Rain and Sunshine

October 5, 2012 - from the desk of the ED -



Yeah, it's dry!

I sit at my desk, trying to concentrate, although I’d rather be sleeping.  It is wet, rainy and grey outside and that, to me, is the best napping weather.  But, I struggle to stay focused and on task with a cup of mint tea by my side.   I find my mind wandering to our friends in countries where the lack of rain is a huge problem, killing livestock and gardens.  I pray for them, that they will see rain soon and that the rain will help blanket their land with green and with vegetables and fruit. 

I hear the ping of another email hitting my in-box.  I quit looking out the window and read with excitement an email regarding the vaccination of twenty five kids born to the goats we gave out in Zimbabwe this summer.  It is always exciting to hear of female kids being born because one knows that the program will survive, that the flocks will continue to grow.  Keeping them healthy is of utmost importance and the team on the ground is working towards that with the beneficiary families.

On days like these, I take all the good news I can.  My email account is acting up and I am not able to send out emails to specific people (I receive alright...just can't send), which is just wretched.  I have no idea who is receiving my emails and who isn’t.  How am I supposed to work this way?  So, I spend 3 hours between our domain provider and google apps, trying to figure out things that really mean nothing to me.  I find most languages fascinating, but not the language of computers.  I don’t know what they are asking me and I don’t know how to answer.  This is when a good IT person with lots of time on their hands would be so very useful.  Since one of those doesn’t exist in my current world, I will have to do the work.  I’d really rather poke my eye out, but I’ll stay on hold some more, waiting for someone on the other side to give me some answers.

Q giving an ODW vet kit to a village coordinator

Another ping!  This one is from Ron, the teacher/advisor for Operation Days Work.  This is a fantastic student-run program which gets students from various schools directly involved in local projects as well as international ones.  We received a $10,000 grant during the summer, which allowed us to purchase and distribute chickens and goats and veterinary kits for orphan families in Zimbabwe.  This new email is to let me know that the students just voted that AFCA will receive the additional $5000 they raised this year!  Oh, what good news these are!  What will we do with these funds, you ask? 

We will purchase and distribute a soya/maize blend porridge for 70 families as well as seeds and gardening training for the same families. Transportation and delivery of the food and seeds is included in this grant.  How incredibly exciting this is, especially in light of the lack of rain which has affected many families.  The porridge will provide a stop-gap as gardens grow.  The gardens are planted using something called conservation farming, which traps any moisture, even if only dew, under a thick blanket of mulch.  This allows for vegetables to grow even through times of little rain. 

I sip my tea.



My son with beneficiaries in Zimbabwe

I think of the children who’ll receive the porridge and the gardening training and seeds.  I find myself smiling.  I laugh out loud here in my home office, thrilled for them.

Suddenly, even though the rain continues to drum, things look mighty bright indeed.

Growing a Paradise in Portriez

What happens when you send a passionate Kenyan to Zimbabwe for a week? 

He comes back trained in Foundations for Farming and begins nurturing a one acre plot of overgrown grasses into 48 beds for vegetable production!

Meet Steve (on left, with Katie). 

Steve is the clinic Nutritionist and farm manager of the agriculture projects that Mombasa CBHC has started. In January, half of the acre was filled with tomatoes, kale, cilantro, peppers, and cowpea.  Providing an under-story are several papaya trees and a few young banana plants. Other native bushes create a natural border around the plot, overseen (and shaded!) by two ancient, towering mango trees. It's become a visual paradise in the dry dusty season.

One of Katie's primary responsibilities in this agriculture project is to help develop a framework for educating a small group of the clinic's clients in gardening techniques and producing vegetables. In other words, she and Steve are learning how to be creative with what they have, limited resources, and re-imagining ways of feeding the clients' bodies with the proper nutrients. Throughout the month, part of the services that CBHC offers is the community of a support group. There is a specific group for guardians of children with HIV/AIDS and this is the target group where Katie is learning and working alongside. So far this month they have had five different training events at three clinic sites and have trained over 40 guardians!

What are they teaching? What plants need to grow, how to create a healthy soil environment for fruits and vegetables, and how to plan for and organize a vegetable bed. The Foundations for Farming training that Steve attended suggests that four key elements are essential to growing food: 

 

          1) Seeding is done on time; 

          2) At a high standard;

          3) With joy; and 

          4) Without waste.

While at ECHO, Katie also received training on FFF and its been exciting to see others, like Steve, begin to reap the benefits of applying the information they both received.  The challenge is, there's more than just a formula for growing food, it's about developing a lifestyle of stewardship.  In the upcoming weeks, they'll be visiting the guardians selected for a pilot project and begin to assist them in re-imagining the possibilities for small kitchen gardens using the resources available around their homes.

cowpeas breaking earth

In just one month, Steve and Katie have nearly filled the entire acre plot with additional vegetable beds, planting them with cowpea—a great soil amendment, weed suppressant, and nutrient boost for the transplants in the upcoming short rainy season next month.

If home is where the heart is, Katie thinks her heart is in the soil
...well, and on the west coast of Senegal!  See note below:

Many of you know that this December, an adventurous, insect-loving, faithful friend (by the name of Noah), proposed to an garden-loving, excited, curly red-head (me!). While assisting with an agroforestry project in western Senegal, Noah 's been collecting African insects, carrying seaweed by the bucketfuls for mulch, and developing another love in his life—that of tree regeneration! If you'd like to read of some of his experiences so far, visit http://arktick.blogspot.com . Katie and Noah are looking forward to sharing their african experiences in the same country in a few months when they both return from their assignments!

Matching Grant Awarded to AFCA

We write grant requests all the time and from time to time, we receive great news of having been given one.  Grants are hard to come by!  But, the One Days Wages grant comes at a perfect time for us.  It is a matching grant, which means that ODW will give $12,035 to AFCA if people donate the same amount to us. 

With that in mind, please consider making a donation today at our project page on ODW's website. 100% of donations will be given to AFCA, so everything about this grant is excellent.  And, of course, we will use 100% of the funds we receive directly for the kids.  We will do what we said we will do.  No questions asked. 

Please support this initiative so that we can receive the matching grant!  And, share with many, please.