Developing Gardens at Two Sites

Making Gardens at Kongei Primary School and Rose’s House

On September 2, Peter Jensen, Katherine, another PCV, and I drove from Dar es Salaam to our house in Lushoto. Katherine and I had spent the weekend at Bagamoyo Beach Hotel, swimming, eating fresh fish, and celebrating the service of three year volunteers now returning to USA. Katherine and I spent Sunday and Monday at Peter’s house, having pizza while watching Frasier with his family, having breakfast and dinner conversations at the dining room table (and bare feet on carpeted floors) as the girls went off to school and Elise was getting ready for work. These family conversations, playing with the family dog and guinea pigs and helping with their garden was truly a time we both missed being home with our own families.

Peter Jensen has been working in Tanzania for 8 years, working with people all over Tanzania as well as training Peace Corps Volunteers about ways to grow more food in small spaces. His work with the Peace Corps is especially for People and families living with HIV/AIDS. The biointensive gardening and permaculture methods are a way for these folks to be able to have very productive gardens close to home and that take minimal energy to maintain. He was making his second visit to our area to develop a demonstration garden for our primary school , working with the students, teachers and community adults—learning by doing and working together to meld what Peter knows works and what the community knows works in their area with their cultural priorities and preferences for food and planting.

Arriving Tuesday afternoon, we met with the school adults to lay out a logistic plan to rotate students during the week to work and learn from the garden. We also had to find out how to bring adults from the community into the work in a proper way. We looked over the school grounds and the school made a decision as to where to put the garden. The school had already brought many buckets of manure and water for the garden.

Wednesday morning started with Peter showing his new movie of Tanzanians from different climates using the gardening methods successfully. The movie also has tutorials and graphics showing the methods we would be using during the week to develop their garden. Excitement was in the air. Students (grades 5, 6, &7), community adults and teachers all watching the movie, (about 200).
The garden started first by sprucing up the guild we had built during the Girls Workshop and constructing the double dug planting beds (6 total in the end!). At 1:30pm we stopped to have a celebratory lunch together with the school leaders. Sister Shirema welcomed Peter into their school family as we began our week together. Another 1.5 hours working in the garden and then Peter and I went to Lushoto to visit Rose.

Rose is a member of a group of women in Lushoto living with HIV/AIDS. She and I met when Nice brought Rose to the Girls Leadership Workshop as a guest speaker. Nice is the program director for an NGO serving women, teaching them computer skills to enable them to find jobs to support their families. Rose participated in the Permaculture demonstration we did at the Girls Workshop and said to me then, “I and my group and the people that really need to know these methods!” At that very moment, Nice, Rose and I started planning how to work together to start making gardens at Rose’s house and teach all the people of the group that wanted to learn.

Rose was not home as she needed to travel to Moshi Health Clinic, but she left instructions with her children to welcome us and help choose a garden spot at their house. Nice, Peter and I visited her house. It is truly amazing to see a landscape through Peter’s eyes! I had visited Rose’s House a week before to look at garden spots, but through Peter’s eyes, I learned how to look for the information that the soil, erosion and plant life that is their can teach. We left with a plan and Rose’s daughter ready to do her part before we returned to build a garden on Saturday!

Thursday through Friday, the Kongei garden took shape and the community’s ability to teach their children through showing then stepping back and letting them do was awe inspiring. Peter was family as the week progressed, that was clear. Three guilds, three banana trees added, a fresh compost pile started and 6 beds of vegetables planted happened by Friday afternoon. A guild is a Papaya tree, matembele below (nutritious perennial), lemon grass, and aloe vera planted in a group. This is a power packed grouping that is of plants common to every house in Tanzania. The beds planted are 1 meter wide and 6 meters long. There are two beds of carrots, two of kunde (beans), two of an orange sweet potatoe together with a local greens that covers the soil and is harvested once the potatoes come up.

Another important feature of the garden is the holes and shallow trenches to control the flow of water, directing it into the beds and slowing it down as it runs down the mountain side. This garden is a beautiful from the shape, colors, food it will provide and the engineering of structures to maximize the water that flows naturally.

After all cleaned up and the garden site, too, we all gathered to watch the movie again. But, in Tanzanian style, the generator created a electrical surge and the projector became toast. So, the students sang a song they wrote for Peter and we handed out the books on nutrition and life skills in kid language and a carrot to eat. A factor we did not consider when we invited parents to come on Friday was Ramadan. One parent came to look at the garden and then he and the adults working in the garden watched the movie. (Since this day we have heard testimony from a variety of folks that kids have told their parents about the garden and parents have been, now, stopping by to see the garden and have said they want to try one at their house.)

Saturday, Peter and I headed to Lushoto. Rose’s garden began. There were 14 friends of Rose that joined her to make a garden. The Lushoto Community Development Director, the secretary of another local NGO for controlling AIDS, and three teachers from a secondary school came. Peace Corps has 5 new health volunteers in the area and all were there, too, along with another PCV teacher. Then, of course were the children that easily made up another 6 participants.

The garden took shape, the first bed done slowly teaching the methods and building a sense of family between us as we built a garden. After chai, bread and bananas in the welcoming warmth of Rose’s home, we all put to use our knowledge. The women eagerly started another bed. Peter took small groups to construct three guilds in spots where the water runs naturally. Then Peter’s eyes became ours as he showed us where to dig holes to stop the water and where to dig inclined trenches to move the water down each bed. By 1:30 Rose’s Garden was a fact and we walked together with Peter to see other possibilities along the path to the dala dala that took us to Lunch at the Tea Room in Lushoto. Jackie served us all a delicious lunch of greens, beans, rice and meat. NyaKoki, community Development director then lead us to a meeting room where Peter showed his movie, questions were discussed and books and directions on the methods taught, nutrition and life skills were provided. I headed back to my school early, as we had Parent Day going on, but I heard that Peter was able to visit another secondary school of a PCV in the area, seeing the guild they had built and the papaya seedlings begun before taking his rest that evening.

These events of this powerful week are alive. I continue to work in my garden with my neighbors that are teaching me as I teach them--, harvesting potatoes, transplanting leeks, thinning carrots; harvesting g sweet potatoes from my matembele I did not realize were growing. I have reworked two beds by adding my 4 month old compost to the top! It is true, we did not have to double dig again, and they are still deep and loose!

Nice and Rose have told me that we are going to develop a garden at each woman’s house in her group. It is the spirit of a quilting bee I think. The group came to Rose’s house and built a garden, now we will continue the rotation until each woman has a garden. I told them, “I will be there.” Ali and Twaha, two of the adults at the Kongei garden have asked me which day I am free for us to go to another primary school and develop their garden—a school where their neighbors children go and have heard of the Kongei garden. They also ask, “Will you garden like this when you return to America?”

Food. Water. This is one way I know I can participate in this struggle with my neighbors here. We share the knowledge, work, food and spirit of a family.

August Happenings in TZ

August has brought 5 new health Peace Corps Volunteers to our area. I welcome these folks, both to provide more resources for the communities and schools we are working with and also, because the volunteer community has been a relief and a pleasure to socialize with on weekends. It is very nice to be able to not only speak English but to speak to folks with life experiences in the western world.

This week we may have one of the new volunteers stay here as their site and house is not yet settled. Then next week Peter Jensen will stay with us while working on developing a demonstration garden at Kongei Primary school and then a Saturday workshop and demonstration garden in Lushoto with a group of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Both the Primary school and the Community Development Office in Lushoto have been very active in supporting this visit from Peter. They are providing lunch for the participants, meeting room space and teaching pamphlets to compliment the reading material Peace Corps provides these participants on nutrition and HIV/AIDS prevention and care. It is all happening without outside funds (other than Peter’s services and travel expensive). This is very heartwarming to me in that it shows me they are very serious about sustaining the work to be done in developing more productive gardens and to learn better nutrition habits, as well as pass their new knowledge on to others interested. We will probably never know the impacts after we leave, but we are told these are hopeful signs.

John and I have started working with another primary school that is a two hour walk from our site. They are a school that was started because Kongei primary is a two hour walk for their young children (pre school – Standard 6 (grade6). Our night watchman and school shamba workers’ children attend this school and they asked us to visit the school and share the permaculture, biointensive gardening and any other resources we can offer their needs. Last Tuesday we met with the faculty, head teachers and community leader to discuss what needs they have. The story is very similar to Kongei Primary. They are in the process of building teacher housing as many of the teachers walk from Lushoto town (2+ hours). They are now short 2 classrooms because they have added a grade level as the kids progress (they started with preschool – Standard 4). So, they want to build a new classroom. There are no government funds coming that they know of in the near future. Then I asked what else do they what to tell us that they have not. A teacher very eloquently explained that of course these building are a priority but it is much more complicated and difficult to say what is a priority when you as a teacher are teaching and your students have not eaten and cannot stay awake nor think clearly to learn. This is very difficult because the school shamba can grow only enough food to last a few weeks after harvest to feed them porridge mid-day, and we know the villagers do not grow enough food, either to feed their families nor to give to the school in the form of foods or money to help build.
I worked with the night watchman (Twaha) to demonstrate double digging garden beds and we planted matembele and lemon grass that I brought from my garden. I will return this week to co-teach composting methods to decrease the amount of fertilizers needed to purchase and to reduce the burning of corn and bean stalks after harvest. This time Twaha and Ali (shamba worker) both want to come to help teach.

At home, my garden is doing great. I now get help from Asha, a woman that has been watering our flowers and sweeping our yard and courtyard as well as mopping once a week. She has developed a beautiful flower garden around our house that is the talk of the neighborhood. It is called “Asha’s Garden”. Now she has started to work with me to double-dig some new beds as I need to thin my carrots and leeks as well as plant some new things. In the next few weeks we will harvest potatoes! I have already had fresh green beans from the seeds Barbara brought with her when she visited.

We still get called Mzungu (European) when we travel by bike from home to Lushoto and back, but slowly it is changing to Johnny and Mama Johnny. I tried to teach them my name “Randee” but “r” is very difficult in Kiswahili and “Johnny” is a very common name. So… I used the cultural pattern of a Mama being called by either one of her children’s’ names for example “Mama Anna” or by her husband’s first name. Now I hear “Mama Johnny” yelled from the top of the mountains when I pass through on the main road. I often cannot see the children, but if I wave or shout a greeting back there are great cheers. Also, now that we have been to another village area of the other primary school, I notice more people (thatI do not know by face) greet me and ask me how Kongei is doing. Slowly we are feeling more like neighbors in a wider circle from our house.

As far as teaching, I am just about finished with the syllabus for the year. It will be one more month to finish and then review for the national exams. It has been very helpful to create a study guide for each unit that includes; vocabulary and questions for them to look up and complete; a pre-test they work on as a lab group; and lab directions and notes to put in their books as I teach the unit. I am able to make one copy for each lab group of 4-6 people. This has really helped save time from writing all the notes on the blackboard and it gives them freedom to work at their own pace to get the notes and complete the independent study work.
One of the most engaging English language lessons I did was giving my students the receipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies and Play dough. Since making them cookies and using homemade playdough for making cell models, they have been bugging me to give them recipes. When I finally did, even the most limited English speakers were coming up to ask questions about meaning and pronunciation of words. The students from the other Forms, now, are asking me for the receipes so they can make playdough for their brothers and sisters when they go home!

Starting this month, we have daily visits from the neighborhood children. They come to look at my bird books and read the children’s’ books of TZ animals that Barb and I got on our travels. Also, the life skills children’s magazines we get from Peace Corps Office are a big hit as these are in Kiswahili and have popular kids themes and characters. There are really good resources for communities from the TZ Peace Corps. The kids like to play ball and wrestle with us, too, of course. We saw a new bird species yesterday in my yard, a Green Wood-Hoopoe.

The music club is doing well, learning the National Anthem to play at graduation in October. They now can read and play 8 notes as well as "clap out" measures in 4/4 time. Mostly, we are having lots of fun!

Dissecting Fish and Building Models

We had 4 fish to use with 100 students to dissect. It was a hit. I also got a cow heart, kidneys and lungs with trachea attached to do disection followed by individuals observing parts. The Science club finished their digestive system model and hung it in the library with an informative poster. Form I made plant and animal cells models from homemade playdough.

July-August

-It is August!

Our Girls workshop was such a hit and we had some money left that we had another jam making workshop day to try making orange marmalade. It is Orange season here and so they are real cheap!

While the jam was cooking we had lunch and then demonstrated how to make a Papaya tree guild garden at Kongei Primary with matembele and lemon grass cuttings from my garden.

You can see pictures on my PICASA web page!
July teaching has been fun.
I was able to get 4 live fish from a villager to dissect with the Form II students. They are very excited to be in the lab and use the equipment and touch things.

Form I mounted onion cell slides and used the microscopes last week. They are also, so grateful. This is the fun part of the job, 50 kids grateful to use 6 microscopes or 4 fish then another 50 reuse the same fish!

The students are drawing diagrams of many biology structures and love the colored pencils my sister brought. I always the pencils back at the end of class, every one!

The music club is doing great. They has learned 5 notes as well as how to read 4/4 time, quarter and half notes and rests and name the lines and spaces. They want to play Simple Gifts for graduation and also their national anthem.

I am going to try making “playdough” again to use for cell models. I need cream of Tartar, so someone is going to bring it from Dar.

I made a lung model with a lantern globe, balloon and hose. It worked! Next week I am getting a cow heart and kidney to dissect from our night watchman’s village. In three weeks the dispensary head nurse is coming to show the students how a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff work and answer questions about blood types.

At home, I bought a round bottom clay pot to cook rice and soup. Twaha, our night watchman made a banana leaf ngata to hold the pot on the table or... to carry on my head.

I also made 120 chocolate chip cookies for my Form I students with the chips Barb brought in June. Baking on a lid inside a bigger pot on a charcoal stove!

(Pictures attached)

I will take a break at the end of August for a long week end. Bagamoyo is a town on the beach near Dar. I am going to celebrate a PCV returning to USA. I am looking forward to the beach and some R&R.

Peace,
Randee

Kongei Teacher Housing Project

Hello from Tanzania!

I hope all is well and you are enjoying your summer in Minnesota! The weather here is actually what I would call cold, especially when I go further up the mountain to Lushoto. In the morning and evenings I can see my breath and at night I use two blankets or my sleeping bag. Still, the days are warm but I am wearing long sleeves and a shawl these days.

I am writing today to ask you to spread the word and encourage friends, family and colleagues to contribute money to my Peace Corps secondary project. Every volunteer is encouraged to discover a community need near our school and help facilitate a solution. The Peace Corps has different kinds of grants which we can submit proposals. After discovering that a pressing need at the elementary school in my village was teacher housing, I worked with the leaders to write a proposal for a partnership grant through the Peace Corps.

The Peace Corps Partnership Grant requires the community to contribute a minimum of 25% of the resources needed and then the American people are asked to contribute the remaining balance. Kongei Elementary School wants to build a teacher housing unit and a septic tank to support this unit. They are contributing 38% ($3,064.00) of the resources needed and are asking for the balance of 62%­ ($4,997.20).

Our proposal is very close to being approved by the Peace Corps Office in Dar es Salaam and they have asked me to start contacting people in America that can be useful in spreading the word and encouraging people to make contributions through the US Peace Corps website under our project title,
“Construction of Teacher Housing at Kongei Elementary School”.

Below is a summary of the project and background information about Kongei Elementary.


The website for contributions will be available in September 2008. We want to start the building process in December 2008. Your help will greatly assist us in accomplishing our goals. This project cannot go ahead without complete funding. Also, the project must be completed before I return to USA in November 2009.

Thank you for considering this opportunity to help me do my work and more important to help Kongei improve student educational performance through supporting teachers.


Peace,

Randee

Peace Corps Partnership Proposal
Randee Edmundson, Peace Corps Volunteer
Lushoto, Tanga Region
Tanzania
Community Contribution: $3,064.00 (38%)
The community contribution includes: bricks, stones, sand, hardcore, transportation of materials, skilled labor, and unskilled labor.
USA Partners Contribution: $4,997.20 (62%)
The partnership contribution includes materials for construction and finishing the housing and septic tank. (see attached itemized budget )

Construction of Teacher Housing at Kongei Elementary School
Project Summary
Kongei Elementary government school is very different than a typical American rural public school. The classrooms are very full and have only the very basic facilities, student desks and a blackboard. Learning basic math, science and English are some of the biggest challenges for students and retaining teachers that are able to have time and energy to teach these subjects is one of the reasons for their difficulties. The students and the teachers work very hard, but what they can accomplish is compromised by the fact that most teachers live far from the school, walking up to 2 hours to and from school every day. Attracting new needed teachers is also difficult when there is no teacher housing available near the school.
Discussing these challenges with the headmistress, second headmaster and teacher of math and sciences, and the school teacher/matron, they have explained to me that the most pressing need is to provide housing at the school site for teachers. Sr. Shirima, Headmistress, Rueben Masenga, Second Headmaster and their teachers know that they can teach more effectively, be more reliable and have more energy for teaching longer hours and teach to more diverse student needs if they could have a house provided near the school. Through this project, they hope to retain the excellent teachers they have and be able to attract new highly-qualified, committed teachers, resulting in a better education for their 1000 students.
What we would do is build a teacher housing unit that can support one teacher family or several single teachers. The unit would have a septic tank and toilet that can support the new housing unit plus an additional unit that can be added on at a later date. Currently there are two teacher housing units that are being completed (by September 2008) by the effort of the community. This housing was left undone when government funding ran out. Pictures at the end of this report show these teacher housing units that are in process now as well as the site for the new unit and septic tank to be built with these funds.
With three teacher housing units completed by May 2009, Kongei would be able to house several of their current teachers that are walking 7-8 kilometers to school and back home every day.

School Background
Kongei Elementary School is in a rural farming village of the Usambara Mountains. This area of Tanzania is the Tanga Region and is located 15 km from the town of Lushoto. I teach at Kongei secondary school that is in the same area but is a private school. The elementary school is a government school. The school opened many years ago as a girls middle school but changed to a primary school and has been growing rapidly ever since. This large growth is due to a change in government policy. Tanzanian elementary school education was not free until 2003. Starting in 2003, the government ruled that all children must attend elementary school and their elementary schooling would be free of charge.
The increase in student population has also meant an increase in need for teachers. Also, the school is not able to offer enough afternoon and evening tutoring for their growing number s of students because teachers need to walk home after day classes.
Currently there are 1000 students, 544 girls and 456 boys. The school has 14 teachers, 10 women and 4 men. As the headmistress has explained to me, in Tanzania the schools are expected to provide housing for teachers, yet, the school has no current housing for teachers.
Without teacher housing near the school, the current teachers can become exhausted from their long commute by foot and transfer to another school given the opportunity for a better housing situation. Also, it is hard to attract new needed teachers to their Kongei without sufficient housing.
Project Evaluation and Monitoring
The project goal is improve student achievement through enabling teachers at Kongei Elementary School to be more effective in their teaching, and enable the administration to be more effective in attracting and retaining highly qualified teachers. In addition, to have teachers available to teach evening tutoring classes to improve student performance.
Objectives:
· Teachers will be able to increase time spent and quality of lesson preparation including one or both of the following:
o develop more teaching aids
o include more diverse teaching strategies.
· The current teachers will not leave Kongei nor will additional teachers needed refuse an offer to be hired due to lack of housing.
· The teachers housed (6) in school housing will offer students additional time for tutoring during the week.
· The percent of students taking the leaving exam (allowing them to enter secondary school) and earning passing scores will stay the same or increase in 2009. (53% in 2008)
Specifically we will compare the following data using current information and data collected June-September 2009:
· The time spent on lesson preparation
· The quality of lesson preparation with regard to teaching aids and diverse teaching strategies
· The number of teachers retained and/or added with reasons related to housing.
· The amounts of time teachers housed spend on tutoring students before or after school hours.
· The percent of students taking the leaving exam and earning passing scores.

Community Change
Rueben Masenga, second headmaster, expressed the following change that he believes possible: People of the community will learn that when you put your minds and physical efforts together around a common goal and invite a broader community beyond your own village, that you can accomplish larger goals and most importantly, it will change the relationship with people across the world in positive ways. We hope that we can be together with people all over the world and one day we can be in one world.
To complete this project, there are community elders, the community leader, the school leadership committee, skilled workers, and professional teachers working together with the young people of the community. The young people will learn the skills of how to lead a community and to cooperate as a community to accomplish large tasks through pooling ideas and both human and natural resources. One outcome of this is growth in the capacity of leadership to define and meet the goals and objectives of the community in the future.
We will conduct a school committee meeting and community meeting after completing the project to gather feedback as to what was accomplished and how this project changed the people of the community. We will document comments which specifically express gains in community organization, knowledge of assets, opportunities to share skills and knowledge with young people, or the lack of these attributes.



Community Need and Beneficiaries
On my first visit to Kongei Elementary school, Sr. Shirima, headmistress and Sr. Alma, teacher and matron, graciously welcomed me, gave me a tour of the school and explained their priorities to improve the education of their 1000 students. Their list included such items as teacher housing, an additional classroom and building for school and community gatherings, and a water well to collect rain water to make getting clear water easier especially during the summer season. On future visits to explore ways to address these needs, teacher housing was always listed as the highest priority. The school committee representatives explained that they had the ability to manage with getting water and even the possibility of getting help from the government with building a classroom but, due to lack of teacher housing, they could not afford to lose their teachers or lose their ability to attract new teachers needed to improve the education and performance of their students.
Direct beneficiaries of this project are the 1000 students, the current and future teachers, and the community. The headmistress and second headmaster explained that the community will benefit because their children will cooperate with learning more because they will have more energized teachers, with more time to prepare lessons that can meet diverse student needs and increase student involvement in learning. Also, teacher housing at the school will increase the number of teachers that can teach afternoon and evening classes. In these ways the teachers are better able to help students pass their exams and continue on to secondary school.
Finishing the existing incomplete teacher housing unit and adding one more unit with these funds will allow housing for 6 teachers, 2 teacher spouses, and three children of teachers. The people directly impacted are these 11 people and the 1000 students at Kongei that will be able to have better lessons and more lessons in the afternoon and evenings.
Kongei Elementary school has shown improvement in student performance since 2003 when they had 30 students taking the leaving exams and only 8 students went on to secondary school. Since 2003, the number of students continuing to secondary school has increased (29 and 17 students in 2006 and 2007). In 2008, there will be 65 students taking the leaving exam (compared to 33 students in 2007) and these students have already shown good scores on their June 2008 terminal exams. In 2009, there are 99 students projected to take the leaving exam.
Kongei students have good performance on the leaving exams. Some, after passing, continue to government secondary schools and others sit for private school exams, doing very well and attending these schools for their secondary education.
Project Timeline
Activity
Time
Proposed dates
Community Meeting
1 week
Weekend of Dec 5, 2008
Preparation of construction site
2 weeks
Jan. 15 – Jan. 30, 2009
Collecting of stones, bricks, and sand
1 week
Jan. 28 – Feb. 3, 2009
Purchase materials
1 week
Feb. 7 – Feb. 14, 2009
Construction of building
4 weeks
Feb. 17 – March 13, 2009
Plastering cement inside and outside
2 weeks
March 16 – March 20, 2009
Installing glass and ceiling board
1 week
March 23 – March 27, 2009
Painting inside and outside
1 week
March 30 – April 3, 2009
Construction of septic tank
2 weeks
April 6 – April 17, 2009
Installing plumbing and stool
3 days
April 21 – April 23, 2009
Plastering toilet and chambers
4 days
April 24 – April 29, 2009
Completion (Allowance for delays)
2 weeks
May 15, 2009
Total
18 weeks

July Girls Leadership Workshop

The first week of July John and I helped facilitate a week long Girls Leadership Workshop at a secondary school 10 km from our school. We had 5 secondary students and 10 elementary students participate in a variety of activities and lessons. These included: lessons on adolescence, What is Love?, early pregnancy, HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention, assertiveness and negotiating with boys, food preservation( papaya, apple and pear jam making), nutrition and permaculture gardens, computer skills, Banana tree art card making, and group initiative games for confidence and collaboration.

We had two guest speakers from the area. One was a 26 year old women who had gotten pregnant while in school, telling her personal story, consequences and how she has managed to go back to school at this age. The other was a woman living with HIV/AIDS. The third day we had a panel of all the teachers participating from the four schools (men and women) and the guest speakers. The students had over 25 questions in a question box from all the sessions that the panel addressed. It was a very rich time together. After answering the first set, the students asked us all to leave and compiled another group of questions for us!

This Saturday, we are having a 1 day workshop by popular request after the week workshop. There will be more people from our community who are living with HIV/AIDS, many of the same students bringing their friends, and more teachers that want to learn jam making and permaculture techniques. This time we will make orange marmalade because this is ORANGE SEASON! I will be teaching composting and planting a nutritious "guild" in an opportunistic area where the water naturally runs off the roof or from the water spigot. Our guild will be a papaya tree, lemon grass for tea, and matembele (a dark green plant rich in iron and other vitamins).

May -June In Tanzania

Habari za leo?
I know it has been a long time since an update. We have had busy days with writing exams, correcting exams, and writing end of term reports. In addition, we have had bad luck with electricity, such that the days we go to town there is no internet. The computer that we were able to get internet at school sometimes died.

Good to be back to writing a blog update!

Since I wrote last we had Peter Jensen the PC biointensive gardening consultant come to our site. He worked with students, teachers, and school shamba workers to look at the current gardening techniques, consider spots to construct a demonstration garden for the schools and to teach some basic techniques for composting and for planting in beds that are double-dug to allow more food to grow in a smaller area. The reason these are important at our site and for many Tanzanians is that the good soil is at the bottom of the mountain in the valleys but many people plant both the valley and the steep slopes. The steep slope planting further erodes the soil, so there is less food and also a great loss of trees. The idea is to get more food from the low lands and plant trees on the slopes that are better at holding the soil and creating habitat for wildlife, and good for the ecosystem as a whole.

Students built two compost piles by my garden, 1x1x1 meter using brown and green plant material and then cow manure and water. I have turned these piles once after three weeks and already it is starting to look like rich soil.
Peter sculptured four matutas (beds) with water meandering from my sink outlet then around the beds. So, even on the dry days, my garden gets watered. Two village farmers came one day to help me finish double digging these beds, add manure to the lower soil, and plant French beans, potatoes, leeks, carrots, and nasturtium. I added a few smaller matembele mounds around a papaya tree. Last week I had our local carpenter make a garden bench that will seat three-four. When he delivered the bench we all sat and had sodas, enjoying the comfort of the bench (with a back rest!).

Peter is returning in September to work again with the community to build a demonstration garden. The primary school next to the secondary school where we teach can use this garden for students to learn biointensive techniques and to grow more food for school lunches. We have been told by the headmaster that currently they do not grow enough food to feed the student’s lunch everyday and if the school does not feed students, many do not eat a good lunch because families do not have enough food either.

My sister visited our site in May-June. She helped me work with the primary school leaders to draft a proposal for a partnership grant to build teacher housing. I hope to submit this proposal and have it approved by January so that Americans can donate funds for teacher housing. Currently the school has 13 teachers, but many have to travel a long distance to teach and then return home every night. This has really hurt the students learning, as the teachers are stretched beyond reason both physically and mentally.

John and I finished our first school term May 30th. Form I and Form III students went home and will return July 12th. Form II and Form IV students remained at school for three additional weeks to attend classes for further tutoring. These two Forms take the national exams in October which determine if they will be able to continue their education. If they do not pass or pass with low scores, the Form II and IV students have to repeat or find another school. Of course often this means school fees that the family cannot afford. SO… continuing classes and studying during the school holidays is an assumed necessity. Many teachers are hired to continue teaching during holidays.

John and I went on holiday with my sister Barb! We first went to Morgoro to visit our Tanzania family that we lived with during training. This was wonderful as it did seem like returning home to see our family, without having to go to school! After four days we traveled by bus to a beach area by Pangani. We had four days of swimming, snorkeling to see a coral reef, and paddling a kayak up to see the mangrove forest. After 5 days back at site, meeting with two schools to design a girl’s workshop on life skills training, we went on Safari through Tarangire, Lake Manyara and Ngorngoro.

We feel very refreshed and I have a long list of new birds seen which I can boast about!

Got to go! More later….

Randee