After the break

After the break, back to work with a vengeance.

It's now Thursday evening, 11 Feb, and I'm in the Anglican guest house in Byumba, chosen in preference to going back to Kigali by bus this evening and out again tomorrow morning, an hour and a half's ride each time. The evening meal is billed to start at 7.30 but it's now 7.55 and the dishes are not yet being lined up for the buffet service. Fortunately I can see from my room so I don't have to keep going to look.

This morning was the start of my fourth group in as many days. On Monday and Tuesday mornings I constructed a keyhole garden with the workers (ground staff) from CGFK, working in French with Antoine as my translator; in the afternoons I worked with a group of 8 CGFK teachers in English, discussing nutrition and development; yesterday I had a day with 15 women from Kagarama who had worked with me before but not all in the same group, with good English translation from Joyce, whom I first met two years ago; today it was pretty much the same group of 15 at Byumba as in October, but working in French not English. (Bonheur is in South Africa. My translator here is Eugene, who was the pastor here in October but has now gone to take charge of all the training work at Friends Peace House in Kigali: he is stopped every few yards in the street by people wanting to greet him.)

Keyhole gardens - so called because the footprint is like an old-fashioned keyhole, with a pathway to a circular compost basket in the centre - are fairly common here. I've seen some very productive ones, and some that look OK from a distance but are missing either the enriched soil or the essential central compost basket. I'm told the government is promoting their construction and that people avoid possible trouble by constructing something that looks right even if the principles have not been grasped.

At CGFK you might say we were denying the essential principle by putting our construction in an already productive vegetable patch, but I told the group they were learning the technique so they could apply it elsewhere. Similarly today in Byumba we worked in an already well-tended garden, with a good collection of sacks established since October. But I don't have time to coax a group to assemble materials and make progress in a difficult location, and people are constantly assuring me that what I teach is passed on. All I can do is trust.



Caption 1: the CGFK workers begin to heap soil round the compost basket.



At 8.25 the young man from reception knocks on my door. 'The meal is ready now.' 'Thank you but I've decided not to eat this evening.' (Fortunately I was not able to pay in advance because there was no change.) Really I don't need another meal and I could do with the sleep. I do hope breakfast is ready in the morning early enough for me to get some before leaving for an 8 am start.


Caption 2: I demonstrate how to strengthen the basket with string. Behind us is the productive garden, with local greens I have yet to identify.

[CGFK is the College George Fox a Kagarama, one of 4 Friends Schools in Rwanda. Sorry, but I can't do accents. Kagarama is a suburb of Kigali, the base for the Friends Church.]