Demo Farm Happenings

Its been a great time for our demonstration farm- all systems are go! never before has this property had a driven white woman 'making things happen'!

So...firstly- our training facility (or my skyscraper as Dad affectionately called it when he saw the size of the foundations) is a month behind schedule- which means that training of 300 farmers is now also a month behind schedule... but as a trained 'trainer' i really don't think it is expecting too much to provide a roof over our trainees heads- and its not like its a group of 20 that we can park under a tree- its 10 sessions- with 30 people at each one. So construction continues.

Now this was an area where I felt I should 'facilitate' rather than 'dictate' -so i facilitated permission for the structure from the director, and facilitated the building foremans transport to assess the site...and left the rest to local expertise. im not sure of the wisdom of that now that north eastern corner of the floor is a full foot lower than the rest- but i guess it'll be easier to mop. Having said that- given the technology available to these guys I think its pretty impressive.

Now a few weeks ago I had some 'visitors' - Aussie speaking farmers who also know a fair bit about reading landscapes and developing farm water management plans, so- after a few brainstorming meetings about the farm with my colleagues last week- i was given the 'ok' to proceed with stages 1-3 of the drainage channels kindly designed by the Aussies. These channels will protect the farm from the massive runoff generated by up to 2000mm rainfall falling in a 4 month period off the adjacent bouldery hill (ie water doesn't soak into boulders and hills mean the water is moving fast by the time it gets to the farm = erosion) So- drainage channels- there'll be 4 of these babies- each 2 m wide, 30 cm deep, running across the property to take excess water slowly to the existing drainage line.

I've been muttering under my breath the past few months about the locals penchant for burning everything- even this evening as I came off the plateau i spotted a dozen decent fires on the plain. But today, I developed a much greater appreciation for WHY. ya know how the grass looks really thick? WELL IT IS!!! and today 3 guys spent 4 hours cutting/scraping a 3 m wide, 80 m long corridor through it. I felt really sorry for them and pitched in to help -only to retreat at the first deep grass cut iiiish cringe. only 200 m to go folks! Nah- hopefully they'll get to the bit where the land was cropped last year by mid morning tomorrow and it should be a lot easier- then the digging will start.

The guys are awesome and I we can communicate (in a fairly rudimentary way) which is cool. It was interesting to see how the farm mangers approach to staff management vs my method. He didn't tell them what they were building or why- he just gave instructions and of course they didn't get it so he had to stay and 'supervise'. So when he wandered off for a chat I pulled out the map and tried to show how far they had progressed (for encouragement more than anything). They smiled and nodded politely until one of them exclaimed 'amapu!'. Once they realised that what was on paper represented real life they started asking questions and I explained - through yawo and elaborate sign language (hehe) that we were going to construct a big drain etc. they cleared the grass inthe right place after that :). Before knocking off i recorded their names so the farm manager could pay them. I suspected they were illiterate so I offered to write but couldn't help smiling when one of them exclaimed (in ciyawo) 'she says she can't speak Cichewa- only Ciyawo- but she knows how to write Cichewa!' yeah. all the languages here are written phonetically in 'normal' letters. apparently their names are Chewa :)

On the way home drove through an initiation ceremony dancing down the road...i can't quite begin to describe it. Ive been invited to one late August so I'll post the photos from that for you.