What Is Happening While Sandy Visits Us?

Outside, a storm is raging, wind is whipping things around as though they don't weigh anything at all, and the trees, bending under the pounding, are doing their best to stay upright.  I love the sound of the wind and the rain, but know that we are not anywhere close to the center of this storm yet.  As we wait, one of my children is napping and the other is playing a game with my husband.  I am doing as much as I can while we still have electricity.  As I work through contracts, inventory sheets, reports to donors, and other items which have been sitting by my computer for way too long, I realize that this a wonderful time to focus on the blessings we have been given as a family and as an organization. 

 

Not only do I have warm home in which to play and wait out a storm, we also have electricity, water and food to hold us through a long spell, if needed.  We have a gas stove, so I can cook anytime we are hungry.  We have family with whom to hang out.  We have blankets on beds and we have a basement to sleep in should we feel a tree will crash through the roof.  We are blessed.  So very, very blessed. 

 

While the kids with whom I work are lacking many (MANY!) of the things I tend to take for granted, I do have good news to report on their behalf.  Below is a list of what has been keeping us busy these past days so that they, too, can be comfortable and so that they will always know that someone does care:

• A container of medical supplies, birthing beds, solar panels, water filters and all sorts of magical items is on the Congo River on its way to Tandala Hospital and to 16 clinics in the Ubangi of the Democratic Republic of Congo
• We packed a 40' contaner full of medical and office .  It is on its way to Mombasa, Kenya to supply an amazing clinic set in the slums of Mombasa.
• A container of medical supplies (and the most amazing baby bassinette) is about to launch its way to Mpumudde, Uganda thanks to generous friends at Rotary METS in Savannah, GA
• A greenhouse has been erected in Kenya, to grow veggies for HIV+ children who need good food in order to feel better
• 35 goat kids were born during the past two months in Zimbabwe, all part of our Livelihoods Program. They've been vaccinated and are doing well.
• Trainings in conservation farming continue throughout Zimbabwe to teach children how to grow personal gardens using the manure from animals donated to them. 
• We received the great news that our container to Kilembe Mines, Uganda arrived and that everything in it has been a blessing to the patients and doctors at that hospital
• We received a grant to provide porridge to children who are desperately lacking any food. 
• A volunteer created some ads we need for an online campaign and Share Cause Marketing is going to make it flashy for us
• I received this note regarding a beneficiary today: "A guardian, Grace Moyo (74 years old), says that this project has shown her and the orphans she looks after that the love of the people who donated the money for these birds is changing the life of her family."

I say, let the wind blow and howl.  It is a beautiful thing to learn to care less about the material things we own than for the people around us.  Whether your people to care for are in your backyard, down the street, across the city, or on the other side of the world, do it.  Care for them.  Love them.  Hold on to them, not the the things that will be here one day and gone the next. 

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!