I Guess I'm a "Real Farmer" Now

One of the things I am doing here at Sega as part of my environmental work is working in the organic garden with the girls.  The main garden is basically right in the front yard of the volunteer house, but the guy in charge of the organic gardening program as well as most of the grounds stuff at Sega (Daniel) was away at a conference on organic farming the first few days I arrived at Sega.  Meaning that, this past Saturday evening, I got my first taste of my gardening responsibilities.

The girls that work in the garden are the pre-form and form one students (think middle school and freshmen in high school).  Generally speaking, these girls have the least English so I am extremely thankful that I’m working with Daniel on this one because (a) my Swahili at this point consists of names of animals and basic greetings and (b) I don’t know much about gardening to begin with.  You want me to classify the soil type or label the soil horizons?  No problem.  Write out the equation for photosynthesis?  Can do.  But the specifics of planting seeds, making organic pesticides, or knowing when to harvest… not so much.  So, I’m eager to learn and to get my hands dirty (literally). 

And the girls definitely know that.  After the initial period of me standing there awkwardly waiting around to figure out what we were supposed to be doing and the girls staring at me and being incredibly shy any time I looked in their direction, they were eager to watch me mess things up.  There were frequent calls of “Madam!  Come help!” and then incessant giggles as soon as I tried to water, plant, or swing a pickaxe.  But it was all in good fun.  Our first session ended rather abruptly as a rain storm blew in while Daniel was explaining an interesting technique called “basket composting” to me and the students. 

From what I gathered before the downpour, it’s a way to aerate, increase soil fertility, and decrease erosion and runoff.  Basically you dig a hole, fill the bottom three quarters with straw, put a thick layer of either green vegetation or compostable kitchen waste on top of that, and then cover it with topsoil.  The hole itself was a square and you plant it sort of like the five on dice—one in the middle and one in each corner.    

Drenched and covered in mud, but still one happy farmer.  

The next day I was in the shower when they started working but, when I realized they were working, I went out to join.  It promptly started raining again but we hadn’t finished planting a new row of tomatoes and spinach.  So, two of the girls and I finished the planting in the pouring rain.  By the end of it I was soaked to the bone and my hands and flipflop-clad feet were covered in mud.  Daniel, Kini, and Dana were out on our front porch and all laughed at me as I goofed around in the mud and rain.  Daniel joked that I was a “real farmer” now and told me I need to figure out where I’m going to put my farm when I go back to the states. 

My next task: helping Daniel find someone who’s willing to donate cow poop to the school so we can make charcoal.  

Unrelated but still fun: I taught the new Mkundi 6 (think like 5th/6th grade) girls the Hokey Pokey yesterday and how to fold origami paper frogs this morning.  They don't know much English, but we're already using art as a teaching tool there-- today we learned "We fold green paper frogs" and went over shapes, colors, and other English vocab.  Also they got a huge kick out of making their frogs "hop" and were super excited that I let them keep them.

Until next time,

"Farmer" Carolyn