The Bamboo Fortunes

“In and out the Bamboo Forest......”

Do these words sound familiar?

On a recent hiking expedition, I got the opportunity to walk through a Bamboo Forest and I couldn’t help but feel like hoping around the Bamboo forest as I hummed the song along in my head. How refreshing it was looking back to my younger days in rural Kenya. Back then, Bamboo trees were such a common phenomenon in my village, highly revered as a versatile resource for its many uses.

The first major use of Bamboo was as a source of firewood. Dry Bamboo was always kept for early morning quick fix breakfast as it would take a much shorter time to light fire with. The more ‘organized wives’ would always have an emergency stash of Bamboo firewood they kept aside for quick meal fixes when guests came unannounced. Contrast this with a normal household where tea, the simplest and most natural refreshment served to visitors could easily take up to 1 hour to prepare just because the normal wood needed time to come ‘alive’.

At least in a Bamboo household, the only excuse would be the lack of milk – in which case, visitors would be asked to wait for the cows to come home for the milk to be made available. No kidding!

Secondly, Bamboo was very effective when fencing the home. Infact, the outcome from the Bamboo as a fencing option was a well-defined and neat compound and subsequently, this was a reflection of how organized the man of the home was.

The sad reality though would arise when the woman of the house would sneak out to pull some wood from that well-manicured fence for those emergency moments. As you can imagine, this was a constant source of conflict in the home as the tattered fence reflected a lazy and disorganized wife or a husband with no care for his homestead.

The third major use of the Bamboo was the construction of houses and storage facilities. And believe it or not, before the emergence of tents, people used Bamboo to make temporary shelters during events such as funerals, weddings, etc. The Bamboo, due to its flexibility was a perfect roofing material.

Other uses such as water harvesting and furniture making also come into play

To accomplish all these uses, many harvested the Bamboo from the forest with no care in the world how the forest would rejuvenate.

Today, there is a limited supply of Bamboo in the environment and while the tree is widely known for its versatile uses, its unique characteristics makes it an ideal plant in the fight against climate change as it improves the ground’s water table. Those in Kenya can attest to the fact that the Bamboo tree is a common feature in water towers such as the Mau Forest and Aberdares Ranges.

I believe we should include Bamboo in the country’s reforestation programs.

Is any of you involved in these plans and is Bamboo an option?

I would love to hear from you.

By the way, did you know that Bamboo is a grass? Well, now you know!