The project is to train a group of 30 people in vertical gardening so that they can have access to fresh vegetables throughout the year. The concept is this: take a 90kg sack, fill it with soil and manure, cut slits at intervals all over the sack and plant seedlings. It requires very space or attention, and most importantly, very little water.
I like the project because I will get to see it through, from start to finish. I decided to create a baseline survey so we would be able quantify results at the end of the project. It was a bit tedious to complete the surveys with all the participants, and I learned a few lessons that I will document for others to come and tuck away in an easily accessible corner of my mind for the next time I do one, but mostly I think it will be a helpful tool. I haven’t analyzed the results yet, but there are some definite things I noticed that I hope this project will be able to improve. For example, although most people had household gardens, they only provided the household with fresh vegetables during the rainy season and harvest, leaving the family without their own source of veggies during the dry season (which is half the year, from June – November). Families would therefore have to shop at the market during this period, but their intake of veggies sharply decreased this half of the year because prices were higher and therefore produce unaffordable. You will also notice from the pictures I have posted below, that no one has running water in their homes, and instead rely on community water pumps, which explains why most people don’t farm in the dry season – when there is no rain, simply too much water is required by a garden, when you consider that all the water will get to said garden on a women’s head.
Our visit was to train the group in the establishment and management of a nursery. I will visit again in 2 weeks, with the consultant, to make sure the seeds are germinating so that we will have seedlings to plant when we go back mid-May for the main training. Everything was in Chichewa so I didn’t participate much, though I did use a translator to help me conduct some of the surveys.
It is interesting though how, as a foreigner, people are so excited by your presence. I didn’t say much during the training 1) because I didn’t have anything to say and 2) no one would understand me anyways, but the few times I did make a comment or crack a joke, everyone would applaud. I wonder if that’s what it feels like to be Oprah.
Isaac, my counterpart
Digging the nursery bed
Watering the seedlings so they don't get washed away
Kids at the communal watering pump
When this mother is finished filling her bucket of water, she will use a cloth sling to tie her baby on to her back, and the cloth on her head to cushion the bucket of water, which will be put on her head for the walk home
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