Dr. Andoh first came to my attention when I was driving my car listening to talk radio. The radio just happened to be tuned into a conversation about Moringa Oleifera and Child Development by a botanist named Dr. Kweku Andoh. Dr. Andoh was not known to me at that time but when I heard the topic, I was hooked right way. He talked about moringa farming he was doing in Ghana Africa and the medicinal benefits of moringa oleifera. He also talked about research on child development and how the healthy African child develops more quickly than children from other groups. That radio program got me interested in learning more about moringa as a superfood, so I decided to attend one of Dr. Andoh’s Nature Walks in College Park, Georgia.
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Dr. Andoh lived about a 10-minute drive from where I live. (He lived in College Park and I lived in Union City). This internationally renowned botanist lived just “around the corner” from where I had been living for a year. The Nature Walk was well attended and Dr. Andoh demonstrated his readily available encyclopedic knowledge of plants. I asked a lot of questions during the walk and showed my keen interest by quickly sketching each plant. My drawings caught his attention, and he commented on how well rendered they were.
My first private conversation with him was about ethnobotany. He was cataloging native medicinal plants of South Georgia. He suggested that I join the project when he learned about my scholarly interests and horticultural background. He also commented that he was surprised we had not met sooner and suggested that I become a member of the Linnean Society of London under his sponsorship. He was my Elder by 10 years and we became like brothers after our first meeting.
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I was back studying plants overnight after many years away from horticulture. Growing plants, collecting seeds, collecting specimens, preserving, cataloguing, and wild plant identification became part of my life again in short order. Kweku gave me moringa seeds to grow and I familiarized myself with the plant by growing it indoors and outdoors. I soon became an investor in his 25-acre Moringa Farm Project in Elmina, Ghana.
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There was a lot of activity at the Andoh homestead where he lived with his wife and family. Members of that household organized sweat lodges, ceremonial retreats, lecture programs, and musical events. They had a lot of programs for the public. I became a frequent participant. I did a lot of hanging out, digging, toting water, planting crops, and other things growers do, in addition to attending many of their public gatherings. Kweku was soon visiting my college campus and speaking to the student body.
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He was a highly regarded botanist with an international reputation and strong community following. His father was an acclaimed Ghanian botanist who had a list of plants named after him and many scholarly accomplishments. I often wondered who the finer botanist was, he or his father. He was constantly traveling to all parts of the USA and abroad giving lectures and serving as a consultant and plant specialist. Occasionally we shared a stage at a speaking event, and on several occasions, he invited me to co-teach with him in Ghana.
