Community gardens offer refugees a taste of home

Camille Sipple

Published December 28, 2023

Rows of leafy huckleberry vines and clusters of African bitter leaf surround Vincent Tamufor as he rakes through old soil, clearing the remnants of the harvest season. 

 

Tamufor works alongside his sister, Esther Nyindem, as they harvest the final crops of the season. All around them, fellow members of Mamie D. Lee Community Garden are doing the same — looking after their own garden plots and preparing for the brisk winter to come.

 

Tamufor, 80, and Nyindem, 74, moved to the U.S. six years ago to escape the war that had begun ravaging their country. They settled in the outskirts of Washington D.C., and found not only refuge for their families but a community that reminded them of what they had left behind.

 

The siblings and their families are originally from the Ambazonia region of Cameroon which has been engaged in a civil war since September 2017. Since leaving their home, Nyindem said their families have been able to put down roots in the U.S. while also keeping their culture alive. The community garden has been crucial in these efforts.

 

“Gardening is more than just a hobby to us at home. It makes us smile,” Nyindem said.

 

Nestled in the center of Fort Totten Park, the garden consists of over 90 individually gardened plots. The garden offers members all the tools necessary to cultivate their personal plots as well as a composting shed and fresh soil.

 

Mamie D. Lee Garden is maintained by the Mamie D. Lee Garden Association (MDLGA) and is also overseen by the National Park Service. Due to National Park Service jurisdiction, members of MDLGA are allowed to cultivate their plots for their own personal use but are restricted from selling crops commercially. 

 

At one and a half acres, Mamie D. Lee is considered one of the largest community gardens in the D.C. area and has been in operation for over 30 years.

 

Tamufor and his sister said the garden has been a consistent, comforting reminder of home. The siblings and their family cultivate crops native to Cameroon — crops they remember tending to back home such as huckleberries and African bitter leaf. The smell of the leaves alone transports him back to Cameroon, Tamufor said.

 

“We’re Africans from Cameroon so we grow huckleberries,” Tamufor said as he pointed to several rows of nearly ripened, deep blue berries. “Once they are ready we will harvest them, boil them down, get out the seeds and use those for next year’s planting.”

 

Huckleberry leaves, commonly referred to as njama njama in Cameroon, are a staple in traditional cuisine; the plants are also used medicinally and as dye plants.

 

Community gardens have the unique ability to restore refugees’ social, familial and cultural connections, said therapist and social psychologist Amy E. Stein. Stein’s PhD dissertation focused on the impacts community gardens have on immigrant and refugee populations.

 

Stein said, when asked what they missed most about their home country, the overwhelming majority of the refugees she interviewed missed gathering with their families to share a traditional meal most of all. Many refugees, Stein explained, come from rural backgrounds and therefore often sustain a strong connection to their home country through the food they grow.

 

“Food has important psychological associations with place, family, community, and other forms of identity,” Stein said. “Eating food native to one’s country is a way of maintaining traditions and cultural identity within the family and community.”

 

Tamufor and Nyindem explained that their family was rooted in agriculture long before they came to the U.S.

 

“This is what we are used to at home,” Nyindem said. “Back home you farm almost everything. You farm your corn, your beans, your vegetables. You keep your animals. At home you try to farm everything you eat. Everything.”

 

Within her dissertation, Stein details the time she spent with certain refugees who maintained plots in their own community gardens such as Carmen Guerrero, a woman in her early 50s from southern Mexico.

 

“She [Guerrero] stated that the garden helped her address feelings of loneliness when she first moved to Norristown [Pennsylvania], maintained social interactions with family and friends, provided her with the opportunity to grow native foods and learn about plants,” Stein said.

 

While Stein’s research found that, in general, community gardens are very beneficial for refugees and immigrants, she also discovered the added importance the gardens have for those who have undergone severe trauma or distress. 

 

“In our country right now there is a war,” Nyindem said. “But you have refugees coming to America from all sorts of countries. When it’s not moving well at home, you have to leave. You have to leave to get an education or sometimes to just live. That’s why we came here.”

 

Refugees not only leave the country they have always called home, they also often leave tight knit communities, which impacts their identity perception, Stein explained.

 

“Displacement separates one from a physical and natural environment that may have previously held substantial meaning for that individual,” Stein said. “This results in a loss of community and social interactions that can subsequently impact one’s well being.”

 

MDLGA, however, works to prioritize and emphasize the community aspect of the garden.

 

Dottie Wiseman, current chair of MDLGA, explained she often observes a strong sense of community within the garden and tries to promote it through garden member work days on the weekends and group potlucks throughout the year.

 

“There’s a lot of people here who really want to form a community,” Wiseman said. “We know each other, we love each other and we just want to take care of each other”

 

Byron Adams, 61, has been a member of MDLGA for nearly 10 years and served as chair of the association for five years. The best part of joining the garden, Adams said, has been being connected to a larger community that can work alongside each other to cultivate beautiful things.

 

“I just think community gardens fill a need for people,” Adams said. “It’s all about the community.”

 

Tamufor said he also sees the connections that are built by those who participate in their garden and enjoys interacting with the other gardeners.

 

“The garden is well tended by the community. Very well tended,” Tamufor said.

 

Although Nyindem and Tamufor do not farm in the same ways they used to in Cameroon, gardening still offers them a piece of home to keep rooted in their hearts as they cultivate their own families in the U.S.