Off again!

After a few relaxing days in Nairobi, I'm headed out to Kitui to do my Permaculture Design Certificate. I've been looking forward to this for a while and am excited to share ideas and experiences with the other 47 people who are attending. It sounds like a good mix from the U.S., Tanzania, Liberia (a group of peace building workers who used to be child soldiers), Kenya and of course Canada. And at the end I'll be certified!

As I'm already running late, this post is short, but I thought I'd let you all know my next move. Happy December everyone!

Butula Living

the girls.

In order to give you a better picture of what the last few weeks have been like, I thought I'd take the time to describe the people we lived with and the lifestyle we led.

our house.

We stayed with the family of a man who three years ago was a teacher at one of the schools that Michael was working at. After working with Michael he turned his land, where he was making bricks and producing maize, into a lush permacultural landscape that now provides his family enough food to feed themselves nutritiously as well as sell some for profit. This includes bananas, peanuts, cassava, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, kale, papayas and much more as well as having hundreds of trees growing and a tree nursery. Needless to say this man, JB, now stands as an example for his community and is the permaculture coordinator in the area, setting Michael up with interested schools and offering consultant work through his farm shop.

the dining/living room.

His family (including his wife, five daughters, his daughter in law, her two daughters) welcomed us into their home and really made us feel like part of the family. On the last night the women also joined us for dinner, which is a cultural taboo in their culture.

Abbie and my room.

Their house was considerably different than living on Gogar farm. There was no electricity, kerosene lamps and flashlights in the evening (and in the daytime as our house had no windows). We ate very well, but a different type of cuisine. Delicious Chai and peanuts for breakfast with sometimes a sweet potato or bananas (all from JB's land). Ugali (kind of like polenta), rice, meat, kale, chapati, beans, green grams, fish and cabbage for lunches and dinners.

the toilet.

Some things took some getting used to (ie. the shower) and realizing the challenges that people face in that part of the world (particularly girls) made me understand how lucky we are to have modern conveniences (like a stove to not have to build a fire to cook daily) that we should be thankful for.

the shower.

Bountiful Butula

the green grams coming up.

Back to the world of internet from the most inspiring and rewarding part of my trip this far. For the last two and half weeks I've been working with Seven Ravens (who I worked with on Salt Spring) at schools in Butula (near the Ugandan border) developing a permaculture landscape and establishing tree nurseries.

The main project was at Buduma primary school where we worked with the students, teachers and parents to transform their school into a food producing, incoming generating piece of land for the future. And it wasn't taking long. By the time we left trees in the nursery were coming up, the green grams (similar to lentils) were 3 inches tall, the ponds were full and the community was inspired.

banana in a swale.

We worked at two of the schools that Seven Ravens Africa had worked at before doing similar projects to get them up to speed after facing challenges such as corruption and embezzlement. A board of directors was also elected during this time to ensure that they would not run in to the same problems they had in the past and to ensure that the children would this time benefit from the food grown on the school grounds.

I cannot explain how inspiring this project was. Everyday the permaculture team would come out and work with us all day. Community members would come out for the day to help, including a man of about 85 who joined us everyday and stood as a great role model to all of us. The project went faster than expected due to the involvement of these community members and gave us hope that this project would succeed above all expectations.

some of our permaculture team.

Close to the end of the visit, we met with five boys who had worked with Seven Ravens at the initial project site, Bukate Primary School. We went to two of these boys houses and saw what they had transformed their shamba (their land) into. They had tree nurseries, banana pits, intercropped vegetables (with no maize...yay!), fish ponds, swales and an abundant amount of food produced without chemicals. It was amazing at what these boys of 16 or so had accomplished based on Seven Raven's influence and work at their school. One of these boys had actually made 300,000 shillings (about $3,000) just last year in tree seedling sales from his nursery. In a part of the world that struggles to make 200 shillings a day, this was phenomenal news. We were all left speechless at the hard work and determination of these boys to make a better life for themselves and their families. It makes the challenges and work worth it to see these types of outcomes.

team tree nursery!

the beginnings of a food forest.

Moving on

Tomorrow I head out from Gogar. I thought I'd be here for another week or so, but upon Michael and Abby's (Seven Ravens on Salt Spring Island) arrival plans have changed. I'll be joining them in Butere to work on setting up a permaculture garden. Michael has done two projects there in the past so I'll get a perspective on how projects run over time.

There is still a bit of work to finish up at the girls' school, but I should be back here at the end of the month to check on the trees, label trees and plant some bananas.

It will be sad to leave Rongai and the girls here, however it's time to move on and learn something new. This does mean I'll be without internet so will be posting less than now (which isn't that much to begin with).

                                          Off to a new adventure and very excited!

The Tree Club Planting Day

Yesterday was tree planting day with the tree club. We met in the morning and went over how to plant a tree properly. They dug square holes, it's easier for the roots to spread this way, filled the bottom of the hole with compost soil from the nursery and planted their trees. Some of the girls had a very hard pan they hit while digging and used more compost soil in their holes in hope of giving the tree a stronger start to spread their roots. The size of trees ranged from a very small Passion Fruit vine to a great big Nandi Flame, but they all dug their own holes and feel proud of their trees. There are still a few more trees to plant, which is lucky as some girls came out of the woodwork interested in planting trees (yayyyy!), that we'll plant later this week. Now it's a matter of maintaining the trees health and labeling them so everyone who comes to the school knows what the tree is, who planted it and in what year. Already the school looks a touch more finished and someday will be a shady oasis. Here are some pictures of the big day!

A very small passion fruit vine. We'll trellis it to the school as it grows.

Two of the girls with the Nandi Flame.

A freshly planted Teclea.

Countdown to Planting

Tomorrow we plant trees! This morning I went to the tree nursery and picked up the trees we needed for the school. We've got quite a variety and I picked up some extras in case some other girls want to join in the planting (and because we probably should have a sausage tree on the school property.)

The school map.

Just to give you some information on how we've got to this point of being able to plant I'll give you a little recap as to what's been going on. Throughout the last week the 'tree club' has been meeting to decide what type of tree each girl wanted to plant based on whether they wanted a fruit tree, a shade tree, a flowering tree, a fast growing tree, a water loving tree, a drought resistant tree, etc. We've come up with the best tree for each of the girl's locations and placed a symbol for it on my professionally crayon-coloured, almost-to-scale map.

Moving the trees from the nursery to the school.

This afternoon I'm meeting with Patrick, who works at Red Shank Nursery and knows a lot more about Kenyan trees than I, to verify that we have decided to put these trees in the best spots possible to have the most beautiful school in Rongai.

Primary school planting

On Friday I went to the primary school as they were having a tree planting day. The grade 8s are leaving the school this year (the new school year starts in January) and the principal, Sister Hiltrude, wanted them to leave a mark. After an awkward introduction of myself, in which I had to write my name on the blackboard, I became the guest of honour and got to plant the biggest tree. This isn't quite what I'd anticipated as I just wanted to observe and instead had to give a little speech. Let's just say it wasn't a very good speech, but they were all really excited to plant trees which was inspiring. Every kid wanted a picture taken with their planted tree and as it would take forever to upload all of them, I'll only give you a few. In total around eighty trees were planted, which will make for a cool, shady school in the future.