i didn't intend to sound too enthusiastic too soon about this program, but the discussion on aids was interesting, with our local counterparts having plenty to add from their life experiences. and the bio-intensive aggriculture program has so far been great. our group is paired off, with one american paired with the woman from mozambique, one paired with the woman from lesotho, myself paired with a tanzanian guy in the sustainable ag. program, and the ethiopian american paired with a guy from ethiopia- after these three weeks of training the mozambique pair will set up trainings -training trainers- in mozambique for the year, the lesotho pair in lesotho ( tiny country surrounded by south africa), the ethiopian guy in ethiopia, and the ethiopian american and myself will stay here in the arusha area- my focus will be the sustainable ag. program, and the guy i'm paired with, placid, will be my partner in trainings- my understanding is that i'll be going out into the field with the three tanzanian sustainable agriculture experts accompanying them in their trainings with the farmer groups- (who are often mostly women). placid and i may also be conducting basic trainings, follow up visits, info. gathering- but mainly my role is to help oversee the program -help with its strategic planning, and see that some of the office's goals are getting carried out in the field. the tanzanian experts have been our teachers this past week and they are great teachers, very knowledgeable, and extremely progressive in their thinking. the farmers are aparently very eager and grateful for the trainings. as it is they have been tilling the same surface soil and depleting it for years- so these techniques help them bring new life to their soil, crops, selves-
our teacher says these were old practices that everyone used to know until the 'green revolution' with fertilizers, pesticides, etc came in, and now most have lost touch with these techniques. our ethiopian guy is sceptical that it will work for vast tracts of land due to the labor intensiveness- he asks some good questions. nevertheless even he is largely impressed. following a day or so of class we actually conduct the work we've been learning about- making the compost, digging the beds, and then we've traveled into the countryside visiting farmers who have adopted the techniques. another advantage of the technique is that you grow many times more on the same size of land, and it takes only a fraction of the water- water collection and irrigation techniques are included- so i don't know- so far i'm so impressed- what a great training to be in this mixed group and have excellent class teaching followed immediately by putting it into practice followed immediately by visiting those who've been practicing it- i have heard that the bio-ag. program lacks organization and hints that i will have a big job on my hands in trying to help iron out the kinks.
our director as i said is an african american woman who gave up her medical practice in california to come run this program, working for much the same compensation as the rest of us- obviously its an act of love for her and she is doing everything to make sure we're getting every oportunity for training- goes out of her way. the other day we were supposed to have a rare afternoon off- instead our director, deborah, squeezed in a trip to a natural medicine establishment where they have a garden growing all sorts of local medicinal herbs, practice reflexology and massage and i think also acupuncture- they offer an herbal medicine training there which i will probably take at some point.
Our living situation has grown more extreme as we are all sharing one hot shower and one sink- and have several others besides us also competing for the facilities! i'm not sure why we are being quite this economical as it would only put them out about $5 a night to give us each a private room- but it has been a great bonding element-soon we're supposed to get a bit more space-
as good as the program and participants is, i will say i miss my independence! i am the one who on occasion defers the group plan, as all this togetherness is a bit of a shock to the system- it is certainly giving up the control over schedule and planning that i'm used to- so i miss a bit my previous trip where i was randomly meeting all sorts of interesting people and encountering surprising situations- it's a stretch in that regard, but the advantages are great- getting to see things, meet people, hopefully have some sort of a positive impact that i would otherwise never do.
the underlying thing is that i just love being in tanzania- love the environment, the people, swahili, even the food, while i maybe don't love it, is perfectly healthy and tasty- and the views of mount meru and mount kilimanjaro are great. it is weird in arusha with all the tourism and economic polarities- muzungu walking around shelling out hundreds for safaris walking alongside people living on under a dollar a day- there's tensions between the tanzanians who've come into money working ie. for the war crime tribunals, and the one's who are on a more typical tanzanian economy too. such beautiful people on the whole here though. i also love the corn being grilled on little fires everywhere- a cob of hot fresh corn off the grill for 10 cents.