Kesho Info Day, Shamba Co-op, Permaculture Plans, Grant Writing

No-one cares, but the itch is back. I keep boring Shona and Corky with random deductions such as “Hmmm, [scratch-scratch] maybe it’s from blackcurrant sodas I’ve been drinking [scratch-scratch]. I used to be allergic to Ribena when I was five…” I’ve finally broken Shona – and now she’s joining in. “Hey Beck, my sister is totally allergic to mango – not eating it, just touching it – and she gets itchy on the palms of her hands and her feet – exactly what you are getting…this must be it”. That was a good one. We liked that one for 4 hours, until I got crazy-itchy simply by walking outside. (Yes, our concrete outside is littered with early-dropping baby mangoes, but I didn’t walk on them or touch them). Our latest: the pollen from the mango trees. Corky offered his “dermo” cream, but really, the cream Kelsey gave me before I left is the best calming salve. Works like medicated cream, but isn’t. Anyway, Corky has decided that, given my last month (2 weeks lost to bad back, 1 week sacrificed to intestinal infection and now 5-days of itchy-scratchy mania), I’m clearly allergic to Africa. Fine shame, that. Physically allergic, mentally addicted, bit strange. Nuff ‘bout me. I promised FWS info, and deliver I shall – in order of occurrence, not in order of excitement, because they’re all pretty bloody exciting.

Local Carpenter Found. Yes, Val, our Tanzanian neighbour passed his day trial as a carpenter so has joined the FWS boys on the job. Day trial? We had him to whack up a few shelves for the FWS office (neat, stable, butt-jointed – exceptionally good) and fashion a door for the skewiff frame of our laundry cupboard. Now anyone who can craft a tidy, trim door into a bowed frame so the whole cupboard suddenly looks straight as a die, gets the nod, as far as I’m concerned. Shona, Corks and Daz agreed, so Val started on the Kesho Leo building site the next day. Which, of course, is still going smoothly and swiftly. We’re looking at laying the first of our floorboards this week – pretty thrilling stuff!

Permaculture Plans Afoot. Our clever Corky has returned from his permaculture course in Western Tanzania with a cornucopia of specialist ideas. Always happy for a quick show-off, he wasted no time in scribbling up the ideas on our Kesho Leo site plan and walked us through the basics and the not-so-basics (yes, he was very patient with our incessant questioning). He also managed to convince us that not only does he know what he’s talking about, but he’s possibly the greatest permaculture planner in existence. Look out for his ripper plans (with explanations) on the website in the next few weeks.

Farming co-op. Another one of Corky’s great ideas involved FWS “Leasing out” to our builders, a two-acre plot of land we own, but have not been using. The land sits next to the FWS office and has for the past three months moonlighted as a turning circle for the ute and then as a dirt soccer field for the kids across the road. It’s a shameful waste not to crop this much land, so Corks came up with the idea of handing it over to our labourers to crop. They are to form a “Shamba Co-op” (“shamba” is Kiswahili for ‘farming plot’) whereby they pool their cash (that which we’ve paid them for the day jobs as labourers) and farm this land. The deal is they pay us 10 per cent of their takings. Mudi Salim, Kesho Leo assistant manager, has agreed to head up the project – and 10 out of our 20 labourers have agreed to take part. They are planning to plant onion, garlic, eggplant and capsicum now, a harvest which should be ready in about three month’s time. On the weekend, Ruben, who had been allocated the job of arranging the tractor to plough the field, got things under way. This week, Richard, who has been allocated the job of buying the seed, will do his work. We have asked Mudi to keep FWS as ‘uninvolved’ as possible so that these guys learn to work as a team without “Western” support. We’ll keep you posted on their progress.

Kesho Leo info day pulls a crowd of mammas. Shona has spent the last two weeks, working with Lucas, to design an information day for the local community, the aim of which was twofold. Firstly, we wanted to introduce FWS & the Kesho Leo project more formally to the community (rather than us just being known via word of mouth) and secondly we wanted to meet some of the community’s “widows” and “single mothers” who have been filling out application forms for the house-mother roles at Kesho Leo. Shona whacked up a tarp (she made from recycling cement bags and sewing them together with the help of local seamstress, Elizabet), some great drawing and information pages on a board she borrowed from Brother Frank, had all attendees (76 mammas and half the village on top!) sit on bench chairs (again, courtesy of Frank) and we got talking, using the help of Tanzanian FWS members, Mudi, Lucas, Agnes, Nolasco and Gertruda to translate. Interestingly, during the speeches, the health clinic and health education aspects of Kesho Leo drew a huge round of applause (obviously, we’ve tapped into an unmet need there!) as did the “sustainable” environmental concepts and the support for widows. We interviewed (very briefly) 76 “widows”, all of whom were aged between 22 and 65, some of whom were single, had no children, and had never been married! Shona will now spend the next few months visiting these women, with Lucas, to talk with them so as to fine-tune our list of potential employees. (Don’t worry, we have plans brewing for the widows and single mums that don’t make our final list).
Grant writing. I just want you to know, that in between scratches, I’ve been writing grant applications in order to help us pull in the last of the dosh we need to get this building up and happening. It feels nice to be asking for money alongside so many of you doing the same for us back home. Thanks again for that!

Now about some of the more random pix above (and yes, clearly I'm still to learn a lot about position pix for this blog - apologies!), pic of Anne (the chook) nesting in Shona's bedroom. Gave Shona quite the fright one evening - as Anne was uninvited. Pic of Reika, a lovely West Australian girl that Corky met on his permaculture course - she stayed with us a few days, one of which she spent painting old engine oil onto our timber joists so as to prevent dry rot and termites.



Speak soon, Beck