Making links - part two

Written Saturday 12th about Tuesday 8th

I confessed to nervousness at the beginning of my teaching day with three pastors and wives (Augustin and Gaudence, Jean Paul and Immaculee from Kanombe, Brad and Chelsea) plus Verena from Kamembe and Dave Thomas, whose spouses were not able to be there. Once I began, however, after the usual formal opening from Augustin, the atmosphere lightened and we were all at ease. Dave commented during the first break that Friends have this gift for easily helping each other out - on this case with translation of thoelogical or horticultural vocabulary. Brad was my official translator and his Kinyarwanda is said to be good, but I noticed he and Dave were making notes of vocabulary supplied by the others.

Everybody had either attended one of my workshops or seen sacks planted by others, so we were able quickly to start on feedback and analysis - so helpful I wished I'd had it earlier.

Jean Paul had taken responsibility for watering their sack because his wife left early to teach, then was saddened when local children pulled out the plants. I said that at the Fds primary school at Kagarama the sacks were undisturbed, leading to an outburst from Immaculee about the differences in discipline and staffing ratios between children at Fds schools and ordinary state schools. (Now where have I heard that before?) Immaculee added that most women said Elizabeth's sacks were only for rich people because you have to pay for water for them. I'm sure I had said, as I always do, that it was better to use 'grey' water from the kitchen, but it's useful to know that needs stressing more.

Verena, who has probably the most productive sacks of anybody I've seen, said she was only able to use my teaching because her mind had been prepared by D4D. She leapt at the suggestion of using previously unproductive space in her yard - there was still room for the children to play - and now supplied greens to several local restaurants as well as eating variety every day. But when she went round visiting the group of 15 who had my training two years ago, nobody else was persisting. Gradually she was persuading others to try again.

As we discussed the detailed elements of construction, she leaned forward to reach the sack I'd laid out on the coffee table, to illustrate her modification. She was finding that water was not reaching the lowest layers, because soil had got into the column of stones. (Now I know I always model covering the tube of stones while filling the surround with soil, but perhaps I hadn't also said it.) She had experimented with cutting open the bottom of the sack so rain water falling around could be drawn into the dry soil, and also using the plastic tube (bottle) to funnel water directly to the base of the sack. We considered her modification and concluded that in the most arid areas opening the bottom of the sack could do more harm than good, allowing precious water out into the surrounding unplanted soil.

Asked whether a sack could be replanted after the first harvest, I offered the recipe for plant 'tea', made by steeping different kinds of leaves in water - or a mixture of one part urine and two parts water - to boost the fertility of the soil in the sack. I teach this plant tea a lot now (and use it on my allotment at home), and show photos of recommended plants, all taken in Rwanda. Jean Paul and Augustin, who had not heard this lesson before, started to giggle at the mention of urine. I knew Gaudence had been troubled by scorching of some young plants when she'd tried the tea on everything in her garden, so I asked her to tell us what had happened. Was the urine too concentrated, asked Dave, who had learnt a rule of thumb of one part urine to ten of water for direct application. Even though the eventual concentration after dilution is one to six, I agreed it might be too strong for seedlings. Gaudence said everything except the trees had been scorched, though all had recovered.

'Did you use urine?' I asked. 'I won't answer that directly, but I followed your lesson', she replied. 'I didn't know you were doing that', said Augustin. 'Well, you don't know everything!'



In the car the previous day, Dave had said how he was looking forward to groups being ready for him to offer lessons on nutrition, reforestation and the long-term superiority of organic fertilisers - the latter unnecessary in the early days because nobody had money for 'bag' fertiliser, so it would have been pointless to warn of the dangers.

In the afternoon of our day together, I divided the participants into two groups to work through material on nutrition in English and Kinyarwanda. The task was to decide how to make this information accessible through lively teaching. Nobody came up with an opening gambit or a way of dividing the material. Instead, conversation veered onto how it would be better first to make sure one's own children understood the good they were doing themselves by eating a varied diet rich in fruit and vegetables. I realised this modelled the process at the beginning of D4D, when the trainers had first to internalise the teaching and philosophy before taking it out to others.

By the end of the two days, many links - personal and theoretical - had been strengthened. Nervousness on both sides had been dispelled, I think. This group of pastors didn't seem to be having any difficuly engaging with ideas for living better in this world. Heaven was never mentioned. Our theological frameworks will continue to differ. And that's OK.

Sorry there are no photos to enliven this posting. I'm hoping to give you some stunning scenery before the end of the day, when I leave Rwanda until next February.