Weeks 3 and 4

appetising!

We have had a very exciting and varied couple of weeks. We have not only broadened our agricultural knowledge through learning how to construct a kitchen garden, but we have expanded our culinary tastes through sampling a Rwandan delicacy, fried flies. Emily and Rhianna were convinced that these flies tasted like sorely missed bacon, but perhaps this was just out of desperation. We also celebrated the end of Honore’s university exams with a wild party which included banana cake, banana juice and Honore’s dancing debut.

Our work in the communities has been split between finishing the energy efficient stoves and making kitchen gardens.  It’s probably fair to say kitchen gardens are a lot more physically demanding than making stoves. Our first attempt was fairly slow as we were getting used to the new techniques and methods. Perhaps most challenging was cutting down trees and carving them into wooden posts and pegs using a small, blunt machete.  Wildly swinging at a tree and hoping for the best was our initial tactic, to the amusement of the villagers. Joel and Ed were most successful with this and are slowly becoming accepted by the villagers as fellow tree fellers.

You are probably wondering – how exactly do you build a kitchen garden? Well, here’s a little rhyme to make things clearer…

Clear a space in the soil

(this requires significant toil),

puncture the earth with holes,

and then insert wooden poles.

Consult with Honore

‘cause he knows the best way,

to wrap the poles with sack.

We've really got the knack!

Use rope to tie it tight

pull with all your might!

Repeat for level 2,

then you’re half way through.

Shovel soil into the spaces

And don’t splatter on-looking faces. (*cough* Allen *cough*)

Sprinkle manure on the top,

and look forward to the crop!

the team with the second kitchen garden

Thanks Allen for the mud make-over!

On a more serious note, kitchen gardens are important because they allow people to grow a wider variety of crops all year round. This provides people with the ingredients for a more balanced diet. The crops grown in the kitchen garden can be watered using unclean water as by the time the water reaches the roots of the crops it has already been filtered by the soil. We have made friends with two boys from the village, Peter and Ernest, who have been helping us to make the kitchen gardens and we invited them to come to our lessons at Zion Hill school so they can improve their English. We were so excited when they turned up for the lesson, albeit 2 hours late, and we are looking forward to teaching them again next week!

a finished energy efficient stove in use!

We have also been working in the RDIS office by proof reading important documents and writing a questionnaire on the benefits of energy efficient stoves. We also completed the stoves we made last week by covering them in cement, a task which the perfectionists in our group loved!

We would like to say a big thank you to our friends and family for their continued support and prayers!  We have seen answers to the prayer requests we posted last week, specifically about the weather. Despite rain clouds gathering, the rain held off and we felt the first drops only when the last shovel of soil had been added to the kitchen gardens!