Not Just Child's Play

Throughout our demonstration farm we have small clusters of seedlings which we nurse until they are healthy enough to be transported for planting at one of the neighboring schools. What you see here is a planting bed which is used to protect the seedlings from overexposure to sunlight.
One day while walking through the neighborhood we came upon children playing in a bed of soil. When we asked them what they were doing they said they were, "playing GOSESO." If children are the future then the future looks bright in Kiganza Village.

We have been pretty bad bloggers recently. Things have been pretty busy around here, and i guess all the work cut into our blogging time. But I promise to try harder from now on.
Here are a few pictures i took of the neighborhood boys, playing with discarded junk. They were having a ball, pulling each other all over the place on a broken plastic container and some metal-thing. I don't think any real toys could have made them any happier than they were with these improvised ones. Although i guess playing with scrap metal does have its downside (no one was hurt while i was watching, at least).

Prof. Paturzo's visit to Kiganza Village

Over the past six months or so we've been working closely with a man named Paul Paturzo. Paul is an established architect and professor in the city of Boston and has been trying to help us partner up with some of the local universities in the Boston area. Forming partnerships and obtaining grants proved difficult so Paul decided to take time out of his busy schedule and offered to visit the site and draft a master plan of GOSESO's future campus. The first few days of Paul's visit were more difficult than we expected. Although we had previously done a survey of GOSESO's land, none of the existing structures appeared on the map. This meant that we needed to do a lot of measuring and somehow start the process of obtaining a topographical map. This is a picture of Paul sketching in the location of classrooms on top of the future construction site. What a beautiful view!
Everyday we all would spend at least a few hours up on GOSESO land and then we would take the information gathered back to the house to work on some drawings. As you can see we weren't as organized as we'd hope to be. After spending a few hours in the sun, we all decided it was time to take a breather. We sat with the rangers in the gazebo and started to explain what it was that we were doing. Paul pulled out some drawings to show the rangers what we had been working on, which they all enjoyed immensely. While we were resting Paul had the opportunity to make a friend. It may look like the baboon enjoys Paul more than he enjoys it but I assure you feelings were mutual.

This is Paul a few days before leaving Kiganza Village. Before he left we wanted to make sure he got a small taste of Tanzanian living. Look how happy he looks while hand washing his clothes. Who said work has to be boring.

COFFEE!

One day Drew was walking through a nearby village and smelled the sweet aroma of freshly roasted coffee. He followed the smell for a while and came upon this man (pictured above) happily roasting coffee in an earthen cooking pot. Although you are unable to see it, I assure you he is smiling. Drew was able to purchase enough for us to try it out. It was amazing! Over the previous months we had gotten used to drinking Africafe, a powder "substitute" for coffee. The only way it resembled coffee was in the color it made when you dissolved it in hot water. Needless to say this was a step up.

We quickly realized that by walking a few extra kilometers to a different village up north, we were able to cut out the middle man and buy the raw beans in bulk. Not only were they cheaper but we were able to ensure the quality of the product. What savvy businessmen we are! We read online about how to properly roast coffee and we found out that it's fairly easy.

All you do is throw it into a pot over a flame and stir constantly until you hear two distinct sets of pops, similar to the sound popcorn makes when it pops. I don't mean to suggest that there isn't technique involved, because there clearly is. I mean look at me. The key is to use a fluid motion when stirring while maintaining a flexible wrist with the other. Look at that form.

After the beans turn brown and we had heard the second pop, we took them out to let them cool. After they were done cooling, we ground it all up and it was ready to brew.

Pretty simple, huh. It makes it that much more enjoyable to drink when you take part in the whole process.

A Stark Realization

When any change takes place in your life, difficulties may arise. I took this picture from our "office" at the end of a very long day. At the time I was feeling frustrated with the language, and feeling kinda homesick. For me, it's easy for my mind to play that game; the, "where would I rather be, what would I rather be doing" game. At the end of my brief internet session, and still feeling unsatisfied, I looked out and saw the sun setting over the mountains. I came to realize that despite all of the frustrations that may arise, we're in a beautiful place, with beautiful people, and should learn appreciate every minute of it.

swahili is elephant meat

or nyama ya tembo ni kiswahili. this is a local saying we heard yesterday, and i'd say it gives an accurate description of the language. The saying essentially means that the swahili language is huge, or too big to even know what to do with it all. apparently this is the problem one is faced with when butchering an elephant.

just another picture of some of our best buddies

we know its wrong to pick favorites, but Said, 5th from the right and holding a baby, is our favorite. He is always helping out around his house (usually carrying a bucket of water back from the spring, on his head of course), he's a fearless soccer player, there is always a smile on his face, and he's so gentle and caring with little kids, as seen in this picture. I hope my mom doesn't come visit, because i have no doubt that she would kidnap him and cause a scene.