Peace and Season's Greetings to All

I can't believe it's Christmastime! That seems so bizarre right now. I think we are getting a turkey to cook on the charcoal stove.

We have been having an in-service training this week. I returned to my village with a friend who lives in Njombe, because we had a free day on Sunday. It was really cool getting to show him my village. Plus he is one of the most hilarious people I've met in my life. I got a chance to work on my farm a tiny bit, but it was the Sabbath and my farm is right on the road, so I got lectured by several people passing by that I shouldn't be working. I really wanted to get a little bit of a start though, and won't be back in my village for a long time, so I felt it was necessary.

My corn is healthy, my garbanzos and beans are growing, the Chinese cabbage is up but being ravaged by something, half of my peas were eaten, half survived, and the tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, onions, basil, mint, beets and eggplant have yet to come up. We'll see. I plan to plant pumpkin seeds, potatoes, peas and beans on my farm.

The major thing that came out of training was a rough plan to buy seedlings and plant them in January. I'm still working out the details with my village executive officer. The training was fun, and it was good to work on planning a project.

Permaculture, Rain (Hooray!!) and the Answer to the Rooster Question

I had 3 days packed full of permaculture fun. The first day, we went to one of the subvillages and 80 people showed up for the meeting. It went pretty well. Then in another subvillage we showed up and nobody was there, so we moved the meeting to the kilabu, which is a cluster of buildings where the local brew is sold. People showed up expecting to while away the afternoon and maybe get a bit tipsy, but we sat them down and started the class. There were 15 people, and I have to say it was probably the best of all our sessions so far. The next day we had invited tons of people from all kinds of clubs, but only 6 showed up. But they were a jolly group of elders, very excited about the seminar. My counterpart had to translate everything into Kihehe though.

Here's the good news: it's the rainy season!!! Such a relief. It has been raining for about a week now. It rains for a couple of hours each day usually. And when it rains it pours. The first day it rained I stood in my enclosed courtyard under the roof and took a shower!

The downside to this is that I felt a panic to get my garden planted. I set about permaculturing the entire thing, which involves double-digging all the beds and digging swales and ditches, and the clincher is that I don't have a shovel, just a hoe. But I think it is important that I used only a hoe, because that is the only implement at most of the villagers' disposal. I didn't realize how big my garden was until I began this formidable task. It was probably one of the more difficult physical accomplishments I have undertaken in my life. I didn't have any compost, but I will get some. I have planted carrots, lettuce, eggplant, beets, kale, peas, a few potatoes, garbanzo, corn, beans, basil, mint, and tomatoes. We'll see what works. Some of the seeds are a little iffy.

Oh yeah, and finally in answer to the question posed in my first blog entry, roosters say "Kokolikoo".

Here are a couple of pictures taken during training in August.