Under the African Sky

We worked in another Maasai village last week, this one having a similar environment as the very first one I visited. I woke up every morning to the sounds of birds chirping, trees blowing, our host family beginning their morning chores and the faint sound of a whip snapping the air as some farmer worked to herd his cattle. We vaccinated kuku (chickens) against Newcastle disease in the early mornings, walking from boma (house) to boma with a local mama who will be the volunteer community trainer after we are gone, helping her neighbors vaccinate their kuku every three months. Newcastle disease has no cure, and is the most common disease among chickens in TZ. Fortunately the vaccine is available, inexpensive and effective, reducing the risk of disease from 70% to 10%. GSC's chicken vaccination program is its most successful in terms of follow-up participation and sustainability, in fact GSC's county director is working to expand the program to increase the number of villages and regions it serves. This week alone we vaccinated over 800 chickens in over 100 homes. The community trainers will encourage the neighbors to continue purchasing the vaccine and assist with the vaccination to ensure the kuku are free of the disease.

After these chilly morning walks we returned to our campsite for breakfast. With coffee and chai, we were always served bread with peanut butter, jelly, hard-boiled eggs, bananas, oranges, and maandazi (similar to a fried doughnut). Then myself, and three others went to the village center to teach Sustainable Agriculture while the remaining groups worked on Applied Technology projects like building hafirs or grain storage bins. The students in our class was split 8 to 9, males to females and they were all young to middle-aged farmers. They chose to build a compost pile and a double-dug bed for the class practical, so on Thursday we did both for one of the mamas whom the class selected to help. This mama is extending her vegetable garden and was excited to use the new techniques we taught her in class. Using these Bio-intensive techniques like composting, nurseries, and double-dug beds is more difficult for larger farms, but with careful planning and dedication a gradual transition is possible.

The main crops I saw growing on the hillsides were maize, wheat, flowers, beans, and tobacco. One of my students told me he farms 17 acres with maize, beans, and wheat. A portion of his crop is kept for his family and the rest is sold in the market for income. Planting and harvesting is mostly done by hand or with animals, although it is not uncommon for a few villagers to own their own tractors then rent and share it with others.

One of the major problems for farmers here is water. It rains just a few months out of the year (although more here than in Naitolia, the village I stayed at just before), and much of hillsides are eroding terribly. The BIA method GSC teaches addresses these problem by preparing the soil for better water absorption. Of the projects we worked on this week, I think building the hafirs and a grain storage will be most beneficial for the farmers. Hafirs are low-cost water tanks that collect rain water so it can be stored and used later for crops. The hafirs are 1.5 meters wide and the length varies depending on the amount of available space. GSC built five hafirs during the week and a few other interested farmers were given tarps to build their own. The grain storage unit was constructed by first building a stone and cement foundation, inserting a spout at the bottom to empty the grain. Then we filled a hemp bag with sawdust to hold the shape of the bin, moistened the hemp bag, and plastered on three layers of cement, shaping the final layer until smooth. A lid was shaped out of wire, covered with cement, and placed on top when dried. These bins are approximately 7 foot high and about 1.5 meters in diameter. Many of the farmers do not practice any method of grain storage, instead letting surplus grain sit in the fields or feeding it to livestock. Though surprisingly, there was not a great interest in this bins; we built just one grain storage bin during the week.

Throughout the summer I have been conducting research on the use of herbal and artificial medicines. I have interviewed secondary school students on how they make decisions as to what type they use, as well as village midwives and traditional doctors to learn what illnesses people seek artificial treatments for. I interviewed a midwife at a village dispensary near Olchorovus and learned more about the problem of dust for many people. The midwife told me the primary problems people come to the dispensary with are red eyes and pneumonia- both irritations from walking along the dirt roads, working in the dusty fields, and living in a cool climate. Many people try using herbal medicines first for these and other health problems because they are the less-expensive option. Visiting the dispensary is a last resort if the herbal medicines fail to work.

Every evening after work, a filling dinner, and a group meeting, I brushed my teeth under the African sky, staring at the constellations of the southern hemisphere which I rarely/never see. We gathered around a fire for hours of story-sharing and laughs, then retired to our sleeping bags for a much needed sleep.