Rallies, *amadan and Really hot weather

Its 4.43 Sunday avo. I'm sitting at my desk gazing out the window...wondering what - out of all the events of the past few weeks- I should write about. The light is golden on the guava tree outside. Soon the light will turn crimson red as the sun lowers through the smoke haze...then darkness. It won't cool off much though. Its 34 deg inside and probably won't go much below 30 deg tonight. the hot has arrived. It's funny how fast it came. One day was cool in the morning and hot in the afternoon- then it just didn't get cool again. As fast as that. I have a fan, but I still wake up thirsty and drenched in sweat through the night. It'll probably start raining in about a month, so at least for now the humidity isn't too bad.

Enough about the weather! (good to see Im still a good weather obsessed Aussie at heart!). The last few weeks have busy. The change in weather has signalled that its definitely time to get fields prepared before the rains- so we've been busy at the farm finishing off the drain, starting our tilling (with hoes) and have finally started our farmer training! So far we've had 3 groups of 25 to 30 participants, being trained in contour ridge marking, box ridging and compost making. Here's a few photos...

Using the 'A Frame' the participants made. Digging the contour marker ridge.Making a 'chimato' stack for composting.Meanwhile 'the lads' - the farm workers :) were busy finishing off our new ablutions block. Yay! Now that the grass has been burnt it's increasingly hard to find a discreet place to pee- as I discovered one day when the local chief saw me squatting with a chitenje discreetly wrapped around me and came over to greet me! hehehe

We have another training day this week, then it's full steam ahead getting the farm ready for planting.

One day last week I was visiting a friend for a cuppa after a day at the farm and heard a bit of a commotion coming from the school next door. I went out to investigate and discovered that the opposition leader (yellow party) was about to arrive for a rally. Sure enough he showed up in a big black car in a convoy with body guards running either side... very cool.

Part of the convoy and the opposition leaders car.

I hung around for a bit of the speeches which he delivered with great passion from the back of a ute (he's the one in the yellow shirt on the right), then wandered back to finish my cuppa.

The next day was the celebration day for the end of fasting, so I brought goat meat for my friends from the local butcher and headed out to celebrate with them. It was very different from my experience of this day in Indonesia several years ago- I guess mostly because of the incredible poverty here. In Indo the entire day before the celebration was spent cooking and preparing copious amounts of cakes and goodies. The actual day, after morning prayers, and in fact the following 3 days was spent gorging yourself on the cakes, entertaining visitors with the cakes...then visiting everyone in the town and eating their cakes too!

Everyone was excited about the celebration here too- but I couldn't see much evidence of food. I gave my gift to my friend and hung out most of the morning playing with the kids and drinking utobwa (fermented millet drink- a bit like a strawberry yogurt shake in consistency) then, after prayers, each house prepared their meal and shared it with the other families in that enclave of the village. First there was ugali and chicken, then ugali and fish, then ugali and goat stew, then rice and beans (which I suspect they brought out just for me cos theydidn't think I'd eaten enough ugali- but a) it doesn't take much ugali to fill me up b) even with 3 courses- 1 plate of each doesn't go far between so many people and c) I eat meat more than once a year-this was a special treat for them). It was a lovely communal feel all washing our hands in the same bowl and eating out of the communal dishs...I covered the whole experience in prayer that I wouldn't get sick and I didn't! :)

The market butchery( the butcher declined to be in the photo).

Eating together.

Well, it's now after dinner and this party animal is ready to hit the sack- so I'll leave you with my favourite photo of the week. :)

g'nite.