Another Demonstration Plot Prepared

Graham has been busy preparing more demonstration plots for the Foundations for Farming project. This one is 50 x 14m and took 8 people two days to prepare.



The sight of the 'man high' weeds to be cleared, nearly had everyone running off on the first day. It certainly produced demands for more money. Graham’s way of teaching is to work with a group of people on a plot teaching and chatting as they go. He pays a day’s wages to each one and their bonus is to learn the ‘secret’. On this plot he promised to double the wages if he dropped first – he being twice the age of most of them. Needless to say, no-one got double wages but Graham has no doubt taken twice as long as the others to recover!



Beginning of Day Two and it is finally cleared and ready for setting out. The first delivery of well rotted manure which was dug from a nearby boma is being unloaded. The maize either side of this plot has been planted the traditional way and will provide a good contrast, we hope, as this is the view from the main pathway into town.



Work is well under way with everyone doing their allocated job – either marking out and digging holes accurately or filling each hole with manure and seed bed fertiliser.



At last as night falls, all the holes have been planted and half have been covered with a blanket of the dead weeds. The weeds were a bonus after all as they provided an instant mulch. A crate of sodas was needed at this stage to encourage completion but in the end, everyone was very proud of their work and enthusiastic about the new method.

18 More Women Have Cows!

Last week we gave out 18 cows. Some of them may still look very ‘scrawny’ to a European eye but all are in much better condition than when they left market in October. Although it is raining on and off in different areas there was not enough grass to sustain them all in one place. There were also reports of cattle rustling by some Kenyan Maasai who had sold their cows here at rock bottom prices during the drought. Most of our cows are Kenyan stock as they are an improved breed and give more milk.


Kivuya

So who are these women who have received a cow?

Several are widows with young children to care for. One has 7 married children but none are able to help her. Another is the second wife of a man who prefers his first wife...............


Ellena

Two or three have alcoholic husbands who are rarely at home and therefore unable to provide for their wives and children.

One has 3 married children but two are girls and husbands are often are unwilling to help their mothers in law as they consider the dowry to be enough help. Her son has married an ‘Mswahili’ (anyone who is not a Maasai) and has moved out of his culture.


Endoyekuna

One woman lost her husband when he went to market to sell a cow. Sadly he celebrated on the proceeds and was then run over by a car on the road home.

Another lost her husband to armed robbers who broke into the shop he was looking after for a friend. When her daughters were married, and she received the required number of cows as their dowry, a relative of her husband’s ‘ate’ them. She still has one younger unmarried daughter and is hoping the cow will give her a measure of independence from this relative and that she will be able to move out from under his ‘protection’.


Nanaito

This cow may not look like much of a gift and has not recovered as well as the others. It’s a start at least to help this couple get back on their feet as they have lost all their cows during the drought. They have two children and thankfully none of the problems common to the other women. We have no doubts that all these cows will be pampered and cared for extremely well.


Nanyoki

One woman has lost her husband and two sons to AIDS and is infected herself but keeps relatively healthy on ARVs. Another has lost 3 of her children and the 4th is unable to either work or look after himself, let alone her.

Yet another widow has two sons but sadly one is in prison and the other is an alcoholic. She is able to earn about £2 for delivering babies.


Grecie
The Maasai love any excuse to eat, drink, dance and sing and all these women are already looking forward to the moment when they can say thank you in this way- so are we!

Eco Lawn Mowers

Graham often arrives home with a ‘thank you’ from Maasaini. The goats are sent straight on elsewhere as they have absolutely no appreciation of a carefully laid out garden and can wreak havoc in no time at all. This flock of ‘lawn mowers’, on the other hand, can be left to graze happily and are a very pleasant addition to our environment.

Demonstration Plot

A demonstration plot was given by Lesingo beside his boma. He announced that he was very happy that he was going to learn the ‘secret’ of the soil as he already knew the ‘secret’ of keeping cows.



The first job was to bag up lots of manure for the planting holes from inside the goat pen.



The next job was to dig the holes but although the ground was sandy it was as hard as rock about 6 inches down and the pickaxe handle was broken in the first half hour. The workforce was less willing at this stage!



But in the end, everyone was very happy with their efforts. Each hole was filled with goat manure and a sprinkling of seedbed fertiliser. It turned out that Lesingo’s only contribution to the process was to go round waking everyone up at dawn each morning! He then sat down for the rest of the day to watch the work and chat to the other elders. As soon as the rains begin in earnest, we will go back and sow the seed.