Muriet village can be accessed through Nadasoito village via Unga Limited, but we most went there via the Dodoma road, turning off at a junction the name of which eludes me, but there is a large market there - Thursdays? - and the road to the sand areas and nearer, Olasiti Primary School. Lorries full of marram or sand often waited there to be hired.
Muriet has lately been in the news because the Arusha dump was established there and the smell and smoke no longer make it a pleasant place - though I have not been there.
Big E's brother John took us to Muriet in his car with a boot-full of trees from the nursery. I have no idea why this happened but I guessed Big E had made a promise to someone and had talked John in to taking me there.
Just how John knew where to turn off was a mystery to me but the faint track was smooth and easy driving. The road was not the lorries carrying sand made the road like a moonscape. However we were unable to reach the house of the man John was to give the trees to because of a shallow irrigation ditch. So a wheelbarrow was brought to transport them to his house.
A few people had gathered there and I demonstrated the planting method to them. John instructed the man to to distribute the trees among the people there and we were off.
I asked Josiah about this the next day and in the African way, he knew people there and had a connection. The connection comes through the Maasai inter-relationship and the church.
Through Gideon and his extended family, Muriet was one of our more successful project areas. The village was not well sited because of a high water table in the wet season and this limited access during those times - certainly I was challenged in the Maruti from time to time. Most homesteads were located in higher spots, which made living there a little more comfortable.
Gideon and his family became very keen tree planters and cared for all the trees we supplied. They also made sure the rest of the village people did the same.
Basically we ran the programme as with other villages. Providing a seminar on the environment and how to plant and care for trees. It was then up to the village people to prepare the planting hole - Joshia called them pits - my recommendation was you had to fit a 20 litre bucket into the hole. The soil was mixed with dry cow manure (or similar) and the mix was then returned to the hole. The hole was marked with a stick. The trees was then supplied ex our nursery and we often awarded an inducement for the best tree shelter [sticks, bags or whatever to provide protection from livestock and shade] - the inducement may be an avocado, pen or tin mug. Of course it was necessary to carry out followups and measure the trees' progress to be able to award merits.
At one household, we had inspected the plantings and I had given out some fruit - including mango - and had one avocado left. There was a small girl - knee-high to a grasshopper - whose name I found later was Neema. She had been following me around and looked at what I looked at and copied whatever I was doing. I gave her the left over avocado and told her to plant the seed inside [and how to do it]. About a year later, I was back in the village and passed her homestead. While talking to her father, she tugged on my trouser leg and said, 'Mzee, Mzee, come look at my tree!' It had grown to about 50cm and was healthy. Joshia showed her how to erect a shelter - though avocado trees are not palatable to stock. But this is what tree planting is all about! By now the tree will be fruiting.
Most of the village people were of a younger generation, Gideon himself had a modern outlook and had a metal work business (fundi) but others were more traditional. I always enjoyed calling on one Maasai boma where there were two wives - never met the husband - one of the wives had remarkable success with her trees, while the other was frankly hopeless, but she had the most children and they were well nurtured.
A group of women banded together as Mazingira Group so we were able to support them with materials and encouragement.
There was a desperate need for a preschool, chekechea, and we were asked to assist. Fortunately we managed to raise enough money to lay a cement floor, build a cheap slab wood building with an iron roof and a water pipeline to the building. We paid for the materials and the village people did all the work.
Green Arusha Society still work with the village which is the catchment area for Olasiti Primary School where we did little more than supply a few trees.
Big E's brother John took us to Muriet in his car with a boot-full of trees from the nursery. I have no idea why this happened but I guessed Big E had made a promise to someone and had talked John in to taking me there.
Just how John knew where to turn off was a mystery to me but the faint track was smooth and easy driving. The road was not the lorries carrying sand made the road like a moonscape. However we were unable to reach the house of the man John was to give the trees to because of a shallow irrigation ditch. So a wheelbarrow was brought to transport them to his house.
A few people had gathered there and I demonstrated the planting method to them. John instructed the man to to distribute the trees among the people there and we were off.
I asked Josiah about this the next day and in the African way, he knew people there and had a connection. The connection comes through the Maasai inter-relationship and the church.
Through Gideon and his extended family, Muriet was one of our more successful project areas. The village was not well sited because of a high water table in the wet season and this limited access during those times - certainly I was challenged in the Maruti from time to time. Most homesteads were located in higher spots, which made living there a little more comfortable.
Gideon and his family became very keen tree planters and cared for all the trees we supplied. They also made sure the rest of the village people did the same.
Basically we ran the programme as with other villages. Providing a seminar on the environment and how to plant and care for trees. It was then up to the village people to prepare the planting hole - Joshia called them pits - my recommendation was you had to fit a 20 litre bucket into the hole. The soil was mixed with dry cow manure (or similar) and the mix was then returned to the hole. The hole was marked with a stick. The trees was then supplied ex our nursery and we often awarded an inducement for the best tree shelter [sticks, bags or whatever to provide protection from livestock and shade] - the inducement may be an avocado, pen or tin mug. Of course it was necessary to carry out followups and measure the trees' progress to be able to award merits.At one household, we had inspected the plantings and I had given out some fruit - including mango - and had one avocado left. There was a small girl - knee-high to a grasshopper - whose name I found later was Neema. She had been following me around and looked at what I looked at and copied whatever I was doing. I gave her the left over avocado and told her to plant the seed inside [and how to do it]. About a year later, I was back in the village and passed her homestead. While talking to her father, she tugged on my trouser leg and said, 'Mzee, Mzee, come look at my tree!' It had grown to about 50cm and was healthy. Joshia showed her how to erect a shelter - though avocado trees are not palatable to stock. But this is what tree planting is all about! By now the tree will be fruiting.
Most of the village people were of a younger generation, Gideon himself had a modern outlook and had a metal work business (fundi) but others were more traditional. I always enjoyed calling on one Maasai boma where there were two wives - never met the husband - one of the wives had remarkable success with her trees, while the other was frankly hopeless, but she had the most children and they were well nurtured.
A group of women banded together as Mazingira Group so we were able to support them with materials and encouragement.
There was a desperate need for a preschool, chekechea, and we were asked to assist. Fortunately we managed to raise enough money to lay a cement floor, build a cheap slab wood building with an iron roof and a water pipeline to the building. We paid for the materials and the village people did all the work.
Green Arusha Society still work with the village which is the catchment area for Olasiti Primary School where we did little more than supply a few trees.
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