first post!

22 Jan 2010

Hello everyone!

The satellite at Eden has not been working. I am not sure how long it will be out. They’ve been waiting for a guy to come and fix it for at least a month now. Until then I will only access the internet when I go into town. This depends on when other people need to go to town, and if I’m available for the trip. Unless the Zimbabwean government is good to me, I will have to renew my visa every 30 days in Harare. As there are cafes with internet in Harare, at the minimum I will be able to make contact once a month. We’ll see! (Some of you may receive emails from me from Susan Fry’s account. I can type up emails on her account out here at the farm, and they will be sent automatically when she goes to town. She does more administrative work and travels more.)

But enough of that...
The orphanage is great. Everything is across the tiny town of Doma. The school takes place in classrooms spread out all over wherever they can get space. Right now there are about 160 kids in the school and 80 or so orphans. Kids also come to the school from surrounding communities or they are children of Eden employees. The orphans live in homes of 10+ with two mothers. There’s a compound of 5 homes and one cooking building. There’s space for 4 or 5 more compounds to be built sometime in the future. There are many more kids than Eden can take in-- space is always tight. I’ve only been into the orphanage once for a short visit. The kids are very happy and playful, which is apparently unusual for Zimbabwean kids. The Frys and other white folks (mostly S African) have not imported their culture. The kids, families, and employees worship God as Shona and live as Shona, not as white folks would. This is a blessing to all. The worship music is incredible!

The folks that I routinely interact with are:

Kevin and Susan Fry: I work with Kevin a lot. He’s the guru with permaculture and all things growing in Zim. It’s not exactly been the most organized learning, but it’s been good. He has to do a lot of administrative work as well. It’s difficult to be pulled in so many directions at once. You may have an idea of how something should be done, but often times due to communication problems or busy-ness, things just don’t get done properly. C’est la vie, I guess. But I find it frustrating. Susan does primarily administrative work. She knows almost all of the kids by name (160!) and asks teachers and village fathers and mothers about them routinely. Basically this means she has an eye out for malnutrition, misbehavior, school problems, etc, etc. She also does a lot of the work trying to get kids into higher education programs or vocational training when the time comes and if they are interested. Some go to school in Africa, but some have also gone to school internationally. You can imagine all the work with grants and application and birth and death certificates that don’t exist….

Dawn and Gordon: White S Africans who are lovely—they both teach and oversee aspects of the school. They want the school to run well even if they for some reason had to leave the country. Sustainability is a difficult goal.

Rory and Judy: White Zimbabweans who were kicked off their farm, and then kicked off another farm, and then came to Eden. Judy works in the Clinic and is AMAZING at her job. NO ONE here is afraid of malaria because she is so good at catching and treating it. She also does amazing work with AIDS patients. Rory handles growing most of the staple crops in the large fields, as well as doing a million other things all at once.

(All of the above are in their late 40s/early 50s.)
Cynthia & Dave: Cynthia is younger (20s?) and teaches. Dave works for a ministry in Mhangura (another small town that used to be booming from copper mines) and is 15 yrs older than Cynthia. She told me a long story about how she decided to marry him despite the age difference…haha.

The farming is quite varied. They have fields that are traditionally grown with fertilizers, etc. There are fields that are grown Farming God’s Way, which is a no-till system. There is a hectare section grown using a system that’s something like permaculture—or at least trending that way. And then there are also kitchen gardens that are fairly large.

I live in a house with Kevin, Susan, Dawn, and Gordon. There is a Canadian woman coming in February who will be staying here too. Rory and Judy have a house very close. Cynthia and Dave live 1.5k away. The main orphanage is across Doma (maybe 4k?) and the girls teen house is maybe .5k away. I’m basically staying in the farm center. Two kitchen gardens, the dairy, the hen-laying operation, the permaculture, the chicken raising area, and the clinic are all very close. There’s also a decent sized lake within 1 k that is part of a dammed river. Most of our food comes from the gardens so I’ve been eating exceptionally well! There hasn’t really been a lot of any one thing, but it’s all fresh and delicious. There is both an electric stove, and a small gas stove. The electricity is off more than on.

There are also dogs! I certainly didn’t expect to see dogs, but almost all of the white people around have pets. Seth is a old yorkie with maybe 4 teeth and throat problems from being poisoned. He used to kill rats and snakes, but doesn’t kill as many now (He’s 12 yrs). He snores and demands belly rubs. Flash and Patches are Jack Russels that do most of the rat-killing. They are high energy, but self-entertaining. Flash will come on runs with me and scare the children. (Shona kids are very afraid of dogs for some reason.) Chema (“Crying”) is some kind of rat terrier and very ugly and stinky. BUT Chema kills big cobras a few times a year. Then there’s Ozi—a barrel on legs, with a HUGE head. He’s a Broerbull? and not too bright. But he’s protective of Judy and very loyal. It’s really funny to see him loping around trying to play with the jack russels who are quicker and smarter. He lets them do almost anything, including lots of grooming. I think Flash is my favorite of the bunch.

I don’t know if it’s worth talking about what I’ve learned on the agricultural side, but it has been good! (mango rescue from borers and mites, citrus rescue from scale, serious trimming of pepperdew to encourage another growth, seed saving, seed inventory, calculating seed needs, learning what everything looks like, hoping to get some cuttings to root, etc) I hope it will only get better as I understand how more things work and become more independent/ get some projects going. Kevin and I have a list of things that will hopefully be done before I leave. Since he’s been gone for several months there is a lot that simply needs to be reigned in or put back in order. The guy that worked in the greenhouse was fired right after he left, and the new guy really didn’t know what he was doing. Such is life in Zim. I know I’m impatient, but I didn’t realize that I may be a perfectionist as well.

Oh! Another thing worth mentioning. My day starts at 6:30 with devotions, then breakfast. I work or follow Kevin around until 10 when the whole world stops for tea. Lunch starts at noon followed by resting until 2p. Maybe half the world stop at 4p for another tea. Maybe I’ll get used to it, but right now I find it irritatingly slow. But, it’s the custom of the area… At least I know if I want some time to myself all I have to do is walk around the gardens and fields from 12-2. There’s absolutely no one around.

Apparently S African/Zim British English and American English are somewhat different. I’m learning and may come back with some interesting expressions. There are also some American English words that are really offensive to the S. Africans. For example, both ‘cookie’ and ‘fanny’ are vulgar references to female anatomy. I must say ‘biscuit’ or ‘behind.’ If a meal is good, you can say the food was “gorgeous.” If you are surprised or disgusted by something, there’s a very particular way of saying “sheesh” that I cannot mimic. Saying “I don’t care” is NOT equivalent to “I don’t mind.” The first is an insult.. like “I don’t care, Why should I care?” If I’m full after a meal I should not say “I’m stuffed,” as it’s a euphemism for sex. They also say “cheeky” and “cheerio” very seriously. For some reason it makes me think of Monty Python and I try not to laugh.

Sadly so far I haven’t had a lot of interaction with many Shona people other than being in the gardens or permaculture fields. It kind of makes sense though. I mean, most of the kids have had pretty traumatic lives until now. I won’t be around long enough to really invest in these children. They also don’t speak much English (although they’re learning!). Many of the adults also don’t know English that well, and all I know how to say in Shona is “SNAKE!, good morning, and thank you.” Moreover, learning the language is not really a priority for me (and it would have to be for me to learn it…). I guess I’m still navigating this—I am here to learn about agriculture, but this is also Zimbabwean land so I am here to learn about Zimbabe and its people (and not just book-type learning). We’ll see what happens in the coming months.

A couple of recent developments:
My first real project is going to be a germination test (germ test) on many of the seeds that have been saved. It should be simple but fun to do for the first time. I’m excited that I won’t have to work on Kevin’s time table. Wee!

Also, I may be helping Susan with a sewing class. Mostly I’m excited because this would give me a way to interact with some of the kids.

We also got a container shipment FULL of clothes for the orphans. A ‘container’ is the metal box that’s on trains or 18-wheelers. All of the clothing needs to be unloaded, sorted, counted, and stored before the rats ruin them. I think that it’s going to be a serious team effort to get it done in time. Butte is the Shona woman in charge of the clothing. I’m excited to work with her because she seems like such a nice woman, and she speaks English. Hopefully I’ll be able to ask her lots of questions. With the permaculture guys the conversation is pretty much limited to “mangwana ni” (morning!) and “afternoon.” [I haven’t had to yell “Snake!” yet.] Plus they are doing different work than I am so I don’t even see them that often.


Sending much love your way, Emily

Ps- Can anyone tell me if Kelly Schmit/Benedick had her baby??