This week, the primary school is not in session as the Primary 6 level (8th grade-ish, I believe) is taking National Exams…a HUGE deal. So, my regular class of Primary 3 & Primary 4 students is on vacation for the week. This means I have my mornings open for other adventures.
Today, I joined Tom, Anna (another Peace Corps volunteer), and Teo (a local Rwandan who works for Humanity for Children as an interpreter – he is very helpful to have along) on a garden project. Each week, Tom organizes a garden project in the town of Karama where HFC is currently building a community health center. The goal of these projects is to help families that suffer from malnutrition to start gardens of their own, so that they are able to prepare balanced meals. The gardens are 2-4 beds depending on the amount of land, and they plant some type of protein (generally beans), a starch (like taro root, but there are others as well), and a couple of other vegetables. The Rwandan climate is perfect for gardening and makes it easy for anyone. Each week, a new family across town is chosen and Tom and Teo provide a demonstration for that family and their neighbors. When the project is successful, the neighbors help the family prepare and plant the first bed and then the family later helps the neighbors start a bed of their own. Ultimately, the families that can’t afford to buy their food will be growing their own!
Now, as many of you know, I am unable to grow anything. Even the heartiest of plants manage to die under my care. It makes no sense…I come from a family of gardeners! As you can imagine, Drew laughed when he found out I would be helping on a garden project. I was excited though to help out and learn a little about how to grow food, something I have always been interested in, but never done. After today’s project, I am inspired to have a food garden of my own, once we are in a house with space to grow one.
I do want to make sure I record what I learned today though, so I remember how to get things started later, so bear with me as I try my best to describe how to create a perma-garden (and all be hand too!) It was a big morning of firsts for me, so I will include those as well.
We headed to Karama this morning around 8:00. Karama is a village on the other side of the valley from Kibungo. There is a road along the top of the ridge that connects the two places, but it is about a 2 hour walk, and there are no buses that run through there, so we walked as the crow flies, down the valley and back up the other side. It cuts about an hour off the journey. Knowing, I was in for a strenuous morning of digging, I made sure to eat a protein rich breakfast of bread with peanut butter. I did not however take into account the walk to get there. The walk down into the valley was ok, but once we started going back up the other side, I was hurting. First of all, the elevation here is about 6000 ft – definitely a lot thinner air up here than I am used to. Then, the morning equator sun was beating down on us for much of the walk. And, we were carrying garden tools. Ooof…we made several stops on the way up for water and rest. Luckily, the group I was with was understanding of my physical needs. I will definitely be in a lot better shape by the time we leave here!
During all of our stops up the mountain, I learned a lot about Rwandan fruit. There were many banana groves, and farmers harvesting bananas with a machete, easily cutting away the fruit and leaves. Apparently, banana trees are similar to celery stalks - very porous and very easy to cut. Also, banana trees do not reproduce like regular trees, so they are all clones of each other, started from a branch of another. There were also TONS of mango trees, with mangos that are getting ready to be perfect (another week and they will be at market!). It is important to remember to never fall asleep under a mango tree here, or use it to dry your clothes. There is a fly called a mango fly that will attach to your clothes. They then burrow into your skin where they nest. After a couple of days, apparently baby mango flies are coming out of your skin, and you end up with a severe skin infection. It does not sound pleasant, so it is ok to enjoy the shade of a mango tree for a few minutes, but don’t hang out too long. We also saw a new type of fruit that generally grows in Southeastern Asia, but also grows here. It is called a Jackfruit. They are massive and are full of hundreds of seeds surrounded by an edible pod. They are very sticky to pull apart, but once you are able to taste it, you enjoy a very sweet flavor, similar to bubblegum. After we saw one on the trail this morning, Teo brought one by the house this afternoon for us to try. It is very interesting looking and pretty good, but sooooo sweet. I could not eat more than 2 or 3 pods at a time.
We finally arrived at the home of Madelena, the community leader who would be hosting the demo garden. As we walked around her yard scoping out the perfect spot for a garden, we looked down to discover our feet and legs were covered in large black ants. We had chosen a giant ant mound as our garden. We quickly moved away and tried to rid ourselves of the crawling creatures, especially since they would crawl up our pant legs and bite. Eventually, we found a spot free of ants, but before we could start working, we each took turns using the latrine to strip off our pants and shake out the ants. They were persistent little guys!
The plot that we settled on was a small open space on the side of the hill. It was a bit uneven and overgrown with vegetation, so we started on the first tasks of the morning, clearing and leveling. We pulled up all the vegetation that had taken over a small taro root garden. We set the taro plants to the side, so that we could reuse them later. We then moved some dirt to level the space. We then started to draw out the garden. Because the garden was on a hill, it was important to consider a couple of things…erosion from wind and water. Because of these factors, in our map of the garden, we included 2 water holes on either end to catch excess run off. There was a wall all around that would also act as a bed, and a path around the central bed, so that in the maintenance of the garden, you would never step on the actual bed. On the downhill wall, we planted plants that do not need to be pulled up to be harvested. Their root systems will hold the dirt in place and help prevent wind erosion. For this garden, they chose to plant pumpkins. In the other walls, we planted to the taro root that was left over from the original plot of land. I am getting ahead of myself though.
Once the map or design had been “drawn” in the dirt, we began moving dirt around to complete a process called double digging. This basically means you dig up a lot of dirt, and then you dig up more dirt and break it all loose with a fork or hoe before shoveling it back in. This process creates a spongelike consistency that allows the roots to grow straight down rather than fighting for space with their neighbors. This way when you are planting, you can put plants closer together and plant more within one bed. While refilling the bed with the “sponge-y dirt,” we added charcoal, manure, and ash (from burning old garden foliage) into the dirt. The charcoal helps the soil hold water. The manure provides oxygen and some nutrients, and the ash provides nutrients. If no manure is available then compost is a good substitute. Once the dirt was all back in its place, we replanted the taro root. We also left seeds with Madelena to plant pumpkin, carrots, beans, and a spinach-like plant that is found here in Rwanda.
Once the garden was complete, Madalena took us to meet another family that would be in need of a garden for next week’s project. It will be a special garden, as 2 families share a plot of land and will therefore share the garden. We also stopped by the community health center that is going up in Karama to check on the progress. It is currently awaiting an inspection before work can continue. Around lunchtime, we were headed on our way, back across the valley.
On the way back, the sun was hidden behind some clouds and I did much better with the hike. We also took it a little slower to start since everyone was so tired. At the bottom of the valley, Anna stopped to visit with a family that she has met over the past few months while walking to Karama for the garden projects. The family has a momma goat with 2 babies. During her encounters with this family, she had requested that they let her milk their goat, so that she would be able to make goat cheese. While this is very common in other parts of the world, it is almost unheard of here in Rwanda, so when we came through, and Anna attempted to milk the goat, many people gathered to see the sight. Unfortunately, she only got about 5 or 6 good squirts, so not enough to do much with, but it was a great experience to watch my first goat milking. The family said she could try again next week and to come early in the morning, so she can get the milk before the kids feed.
After quite an eventful morning, we made it back to the house around 1:30, very ready for some lunch. It was such a cool morning to see projects in action, learn a lot about gardening, and see more of the Rwandan countryside. I took some photos that I will have to share later, since I can’t figure out how to get them to upload to the blog since we have been here. Our internet access is interesting, but I promise to share photos when we arrive home.
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