Every time it works! Sometimes the students seem to have no idea here is an issue a all. Sometimes they think ahead and ask how to solve the problem. I tell them to wait and see.
A 50 kg sack is to be prepared for planting, with a column of stones up the centre. The stones may be alluvial pebbles, or shiny quartz, or lumps of lava, or even fragments of brick or tile, only nothing with cement. I have not yet had to improvise in a location with nothing suitable, though we sometimes get quite muddy hunting out our small prizes.
Caption: lava pebbles provide amusement before going into the sack.
We cut the top and bottom off a 1.5 litre water bottle, stand it in the bottom of the rolled-down sack, fill it loosely with small stones, surround it with the best soil we can find... Then what? Will I produce another empty bottle from my rucksack? Will the pebbles somehow balance on their own now they know what is expected?
It's often said that teachers need something of the actor about them. This is my moment of high drama. Usually I am squatting close to the sack with one hand protecting the stones from the soil being tipped in all round. I brush off the back of my hand. Holding the sides of its rim, I jiggle the bottle. For a moment nothing happens.
Will this be the day the magic has deserted us? Not so far. The stones settle a little, the tube is raised but not removed. The filling continues.
Caption: raising the rim
Caption: this is from day 1 with Batwa(5 Oct) at Musanze Friends Church, not from 19 Oct.
At the end of each round a different student takes a turn: usually the men get to go first unless I make a special point of inviting an individual woman or girl. The nervous ones don't jiggle firmly enough and have to be encouraged. The bold risk dislodging the guide. Occasionally when the stones are large it takes an extra moment of suspense before everything falls into place.
Caption: nearly at the top
Such a simple satisfaction!
Caption: watering a completed sack - Solange looks on
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