HIV/AIDS and Permaculture Training

We were at a workshop in Moshi on sustainable agriculture with our counterparts (teacher partners from our school). It was a fun day of working outside making a garden with permaculture features to capture and hold the water and then double digging beds for the vegetables you want to grow. John and I and our counterparts are planning weekly sessions at school to teach about HIV/AIDs, safe sex and good nutrition through sustainable farming strategies including permaculture, biointensive gardening through deep, rich beds, hexagon planting closely and companion planting. I love this part of the job. We hope to have the neighboring villages participate in a 2 day program where we show the demonstration site the students will develop and let folks try some of the techniques. We have lots of erosion at our site from the loss of trees and the methods of planting crops on steep hills without terracing or constructing permaculture techniques. The pictures I put on the blog show the people shoveling sand out of the river after a big rain storm. The sand is left behind and all the soil is washed away with the water. The water is so muddy with soil it cannot filtered for drinking as another problem. Lots of water and none to drink! The villagers like it when this happens because they can shovel the sand in pile along the road and sell it for construction such as making cement for buildings and for roads. It really makes me sad to see this when it rains, so I am glad to teach permaculture and biointensive gardening.