Who pays?

8am, Saturday 11 October
I'm listening to the English language news on 'Deutsche Welle', which has huge transmitters above Kigali and provides good quality news in English and French as well as German language for beginners, taught in English. Joseph Stiglitz, American economist and Nobel prize winner, is reported as berating the rich West for foot dragging over a tax on financial transactions, intended to go to poorer countries. The USA spent in one night on preventing its own banking collapse what it spends on global aid in ten years, he says.

Yesterday I was working with a group of women, mostly young mothers, on organic gardening techniques. Before the closing prayer I reviewed the day's work. We made a bag garden on the far side of the church compound, away from any unwanted attentions by the many orphans who live or visit here. We looked at recipes for plant 'teas', made by soaking animal droppings or a combination of different types of leaves. We considered the benefits of using what is to hand and 'growing your own' rather than buying expensive fertilisers or market vegetables. I spelt out the connection between food security and a peaceful society.

At the end of last month, immediately before coming here, I spent a day at Friends House at a conference on Zero Economic Growth. I haven't brought my notes with me so I'm afraid I can't remember which measure of energy consumption was being described. What I remember is the ratio between an average of 25 per person in Australia, 23 in the USA, 16 in Western Europe and 1 in Africa. A sustainable level worldwide would be 2.

3.30pm
The workshop is over and I'm told the women were well pleased. Today we focused on compost. They hadn't realised that plastic bottles, spent batteries and other goodies could release harmful chemicals when burnt or allowed to rot in the compost heap. Apparently it is now compulsory to pay for a monthly rubbish collection, somewhat resented. I sympathised with the nuisance of having to adopt a new habit of separating organic and inorganic kitchen waste; at least it won't cost them any extra to put everything that is not compostable in the heap to be taken away.

Then we looked at a technique for making a compost heap. The church uses a projector to display the words of hymns or key phrases from teaching sessions during services. I had accepted the offer of using it for the workshop and put together two slide shows: one on some gardening subjects from Rwanda, California and my own allotment, used yesterday; and one on compost, showing the sequence of construction in a workshop at Mwana Nshuti in February, the giant heap at the organic training institute, and a local mixture of good compost with nasty rubbish, captured earlier this week at the school. So my visual aids were the most sophisticated yet - projected images, plus flip chart paper taped to the wall, plus three copies for passing round of each of the laminated sheets on organic techniques (thank you again, Ann R).

After lunch we moved on from the benefits to plants to the benefits for soil structure. Humus is a new concept; compost is seen as short term fertiliser for each new planting. I tell them that in my view the most crucial contribution to food self-sufficiency is that the soil be in good heart. My translator, Bonheur, jibs at that phrase so we pay attention to it. Yes, good soil is at the core of healthy human life.

Yesterday we considered how to distribute the surplus seeds from the bag garden plus a few more packets not opened. People have brought various bits of paper and are tearing them into small pieces. I ask my translator to discuss directly with the students how best to proceed. They agree a method. The seeds from each packet in turn are tipped out onto the teaching table and each student takes 6 or 8 pepper, leek and tomato seeds, putting them in little twists of paper. The spinach seeds are large and there are only 2 each. Cabbage seeds are tiny and amaranth even tinier; Bonheur and I shovel a few at a time into the waiting funnels, using the original packets as our tools.

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Since February, several people I know here have lost their jobs and AGLI's work of healing and community-building has been much reduced as charitable giving has shrunk. A conversation in the workshop this morning revealed that mutual societies are seen as potentially beneficial but can't actually implement micro-credit schemes for lack of start-up funds. Climate change is an inescapable reality, even to those who don't listen to the world news on numerous radio stations, because its effects are here.

So much I take for granted at home is lacking. Free schooling and clean water would be a good start. Is it be too much to hope a financial transactions tax might foot a bill or two?