Before we begin, we would like to wish you a happy World Kindness Day! For more information on it, please click here
As a participant of UNESCO’s World Kindness Day movement, my mother, Sally Qazi, has shared her story about her baobab pod initiative. In addition to the delicious ‘ubuyu’ snack we have in Tanzania, the Mbuyu (m-boo-you) gifts us with many, many gifts. What my mom, Bibi Sally recognized is the lack of use of the baobab pod. So she decided and acted on creating receptacles made of these pods, and has taught some of her community members how to do it, too!
In this video mom is showing how one can clean and cut the pods. Mom has always been artistic and a lover of all life. Her focus has been on working with fellow people with physical disabilities (mom had polio when she was little, which has left her with one non-functioning leg), human rights, equality, children in poverty, health & nutrition, and the environment. It is recently, however, that she began working with baobab pods as well as other gourds, as a way to minimize harmful waste, minimize plastic use (plastic bags are banned in Tanzania & users are heavily fined), and provide some income to the community.
Bibi Sally has uses the baobab powder to bake bread, in which she also adds moringa powder from the tree growing in her garden. She has a green thumb I didn’t inherit, but that’s a story for another time.
She sent me a picture of this delicious bread and I immediately thought to put Nutella on it. Hahaha!
Here are photographs of some of the things Bibi Sally has been working on. The gourds are functional in different ways, including for decorative purposes.
Thank you for stopping by and reading about my mom’s initiatives. I wish you well, and I hope you are inspired to do something kind for yourself and others. If you’re interested in working with Bibi Sally, please send us a message and we will connect you 🙂
Barefoot Baobab 
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