Permaculture Design for Knuth Farm

It has taken me a good number of weeks, but I have finished it. Pretty much. Well the first draft is done, and its a good first draft.

There'll be some definite changes after a bit of consulting with some other people, but I'm actually pretty happy with what I have managed to do.

For anyone not really familiar with Permaculture... it is a design concept coined in the late 1970s by a couple of Australians. It can probably be summarised as a sustainable design system for human habitation, and 'Permaculture' comes from the joining of 'permanent-agriculture', or 'permanent culture'. I could go on, but its much easier to look up one of the 100s of sites already all about permaculture. www.permaculture.org.au is a good one, have a read & look up some pictures.

The farm I have done the design for encompasses about 80 hectares / 200 acres.
It features remnant miombo woodland, field crops (maize, sweet potato), a seasonal creek, about 15 cattle on range and a few goats & chickens wandering around.
The soil is gutless. Deep granitic sands with very little water holding capacity and no organic matter. Plough agriculture and application of fertilisers has pretty much killed the life in the soil & ruined the soil structure.

The features of the design that I have put together are:

• creation of a 1 acre intensive vegetable garden for horticultural production
• development of a aquaponics system for horticultural and fish production
• a rotational chicken forage system to grow free range chickens, eggs and vegetable & fruit crops; chickens will also forage into the food forest & the fields as part of a pest management system
  
• use alley cropping of field crops between soil improving tree species to improve the structure & organic matter in the soil
• water harvesting through swales and a dam in the creek
  
• create a food forest of mixed fruit trees
• increased fodder for cattle & goats through large scale planting fodder trees & creating paddocks for rotational grazing
• creation of woodlots for construction timber, firewood & long-term fine timber for sale
• expansion of existing remnant woodland to improve wildlife habitat

It has been a lot of research, and stomping around the property with a tape measure, pencil & pad; I still haven't found where we can access a lot of the seed that we require, especially for nitrogen fixing & fodder trees. Permaculture wisdom suggests that 'the problem is the solution' and we've realised that it could be another area of profit growing such trees & harvesting seed for sale.

The pictures are images of the design, including an inital drawing of the current set-up in the area where most of the work will take place.

A vague august

Finding myself with a little bit of time on my hands, I suppose I should get busy and put some updates here before the last 2 months or so dwindle to but a hazy memory.

In fact it seems like kind of a hazy memory now. Its difficult to think of what we've been doing since we got back from Botswana. That last update was a good couple of weeks following us getting back... i'll try to put it together.

Ali has been back in europe for 3 weeks now; it has certainly been a bit more dull around here without someone else to laugh about the frustrations with & generally take the piss out of life. My cooking efforts have certainly been slipping as well. There isn't much enjoyment struggling to cook a meal for one on 2 tiny hotplates on an electric cook top; and then having to wash up as well. My food has also been going off - they don't really sell single portions of anything here as everyone has a family; and I just can't eat 2 person's worth of food, especially when i'm losing the will to cook!

I'm off to Oz in 2 weeks to meet up with her & I am very much looking forward to the break. I feel like I'm running out of energy here; actually the energy here feels a bit flat.
Maybe it is the weather - the cool period has definitely come to an end and it is getting pretty warm during the day. The leaves are falling from the trees to save water, and everything feels dry and dusty. Not really the weather for running around and getting active.

Kufunda has also been very quiet over the last 10 days through hosting the meditation course. I was hoping to take part, but then it was an on-again, off-again thing & I just made other plans. Most of the village was out-of-bounds for non-participants (the participants weren't doing any talking anyway) so I was treading a fairly boring route of home to the office and back again a few times a day.
As the regular driver (Simba) was meditating I was asked if I could do the driving; this was ok, but after agreeing to 2 days of driving it actually turned into 5. A day into town & back sort of takes the whole day, so it was a farily unproductive week.

On friday I headed to the Zimbabwe Agricultural Show with a few of the guys from the village. It was a little bit like the Perth Royal Ag Show - animals, farm machinery, info stalls, etc. I didn't think it really provided much (or anything) for most farmers over here - what with $250,000 tractors, mercedes-benz marquees, pricey fertilizer & seeds - it was all a bit out of reach.
I found some people to talk to about tree fodders & agroforestry and where I could potentially get seed, I followed up & still waiting for them to get back to me.
There was also a bunch of guys doing vermiculture & compost teas from vermi-compost, and another guy with a really simple biogas digester. Definitely something to follow up if we come back next year.



Following the show I ended up at Alice & Webber's as Alice's son was having a birthday party. That was good fun & ended up with a late night session for the bigger kids, including a boozy return to the terrible judgement bar at around midnight. The rest of the weekend was spent fairly horizontally watching movies, eating racks of ribs and talking shit. Those guys are gold, a little bit of my crew in Zimbabwe.

So to put together the other end of the last couple of months...
Return from Bots (was mid July I think) & a few days recovery. Then we started picking up again on the microfinance project, and it was all pretty full on with that, designing a training programme and trying to get the teams in place. We ran 2 training sessions at Kufunda, and I ran another one in Epworth. Produced something like 14 documents and talked until my tongue was like sandpaper. I think people understood it all though.

We caught up with David & Wendy and met their neighbours who also came out to Zim as volunteers and have decided to stay for a while. Cooked a lovely dinner to say thank you to D&W, much better than going out for dinner over here!
The next day we saw John who took us home from Nyanger & caught up on his stories about trying to get his property back. Pretty crazy stuff - he's been threatened & intimidated, followed, phone bugged, etc and all he is trying to do is get his property back that the govt have actually ruled should never have been taken from him.

Ali put me on a diet as after our holiday, plus a week catching up with people in Harare & doing plenty of drinking & eating I'd started to get a bit of a tummy.
I ran & did lots of pushups & sit-ups for about 2 weeks.
Then Ali left & I went on a couple of nights out with Tindo & some guys from Kufunda to Ziko in Seke. Its an hour's walk through the bush to get to the nearest bar. You have to cross a river. Apparently you can't cross in the wet season as the river is too high but there is a guy that will ferry you across in an old tractor tire tube. Madness. He doesn't do it after dark, so the Ziko boozing sort of stops. A bit of a shame as they do a brilliant bbq there. You buy your meat in the butcher, then there's a huge braai just out the front. The guys braai your meat for a dollar, so it $6 for a kg of pork and 2 plates of sadza; not a bad accompaniment to a few beers in the sun.


The first time we went I ended up dancing with the chick from behind the meat counter, and who subsequently suggested that she cooks for me one night. Tempting.

We'd been drinking Chibuku, the local fermented maize drink. It is opaque, has lumps in it & is the closest thing you can probably get to a beer milkshake. You get 6L for $2, so the guys I was with drink that because its cheap. After a few fast mugs it is sort of bearable. I think I drank most of it cos I was pushing to get it over with & get on the lagers. Because it is still fermenting when you drink it, it gives you crazy dreams and makes you feel pretty rough the next day.



We staggered back through the bush & over the rocks in the river. I'd brought my torch, I have no idea how those guys do it in the pitch dark when they're so drunk. Tourai was doing very well setting a good pace, whilst tindo & I were both stumbling into bushes and probably walking twice the distance from our zig-zagging.

I felt shocking after that first weekend - properly took me 3 days to29/08/09 get over it; I'm blaming the Chibuku, but we must have been really smashed. Apparently we got home at 1am & we'd been there since half 2.

That was a bit of a bad move as I had lots of work to do that week, but a combo of that & me having to drive a fair bit again meant that I was behind with work. I put that night at Ziko at August 16th.

Pretty much all the work I have been doing has either been the Micro Finance stuff, the Permaculture design for Knuth Farm or driving. Oh & the piggery investment...

Tindo approached us shortly before Ali left with a business proposal. We put up the cash & he does the work for a small piggery project with 9 sows. The returns are actually really good as the price for pork is decent. He's a young guy but he works really hard and he knows what he is doing when it comes to pigs. He's probably the only person that we really trust here, so we're going to give it a go. If we are back in Zim next year it'll mean that we'll have some extra income, and it'll be fun to play farmer for a while. We're all looking at it as a medium-term investment as we can see a few side businesses that can come out of it - e.g. compost, wormfarming, butchery. I have a few ideas on things like direct sales where we can get a better price than existing butcheries will give; its just a matter of doing the right marketing to some people that own deep freezes!
All going well it'll be running by November and by that time next year we'll be running more sows. Crazy, but this is the sort of opportunities that are here. At least if it goes pear shaped the losses aren't that great, yet the investment that we can make is far more than he can save in a few years, so it will make a huge difference to him.

The PC design for Knuth Farm has involved a lot of research, but I think I've come up with something pretty good. Its certainly a lot better than what is currently in place, and should be able to yield some decent results as the system matures over 3 - 10 years.

I'll put up a separate post about that & try to get a photo of the design that i've done.

I think that is about it. Mainly its been about work, a bit of boozing on the weekends and getting out for the odd run.

Which is what i'm going to do now!

Alexis & Ali's Excellent Adventure in Vic Falls & Botswana

Escape from Harare
We took the 'luxury' coach from Harare to Bulawayo. The journey is 400km & it took about 4 ½ hours. It was uneventful except that luxury does not include air conditioning.
It does, however, include a stop at a roadside motel for a meat paste sandwich & a drink of toxic orange cordial.
Unfortunately no pictures were taken of this important event.

Bulawayo
Bulawayo is Zimbabwe's 2nd largest city. Like most urban areas in Zim, not much is happening there at the moment. It has big wide roads and shops with not much in them.
It has a coal fired power station under a kilometre from the 'CBD', providing an attractive backdrop to the city. Again we neglected to take any photos
We had a look around town & asked in some tour agencies about trips to Khame Ruins.
Then we went to a couple of bars and got drunk with a South African guy who fed us unconvincing stories about some great bars that we needed to get a taxi with him to. We got him so drunk that he wouldn't be able to pull any funny business then hailed our own cab to take us there.
The bar was empty so we proceeded to drive around the city to other bars. The cab ran out of fuel and needed the carburettor filling from a plastic jerry can. It was unimpressive.
We got a pizza & went to bed drunk.
Again we took no pictures as it was all fairly unimpressive, though in hindsight the cab journey was an experience.

Khame Ruins
Khame Ruins is a 'hill fort complex', UNESCO World Heritage site, 23kms from Bulawayo.

It features stone terracing, built by the Torwa people in the 16th Century, and was destroyed in the late C17th by the invading Rozwi people. The terraces are piles of broken granite, retained with dry-stone walling. Some of the retaining walls have decorative patterning.
Senior members of the society lived in huts on top of the hill terraces, while ordinary people lived in huts on the ground.
Tour operators quoted $60ppn for a ½ day trip to the ruins. We organised a cab to take both of us there & back for $50. Lesson: everyone needs money in Zim – don't go through an agency as someone else can always organise it for cheaper.


Escape from Bulawayo
On return from Khame Ali visited the natural history museum, and Alexis took a nap outside in the sun. Following the previous day's disappointing meals we opted for $2 sadza & beef at a beer garden. This was to haunt us later.
More time was killed reading, and then we headed to Bulawayo train station for the sleeper train to Vic Falls ($8 one-way, 1st class).
We were slightly apprehensive when we saw the train – very old (circa 1950s) and with no lights on it. We found our carriage and reserved compartment, got our torches out and waited for it to leave.
The train left 90mins late after the locomotive scheduled to pull the train didn't show up. A good start. After eating our unimpressive take-away fried rice (by torchlight) we just got the sleeping bags out & went to sleep.

Train travel Zimbabwe style
The train took 14 hours to travel 400km. It must be some kind of record. I woke up several times in the night to find the train stopped – apparently engine maintenance was being done.
I don't think I'd do it again, but the train was comfortable enough & very cheap!
















One point of interest was seeing a mob of baboons playing across trains at a station. The other highlight was making tea on the trangia in the compartment!

Victoria Falls (or Vic Falls)
Surprised that we had actually got there the first thing we saw outside the station was warthogs nibbling the grass. Nice.
The other thing that you notice is the constant background roar, a bit like background traffic noise, of the falls a couple of kms away.
Our friends through friends Brian and Marlene hosted us at their lovely house in township, and looked after us really well - we owe you guys!
Brian picked us up from the station and took us back to their place where we just chilled and chatted the rest of the day. Township generally seemed in much better condition than similar areas of Harare, everyone on their street had nice gardens, etc.
Vic Falls is a small town, built to cater for the tourist trade centred around the falls and its associated activities along the river. The spaces are modern, clean and well maintained. Due to the dearth of tourists over the last few years, the town is very quiet and like the rest of Zim
times are economically very bad. It is clear from all of the tour booking agencies that it was once a fairly booming place to be.
The town has a really nice vibe to it, in fact it could almost be mistaken for Dunsborough (SW Western Australia) circa 1995 for how quiet and relaxed it felt.
On the outer edges of town are luxury 'safari lodges' – 5* hotels that charge around $350 a night for a double room & upwards. We went for an evening drink at one, which was to be fair, pretty bloody nice with views out over Zambezi national park & a flood-lit artificial watering hole to attract the game for viewing pleasure.




Marlene helped us with booking our activities – bungee jumping, whitewater rafting & the sunset booze cruise on the Zambezi; and the next day they drove us down to the border crossing for the walk to the bungee site.

Bungee Jumping
To say that I was apprehensive about this little jaunt was a major understatement. I had to do it as Ali was doing it, and she was doing it because her brother did it. So Andrew, I was fully blaming you.
Walking out onto the bridge and looking down was a moment of terror about what awaited. It is a very, very long way down. A throng of people were gathered where the jump is at the middle of the bridge, and we walked across to see a couple of young American girls take the plunge. If they did it, we had to do it.
We got our places in the jump queue and got into our harnesses. The nervous fear wasn't pleasant, I could smell it seeping out of my pores. The screams of the people in front of us didn't help. Ali got to go first.

I had had to delay further, to wait for Ali to get back up for the camera. Sitting on the jump platform while the guy strapped my feet up I could hardly feel my body, I felt hollow with fear.
Then it was stand up to the edge, no time to think, 5,4,3,2,1 bungee and I was falling.

The feeling was fantastic – weightless free falling, the water in the gorge just getting closer and no real sensation of what was actually happening. I suppose I could describe it as 'very interesting'.
Then comes the bounce, more falling, a bit of spinning around, and gradually coming to a stop, hanging upside down staring at the river and feeling like your feet are going to slip out of the rope. A guy comes down, attatches you to a harness & you are winched back up to the bridge.
All up, definitely something to do again & glad I did it as its something I have always never wanted to do!

The Falls
The falls are totally amazing and almost incomprehensible. The sight of the volume and the power of the water going over is wild; the spray and the noise that is generated adds to the sensory experience.
The week we visited was the largest water flow over the falls since the 60's. This means more spray, more soaking wet, less view and less photo opps; but my god the volume of the water, g-sus!

Whitewater rafting & sunset cruise
The next day we were out WW-rafting. It was pretty cool, crashing through waves. I would have liked it to be a bit more hectic, but nevertheless it was good fun. Perhaps another trip when the water is lower & the rapids more fierce at some point!
I thought the cruise was perhaps going to be a bit naff, but it turned out to be excellent.
We had all the booze we wanted (though with only Ali & myself, plus a family of 4 it wasn't going to get rowdy); and saw a decent amount of animals – hippo first, then elephant, and some bucks.
A great way to end the day after the rafting.

Pre-school project
Brian & Marlene took us out to the pre-school they had organised to build in a community about 15kms outside Vic Falls. The building was lovely; the only shortage was teachers as the volunteer teachers had gone for 2 weeks collecting thatching grass. They did get some good news that the placement of a permanent teacher had been approved, and they would be starting later this year.

Camping in Zambezi National Park
Now we were really being spoiled. Brian & Marlene took us camping with 2 of their mates to a beautiful spot on the Zambezi river. All there is to say is great laughs, a big fire, stunning location and brilliant people; not to mention the sand-castle building adventures.
Thanks guys, we had a fantastic time!

Road to Botswana & Chobe river cruise
After a night staying at Bruce & Desmore's, including haircuts & vinegar pudding, we hit the road early for the drive to Botswana.
We were fortunate to be driven - the other guys heading over the border to go shopping in supermarkets that actually had a proper array of products. Fortune was still with us, spotting wildlife on the road including lion, sable, impala. Marlene we must get that video of the big cat!
Arriving in Kasane, the gateway to Chobe national park we quickly realised it wasn't such a great place to hang around. To this extent we booked ourselves on another sunset cruise on the Chobe river & made a plan to travel to Maun the next day.
The cruise delivered again – tonnes of animals (literally!); herds of elephant, hippo, crocs, kudu and plenty of birds.
It would have been great to stay in the park, but without having a 4WD and booking the camping spots well ahead of time it isn't really practical.
A quick meal of impala steaks on the trangia & we were off to bed to get up early for a long day of travelling.

Maun & Okavango Delta
The trip to Maun was somewhat painful – 5 hrs on a bus from Kasane to Nata (leaving at 6:30am) along the most potholed road I have ever been down, crammed onto a bus for 25 people with probably 40 on it.
The bus from Nata to Maun was more spacious, but unfortunately it was baking hot & no-one would open the windows (they all seemed to think it was cold)
Maun is southern Africa's fastest growing town. This is due to the plethora of tourists visiting the Okavango Delta. All of the infrastructure is new, new shops, and lots of construction going on.
We stayed a few kms out of town at the Okavango Rriver Lodge. This place was great – nice campsite ($5/n/each), good food, right on the river and Marie who managed it was incredibly helpful. We spent a day chilling out there, and booked our 3 day Mokoro trip into the Okavango Delta through them (~$US100 each).

Mokoro trip
This was the highlight of the trip. We took a mokoro – a dug out canoe traditionally used by the local people of the delta – poled by our great guide Albi.
The mokoros are poled due to the shallow depth of the water in the delta & the large amount of plants and reeds making paddling impractical.
It was a very peaceful way to travel – once you get over the initial jitters of balance & proximity to the water. Albi skilfully poled both of us and our big bag of gear & food through the channels to our destination.
The delta is stunning and traveling by mokoro is beautiful. The vistas are broad, with wide expanses of wetland surrounded by bush. There are lots and lots of birds: a number of different types of storks hunting frogs, fish and snakes; fish eagles and countless others.
Being a wetland the delta is also home to millions of tiny midges (fortunately not the biting type) that swarm above the water. Midges mean food for spiders and one of the unmentioned aspects of mokoro travel are all the spiders that build webs between the reeds to catch the midges. Needless to say you end up covered in midges, spider webs & plenty of spiders sharing the mokoro with you! There is no option to jump around because you are in a highly unstable canoe, so you just have to sit there with the spids!
The mokoro trip took us about 3 hours upstream to an island where we were to camp and head out on game walks. We had a group of 4 women stay with us the first night, and came on the walk in the morning.
Albi got a pretty good deal with us, we cooked up some great meals on the fire, plus snacks & chocolate. The guides must get it pretty good – plenty of good food on each trip they go on!
The morning game walks were brilliant, the one the 2nd morning with just us two & Albi was the best. We saw elephants up close, lion tracks within 100m of our campsite, plenty of zebra, wildebeast, impala, a giraffe in the distance, secretary bird, fish eagles, vultures, warthog, jackal, loads of animal tracks & droppings. Albi was a brilliant guide, really sharp eyes & picking up the tracks with amazing clarity.
We had fun sneaking up on a few animals like the warthogs, the walking itself was good & active and the knowledge that there were dangerous animals around added to the reality of the situation.
Albi's advice if the elephants wanted to check us out – 'walk backwards towards the bushes. If they still come, turn and run into the thick bushes as fast as you can, and keep running into thicker bush'. I'm glad I was thinking the same thing.

Ghanzi & the Kalahari Bushmen
After a long debate as to whether we were going to push on into Namibia and spend a week there we decided to only go as far as Ghanzi (pronounced Hhanzi), on the edge of the Kalahari desert, and visit a project called Trailblazers that runs cultural tourism with Kalahari bushmen and helps the bushmen to maintain their culture.
Trailblazers was lovely – excellent food (really excellent – fillet steak stroganoff, goat curry, etc); we stayed in a bushman style grass hut and they had piping hot showers.
We did a short 'gathering' walk with the bushmen, and they turned up a few bush foods & medicinal plants and told us a bit about them. Their language is one of those that contains lots of clicking and popping sounds, very interesting to listen to. The walk didn't feel at all touristy & their ability to find things where we couldn't see anything was brilliant. It would be great to hear what they would have to discuss with someone learned in Aboriginal bushcraft.

The road back to Zim
We took this in stages and hitched a lot of the way; neither of us wanted to repeat the Botswanan bus experiences if it could be avoided. En route we stayed at Planet Boabab, a very well appointed lodge with camping & huts amongst some massive boabab trees. Ali did a trip out to the saltpans & got massacred by mozzies. I spent the day chilling out & reading.
The architecture of the place was cool – done in a bushmen adobe style, but unfortunately it was all brick & concrete with just a bit of straw mixed into the final layer.
We attempted to hitch from PB to Francistown but the first vehicle to stop was the bus(!); it was a bit of a slog, but we got there & camped at a well appointed place with a great cheese platter, but terrible mains (esp considering the price!)
We got ripped off in the barclays bank in Francistown trying to get dollars (they tried to tell us they had no $US beacause they couldn't be bothered doing the transaction; then they gave us a counterfit note!
Got to the hitching point & took a ride with a miner on his day off who was ferrying people to the border in his pick-up for extra cash.
Through the border with a few questions about why we were coming back here – 'why would any tourist want to spend more than 3 months in Zim?'
Hitched back to lovely Bulawayo, getting in at 3pm. Reluctant to spend another night there we went to the hitching point to Harare and got onto a mini-bus that claimed they were leaving soon to Harare. 'Soon' meant when it was full, 2 hours later. The bus was rammed, freezing & it didn't get to Harare until 11:30. Oh & the driver insisted on playing really bad African r'n'b/ragga really fucking loud and everyone just put up with it. We were the only ones that asked for it to be turned down (which they did) - people seem to have no concept of their rights as consumers here; you paid $15 for the ride, its your bus people!!

Couple of recepies we've been trying on the fire

I thought we'd write up some of our better creations; a lot of the time we're experimenting!


Panfried bread
This bread has been saving us - its easy to make, really tasty, can be done a few differnt ways, and best of all it isn't sadza. Its really a glorified pancake, made with SR flour so it gets fluffy.

SR Flour & some maize meal (if you want it to be a bit heavier), water, little bit of milk, an egg, splash of oil & pinch of salt. Basically make a thick pancake mixture.
Then add orange peel, juice of an orange, sugar for a sweet & orangey version; or
Garlic for a garlic bread version; or
...etc


Spicy derere (okra) and Tomato relish

This relish makes a welcome change to the usual oily and bland rape leaves.
Lightly fry a chopped onion in sunflower oil. Add around 20 chopped derere and 1 small chopped chilly (use a hot one). When the derere is starting to soften add 4 chopped tomatoes, then mix in a tsp of sugar and a tsp of fresh basil when the tomatoes have formed a sauce (less than 10 mins). Serve as a relish with sadza, or with white fish or chicken & rice.


Winter solstice soup
Sunday night is often a time when you don't really feel like cooking all that much, and we were really in the mood for being able to order some thai delivery (not exactly available where we are), especially as 'ma-getzi iyenda' and cooking on the fire in the dark ain't that convenient (even though we cheat as we have headlamps!). The night was cold though and despite a suggestion to skip dinner and just go to bed we realised that we'd need something to warm our bellies. Just when all looked lost the idea of a hearty soup came to mind, and in 15 mins we had a pot bubbling away over the coals with a mixture of onion, curry powder, butternut, potato, sweet potato, tomato and water. No blender available, I just mashed it as best I could with a big wooden spoon.
Perfectly sweet, slightly spicy and lovely and hot; slurped down next to the fire under the stars as the earth started to tilt its southern hemisphere back towards the sun and the promise that tomorrow would be longer than yesterday.


Pumpkin leaves
Whilst I have seen plenty of pumpkin plants in my time - growing in my vegetable garden or volunteer plants making their way out of the compost heap - I wasn't aware until coming here that I should eat the leaves as well as the fruit. As it is winter season we don't have any pumpkin plants growing (the fruit won't set), however I will be putting in the seeds from the next pumpkin we eat for more of these leaves. We bought a massive bunch of the leaves from the fortnightly farmers market for 50c. Despite the dark colour and slightly furry nature of the leaves & stems they are not bitter at all, and it is a shame that they aren't on the menu more in the UK or Oz (I'm sure that the Italian's would have a few recipes for them though).

Pumpkin leaves Tempura
Driving back along the rutted sandy from the farmers market I started thinking about what I could do with the pumpkin leaves. Being a dark in colour and little coarse I thought that they could be bitter if boiled, but that frying them somehow could be nice. A reverie of vegetable tempura crept into my mind as we bounced along the old farm roads and I was locked on course.
The situation of 'ma-getzi iyenda' (no power) when we got back should have told me to wait to do it on the stove another time, but I was straight into making a thin batter from SR flour, water & a little salt. The stems of the pumpkin leaves have to be peeled (not rigorously) to remove the outer hairy skin. Then it was a matter of getting the oil really hot in the frying pan on the fire, dipping the leaves in the batter and getting them in the hot oil for 30 seconds or so. We did 1/2 of the leaves we had bought, and it was certainly a bit of an oil-fest, totally delicious though, and the kids loved them as well - they hadn't ever had anything cooked that way (the idea of deep-fried fish spun them out).
Served with boiled sweet potatoes, avocado and tomato.
Next time I would make the batter a bit thinner (I think proper tempura oil is lighter as well, but a bit hard to find here!) and use a deeper pan with hotter oil, but for a first experiment it was all good. A bit of chilly in the oil could be good as well.

Pumpkin leaves with dovi (peanut butter)
The ongoing dovi addiction continues. I'm not sure if this is an old traditional dish, or just a local dish that has been around in modern times (when did pumpkins & peanuts first make it to Zim?!)
Peel the stems of the pumpkin leaves as before. Bring a pan of water to a vigorous boil, and at the same time heat a frying pan with some oil in it. Blanche the leaves for a minute, drain off the water and then add to the frying pan. Add a Tbspn of dovi, and stir until it is mixed through all of the leaves. Fry until all of the excess water is cooked off.
Served with boiled sweet potato and oyster mushrooms with tomato and basil. Definitely going to do that again.

More ideas than time

It is certainly then case that coming somewhere like here fills the imagination about what can be done - simply as the needs are so evident. Personally I have found that I am really good at generating socially beneficial project ideas, its like my brain is a big factory of ideas, Especially if I have a large amount of input from books or the web, my brain takes one idea and spins it into something slightly different for another place. Its a shame that I don't seem to have the same insights for money making ideas as I potentially could have made some money by now. Maybe its just that I am really not interested in flogging people some new bit of shit that they don't really need in their lives and more interested in solving different types of problems.

Anyway, there are obviously a significant amount of things that need to be done in a place like Zimbabwe, many of them are very feasible and fairly cheap to do. All of the technology is already there, it (in theory) should be a matter of getting people to implement those solutions themselves - if they want them. This last point is very important as it is a waste of time giving someone something that they don't really, really, really need or want. They will always take it, but if you go back in a year's time it'll probably be broken, under-used, or sold for cash. The other factor is don't give people things - ie get out of the Aid mentality. Get people to pay for stuff - loans that they pay-back are ok if they can't afford it up-front. The reasoning is that people won't buy something that they don't see is absolutely essential (not when they have so little money), and Aid just breeds dependency and a 'give-me' mentality - people start to lose self-determination in other parts of their lives as they get dependent on hand-outs; just like in welfare dependency in the UK & Oz.

So onto what I would love to get done here, and some of the things we are working on.

Microfinance - It looks like most funds have left the country (probably with fairly good reason), but this is one of the most important things that is needed. Hyper-inflation (the highest rate in the world, ever) over the last couple of years has wiped out any capital or businesses that people had saved up or running in earlier years. Drought in 2006 & 2007 meant that a lot of small agricultural enterprises that were running (e.g. small livestock projects with 20 - 30 animals) collapsed as people could not grow food for their stock, nor afford to buy the food from elsewhere. Other money making projects collapsed they couldn't afford the raw materials.
Hence there are a lot of skills residing in the rural communities, lots of ideas and know-how, just no start-up capital. 80% unemployment means no chance of getting any money together to start-up small businesses, so without credit it is a dead end situation.
We are looking at the Grameen Bank model as the framework for getting a small-scale scheme to run with the communities that Kufunda already works with, with a trial to be run with the Ruwa community that is closest to Kufunda.

Ferro-cement & bamboo-cement water tanks - people in the rural communities and in the cities have difficulty accessing clean, safe drinking water, as well as additional water for gardens & livestock. There is little infrastructure in the way of pipes in rural communities or peri-urban townships. Infrastructure in cities hasn't been maintained, leading to the cholera outbreaks from last year. Bores can be expensive to put down, and can't necessarily be located next to homes. Seven months of the year here are very dry, but there is a decent amount of rain that falls Nov-March. Water tanks catching roof run-off kept outback communities in Australia hydrated for many years (and still do in more remote areas; water tanks are making a comeback in urban areas as well as authorities realised that they were unnecessarily over-regulating and nannying), and there is no reason why it can't be done here.
Ferro-cement water tanks can be constructed relatively cheaply - tough steel mesh frame, chicken-wire around that, and then cement plastered on. These tanks can be small to large and capture roof run-off during the wet season. Cost is around $100 for a 5000L tank, which will provide enough safe drinking water for a family for the dry season. Two or more tanks can be placed in series as people can afford more, overspill can be fed into garden beds & swales.
Bamboo-cement tanks are a cheaper version developed in Indonesia in the early 80s. A bamboo framework is made, and the cement plastered onto this. Cost around $50, the largest structurally sound size it can achieve is around 4500L. Bamboo is another wonder plant (anyone that has been to northern Thailand or Laos can see the number of different ways it can be used) but isn't really that well used here. It would be brilliant to get a bamboo construction expert from there to come here and run some workshops - could save thousands of trees!
Tank construction could be a very viable small business for someone, and tank costs could be paid off over a few months or shared between neighbours to make them more affordable.

Small-scale Biogas - Most rural communities either have no electricity or intermittent electricity. Most cooking is done over the fire, often in a small kitchen hut separate to the living hut. These huts have poor ventilation and are therefore very smoky, with all the associated health problems, especially for children. Firewood is also a major cause of deforestation, the bush around the outskirts of Harare is now grassland due to firewood cutting. Women & children have to spend hours each day in search of firewood, reducing time for other productive activities such as gardening, education or income generating projects.
Rural households have good potential for small scale biogas units to be set-up. This can be done for as cheaply as $100, again a loan could be made that can be repaid over a few months, and such infrastructure is easily shared between a few households. Human, animal and other organic waste is mixed with water and put into the unit. The waste is digested by bacteria anaerobically and methane is produced. The methane is trapped and piped to a stove for cooking gas. It can also power lights and gas refrigeration. For a small unit the waste from 2 pigs can generate enough methane for 6 hours of cooking each day - plenty for a family. If there are no pigs or more gas is required latrines can be diverted to the system.
90% of pathogens are killed through the digestion process, and the post-digested sludge can be used in compost or put onto fields.
Again the implementation of such systems could be a good business for a few people and a loan scheme could enable households to pay more easily.
For a further idea a social business could be run to achieve more rapid roll out; this idea is as follows: a household is sold a digester unit and 2 pigs through a loan. They look after the pigs, and benefit from the methane. The 2 pigs produce a litter of 8-12. The household give 8-10 pigs back to the company and keep 2 or 3 for themselves, thereby paying for the loan and now they have 2 pigs through which they can generate and income. The company uses the additional pigs to provide more small business units and additional pigs are slaughtered for pork, which is sold and profits go back into the company. Benefits are biogas, employment, use of waste and reduction in deforestation. Training and other assistance would be needed, but that is the essence of the scheme.

Water harvesting through swales - there is a lot of potential to swales (water harvesting ditches on contour) to make crops more productive, reduce erosion and provide enough water for a greater diversity of crops. This could be done on the farm that Kufunda is based at, and everywhere that has a little bit of slope (see www.permaculture.org.au/greeningthedesert for a quick overview)

Income generating projects at Kufunda - mainly around meeting local needs and utilising the skills and resources that are here. In-brief:
Upgrade of workshop facilities to enable more diverse use of the village for hosting higher paying organisations (need regular power, basic conference facilities)
Use of fields for productive cropping to produce sale-able crops.
Establishment of a permaculture nursery to sell seedlings & trees to local communities
Eco-building / appropriate technology consultancy
Permaculture consultancy
Animal production (chickens, pigs, goats)
Hosting / facilitation services
Aquaculture
Compost, vermiculture, other soil ammendments
Herbal remedies and consultation
etc

Internet-café social business - set up an internet cafe in Epworth township, where profits go back into the company to expand. Continue expansion, set up in cities & compete with existing companies; use profits to provide internet services to more remote areas; double up as a resource library and training centre. All profits go back into company to provide more training and new services for people without access. Use Ubuntu software & 2nd-hand computers initially to get started.

Yeah I know its a month late...

Phew, June has been a busy month. A few interesting happenings, more from a work perspective, but all the same pretty good & it actually feels like we have done a couple of things. I've lost track now from where I last wrote, not really sure where I'm up to in terms of what we have done. Last update in terms of what we had been doing was the Inyanger trip, so I think its easiest to forgo chronological order & just give the highlights - its not really going to matter in 10 years time when I'm looking back this what happened on which week!

2 trips to Epworth to meet Elvis, Rod & see boxing
First trip to Epworth, meet one of the local trainers, see some of the young kids that box and taken on a tour of some of the small businesses that are going on there. Make our own beaded butterflies! Very obvious potentials for micro-finance, also nutrition gardens, small-scale biogas, worm farms for waste management and plenty more ideas. I'm keen to do some more stuff there and document some of the urban agriculture that is going on. The only problem is time - getting to Epworth is a 2 hour walk & getting in touch with them is difficult due to the hassles of poor mobile networks. We're also busy with a lot of Kufunda stuff, so that makes it additionally tricky.

One trip with the kids from Kufunda, to show them the boxing. That day we meet three of Zimbabwe's top boxers, based in Epworth in the morning, plus have a dance to some mbira music & visit Rodwell's house. Really lovely guys, and they have a great energy to get things happening in their community. That afternoon we take the Kufunda kids to see the promised boxing competition. It turned out to be actually more of an all comers bout - 'dog-eat-dog' they called it. The ring was formed by the excited crowd and anyone from the crowd could volunteer to jump in the ring to fight against another candidate. Pretty raw, but unfortunately not very good quality boxing for the kids to watch. A couple of the Kufunda kids had a go against each other & did well considering the crowd. Ali ref'd which was important as the Epworth ref would have let them beat each other stupid.

Leadership workshop (5 days)
Working with Marianne & Steve, good experience of designing a workshop. Steve has some interesting concepts in terms of leadership which were good to learn and Marianne had a good control of the design process. Meeting with folk from the communities again is nice and it was interesting to compare their needs with what Kufunda was pushing them toward. There was a realisation that the communities really need assistance with delivering their projects, and Kufunda was providing leadership training (I think which assumed would provide them with the empowerment to get on with their projects themselves). I think it was seen that assisting them delivering projects would be the opportunity that they would have to develop their leadership skills.

On reflection the workshop was interesting to see that it is very much the older generation that are participating. Few people younger than 50 (apart from the Kufundees) were there. Many of the people in these communities had been farm workers, with little experience of having to figure things out for themselves and no requirements for leadership. Now they are having to work to support their grandchildren and take a role in their community to create a better life for the people there. It is difficult to tell but it seems that much of this is a result of HIV-AIDs taking out the middle generation. A very sad state of affairs and sad to see these old Zimbabweans who should be taking peaceful retirement are having to work into their 70s to take care of their grandchildren. Nevertheless these people are here, they are motivated to do something and they are keen to get a number of different projects up and running. Hopefully Kufunda can find ways of enabling them to get on with their projects (& obviously without providing handouts).

Nutritional Garden workshop (3 days)
This was held at one of the communities close to Kufunda - Dunstan. It was planned fairly last minute, with a morning's training in the background from the author of the Healthy Harvest programme. The training was good and emphasised a very participatory approach to the workshop. This approach meant that we as facilitators had to know a broad range of information, and we encouraged the participants to set their own agenda.
The workshop was held in the garage of an old (and must have been very impressive) farmhouse that had now been converted into a school. The first morning was used to set the agenda and identify what the participants wanted to find out. The first afternoon covered food & nutrition, the second day looked at how to grow nutritional gardens & the third day provided some examples of cooking techniques, recipe sharing and evaluation. All up I thought the workshop slightly disappointing considering the training that we had done the week before. It was our second Kufunda- led workshop and we were starting to realize the level of delivery that they were used to providing. There would have been no or little evaluation if we had not pushed for it to be done. I guess that it is the difference between the opportunities and training that we have had, and that the guys here are giving it a go.

Too much computer time
We've been spending a heck of a lot of time on the computer, as we have been typing up the notes & outcomes of the different workshops, and been preparing for the project management training that we're doing. Ali has been working on the lease for Kufunda and we have also been researching and preparing documents for the micro-finance fund that we want to get kick-started. It is little wonder that we haven't been doing that much on the weekends, as we have actually been working a lot of them! In fact when we look at this month we have pretty much been working at least 2 nights a week & on the weekends as well...

Massive compost 24th June

Yesterday Admire, Laurent & I made a compost - a good 10m long, 1.5, wide & 1.5m high. It took a huge amount of green and dry plant material from near the river, plus 6 wheelbarrows of manure. It was Laurent's first big compost & I think he was a bit surprised at how much material it took to make it, and hard work! I buggered my hands from slashing weeds, lots of blisters - I guess my hands haven't been used to doing proper work either. At the end of the day we've got a good result, there should be a good 30 or 40 barrow loads of compost when it will have finished. If Kufunda got a few people together and made 4 of those a year their gardens would be cranking. 6 people with enough tools could knock it off in a morning. Co-ordination people!!
They could probably make 2 in the wet season with all of the extra green material around, and just save up some dry stuff from the previous season.
I was interested to see how much green material is generated by banana trees. Admire said that a banana tree only needs to keep 3 or 4 leaves on it, so the rest could be chopped for mulch or compost; we got a huge amount of material from about 20 trees. They could plant a couple of hundred banana & other mulch producing trees along the edge of those fields & be totally self-sufficient in green material for every compost they wanted to make.
Golden rule of permaculture design - provide all of your biomass needs on-site.