We did it! Mukutele (Welcome in Silozi)
I arrived back home to Canada on May 1st. 16lbs lighter in weight but gained a ton in knowledge. You don’t realize how much you can learn about survival, compassion and hard work until you have seen it done with your own eyes. I spent 30 days in Zambia Africa and came home with a renewed zest for what SEEDS is trying to do and confidence that we can do it.
I stayed in a guest house ran by Sister Cathy of the Catholic Church of Zambia, met the famous UBC-O nurses from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia, Canada, who have been training and learning in the hospital in Mongu and met other NGO’s all trying to do their bit to help.
With such a need for every thing there it is hard not to give. I ran out of money so I ate like they ate (sparsely), I slept with a net over my bed, shared a room with spiders and cock roaches that would put Texas to shame and struggled to get things done in constant heat that burns.
I met the rest of Freddrick’s (our manager) amazing family whom I now call my own, met amazing farmers of all ages and played with the wonderful innocent children whom we are trying to help. We had a hard working crew, lead by Freddrick and I had my little followers who helped me clear up brush and plastic garbage and plant the vegetable garden and trees.
We built the resource garden for farmers complete with drip irrigation and the tree nursery. We even painted a big sign on the gate! I had to make green paint as I could only find black & white and even made my own paint brush out of a duck feather.
In three weeks time, we handed out vegetable seeds from Canada to 12 female and 23 male farmers who lived fairly close (within an hours bike ride) to our Resource Centre. We are tracking the numbers in their families and I guesstimate we provided additional food crops for 350 people . That means we are potentially helping 315 children have a better variety of vegetables.
These crops should harvest in July which is during their dry season when they need the food most. The rainy season starts in October/November and their normal harvest is in January/February/March. Therefore they have to make that harvest last until the next harvest. A long time!
We have computer software to track our results so I will know more as our Assistant Manager Matindo records our stats and reports back to me in Canada.
We even received our first lot of tree seeds that were handed in by a 67 year old female farmer who we then gave a second batch of seeds.
I saw a wild Lion on the side of the road while on the bus in Kafue National Park and the orphaned Elephants at Lilayi.
I am blessed to be able to do this, thanks to the people who have donated funds so far. I raised the $600.00 Canadian dollars which it cost to build the garden and tree nursery and the rest of the money was my own. We still have much more to do and I look forward to a seed full year.
I am saving seeds again and hope to send the next batch in July 2014 so if you could help in any way please sign our Contact Page below. [contact-form][contact-field label=’First Name’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Middle Initial (for tax purposes)’ type=’name’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Last Name’ type=’name’/][contact-field label=’Email Address’ type=’email’ required=’1’/][contact-field label=’Comment / Message’ type=’textarea’ required=’1’/][/contact-form] or send me an email joanne@sendseedstoafrica.org.
This is just a sprout of what went on so sign up to receive our newsletter in the blog section of the web site if you want to read the whole story and please pass this onto your friends.
Mutozi Cwani (Good Afternoon in Silozi)
