How to Dissect a Giant "Sausage"

I've been fascinated by Tanzania's plant life ever since I arrived in 2009. "Plants?" you may ask. "The title talks about a sausage!" Yes, one of the more mysterious/entertaining plants here is the sausage tree. I'm not making this up, you'll see.

Today the Kamphuis kids and I were walking along the lake behind my house. Suddenly the two girls came running back to little Aron and me, excitedly chattering about the something that "might fall on our heads!" They had discovered a sausage tree stretching above our path from the neighbor's yard.

See? It looks like a sausage hanging from a tree.

At the spot we also found two "sausages" that had ripened and fallen to the ground. (And yes, I am glad none of us were standing there when it happened.) The girls picked them up on our way back and carried them to the house. They had to take turns hefting the big one. I weighed it later: nearly 5.5 kilos (12 pounds)!

Well, I thought this was a perfect chance to finally see what the inside of one of these things looks like. But how to open one? They're seriously tough, as well as heavy. Later one was tossed off the porch, and I didn't see any cracks or even scratches. So I brought out two of our most commonly used yard tools--a hoe and a machete.

André found this method successful... perhaps also as a soccer warm-up, in addition to the task at hand?

Then the girls wanted to work on the smaller "sausage". Michaja opted for the hoe.

Elisa took a turn, choosing the machete.

As you can see, they made plenty of nice cuts. When they got tired, I took a turn with the machete myself, and we had two sliced "sausages". So what does the inside look like? Here you go!

It's solid all the way through--a dense, fibrous mass with the seeds popping up here and there. I've asked about them before ("Can you eat them?"), and I was told that no one uses them for food, but they are good for some sort of medicine. Certain animals do eat them, however, including hippos! This particular tree and its fruit are probably why I heard hippos one night on this stretch of the lake. After today's "sausage" dissection, I looked up the tree on Wikipedia. The article confirmed what I'd heard, and now I know the tree's official name: kigelia. (I don't know, "sausage tree" is pretty catchy!)

I'll leave you with a final picture from the afternoon:

One armed and dangerous six-year-old!