Benkum Art

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Out of Our Own

A young Sukuma fish farmer in a grey T-shirt stands side-on on a low wooden walkway at the edge of Lake Victoria, scattering feed over the water beside a cobalt-blue bucket, in a pale sand-gold field between stepped moss-green panels.

Everything here grew from what we already had.

The bucket is lighter than it was this morning. I throw the feed wide, and the water answers before it lands.

In Mwanza, the Nyanza Cooperative Union has put more than 3.2 billion shillings of its own revenue into bringing a cotton ginnery back to work. Its 17 fish cages at Luchelele have already been harvested three times, and 60 more are planned. A cooperative from Tunduru came to see how it was done.

I throw again. Under the surface, something is already bigger than yesterday.