for it!

Maybe I'll have more "bazaar" experiences in Tbilisi, as we are heading back tomorrow. More later.

Cindy

Summertime in Georgia

Mandarin IPM field training: my translator, Izolda;
Mamuka, and one of our University trainers

I'm back in the Republic of Georgia again, for mandarin training. This time I'm doing IPM (Integrated Pest Management) training for our university trainers and area farmers in Adjara province, mostly in or near Batumi.

Batumi is a resort town in summer, as it's on the Black Sea. Practically everyone you see on the street is in a bathing suit or carrying a brightly colored plastic float, wading pool or whatever. Of course, my hotel is right next to the promenade park which lies between the city and the sea. Here is a charming statue at the entrance to the promenade in front of my hotel. This was a resort in the 18th and 19th century, and I think this harkens back to then.

I'm not sure I would come here on vacation, as it's very hot and humid...a lot of days have been in the upper 90's, but with 90% relative humidity. You just move and you sweat. I guess sitting close to the sea and jumping in frequently is okay, but for working in the orchard, not so much.


Georgian mountain countryside

The countryside is beautiful, though. Very green, as it rains quite a lot. In the 6 days I have been in Batumi, I think it has rained 5. Fortunately it has mostly been in late afternoon or at night, as they are almost always thunderstorms - with plenty of thunder and lightning. I'm on the 9th floor of the hotel, and there are about 15 floors above me, so I don't worry much. It's interesting, though.

There are lots of fruits and vegetables in little farmstands all along the roads and everywhere in town. Pears, peaches, plums, nectarines, as well as green hazelnuts, plus apples (with lots of scab).

Everywhere there are tons of watermelons including enormous light and dark green striped ones, plus smaller ones. I've heard that it was a bumper crop this year, where they are grown in Eastern Georgia. They taste great...I have had diced watermelon every morning for breakfast.



They also have big canteloupes and enormous Persian-type or Egyptian shimmam melons - light or white flesh,and very sweet.  There are also enormous  pink heirloom tomatoes that look like some of the Russian ones we grow.



Good time to eat your fruits and vegetables! I have had some great salads, including ones with Armenian cucumbers, luscious ripe red tomatoes with dill and parsley...yum!!! And I eat cucumbers and Greek-type olives for breakfast most mornings as well...a very Mediterranean habit!

In the fruit stand picture, the hanging things in the back are hazelnuts in a fruit casing. They prepare a syrup of grape or other juice that is then wrapped around the nuts and dried like fruit leather. It's pretty tasty, but quite sweet. These are green hazelnuts...something I had not seen before.They eat them raw, not dried or roasted at this time of year.

It is, as always, fascinating to see the differences in how things are grown, presented, and eaten. It's all part of the adventure. There are lots of grapes ripening this time of year, in everyone's yard in rural areas. They use them both for wine and for eating.  Below is a very common sight - a grape on an arbor above the driveway.  They have lots of shotberries - a problem with uneven ripening, but they do make some very fine wines.  I've had a number, both red and white. All have with really interesting, but hardly pronounceable Georgian names: Mtsvane, Rkatseteli, Saperavi.

I just learned the other day that there can be up to 10 consonants in a row in Georgian! No wonder I cannot pronounce some of these things they think are so simple! I am still working on learning one Georgian word a day...this time I have learned the word for spider - uboba, lady beetle, white flies and such things because that's what we talk about all day in the training. If you hear it often enough, you can repeat it...sort of.  I still cannot pronounce the Georgian version of malodyetz - a Russian word meaning good job or good student. So I use the Russian - they all think it's really funny.

As for the training, because I am not fond of the heat, I suggested that we start training early in the morning. So Mamuka, my Georgian colleague, moved the start time from 11 AM to 10 AM! When I told him I was thinking more like 7 AM, his eyes got really big and he said that no one would come then! Georgians are real night owls...there is a ton of traffic at 2 or 3 AM on the streets, but no one moving at 7 or 7:30 AM. I should know, for the first four nights I was here, I was on the side of the hotel next to the night club. I heard it all night from 7 PM to 4 AM...I know, because I would wake up when the bass was particularly loud. I finally got my room changed yesterday, and now it's fine. Just background noise.

So we did three and a half days of training of trainers on pest management. You Mountain Mandarin Growers should feel really grateful that you are not trying to grow here! They have two really nasty things that we don't, plus a whole assortment of scale insects that are a problem because they nuke the orchards with really heavy pesticides. IPM is an entirely new concept!
They have citrus scab, a fungus disease, plus Citrus rust/or silver mite. Both damage fruit really badly if they are not managed. Unfortunately they have overused many pesticides, so the mites, scale and fungus, especially, are resistant to them.  I set up a recommended program for them last spring, and some orchards were properly sprayed, but not all. But, the trainers say the orchards look so much better now that they did last year that I am quite the hero(ine). One of the farmers at the first farmer training today told me that he had pruned his trees as we recommended, and he has the biggest fruit he's ever had! He pointed to oranges in a tree, and said that his mandarins were that big...for here, enormous. He was so happy!


Citrus scab on mandarin fruit and leaf.
It looks like pimples on the leaves.

Here are some lovely mandarins which did not get sprayed on time this spring...they have horrible scab, and once it's on there, there is nothing you can do about it. So I'm telling them now to just get them out of the orchard...they don't ever ripen properly. This orchard actually has very little scab, compared to some of them. One apparently has almost 70% according to the trainers...I'm not sure how that can be better than last year, but that's what they tell me!

This is something really cool that I've never seen before. The orchard we have been working in this week actually has quite a few natural enemies...i.e. organisms that prey on pests. This is a fungus that attacks white fly pupae. Each of the white things is a juvenile whitefly. The ones with the orange have been attacked...the orange is the spores it puts out, and one spore falls on the whitefly juvenile, germinates, and kills the whitefly. Nature is so cool sometimes!

More on what we are doing with farmer training next time. The first one was today, and I'll be going to different ones each day this week.
Nakhvamdis (KnockH-vum-diss), Goodbye in Georgian, for now.

Cindy

Springtime and Easter in Georgia
I'm back in Batumi, Republic of Georgia. I've been here for five days, but things have been very hectic until today, so no time to write the blog.  I arrived in Tbilisi last Tuesday and then drove across the country with Mamuka, my Georgian colleague, on Wednesday.

View from Mamuka's Village

After a long hard winter with snow for the last two months, it's finally spring here. Apparently, this is the first week it has been warm. On the drive over here, we saw sour cherry trees in bloom all over - small white blooms, magnolias, and daffodills in every yard down here near the coast. On the way here, we stopped in Mamuka's family village up in the mountains. It was very nice, with the sour cherries and forsythia in bloom. There are tiny blue wild primroses in the fields, which are just lovely.

Wild Primroses

The cold weather has really slowed down the citrus, there is no new growth yet and no sign of flower buds. There is a lot of cold/freeze damage with small dead branches and burned leaves. In the Batumi demonstration orchard, there were not as many broken branches from snow as I thought I might see, but plenty of pruning needed to clean out all the small dead branches. Tree canopies all along the roads look even thinner than when I was here before, and many are very yellow or burned brown by cold, so there is pretty significant damage from the cold winter. I hope they get a crop this year. The bloom will be very late, my university colleagues predicted today that it would be another month before bloom, which means fruit will be very late.

Since I arrived here, the weather here has been warm and sunny for the most part.  I spent yesterday morning with my interpreter, Izolda. I had told them I wanted to go to church since it was Easter for us. Here, they are mostly Georgian Orthodox, so Easter is next Sunday. So Izolda took me to church...several of them, as a matter of a fact. We started out in a tiny little Georgian church right nect to the hotel, Saint Barbara's (picture below in January blog).

They were selling bunches of boxwood and daffodils outside. On their "Palm" Sunday, they buy these fragrant leaves and then keep them all year. They bring last year's leaves back to the church, where they are burned. So there were people selling the leaves, daffodils, and other flowers outside all around the church. They were also selling red dye and sticks which make red dye for Easter eggs for next week.

There were so many people in the tiny church we could barely get in the door. We bought little tiny candles to light as well. In the orthodox church they don't sit down, they all stand up. So there were all these people jammed in together, holding lit pencil-sized candles...I was sure someone was going to light someone's clothes or hair on fire! We heard a bit of the chanting and music and I could smell the incense, but could not see much of anything. It just kept getting more and more crowded, so we decided to go on to another church.

Batumi street

We walked through some of the older area of town, on cobblestone streets, to another, very large, Georgian cathdral that looked more like a French Cathedral. There were mobs of people there too, but it was so big we could go in and move around. It was lavishly decorated with icons of saints, some of them covered in gold.

Everyone was lighting candles at the icons of different saints...I lit one at Saint Nicholas and another at Mary's icon. Then we walked around outside in the church yard, where people were gathering in a huge crowd by the back door of the church. Izolda said that in about an hour, the priests would come out and bless the crowd with holy water and incense. The crowd was already huge, and growing by the minute, so we decided not to stay there either.

Seafront, Batumi

So we walked to the Catholic church down by the port. It was a very modern, but lovely building. Mass had already happened, but it was open so we went in and enjoyed the peace and quiet! There was only one other person there while we were there. They had a big banner over the altar that said (in Georgian, of course) Christ is Risen, so they had celebrated Easter today. Then we walked around town, enjoying the lovely warm spring weather and all the flowers planted on the promenades. A very nice Easter day!

Snowbound in Georgia

I've been in Batumi almost six days now. It snowed for two and a half days of that and now we are suffering the consequences. While a few of the streets in the city are clear, many are not and last night when we went out to dinner we saw crews of men using shovels to break up the frozen slush on the roads.

It is very beautiful...and rather a study in contrasts...snow covered palm trees at the beach! I've walked out to the beach the last two days, just to get out of the hotel.  It is a workout, as the snow is 12-18" deep, and much of the way to the beach is unbroken. There are a few beaten paths, but the snow has melted and refrozen, so it's pretty treacherous. I prefer walking through the snow even though it takes a lot of energy.


Santa Barbara Church in Batumi...
more Spanish than Georgian

 Yesterday was bright and sunny--sunny enough that I got a bit of sunburn from the reflection off the snow. So I went down to the beach. It is all beautifully rounded, flat pebbles and stones...2-4" in diameter, and lots of them. Very little sand at all. It is hard to walk on as it is uneven and the pebbles shift under your feet. There is very little wildlife.  All I saw were about half a dozen very large grey and black crows, who were quite aggressive. I didn't even see any water weeds or anything living washed up along the shore. Except for one wizened old man in a bright red jacket doing yoga on the "beach" (rocks)! There is an oil terminal just around the point and that may be why I don't see any creatures.

We are all ready for the training, just don't know when we can do it. It was sunny enough here at the coast to melt quite a bit yesterday. Apparently in the hills, it's no such thing. Yesterday, we had a meeting with the two field coordinators (who visited orchards with us last week) yesterday to go through my training Powerpoint so we are all on the same page. One of them told us he walked almost 20 miles because there was no transport. Our driver took them back after the meeting yesterday afternoon...it took 4 hours to go 18 miles.

We are still hoping to start training on Tuesday, if it seems like people can get here. This will be training of trainers with some university people, the field coordinators, and other ag folks. They will be the ones who train the farmers, and the way it is looking, I will not be here for any of the farmer training as I have to leave on the 31st. They don't think the roads in the hills will be passable before then.

Today, hopefully we will go out to the demo plot down here so I can see the damage and tag the trees we want to use as examples. And we're supposed to meet with her excellency the Minister of Agriculture of the Adjaria Autonomous Region. The CNFA greenhouse guy is supposed to be here today to help them with their collapsed greenhouse. I hope we do something, as I'm getting tired of the hotel.

 

It's a very fancy hotel, a Sheraton with a big casino. The whole thing is oversized...huge high ceiling and all marble, polished stone floors, and whatnot. The entry and lobby is about 4 stories high. It is clearly more about style than comfort. Most of the chairs are very stylish but devilishly uncomfortable. And the decor is very odd.  Huge blown up pictures of rock stars on the walls...none of them look happy. Then very oversized decorative items. Most of it looks like gigantic military hardware...huge grenades, missles, landmines, etc. Then, in the huge cavernous lobby of the elevators (a different lobby than the entrance, there are deer heads on the wall with what looks like moss all over them (all fake of course) I do not get how it all goes together. Maybe I just have no style!

There are not a lot of guests, so the staff is VERY attentive. Too much so sometimes. Every time I order room service or laundry or anything, I get at least two phone calls asking me if everything is alright. They are very sweet, though. They call me Mrs. Cindy. Most of the women and a lot of the men are at least a foot and a half shorter than me. I feel like a giant.

The food is good. In the hotel there is this enormous buffet breakfast with everything under the sun...Mediterranean/European/ American, whatever you want.  It has the mediterranean olives/cucumbers/cheese array, plus croissants, other pastries and breads, even chocolate covered donuts (not so great), plus all the eggs, bacon, potatoes, etc. Plus cereals of all kinds and assorted fresh and compote fruit, juices, plus plus plus. And I swear there are no more than about 20 guests in the whole hotel. But it's all there every day. 

View from my hotel window at about 8 AM this morning

Most people don't get up very early so there may be more people than I think. I usually eat around 8, and there may be 1 or 2 people in the whole restaurant. I think most people don't get up until 10 or so...it's dark until 8:30 AM, so I can't blame them. And they appear to stay out very late.

View of Adjari Mountians from Batumi, 9:30 AM

I have not quite figured out the meal schedule. Most people apparently don't eat much breakfast, but they also don't eat lunch until 2 or 3 or 4 PM. So I eat a big breakfast because I am never sure when I'm going to get the next meal! Then dinner is late...as late as 11 PM one night! Very Mediterranean that.

My colleagues have figured out I am not a night owl...it's been just Mamuka and me here for the past couple of days and last night at about 7 PM he came to get me and said what about dinner? I don't think he had eaten since breakfast! I'd gotten a bowl of tomato soup midafternoon. They make this marvelous tomato soup...just a bit spicy, and very rich tomato flavor. It is supposed to come with cheese and sour cream, but I pass on that...it's great as is.  They are big consumers of dairy products...all kinds of cheeses, butter, cream, sour cream...all full fat, of course.  Still a bit much for my somewhat battered stomach. I've recovered from whatever ailed me...I think it was a virus as it lasted a couple of days...just a bit hesitant about too much heavy food. 

I think the guys have begun to think I don't eat meat, which is astounding to them.  They eat a lot of it, just like in the Middle East. I do like the food...especially what is called Khatchapuri (sounds like it should be Indian).  It is like a thick pizza crust with several kinds of cheese, butter, sometimes potatoes or eggs baked into it.  It is really rich...but they go through  it like nothing and then have the main course!

There always seems to always be a LOT of food. I don't apparently eat enough for them. And I am still zero for zero on paying for meals (except the few times I've oredered room service!) Last night since it was just Mamuka and me, I really tried but still got the standard answer...I could pay "next time". Except "next time" never comes.

Georgian Mandarins and SNOW!

I've been in Georgia (the Republic of, that is!) now for four days. I arrived in Tbilisi, the capital, after a relatively smooth trip – just very long about 28 hours. I arrived at 4 AM on Monday which is 4 PM on Sunday in California. The 12 hour time difference is rather disconcerting. I'm writing this at 3:11 AM California time. 

I stayed in a very nice hotel in downtown Tbilisi, a Courtyard Mariott, believe it or not. It's in an 18th or 19th century neoclassical building in one of the main squares…beautifully redone. The CNFA office is in beautifully restored quarter of Tbilisi with very traditional Georgian architecture. It's a nice walk through a very traditional quartier on a cobblestone street from the hotel to the office.

The Georgians are very nice and VERY hospitable...they have not allowed me to pay for a meal yet...even though I'm receiving perdiem!  I'll have to figure out a way to invite them all out at the end of the trip.  I keep asking, but they give me a big song and dance and just refuse in the end! Very nice people.

On Tuesday, we headed out to Batumi, on the Black Sea Coast, which is in the area where mandarins are grown. It was about a 7 hour trip up and over the pass, through several tunnels – one 2.5 km long and down to the coast at Batumi. It was a very interesting trip, with the high plateau looking like the Anatolian plateau with winter wheat and barley growing. There were some herds of sheep, but mostly cattle...small and rather shaggy, but not as shaggy as highland cattle. There was snow up high, but a lot of greenery along the road.

I love the pointed round towers of the Georgian churches...and they come in a number of styles and colors.  I really like the red brick ones, and there are a number with gilded roofs in Tbilisi. This one resembles really fat Turkish mosque minarets. Turkey is not far away.

It was raining when we got to Batumi, but we made a quick trip out to one of the "Mandarin Knowledge Plots" as they call them...kind of like a demo plot.  I finally saw why they need help. The trees look really malnourished...they are tiny for 35 year trees, and the canopy starts about 5-6 feet up and is very thin. No wonder the fruit is not very good quality. They have some very unusual practices which contribute to the poor vigor of the trees, I'm sure.

On Tuesday night, the rain turned to snow and we woke up on Wednesday to a dusting of snow in Batumi. When we went out to visit farmers, there was 6-8" up a little higher where many of the orchards are. I'm told this is about a once in a decade occurrence...and I thought it was going to be warmer here! Glad I brought my Muck boots...my feet have stayed warm and dry. :)

On Wednesday, we, that is,

• Mamuka, my colleague/supervisor
• Levan, another colleague and agronomist
• Vince, the boss of the program, originally from Moldova
• Isolde, my translator
• David, our driver, ho insisted his name was David, although the Georgians call him Datoona
• and two guys from the agricultural university, whose names are too long for me to remember, much less pronounce...I should have written them down...but haven't a clue where to start.

We went out to visit farmers and orchards so I could understand what the issues are - before I start telling them what to do! Novel concept, but it took some convincing. And boy, am I glad I insisted...I had no idea that mandarin trees could look like so many of these do. (Once again I am very grateful for my Placer Co mandarin growers!) So we visited one orchard with scrawny, yellow, 30+ year old trees with no leaves until 4 or 5 feet up the trunk and canopies you can see the sky through. And he seemed to be happy with his yields.

Very nice man, Amiran, the farmer...but really sad trees. He gave me about 20 navel oranges...proudly telling me they were Washington navels (the American standard)...but picked way too early, so quite sour. They tend to do that with citrus here, apparently. He, apparently like most people here, cultivates the soil all around and under the trees down to about a foot, which takes out all the absorbing roots, so it's no wonder they are so sad. The reason was that there would be roots on the soil if they didn't?? So the tree had next to nothing to draw from. No wonder 35 year old trees are the size of 12-year old trees!

Then we went to another grower, Imzar, and his trees were about the same age, but much bigger trunks, and extremely dense canopy...reminds me of Steve Pilz' canopy. They were healthy with beautiful dark green color, but horrendous pruning! He at least knew that he needed to prune. (that's my first topic for the trainings). 

Imzar was a lovely man, and had a good understanding of growing practices. He even tried to speak some English...apparently his kids speak English, according to his wife, Ticha (or something like that).

Anyway, he invited us into his house for coffee...only it turned out to be one cup of coffee and many, many Georgian toasts with numerous glasses of chahcha - their vodka, which is more like grappa, and a sour cherry liqueur. They had fresh hazelnuts, which also grow in this area, as well as juice made from boiled pineapple guava - Feijoa. That at least was non- alcoholic and his wife got the idea I was not keen on drinking all the alcohol. Most of the guys did, though, and there were numerous toasts to friendship, cooperation, growing mandarins, the new year, etc. etc. I was two sheets to the wind on one tiny glass of chahcha and an even tinier glass of the cherry liqueur, I have no idea how the rest of them drank it all. Here's a picture of the bleary-eyed bunch. The house was all wood inside, and like stucco outside. Very beautiful.

Then we went to the Agricultural University and met the Dean. He was very nice, and willing to listen at least to the reasons why I suggested they do things differently.  The other two guys who traveled with us all day seemed to think everythig is fine with their mandarin production. I knew it might be hard to convince them.  The Georgian guys on the team, and Vince, the boss really get it, though, and are fully behind what I want to suggest, so that's good. The Ag University is up in the hills above Batumi, and they had the best looking mandarin tree I have seen so far...even surrounded by snow!

So today, it is snowing like mad in Batumi,there's a total white out between here and the sea..maybe 100 yards away! I did take a little walk to a nearby grocery store when it stopped for a while...again thankful for my Muck boots in 4" of snow, slush, and water on the roads and sidewalks.

The grocery store is an adventure...I had some nasty food poisoning last night, so I wanted some applesauce, dry crackers, and yoghurt. Well, they had apple juice - yabloki in Russian, and some tea biscuits...Petit beurre. I figured that and the apple juice out okay, and the yoghurt by the shape of the container. When I asked about the yoghurt, she pronounced it like yoghourt with a Georgian twist and a roll of the R. I  think it's peach, but not really sure because all the Georgian covers the picture.

The store clerks like to follow me around in the store...probably because they don't think I can figure out what stuff is! I was trying for applesauce so showed her the apple juice container and pointed to a jar of tomatoes and she thought it was quite funny that I wanted apples in a jar. I did find fresh (in a manner of speaking) apples down the street at a little shop where two girls were huddled over a heater minding the store. It's really cold for Georgians, I guess.

So we are preparing for our first training of trainers tomorrow. - mostly University people and some government ag, I think. Mamuka & Levan are busy translating my powerpoint on pruning into Georgian...otherwise known as squiggle language. It is totally different than anything else, although it looks a little like Thai! I have learned to recognize about 4 letters from reading road signs on the road, but I have no idea what things mean. I know about two words...thank you is Didimadloba and hello is gamarjuba or something like that. I keep forgetting hello. My translator drilled me on the didimadloba enough that I have that down. My one word a day isn't working out so well. I think this is Google in Georgian: საქართველო or maybe its Georgian. See what I mean about squiggle? I know that the first letter is an S and the second to the last is an L beyond that, I am clueless. But it is interesting. Levan has a store of Georgian cultural knowledge and he's always explaining things.

it's an adventure alright, but really really interesting. And di I mention they all smoke like chimneys?  I'll try to do several more of these posts.

XIX. To Kairouan and Beyond…

My colleague, Mehdi Ben Mimoun, who is a Pomology professor at the Institut nationale agronomique de Tunisie (INAT, Tunisian National Agronomic Institute), organized an amazing program of visits for me. Mehdi did part of his PhD at Davis, and Louise Ferguson connected me with him…what a blessing. He and his colleagues have been incredible hosts in Tunisia! He's the one to the left (of me and the camel) in the picture. 

I’ve visited orchards of all kinds, mostly citrus though, in many different areas of the country. Mehdi organized the tours, and typically the owner/manager/director comes and gets me (and sometime Mehdi) and takes us out for the visit, and often feeds us lunch as well!!

I’ve also had a chance to talk with a lot of people involved in citrus research, extension, and production, as well as seeing a lot of countryside. I gave two presentations at the Institute, on citrus in California, and small scale production in the foothills, and a second one on extension in California. They were very well received, and we had a really good discussion with a lot of questions both times...the questions lasted longer than the presentations!  It was all in French (including my presentations), so after a couple of hours, my French would start to deteriorate, and Mehdi would close the proceedings.

Just to let you all know that I was thinking about you, this is the front slide of the presentation. They liked the pictures of all of you. Dan, they thought you might be Tunisian, and they wanted to know if you had any Tunis sheep!

There were some people from the ministry of Agriculture at the extension presentation, and the director of Extension asked me to come to the Ministry and give the presentation again for their staff.  I gave that presentation the day before I left.  It was very interesting, about 30 people who work in the Ministry of Agriculture in the Extension division attended.  Most were very interested in what I had to say, and thought some of my ideas would be helpful.  A few were not happy to hear that our system is not centrally controlled, and that what I extend depends on my growers' needs, not what the government wants extended. However, I was pleased to be asked, as it indicated that they were open to new ideas.  And a number of the people attending asked if they could correspond by e-mail, so I think what I said got them thinking.  It was very interesting!

Back to Kaiouan and Regueb.  Monsieur Sahbi Majoub, who is a partner in one of the largest fruit companies in Tunisia, took Mehdi and me down to Regueb, via Kairouan. Regueb is in the southern part of Tunisia, but not the "far south". It is much drier than the northern coastal areas, and did not have much crop agriculture until the last few years - it was grazing land.

Then they found that there were quite large aquifers with high quality water, for Tunisia. All the water in Tunisia is somewhat to extremely saline, so good water is a relative term…especially compared to our water in the foothills. Anyway, about 12 years ago people started buying land and planting orchards in the area of Regueb and Maknassy. M. Sahbi has several, with citrus, grapes and stone fruit. We visited several citrus orchards…the oldest one, a 12 year old lemon orchard, plus many newer ones.

The trip takes you south, partly along the eastern coast below the Cap Bon Peninsula, then inland to the city of Kairouan, and then south again. Kairouan is an old, walled city, where the Arabs bringing Islam built their first mosque in North Africa. n.b. Maghrebis (North Africans) do not consider Egypt to be part of North Africa – it is much more closely linked to the Middle East culturally and otherwise. It used to be forbidden to non-Muslims, and is considered a holy city for Muslims. It is famous for carpet making, but I didn't really have time to check them out.

It was a bit of adventure early in the day, after zooming down the “autoroute” to end up in a walled city with cobblestone streets. We had breakfast at a tiny fitayra shop in the medina (old City). Ftayra is a kind of dough made from semolina that is worked like pizza dough, and then deep fried very quickly. It can have an egg in it or be garnished with onions, or just plain. It is only made for breakfast and the shop closes by 10 AM. The shop was tiny so there was a crowd of men standing out front eating the hot fried ftayra. We did the same, then washed the oil off our hands at the sink in the front of the shop.

After breakfast, we walked through to an open square, which Mehdi’s wife, who is an architect, helped restore. It was quite lovely (see photo right).

There is an old Arab tower/building that housed the well for the city, with a camel that walks around and around to turn a vertical wheel with clay jars on it to pull up the water. It’s very similar to the nuria water wheels in Egypt. I had read about it and it sounded horrible, because apparently the camel lives there its whole life. It was not as bad as it sounded. It’s open to the air and sun on one side, and very clean and neat. The water was fresh and good…I’ve not had any problems with drinking Tunisian water, which is very high quality. It is apparently a real tourist attraction, although we were the only ones there on that morning. The picture at the top of this post was taken there.

After our brief visit to Kaiouan, we set off for Regueb, arriving late morning at one of M. Sahbi’s farms. It had a few acres of citrus, but mostly table grapes. Then we stopped in town to order grilled lamb for lunch at a tiny hole in the wall restaurant.

The restaurant was next to this vegetable and fruit shop...I was blown away by the variety and quality of the produce, as Regueb seemed to be somewhat isolated...but there are good roads, and it was only about three hours from Tunis.  Somehow it reminded me of towns from my Peace Corps days, but I think there were a lot more amenities there than there were in the towns I remember!

The citrus in this area is still quite young, and I think the growers are just figuring out how to grow it there. The climatic conditions are entirely different than most of the areas where citrus is grown here, so they are used to dealing with a humid climate and all the attendant issues. The interesting thing is that they have maintained many of the same practices. I was surprised to see that they were disking very deeply between the rows, even into the root zone of the trees. It was very dusty, and given the propensity for winds, it was perfect mite habitat, and they had serious mite problems. When I asked the grower why, he couldn’t give me an answer other than that it was the way citrus was grown (elsewhere!).

So I (diplomatically – I’m much more diplomatic in French!) suggested that if he stopped cultivation and just mowed the weeds, he’d have fewer mite problems. Several orchards did not have windbreaks, and suffered flower drop and thus uneven fruit production. And some were very nutrient stressed, especially when the soil was very sandy. I able to offer some suggestions on windbreaks, mulching, and irrigation management to help them, which made me feel useful! It’s not that I know any more than they do, it’s just that I look at things differently, and can suggest practices that they might not have considered.

There were several orchards that looked very healthy, including M. Sahbi’s citrus. The major reasons why they are trying to grow citrus in that region is that there is good water and that since it has never had citrus it does not have mal secco, a disease that is deadly to lemons. Lemons are the highest value fruit in Tunisia, and it is very difficult to grow them anymore in any of the traditional coastal regions, so they are planting in the Regueb area.

After we visited a couple of orchards, we went back to town for lunch.  Lunch was cut up lamb cooked on a barbecue, seasoned with salt and pepper and lemon juice.  It was delicious...served in big bowls and eaten with your fingers! We ate at a big kitchen table in the back room of the restaurant, with five ag engineers who manage the various orchards in the area. Most of the orchard owners are absentee landowners, so they hire these young ag engineers to manage them.  They were all young men, in their late twenties and early thiries, and a couple had been Mehdi's students. They live out at the farms and obviously get together in town from time to time, but it was clearly a big deal to get invited to lunch and show us around their orchards.  Dessert was Clementine mandarins and navels from M. Sahbi's orchard. And they were really good as well.

We continued on to several more orchards...both young and older (12 years!) and then, as the sun was setting, headed back north.  We stopped again in Kairouan to see the mosque and so M. Sahbi could pray.  The minaret is lit at night and quite beautiful. We also stopped to buy the date pastries for which Kairouan is famous.  M. Sahbi gave me a whole box, which I shared with some of the hotel staff on the feast day and I brought some back to the States...some of you may get the chance to raise your blood sugar with a few!

We arrived back in Tunis around 8 PM...a long day, but very interesting and a real chance to see the Tunisian countryside.  Things were so well programmed in Tunisia that I am just now catching up on my posts...I never had time because Mehdi planned so much fo me. 

XVIII. Sheep, sheep everywhere…

27 November 2009

Sheep in the shop, sheep at the police station, sheep on the balcony, sheep running away...
Here in Tunisia (and across the Muslim world), today is the biggest feast of the Muslim calendar, Eid Il Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice. It’s also known in other countries as Bayram, Tabaski, and generally as Eid il Kibir…the big feast. It commemorates Abraham (Ibrahim in Arabic)’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Every Muslim family who can afford it has bought a sheep that is killed and eaten today and tomorrow.

For the last week, there have been sheep tied up everywhere...in the doorways of shops, at the police station, and wandering the grounds of the Ag Institute. On the building around the corner from me, there are sheep on the little balconies in a nest of straw on the 2nd and 3rd floors (look carefully at the balconies in the lower left and the center top of the photo). We're talking sheep, not lambs...they have to be at least a year old, and in good shape, so they are not really small.  The sheep on the top balcony apparently was not well-looked after...he was missing his bale of straw! 

Apparently, no matter how long you have the sheep for – a week or a day, it needs a whole bale of straw with it at all times. I think it must be people’s idea of keeping the sheep in good health and happy until they’re killed. Last night, when I went to the local supermarket (which was crazier than on Thanksgiving eve in the US), I saw a compact car…a Fiat or something, so a VERY compact car, parked out front with a bale of hay on the back seat and a sheep standing on the floor behind the front seats! I kid you not!

The sheep tied with a string to the shop door were cute with their bales of hay, but by mid-morning today, any which had not been slaughtered knew what was coming. And there were bags of straw everywhere.

I  walked around the Medina this morning, which was lovely as there was no one there. I could see all the buildings (and doors!) I’ve not seen before. I have walked by this very nice building at least ten times before, but never saw how beautiful it was because of all the merchandise and people blocking it. I was taking a picture of it, when this big ram comes charging along the cross street, and disappears around a corner. A guy standing on the street tried to grab the ram's horns as he went by, but missed. Then four big guys come tearing after it, and disappear as well. I stood there for a couple minutes to see if they came back with the sheep, but they didn’t…wonder if he escaped? 

As I sit here writing this, Tunisian bagpipe music is playing outside, but almost no other noise – no cars or other city noise. The whole city is shut down for the feast, and the streets are almost deserted. It is very peaceful with everyone at home for the feast.

I was invited to Mehdi's parents for the feast this afternoon. I asked several of my Tunisian colleagues what to bring - the women said cake. However, Mehdi said flowers because when we went to the south two days ago, in Kairouan his uncle bought a lot of sweet pastries for the feast. They are called "pinched" because there are dates inside a crust that is pinched together. They are fried and then drenched in honey, guaranteed to spike your blood sugar!

So, yesterday afternoon, I went down by the port where the flower sellers are, and bought a nice bouquet of roses and carnations and some very sweet smelling leaves, that the vendor put together while I was standing there. As I walked back to my hotel, a woman and several men asked me for them. When I got to the hotel, the bartender pretended like they were for him. The bartender was nice enough to find and loan me a vase to keep them overnight. This afternoon as I was walking out to meet Mehdi, several other men asked for them and a deaf man sweeping the street made gestures for me to give them to him! I guess it was a suitable bouquet for the 'Eid!

'Eid il Kibir is a lot like Thanksgiving, in that people pretty much eat themselves into a coma. Mehdi’s parents live in a nice little villa with a walled yard in a quartier of Tunis near the lake. When we got there about 2 PM, his mother was barbequing lamb, and Mehdi took over to do sausage and some other stuff. It was a beautiful, sunny day, warm enough to be outside with a sweater. We ate outside on a raised patio, which had blue, white, and green Tunisian tile work on three sides. There were lemon and orange trees in the garden, and it was very pleasant.

The meal was an experience! There were plates of at least six different cuts of meat, and some beef as well as the mutton. It was very good, although not quite Dan Macon’s lamb! I was expecting something more like the mixed bag of small pieces cut up and grilled like I’d had in Kairouan earlier in the week, but there were chops, cutlets, and a bunch of other things. I was sort of wondering how they’d gotten all that meat off one sheep, and then they showed me the actual sheep meat. Most of what was cooked they had bought ahead so they wouldn’t spend the whole day preparing the sheep! They were going to cook the rest of it over the next few days. I guess that has become common, as otherwise it can take the hole day to prepare the meal.

The feast continues tomorrow with more meat and a lot of pastries. Anyway, most of what we had was meat…I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so much meat at one sitting. The accompaniments were harissa, the Tunisian hot sauce; a bit of grilled peppers, French fries and breads. I was surprised that there were not salads, though, as usually the Tunisians eat salads. When we were all sufficiently torpid from too much food, we moved into the living room and had sweet tea and Tunisian cookies!

I had a really interesting conversation with Mehdi’s mother about Tunisian history and culture. It was nice to hear about her memories of growing up in Djerba, an island off the southern coast. Tunisia, like Morocco, has always had a Jewish population, and she talked about how they had specific professions in the community, but said were always considered to be as Tunisian as any Muslims. During World War II, since Tunisia was a French Protectorate, it was under the control of Vichy France, so they were rounding up Jews as well. She said that Tunisians hid a lot of their Jews in the city of Kairouan, as it had been forbidden to non-Muslims, so no Europeans went there. Interesting historical tidbit!

We were there until about 6 PM, and when Mehdi and his family dropped me off, they were heading to his wife, Narja’s family, where Mehdi told me they would eat again! And more tomorrow! Yikes! Eid mubarak! or Eid mabruk! (they both mean happy feast!)