Citrus part 2 and Africa part 1

At the end of January, the interns conducted the yearly citrus taste test.  For six days, we sampled fruit from eight categories and ranked it for flavor, appearance, ease of eating, and other important qualities. Our list included seven grapefruits, four limes, four lemons, eleven oranges, seven pummelos, eight mandarins (tangerines), four tangors and five tangelos.  Using my math skills, I estimate this to be approximately a bazillion citrus to taste and rank. This was, of course, an amazing experience and one that will probably not be duplicated for the rest of my life.  I can safely call myself a citrus snob and have revised my number one ranked fruit to be...Roger's Pummelo.¹  Its sweet, grapefruit-like flavor calls to me in the night like a lychee tree calls to me in July.

A side note to the above paragraph is that Noah and I decided quite randomly one day to make a citrus poster, similar to this:

Ours will be much better.  See below:

This poster will be used to help folks that come to the nursery looking to buy citrus.  It's fortunate for Andy and Ruth that they experienced the citrus taste test at the beginning of their internship, because it's an immense help to be able to describe a fruit having tasted and peeled it.

The first half of February saw me in Kenya and Tanzania for two weeks.  This is my excuse for not blogging.  I was in east Africa to attend ECHO's regional conference in Arusha, Tanzania.  I spent the week before the conference visiting my brother and sister-in-law in Nairobi and college friends in Moshi.    Both were great visits, and like the citrus taste test, not likely to be repeated again in my lifetime.²  

The agriculture conference was an eye-opening look at what many missionaries in the region are facing. Especially challenging was the presentation on depleted soils and how even the best farming practices have a hard time bringing the soils back to productivity.  But the number of positive talks far outweighed the negatives and it was very encouraging to hear first-hand that what I have learned at ECHO is relevant and needed.  Apart from the conference agenda, I was able to see many prior interns again, eat delicious Indian food, watch an informative documentary, and run a few miles around Arusha.

One month remains in the internship.

New experiences in the last month:
1. Ate homemade passionfruit ice cream (It was pretty much the best flavor ever)

2. Made yogurt (and then made strawberry frozen yogurt out of it)
3. Saw a real live chameleon

This is the actual chameleon I saw.

4. Ate a kumquat (It was terrible)
5. Processed banana stalks for fiber

¹ I have actually loved the same pummelo the whole time, I just thought the Roger's tree was an HB tree.
² I will visit both these sets of people again, just not in the same place.