So, the other day, I dropped in to see my sister, Iretor Sikola, daughter of Papa Otim, a brother to my late father. I had heard she was not well, but look what I found. I found her seated in a shade sorting the damaged groundnuts from the good ones from her recent harvest.

Iretor at her home at Akadot in Pallisa District doing post harvest handling of her most recent harvest of groundnuts.

She is such a hardworking woman that she says for her sitting around doing nothing makes her Ill. The fruits of her hard work need no explanation. Despite adverse weather conditions, she says, she managed to get something for which she is thankful to God.

Many in Pallisa lost most or all of the groundnuts that they planted in the first season due to adverse weather conditions. Climate change is for real. As for me, for the first season, I was not able to plant any groundnuts because … Story for another day.

So, back to the things that make me happy. My sister Sikola gave me some groundnuts from her harvest. I added value and I am enjoying threefold:

Left to right: salted and roasted groundnuts to be enjoyed as a snack – the container was full, but am almost done eating them all; raw groundnuts pounded to a powder form to be cooked in the cuisine of Buganda; and roasted groundnuts pounded into groundnuts paste to be used in making Iteso cuisine sauces.

Join me in celebrating my sister Iretor and all the hardworking smallholder farmers throughout rural Uganda who feed our nation and beyond. They should be the ones to receive relief packages during these difficult times; and to get a lions share from our national purse for rural development, but so far they are the worst provided for. How so sad.