A Week in Uganda Visiting Ndali Vanilla

It was so good to see happy children who's parents get a fair & decent price for their vanilla crop!

I have to be honest I was nervous about going to Uganda.  The night before I left I was quiet.  My husband held my hands and quietly asked if I was ok?  "No..  I'm not" I said.  I was feeling the full wobble of travelling alone " I'm just a British middle-class housewife who writes and talks about food,"  I said "What was I thinking?  An adventure for me is going to London for a day ..  and the closest I've ever been to Africa is buying a pineapple in Waitrose!" It amused my husband to see me out of my comfort zone. 

I needn't have been nervous, I was made so welcome and Uganda is just beautiful.  Seeing the vanilla process from the vine all the way through the processing to being packages was just a revelation of love, care and pure artisanal food craftsmanship from start to finish.  The Ndali Vanilla is exquisite.   

I have brought home a stack of Vanilla to share, but I have also come home a different person.  I feel changed in my very core. I've been back home three days and I’m struggling with the inevitable comparisons I am drawing between the world I left just a couple of days ago and life here.  

You see whilst I was in Uganda I found out just how a decent rate of pay from Fairtrade vanilla grower and producer Ndali Vanilla really affects the families and communities whilst recording interviews with the Vanilla producers and farmers for a forthcoming BBC Radio 4 Food Program.  

Now I am home I have certainly found it hard to be sympathetic listening to grumbling from people about how hard they have it. How terrible the local schools are, or how bad the service is from the NHS and about only being able to afford one holiday this year or not being able to buy the latest gadget.  These things are not poverty. Actually, it took all my will power not to point out the reality of the world to a woman on the market who was complaining about her lot yesterday.  Of course getting frustrated with people is not positive  .. but don’t get me started …  because we all (I include myself in this) expect that we get a fair days pay for a fair days work. Keeping people in poverty for the sake of a relatively small amount of money seems utterly selfish to me and I believed that we all have the opportunity to make a difference when we see Fairtrade products on the shelves.  I've decided that this feeling… this absolute seismic shift in the way I understand what fair trade price means on real terms has to be put to use.

I know that on all too many occasions we are guilty of looking at the fair trade logo and just seeing a marketing logo.  I’ve had people cynically informing me with conviction in the weeks leading up to my trip that it’s all a sales gimmick!  

Lulu Sturdy, MD of Ndali Vanilla buying at Fair trade prices 

Yes this logo that means the product costs a wee bit more and I am somewhat ashamed and embarrassed to say that there have been occasions that I have saves a few pence and bought a non-fairtrade product.  So I am taking a deep breath and saying now .. never again.  This is not a hippy happy clappy feel good logo.  This is literally a life for the farmers and their families behind the product. To see first hand the impact that a decent wage has on real families and real people is sobering.  It’s a far cry from cupcakes I can tell you. Where life is hard, not to pay a fair price is wicked. You see, a decent price literally means the world to the people I met last week.

The work Lulu and the Ndali team are doing is just incredible, and to listen first hand the stories of the farmers and vanilla producers whose lives have improved was extraordinary.  Lulu is one of the most inspiring women I have ever met. She will blush when I tell you that she is beautiful, and brave and that she lives in harmony with the land she has inherited and the people who live their whilst growing the headiest deep sweet intense sleek black vanilla imaginable.

Ndali organic vanilla being packed at the processing plant 

I can’t write too much more about my trip right now as I am waiting on news about an article I may.. or may not be commissioned to write  -  perhaps I will have the opportunity to tell Lulu's story to many and put these feelings and experiences to use.

For now what I will say is that my trip has been a life changing experience, and if you will bear with me I will share much more in a week or so.

In the mean time I have a stash of vanilla to share with my blogging community..  so if you have a  food blog and  would like some samples of the utterly delicious Ndali Vanilla please comment below and tweet this article and I will pick randomly 15 bloggers by the 13th July 2012 to send out packs of my stash to!

PS  I will be organising a Vanilla baking swap in London in September ... if you'd like more details then please add your blog below and I'll get in touch about this gift swap event.