The African Hoe

In the last twenty years we have created two gardens from scratch, and the work that went into them would have been much harder without this tool, an African hoe - badza, in Central African, jembe in KiSwahili. In many ways its function is similar to that of the spade but, because one can get a good swing on it, the badza/jembe digs much more deeply and also, by then pushing forward on it, will leaver the clod out of  the earth.

Look up this tool on the internet and it appears to be a tropical tool, coming in a huge variety of forms. So some African ones are quite small and elegant, while the Asian ones seem to have far longer handles.

All this came to mind because we are still planting our garden and this morning I had to dig a hole for two small shrubs. These days I can't swing my beloved hoe like I used to - though in past days when I did I kept everyone well away - but I still made the hole in quick time.

This picture shows the African hoe in its native environment. These boys are members of the farm club I used to run at Bernard Mizeki College in Rhodesia but they would never have done this at home as...

....traditionally, in Africa, digging the shamba (KiSwahili for farm) has been women's work.