Monday 7 November 2011

Down on the farm

It’s a hot sweaty night in Kosele, despite the rain we’ve had. I hope this isn’t the start of a hotter, drier spell. We still need another couple of weeks of rain for the best yields on our farm.

Although I hadn’t planned it, today has ended up being a down on the farm day. Our Monday morning planning sessions are becoming very fruitful now. Mary and Duncan are both really getting the hang of what they’re for. As a result of the school closure due to exams we have a larger army of child labour to exploit than usual for the next three days. Weeding and land clearance will be happening as well as bean harvesting. I can’t wait to see the bean harvest figures. They will be our first proper harvest on the new land we have acquired.

The ‘big green tractor’ trundled off to one of the local primary schools today to fetch more grass for mulching our Farming God’s Way, (FGW), plots. We have done really well in our quest for one hundred per cent mulch cover. Our God’s Blanket is really thick on most of the FGW plots now. It’s amazing how much grass you can squeeze inside and on top of a Landrover – not to mention down your shirt, trousers and throat. The kids swept into action once we’d got our precious load back to base and we soon had the mulch sorted. Even the smallest children pile in to carry off big bundles of mulch. They really enjoy themselves playing with the grass.

After dealing with the mulch I found myself doing guided tours of the farm for the head teacher at the school we got the grass from, followed by the District and Area Education officers. They were all very enthusiastic about what they saw and I am hoping that their enthusiasm will give me opportunities to take the FGW training into some of the local schools. The two education officers had to put up with a somewhat extended talk through the principles of FGW due to a downpour that lasted a couple of hours. I am a bit of an evangelist for FGW and they are both keen on developing it so we had a very fruitful time together. One of the great things about the training is that it gives opportunities for a number of very effective experiments to demonstrate the science of this method of farming. Kenyan school pupils have relatively few opportunities for direct experience of scientific experiments, data gathering and analysis so it’s really exciting being able to share ‘doable’ science with influential and keen education officers.

Mr Dedans, our head teacher, confirmed the possibility of a police officer turning up at school tomorrow to supervise access to the exam area. He did reassure the kids that there was no need to worry about being arrested. The new exam desks that Joseph has made look very impressive in the exam room and the grass in the school compound was ‘slashed’ by some of the boys in Class 7 as part of our general tidying up for the exam supervisor’s arrival. Slashed is probably a bit of an exaggeration, (although it is the term that is used for cutting grass). The lads just tried to beat it into submission with the slashers, (long bits of metal shaped a bit like hockey sticks with a sharp edge). I think the grass won really.

The exam supervisor turned out to be a really nice guy. He is a teacher in another primary school and is very keen on farming. He also did the farm tour and made some really helpful suggestions about plants that act as weed and insect repellents. I will be arranging a visit to his farm to see the tissue culture banana trees that he is growing, (it sounds like he has a small forest of them – five hundred altogether). This is REALLY exciting news as we have been planning to grow tissue culture bananas for some time. They are specially prepared to make the seedlings that they are grown from disease free and consequently higher yielding trees. The local, ‘indigenous’ trees are generally not disease free and do not produce very high yields.

Must try to get an early night tonight, (though I suspect the heat might make it a bit difficult). It’s a big day tomorrow and I, like the Class 8 pupils, want to make sure it goes well.

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