I keep saying that SEEDS is taking me a long for the ride. All I have to do is think it and it comes!
I was so surprized last week when our manager Fredrick sent me some pictures of our new gate.
He is fortunate enough to have been given land from the Barotseland King many years ago as he grew up in the Palace. Unfortunately the Palace is not what you would think as all of their wealth was taken from them when Northern Rhodesia became Zambia. It is now in great disrepair but this post is not supposed to be a history lesson, it is about joy.
Fredrick’s son has been working building the roads with the Chinese in Zambia and has saved all he has earned and is buying a piece of land off of Fredrick. That is how Fredrick was able to build this beautiful gate.
Fredrick used to work for World Vision and he too saved all of his money to build his house which is now SEEDS Resource Garden for The Silozi Seed Bank & Trees For Elephants. Times are really tough now in Zambia as their was a drought last year, the Zambian Kwatcha, their currency, is really low and there is no work.
Fortunately Fredrick is able to look after our gardens but it is a lot of work and he needs help. Between planting trees and vegetables, manually watering them, organic pest control fighting aphids and moles and having to learn how to grow all of these new veg & trees that he is not used to, he is doing a great job as our volunteer Manager!
There are also some flats on Fredrick’s property that need a lot of work, but we are going to fix them up this year so he may earn a bit of income from travelers stopping in Mongu on the way to Kalabo and Liuwa Plains National Park.
We will list them on Airbnb & WWoof http://wwoof.net/ once the Flats are ready.
Because renting the Flats is what we were thinking of doing, it is happening already. We have our first guest staying in January 2017. He will be staying in the house at present because we haven’t started renovating the Flats, but see what I mean? Think it and that is the way it will go!
If you donate to Socio-Economic And Environmental Development Solutions(SEEDS) before December 31st, 2016 we will be entered in a contest with Canada Helps to win $500CAD.
This would be a great help for our renovations so go to contest@canadahelps.org.
Thank you and Happy New Year 2017!
