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.

The sadza dilemma

Sadza, sadza, sadza. Everyday, sometimes twice a day, and a good chance of a thin version as porridge in the morning as well.

Sadza is a bit like a cross between a stiff mass of mashed potato and a heavy steamed dough - without the flavour. It is cooked en mass and served in huge amounts, accompanied by a relatively meagre amount of relish - nyama (meat) stew, beans or (usually) oily greens. It is made from coarse milled maize flour (mealy meal) mixed with water, and is basically a 'carrier' for getting the relish into your mouth. You eat it with your (right) hand, picking a lump from the outside of the hot mass of sadza, rolling it into a small ball with your fingers, making a scoop out of it, and then taking some of the relish with the scoop.
Sadza varies from place to place - dependent on the length of cooking time, the amount of maize meal used and the amount of stirring that goes into it - some sadza is definitely better than others. Like most things is is better with salt, and a large amount of it fills you up for a long time.

The nutritional value of sadza is around about that of cardboard - pretty much no nutrients of any value, besides highly refined carbohydrate. People eat masses of it so that they feel full, but they aren't actually getting any of their nutrient needs from it. There is an association with food for energy, but not food for health, and people are really addicted to the feeling of fullness that sadza gives. It is quite a contrast from living in the UK or Australia where we would eat a different thing every night of the week to hear where people literally subsist on sadza & greens. What the nutrition garden workshops showed us was that people are growing a fairly diverse range of vegetable crops, but most of these are for sale & not consumed - the wealth Vs health issue.

The real shame about sadza & the meals that people eat now is that maize sadza has replaced traditional grain crops of millet & sorghum, which are easier to grow and more nutritious. Maize was brought over by the farmers that followed the british colonialists. It is a crop from central america (if only they made tortillas and ate guacamole here!), and is unsuited to the soils and conditions here. To grow successfully maize requires large amounts of water and good soil, and is grown in the rainy season. If the rains are not good the maize doesn't do well. Maize & sadza have become such a huge part of the culture here that people don't even grown millet & sorghum as back up crops - both of which are more drought tolerant & don't require the fertilizer inputs (that few farmers here can afford anyway) of maize.
Sadza can be made from millet & sorghum, but people say that maize meal tastes better. Millet & sorghum can be mixed in with maize meal to increase the nutrition value of the food, but it isn't done.

Apart from encouraging people to grow, cook and eat more diverse and nutritious food, there is little that can be done to crack the sadza dilemma. The workshops that we helped to run raised provided some insights, and telling people not to eat sadza would be about as effective as the catholic anti-HIV campaign of telling people not to have sex.

We've had quizzical looks from a couple of people that haven't travelled when we tell them that no-one eats sadza in europe or australia, and I think the family that we live with thinks it funny that we eat a lot of different food & give the mealy-meal a miss most days. We know we're going to get it on any visits, so its best not to eat it at home as well - for sake of keeping the internal system moving!
Following the nutrition workshops we are going to sit down with the Kufunda kitchen team and help with some meal planning for better nutrition - starting with what else can we add to the sadza to make it better for the body!

On a wing & a prayer: eastern highlands paragliding trip 22nd - 26th May

Highlight of the trip so far: Real mountains, stunning scenery; meeting more great people; beer and meat; 4WD fun; jumping off a mountain tied to a thin bit of plastic tarp; more enthusiastic screaming kids; world's view; mountain stream plunge; dodgy vino; dube-ious accommodation.

On the road again
We had a fairly quick turnaround after getting back from Rusape - unpacking, repacking & a night's sleep. We were back in Harare on thursday, and then to Wendy & Dave's ready for an early morning trip back along the same road we had come from. Thursday night we went to watch Wendy sing in the Phoenix Choir - an amateur choir that was actually quite good - out for a few drinks & then home. Friday we drove out to Inyanger (sp) national park, getting a lift with Dave's gliding friend Nick, with whom we had some great conversation with in the car about his experiences of the craziness that this country has been through (literally everyone has got some interesting stories to tell). After passing through Rusape again the hills really began to get bigger - rounded and rugged granite outcrops and wide valleys, rather than jagged glaciated mountains, and very impressive. Driving along my stomach was starting to sink for leaving my mountain bike at home, as this was unspoilt prime trail country (Si, if you're reading this take a look at the pics of the hills, apparently there are mtb clubs here, just not online, hopefully I can borrow a bike and get out for a ride!)

On top of the world
The guys wanted to see if they could get a quick flight in on Friday afternoon, so we took a turn off the road up to the flying site - a long, bumpy and overgrown road up a mountain to a peak above the Honde Valley. Along the way 3 or 4 local guys appeared and started running up ahead of the 4x4s. The top was overgrown, but the gliding guys had come prepared with bow saws and slashers to employ the local guys to clear the site - obviously the reason why the guys were running so fast up the hill. Once the site was reasonably cleared David, his twin brother Norman and Nick set up their gliders and one after the other took a run and then up into the air over the magnificent Honde valley that literally dropped away from the mountain that we were on, it was almost like standing on top of the world, so we could only imagine what it was like to be up in the gliders. It really looked amazing, and due to the lack of 'lift' (and a desire to get the first flight nerves out of the way) all 3 gliders were soon heading down to the landing site. Ali & I took Nick's car down and Dave & Norman's sons (also paragliders) took the other vehicle, and after a good bit of fun down the same long & bumpy road we wound our way down into the upper reaches of the Honde Valley to the pick up site - a football field at a school surrouned by terraced fields of banana, maize, sweet potato and other fruit trees.

It was over an hour's drive in the dark, and along some more terrible dirt roads, to where we were staying - a nicely appointed chalet with a big open fireplace (it was really cold up there). The beers quickly got going and Norman got a delicious premade stew on the hob to reheat. In the morning we woke up to a glorious view, with the sun just coming up behind the mountains across the valley (well I did, Ali was still asleep for another good 90mins), and promptly got outside to sit in the sun with a cup of tea - I could tell it was going to be one of those weekends that was all about sitting around and soaking up the scenery, fresh air and sunshine. Fortunately paragliding isn't one of those mad dash in the morning sports. It is completely dependent on the wind and the land heating up during the day to give off thermals, and these guys did most of their flying from midday onwards.

The chalet we stayed at is located in the Inyanger national park - host to Zim's highest mountians - Inyanger itself at over 2500m, with the valleys between the peaks at around 800m. There are a large number of holiday chalets there, many owned by companies that rented them out to staff or for corporate entertainment, the rest privately owned and rented out. Really cheap to stay there - $10 a night each, including the house staff that made the fires, cleaned & washed up! There are lots of birds there, we saw some stunning long crested eagles, and different buzzards and falcons.

A flock of paragliders?
We were back to the flying site around half 11, and the essentials of the day were set-up - camp chairs, tea, suncream, book, esky. One of the younger guys got set up and took off around half 12, and we got to see the altitude that could be gained through thermaling - what this sport is really about. Bryan must have been about 700m above take off, which itself was a good 800m above the designated landing site. It looked totally awesome and both of us were keen to have a go at a tandem flight if we could.
By early afternoon a dozen other paragliding crew had arrived, everyone old friends from flying together for over 15 years. Apparently there was a big gliding scene here before the country went downhill, but most of them have left Zim, and it seems like only the diehards remain. It looked really cool when there were several gliders up in the air, circling around in thermals or riding the wind that blew up the side of the mountain. The gliding crew were all really friendly and huge fans of the outdoors (it seems like the white folks that are left here are the ones that love the outdoor lifestyle so much that they just can't leave), with a number of them offering to take us out on some adventures, and giving us great tips on where to go. Need to get a vehicle, need to get a vehicle, need to get a vehicle!

First flight
We were offered the chance to tandem with Barry, the paraglider that seems to have taught everyone else here how to fly. He has been flying for 18 years and we were assured that we were in safe hands. Ali went up first for a really good flight, getting some decent climbs from the thermals that were still around. They 'top-landed' (land at take off site rather than heading to the bottom) and then it was my go. Strapping into the harness is fairly easy, and then my harness was attached to the front of Barry's. Once all the checks had been done the glider was pulled up like a kite, dragging us back with the pull. Then it was time to run forwards, straight downhill towards the edge of the site, and after about 10 strides my feet were running in air and we were up.
The feeling at first was pretty surreal, trying to get into the harness properly as the ground dropped away very, very quickly. Everything below becomes very small, as when heading up in a plane, slightly surreal as well, it doesn't really seem like it is the ground that is below you, just some little toy landscape with little people and little cows. Once we were settled it was very peaceful, turning back and forth over the flying site, searching for some lift and enjoying the amazing view. Alas, because of the late time of day all of the thermals had finished, and the valley wind had begun to subside, so we had to descend rather than make a top landing (the extra weight of 2 people doesn't help). The descent was pretty cool though, tight turns to angle in for the landing site (you can't just land anywhere - in trees and into big boulders are examples of bad places) and as we got closer I could see the hordes of children running from pretty much everywhere to where we were going to land. Rather than the football field that everyone else had been using Barry chose a maize field (apparently the lack of oncoming wind meant that the football field might be too short if we couldn't get our ground speed - about 30kph - down), and we came down quickly into line up. Coming into land you get a much better picture of how fast you are actually travelling, and as the ground is coming up it is pretty exciting. We landed in a tumble amongst dried up maize stalks and blackjack weeds (these release little seeds that stick to you & were particularly fond of the fabric I was wearing) and about 30 or so excited children. After extracting myself from the harness, and all of the little hands that were eager to help in anyway possible we packed up the glider with help from the kids. The walk down to the football field was pretty funny, with the kids asking over and over, 'what is your name? how are you? where is David? where is Sonia? where are you from?' etc Because the gliding guys use this site once or twice a year the kids know the names of the pilots and know who is who when they are up in the air by the colour of the glider. Arriving at the football field (complete with grazing cows & goats) we waited for Ali to arrive with the car and beers, and I made use of the children to pick the blackjacks off my jacket!

Rest of the trip
The remainder of the time was more of the same, hanging out at the top of very scenic spots, watching the gliders take off & land. I had another flight at the same spot as my first one was short with a descent, but the same happened again - & I thought I had been losing weight since I'd been here! We had a couple of huge bbq's ('brai's' over here) and plenty more drinking. Monday the gliders spent the morning at a site called 'World's View' and then packed up back for Harare. As Nick had gone home on Sunday we were now travelling with Jon, who was planning to stay an extra night out there. No problem for us, so we spent the afternoon being taken on a tour of some amazing spots off the beaten track (well the track used to be well beaten but lack of upkeep now means high clearance vehicles only) including a freezing plunge in a river above a decent waterfall.

We had dinner at the promising 'Troutbeck Estate' (a country club style retreat out there; driving past we saw a golf course, horse-riding and fly-fishing). A power cut meant that the place was candle-lit and it was very grand inside, however dinner was not quite up to first impressions. We ordered a local merlot, but a different bottle was brought out; when we asked to change it the waiter said he'd speak to the manager (rather than getting it done promptly); the merlot came out, but was not opened at the table. On tasting it it was fizzy, & had clearly been opened and re-corked. Soup was tinned & the avocado salad was just a diced avocado. Fortunately the trout was fresh and the beer was standard! Pretty funny all in all as it wasn't too expensive ($40 for 3 of us), but the restaurant had all of the fine dining adornments, but shite food & wine. Ali thinks that there might be a business opportunity as a wine consultant, clearly none of the management staff ever drink the stuff to make sure that it is ok! The funniest part of the trip was yet to come though...

We drove back to our chalet to find it all closed up & none of the house staff around. D'oh! No probs - we drove back to the other chalet that Jon had been staying at. Same story. D'oh, d'oh! It was about half 9 and getting pretty cold - potentially a freezing night with 3 of us sleeping in the back of his landcruiser was looming. Jon had a paragliding friend who owned a holiday place up by world's view, and who potentially had house staff that were around, so we tried this as a last option. After a fair amount of searching through the dark for the staff accommodation we found someone that told us that one of the staff was up at the house & could help us. Jon went into the grounds of the house and found the guy in a compromising situation, clearly not using the staff accommodation; so we blagged our way into a warm room with a fire while the guy looked a bit sheepish but didn't really ask too many questions! We woke up to an amazing view, the fire for the bath water had been lit and we cooked up some beans on toast for b'fast - a much better situation than a cold night in the car!

Jon kindly gave us a ride back to Kufunda the next day, saving us a mission from town, and after a shower and some food we rolled into bed about half 7 for a nice long sleep.

Living & a'workin on the land - Rusape Community Visit May 18-20

Seeing more of Zim, and first taste of some mountains; getting double takes from everyone that we were hitching in the back of a ute; ploughing behind cattle; kamikaze insects in the 'bar'; discovering what a beer milkshake actually tastes like; baboons; getting a better understanding of development issues.

Monday we headed out to a community near Rusape, about 2 1/2 hours drive South East of Harare, for 2 days of workshops that the Kufunda organic farming team had arranged. Kufunda have been working with 4 communities for several years to share some of their learnings across a range of areas. This workshop was the last of 3 communities that were visited for a workshop on winter ploughing as part of an organic farming regime.

Getting out there
The trip out to Rusape itself was very interesting. Since the Kufunda car was full with people and workshop materials Ali & I, along with Stephen from Kufunda had planned to take a bus from Harare to Rusape & then get a lift to the community from there. The bus trip turned into a hitch from the side of the road in the back of a pick-up for half the distance, followed by a half-hour wait for another ride and a second, very squashed trip in a pick up the rest of the way to Rusape. Total cost of the trip $3 each, half the cost of the bus, and a lot more oxygen! We received some very strange looks from people that were sharing the tray with us, and from people that were driving past. One guy asked us what on earth we were doing as white people never ride like this or hitch, because they all have enough money to drive themselves. When we told him what we were doing he was very encouraging and asked us to tell our friends and families how safe and beautiful Zim is, how welcoming the people are as the people here really needed to benefit from the economic effects of tourism and also the knowledge sharing that visitors brought to the country.

Rusape is on the edge of the eastern highlands, and on the way there we experienced the increasing number of large granite outcrops and massifs beginning to loom around us. Rusape is a small town on the road between Harare and Mutare (Zim's 3rd largest city). Like most habitations of similar size, the roads into town are populated with small fruit & veg stalls peddling sweet potato and people rushing out to meet cars to sell bags of apples, bananas and oranges, as well as lots of hopefuls waiting for a lift out of town, accompanied by various amounts of luggage and children. As was our experience the buses are few and far between, and mostly over full, so the chance of a hitch promises a quicker and more comfortable journey.

Community workshops
Kufunda work with two communities outside Rusape - one next to the massive dam at the bottom of the granite hills, and the other up in the hills. We arrived to lots of smiling faces and a hearty welcome. We arrived in the late afternoon, so no time to start any work on the first day. As is the Kufunda way introductions are held in a circle with all participants (a process that seems to drag on if anyone doesn't understand what 'keep it short' means, plus translations add to the duration) and a short prayer was said to open the proceedings.

Dinner was a basic beans and sadza, and then we were asked down to the local 'night spot'. This consisted of a small and dilapidated row of shops, mostly now closed, that fronted a shut-up 'lake resort' (some kind of accomodation / bar / restaurant with views over the dam). The bar was run from a previous fast food joint, we were seated in what had been a butchers (picture white tiles and flickering fluro lights). Drinks on choice were either one type of 'clear beer' (lager) or this local brew called 'Scud', which isn't home brewed but is commercially made by a company called 'Chibuku'. Scud is brought out in 2L opaque brown plastic jars, and is shaken vigourously before serving. (Note anyone going to the garden festival there is a DJ crew called Chibuku ShakeShake - this is where the name comes from). The shaking mixes up the 'roughage', and then a flat and chunky milky looking brew is poured into a cup which is then emptied in one go and passed to the next person. After managing to swallow a mouthful of it, the taste can only be described as a slightly sour beer milkshake with bits. The locals say that it is both a drink and a meal in one, when i've managed to get through a whole jar of it I'll confirm whether this is true or not! The entertainment for the evening was watching these large bugs (a cross between a caterpillar and a dragonfly) flying up to the lights, getting caught in spiders webs, wriggling themselves free, dropping to the ground and flying up to do it over again. Apparently they had a sting in their tail so none of the spiders would go for them - a pity.

The workshops with the two communities were very interesting, as apart from the farmers markets this was the first time that we have seen any outreach work that Kufunda do. The training was around the 'winter plough' stage of a series of organic farming sessions (two more to follow later in the year). The trainer, Mr. Murengwa (a farmer from one of the other communities that held the same training) demonstrated the set up of the plough (to be drawn by two cattle) for correct depth of tillage, before we hitched the cows up for the main event, ploughing the demonstration field. The cattle moved much more quickly than I'd imagined, and they weren't the type to plod along in a straight line as you might have imagined. Much stick whacking and cursing was required to keep them ploughing a rough line. Ali & I both had a go & it was much harder work to keep the furrows on track than I first thought. As the fields were ploughed the old maize stalks were put into the furrows, and were covered by the soil 'thrown' by the next furrow. This is to add organic matter to the soil that will break down before crop sowing in October - November.
Following lunch at the end of the workshops there was some great singing and dancing and all of the participants said how happy they were that Kufunda had come to provide the training and bring us along as visitors.

We also took a short visit to a pre-school, where many of the children there make up to a 5 kilometre walk to get to the preschool; such little tiny kids making such a long trip. The school was run by 2 ladies, situated between some run down church buildings (apparently the church group aren't too keen on the preschool using their buildings and would remove all of the kids drawings when they used the rooms - very Christian of them, bunch of c-hunts). The teachers are trying to raise money for a preschool building and teaching materials - currently the kids are doing most of their work in the sand - drawing and learning to write their names. Terrible conditions considering the investment that this country had for education in the early 90s.

My interpretation of the workshops
Whilst it was well intentioned by the team from Kufunda that were running these workshops, there were several issues that I had with them, and a number of reasons why I don't think that will be effective. These reasons are also common to lots of community education campaigns run in places such as the UK, Oz, and other (most) development projects - I'm not singling Kufunda out as being particularly ineffective.

• - ploughing in poor granitic sands destroys soil structure and in the long-term will ruin soil fertility. Green manure planting halfway through the growing season (maize is a wet season crop), followed by slashing of green manure and crop waste to break down as mulch would help to build soil structure and suppress weeds.
• - the set-up of the plough was demonstrated with a tape measure and giving the correct heights and depths in centimetres. None of the workshop participants had a tape measure; no alternatives (eg a stick with marks on it were provided)
• - less than half of the workshop participants had access to a plough or cattle to pull the plough, no alternatives were provided.
• - no baseline data was collected to see how many people currently did or didn't plough, or how people set up their ploughs prior to training.
• - there is no monitoring or evaluation plan
• - the Kufunda 'circle' process done before and after the workshops doesn't give accurate feedback because Zimbabweans, like most of us at times, don't speak their true feelings in public as they don't want to offend people and would much rather give positive feedback and not do something than to let someone know that they have been wasting their time (apparently this is a huge problem with development projects across Africa and one of the main reasons that most development projects fail - a lack of understanding of the local people and their actual needs, more on this in a future post I'm sure).
• - We picked up that a lot of the participants came along for the free lunch and a chance to catch up with their friends from around the community, more so than the training, which for a lot of the time people weren't really paying a huge amount of attention to (a lot of the participants were complaining about the food rather than talking about the w/s content)
• - We had the feeling that they way that Kufunda have worked with these communities - providing free lunches, paying for school fees, building a preschool for one of them - that they have come to expect handouts from Kufunda, rather than Kufunda building capacity.
• - No handouts or follow-up information was provided or offered.

So we certainly learned a lot on this trip, and as the saying goes it is possible to learn more from what doesn't work than what does. Unfortunately with the lack of evaluation or debrief it is unlikely that Kufunda will improve the process...so this is perhaps a role for us to offer some assistance and get the team to do a debrief and think about what did and didn't work - something that isn't part of the culture here.

First hand stories of foreign aid problems
I also talked a good deal with one farmer and learnt from his first hand experience about the problem that food aid has been causing in Zim. Lack of rainfall for the 2008 rainy season meant poor harvests. International donors such as the World Food Programme and US Food Aid brought in lots of maize meal, dried beans & other basics. Because far too much food aid was brought inde (there is actually far too much food produced in the world & it is easy to dump excess on 'starving' populations) surplus is sold, driving the sale price of these commodities down. Thus the farmer I was speaking to could normally sell the beans that he grows for $5/kg, but can now only get $1/kg as there are still big surpluses left from the food aid. At these prices he can't afford to live, send his kids to school, etc. Its a balls-up that happens all over the world through food aid programmes.
This was reinforced by one of the Kufundees who owns some farmland in the southwest of Zim. His story was that his wife applied for food aid last year, but was refused based on their household income. His wife was annoyed, but he said that they will just have to be careful with what they have and work hard to fill any gaps. They did this, and got by, and worked hard to prepare their land and animals for the coming rains. Apparently many of his people in his area that received the food aid did little the prepare their land, as they had got used to the free hand-outs; they missed the opportunity from the good rains early this year and now they don't have enough to eat because the food aid has stopped. Another great balls-up.

The way that the villages are situated, either at the bottom of or amongst huge areas of bare granite rock there is massive potential for water harvesting - combining swales and dams to increase infiltration, reduce erosion, provide water for irrigation and habitat for fish. Given a small amount of investment to create such structures those communities should have no difficulty resolving any water issues they have, however it is the small amount of investment that is the tricky bit.

Baboon hunting
Following the training on the tuesday we took a hike up one of the granite hills in search of baboons. After a decent climb we were within 100m of 4 baboons patrolling the highest point on the hill, keeping a good watch on our movements. Seeing as the biggest one was a very well muscled fellow we decided not to get any closer, but it was nevertheless a pretty cool moment spotting our first wild humanoids!

Party Weekend - 9th & 10th May

This weekend was a busy & crazy one - Farmers Market in the morning; then off to town with Fidelis to the Bob Marley commemoration concert (which was rained out); meeting Fidelis' very funny uncles; seeing a terrible boy band at the Book Cafe; rescued by Allan to go drinking with Alice, Webber & Lucy at Alice's house till 4am; waking up for breakfast beers, followed by a massive fry up on sunday morning; drunken missions for more beers & randomly meeting Webber's mate who is a biochemist & can help out with herbal research for Kufunda; more drinking all day Sunday amidst a crazily heavy downpour, conjouring up plans for a warehouse party with Webber; taken to one of the dodgy 'ghetto' areas to see a brilliant dub band where the whole bar almost went silent with WTF? when 3 whiteys walked in - but quickly picked up again & plenty of smiles and hellos all round when they saw us drunk & dancing (plus 20 mins of some guy trying to convince me to find an Australian girl for him - ladies??); then off to a night club where we had delicacies of bull's balls bbq'd over a fire in a 44gal drum out the front in the car park (& usual African night club recipe of bad music played far too loud for the sound system); 6 of us in the car on the way back to Alice's at 1am & a very early wake up to get back to Kufunda.

Brilliant fun & good to meet some very funny party crew so early into the trip, but after 5 weeks off the booze I have certainly lost my touch - hangover lasted 2 days, ouch!

Kufunda week 3 1/2

OK, here's the week 3 update - a little late (trying to keep up with them every Sunday) due to busy weekend activities and a lack of power at Kufunda. It gets difficult to think back more than a week ago, but as I make notes back in time things slowly emerge from the mists of my mind (& at least I don't have the normal weekend haze of london to contend with!).
Again there is plenty that has happened, I'll try to split it up so people reading this don't have to read everything, but I've got what I want to remember down. On reflection I think early on this last week was where the reality set in & Ali & I both got a little bit frustrated & p.o'd with things - bound to happen after the high of being somewhere new & exciting. A couple of things combined to give us the WTF?s but I think we're through it now (I'm sure there will be more to come).

The weekend was great however and has been really interesting. We went to Harare International Festival of Arts, we are really fortunate that this was on when we arrived as it gave us a forum to meet a few more lovely people & get a taste for the 'Harare vibe', as well as seeing a couple of great shows.

The power is now back on at Kufunda, so I think that work will really progress now as everyone can work later (lights to see & not reliant on fire for cooking), their computers will work & the water will be on to water the gardens. We are feeling like we are starting to create a bit of our own structure about what we are working on & this is also making us feel a bit more grounded.

Last Tuesday we went to the opening show of HIFA. We were invited to go with David and his wife Wendy & stay over at their house in Harare as getting back to Kufunda at night is nigh on impossible without our own vehicle. David used to be a tobacco / maize / cattle farmer north of Harare before 'liberation' of properties occured. He is now working for an organic farming outreach programme that is doing some work on Kufunda fields trialling organic farming methods and extracting essential oils from a wild tagetes variety (a type
of marigold) that their company sells to the french perfume market.
We dropped our bags at his house & then went straight to the venue as it got busy early & we needed to get tickets. The show was sold out & after a bit of a trawl for scalpers (none around) we decided we needed a good story to the box office that someone official had left tickets for us to collect as we had just flown in. Ali worked her magic and we ended up with 2 free tickets to the show, nice work babe! First scam of the trip pulled off! We were in extra luck as David & Wendy were at the front of the queue to get in & we ended up with a great position with them at the front.
The show was really interesting - a mix of dance and song that was pulled off well with an obviously much smaller budget than available to similar shows in Perth or London. We were surprised at the overtly political message of the show; scenes of president RM & his cronies throwing money around & ending up chucked down a hole in the stage by the poor that had risen, and testimony to the hundreds that had died in last year's political violence. The audience was mainly white Z's

On Wednesday we stayed in Harare to get some work done at 'the book café - a bit of an artists & cultural hub in Harare with fast(ish) broadband, and strangely no books. One of the bonuses there was meeting a guy that runs the UBUNTU support for Harare (he noticed that we were running it) who also works with young people to set up microfinance & social enterprise projects. I am hoping that we can work with him to both get ubuntu on the computer systems here and also look into the potential for getting some of his young project teams to work up some social business projects with Kufunda. Ali & I have both been reading 'Creating a World Without Poverty' by Muhammed Yunnas, the person that set up the Grameen Bank in Bangledesh. He puts together a very strong argument of how the capitalist business model can be turned into 'social business' to lift a lot of people out of poverty and run environmentally sound companies, and gives some examples of where it is already happening. We'd both like to see if we can help something similar get started, and I would recommend that anyone interested in development issues or business / commerce has a read of the book. Potential social business ideas that I can see to link with Kufunda include an OPV seed company, agricultural & horticultural consultancy, vermiculture & waste management, energy technologies (solar pv, solar cookers, biogas) and herbal remedies.

Thursday we were back at Kufunda, the place was a bit of a buzz as the transformer for the power supply had arrived. The guys from Z E S A, Z's equivalent of a national electricity company arrived in the afternoon (supposed to be here in the morning) to turn off the power and to direct the installation. The transformer was massive & weighed 700kg. It had to be raised and sited about 5m up a concrete pylon. Although the Z E S A guys were supposed to have a crane all of their cranes in the country have disappeared due to mis-management. So the method was to use a double pulley with some of the Kufundees helping to lift the 700kg mass off the back of a ute & pull the pulley. It really didn't look safe to me & I kept away - the rigging didn't seem to have enough strength to hold the load. 1.5m up off the back of the ute and the hook holding it gave way, the transformer fell, injuring 3 people, very fortunately not seriously; any higher or if it had bounced off the ute 2 people could have easily been crushed. I was really angry as they were rushing to get the job done on an afternoon before a long weekend; I could understand the urgency - they had been without power to the main village for 120 days, but it is really not worth having 2 of the most productive men in the village taken out for several months or permanently for the sake of spending another week figuring out how it could be done safely, a winch & some scaffolding seemed like the idea to me. The guys came back the tuesday after the weekend, this time with stronger kit & got it up, but it still would never have passed for basic occ health & safety anywhere that had it. The power was turned back on that night & music was coming from various stereos around the place! A few days without power gave us an unwelcome taste of how most people in rural areas live. It isn't pleasant having to cook everything on the fire, and it takes time to collect firewood, especially once the immediate wood to hand has been used. We see lots of people taking firewood from properties along the way into town. This is actually illegal, but people have little choice if they are going to eat. A lack of money and shops within walking distance means that all food has to be cooked (people basically live on sadza and beans). Additionally no power means that once the sun has gone down little productive work can be done as there is no light to see by. I'm keen to investigate solar cookers, but we need to find a model that will allow people to cook sadza (which needs a lot of heat energy & regular stirring) as people here don't seem to want to eat anything else. Its interesting to note once again that cultural barriers (ie, everyone eats sadza and there is little else available in rural areas) is such a barrier to people taking up a technology that could make their lives easier.

Friday David took us back in to his place for more HIFA for Friday & Saturday. Most of the shows that we wanted to see had either been on previous nights or were sold out, and we felt it would be pushing our luck to try to scam it again! We managed to get tix for a couple of good African musicians and a jazz 3 piece from New York who were pretty good. The atmosphere was really good, people were really friendly, not pushy at all; it was sort of a mix between a PIAF (perth international arts festival) crowd and more of a typical young persons music festival. Despite lots of people drinking there wasn't any trouble, and this is the general feel of Harare, everyone is very amiable and interested to meet you. Allan from Kufunda introduced us to some of his mates from Harare who were really cool, have travelled quite a bit and they've invited us out to some other gigs in town & another festival out on the Mozambique border (need the malaria tabs for that one!)

We called it a night about 11:30 on Saturday night despite everyone else continuing to party, as David & Wendy were taking us up to their country house on Sunday quite early. They had lent us their car, so we drove back through the streets of Harare which are a bit like a rally course in themselves, no street lights, most traffic lights working but not all, big potholes in the road & they occasional pothole so big that they have put up a sign (unlit & about 5m in front of the hole). Just as well there is very little traffic as it would be a bit of a nightmare.
In the morning we jumped in the back of their ute for an hour's drive up to Barwick. The journey was really nice, seeing the countryside go by, with some big jagged hills that looked sweet for mtn biking & hiking. The countryside is amazingly populated, the rooftops of little villages could be seen over the top of the long grass all of the way up the road and lots of people just walking along the side of the road carrying goods or waiting for a hitch. Hitching seems to be one of the main forms of transport here as the buses are few & get over-full in the towns that they depart from. I still think that bikes could go a long way to helping people get between communities, but when they barely have enough money for food, getting even an old deadly treadly is likely to be beyond them unless a creative approach is taken (bamboo bike project?)

David & Wendy are totally awesome, and have some great stories to tell about life here before the troubles; they loved the farming lifestyle and are big fans of the outdoors. They are obviously really sad about what has happened, but not bitter, saying that they have to be thankful for the time they had and what they still have compared to a lot of people in the world. On their farm (which was big, but with only a small percentage of arable land). They employed over 200 people, providing them with wages, accommodation, some land for growing crops, a health clinic, a primary school, a community hall and more. When the invaders arrived their employees all wanted to defend the farm but D&W asked them not to as they knew it would bring more trouble. D offered to teach the invaders how to farm the land & make it profitable (none of them knew how) and also offered for them to take on their staff who knew how to manage the farm (this was also refused). End result is that 19 people were given the land where before over 200 were earning a livelihood, and none of them know how to farm it, so assets were sold off for a quick return and there is no capital to properly manage the land. D&W said that if they were compensated for their land they would go back to farming straight away as they love it so much.
We had a great briarr (SA for bbq) for lunch & met a couple of their friends that still own their farm, but only just. They have lost over 70% of it to 'liberators', and changed their production from beef, maize & tobacco to horticulture (beans, peas, passionfruit, etc) they they farm intensively. They had a friend in the vicinity that supplied over 40% of the mange-tout (snow peas) to the european market - so that's where sainsbury's were getting them from.

Monday we got up for a very early drive back to Kufunda, arriving just as a massive downpour was going on. It was really heavy & interesting to see how much rain they get here in a good downpour. There was loads of run-off eroding the un-tarred roads out to Kufunda, and it must be causing a fair amount of topsoil erosion from agricultural land as well. I'm going to work with the permaculture guys to look at some water harvesting & erosion minimisation earthworks for before the summer wet season.
Unfortunately power was still out & the rain meant we couldn't cook on the fire either. I took the opportunity of a lift into town to get some ready to eat foods, but the trip that was supposed to come back at 3pm didn't get back to half 7, leaving Ali stuck here with no way of cooking any food all day. While in town we went through the Mbari markets, which is in the middle of one of the really poor high density areas. We were ok with the Kufundees, but told not to go there by ourselves as there was some risk of someone trying something on. The guys said that there were 10-15 people living in the rooms of the high rises near to the markets, windows were broken & boarded up or replaced with cloth or plastic, or just left open. Loads of rubbish everywhere and hundreds and hundreds of people hanging around with nothing much to do. And the same thing will be happening across cities all over the continent - pretty depressing.

Tuesday however the power got sorted out, so now everything is back on the move again. We've got to crack on with this project mgt training course, so doing that, helping to finish the floor of the dojo, working on the waste mgt plan and working on the currency project. Time to go & get busy!

Oh & I just ate caterpillar for lunch; tasted a bit like shrimp, but not quite as juicy. Sorry for the lack of pics, but net connexion is slow, but now that we have power again I'll try in the evenings when no-one else is using the bandwidth!