About the Assignment

I had the title 'Environmental Co-cordinator' which could mean a whole raft of things and I had thorough job specifications but that implied there was a level of funding available, but there wasn't.

Once we had moved into our house - that is the joint one with Big E and his family - there was a lot to organise before we could start anything. One of those things was to learn Swahili, or as anyone who speaks the language, Kiswahili. Using that word shows you have a knowledge of the language - a sort of in-house cut above those who are less familiar with the language.

We were given 30 hours of lessons by Mr Kimaro - one on one teaching. Mr Kimaro is still a good friend and we were given extra lessons by him later. These days there are more formal lessons given at the Danish Centre - expensive and perhaps better - but by not learning from Mr Kimaro, something is lost!

We were not good students, which is no reflection on Mr Kimaro! We were establishing the nursery and trying to fit into the local, Sanawari culture, talk to Big E's kids and much more, so our attention span with Mr Kimaro was limited.

He gave us print-outs and Mags made coffee as much to keep us awake as being a good host to him, but also the act of making the coffee gave her a spell.

Mr Kimaro would trudge up the road, dusting off his shoes before shouting 'Hodi!' You don't knock on doors, you call out 'Hodi, hodi!' and receive the welcome 'Karibu'. Joshia actually taught us that in Maasai villages you should call out three times, and if the 'Karibu' is not said in reply the third time, you do should go in - something delicate might be happening.
He would be sweating because he would have been late and had hurried up the hill to be on time. Mr Kimaro was interested in us and we talked about all manner of things, each learning from the other. Importantly, he taught us about manners and the display of respect/affinity that is so vital if you want to become a part of the community!

After our 30 hours of lessons, I guesshe may have been a little disappointed about our progress but later on he would have found that I did a reasonable grasp ot the language. Some two years later we received another 40 hours lessons from him. Later again he raised money to start his own primary schools - from modest beginnings and I was indeed proud to visit the school, conduct an environmental seminar and supply trees for planting in the school grounds. He in turn celebrated my Kiswahili. This man had a tough row to hoe, and he has achieved his dream to educate the rural poor of Tanzania - if you have a few dollars in your pocket, he will use them well!

Mostly though, I taught myself Kiswahili by studying the dictionary, listing to usage and emulating what I heard - I had decided for myself that I actuall wanted to be able to use the language. Maua, Mama B's daughter, Maua used simple language to help and much later Mama Upendo wanted me to teach her daughter English - I gained most of my Kiswahili during those lessons!

So at least in those early days, I had a struggle with the local language. Big E and his secretary, Round L spoke good English and I had little choice but to take advice from them. A young American woman came to ask if she could work with me, and I never regretted my decision to have her on board. Missy fitted in so well, was only with us for a year, but later came back to stay with us, write up a thesis for her Masterate, return for holidays and eventually working in a similar field providing assistance to various counties including Tanzania. In some small way, I think I inspired her into that direction. But I believe she has turned out to be a valuable outcome to our assignment in Tanzania.

Big E and Round L were very keen for us to come up with ideas for income generation for the NGO Hifadhi Mazingira. Big E had a job (attending there seldom) with the Municipality, and he was sure that he would be given land on which to establishes tree nurseries - they wanted three of them. Basically they wanted us to grow trees for sale, and pocket the rewards. They had also written up a large proposal to establish Car Wash Bays, selling hot food, and raking in the money! We were expected to evaluate this proposal and find the funds to establish the project.

Well we never did any of those things! I didn't think the car wash bays was a goer because there were boys washing cars in the river and from buckets. I was wrong; for three years later the bays did begin to spring up and washing in the river outlawed. And later as a large project generated by central government, most of the roadsides in Arusha had trees nurseries on them - but most faded away because they could not make money; so my instincts were right about that!

Big E and Round L were busy with final construction of a bar, Naabi Hills, named after the Gateway into the Serengeti but with the initials of their first born daughters. Actually this bar was funded out of project money that had been granted for what should have been 'our' project.

Of course we we unaware of this at the time, and now I suspect that our presence was a bit of an embarrassment to them. Likewise, Josiha was not available to us because he was attending an 'upskilling course' which, he revealed later to be French lessons, because he did not trust Big E and co, so took the lessons in the event of him becoming a safari driver! From the point of view of Hifadhi Mazingira, it was good that Josiha was away because they did not need to pay him!

Missy and I usually forced the issue of having regular Monday morning meetings with Big E and Round L to plan out what we were doing, but it was always difficult to get past the issues of a lack of finance and income generation. I often raised the issue of the donated second hand computer that Round L operated which was situated in our living quarters. Round L would go in there while we were away and I was not comfortable with the security of that situation.

All along, I had known that I would be growing trees in a nursery situation and I had had a good look around my own environment - our back

A start in the Nursery

yard. I could see that there had been the remnants of an old nursery behind the house, and asked Big E's youngest boy, Ole about the area. Mchongoma is a thorny hedge plant that is very popular as a security fence and the kids had grown them to make some money - in the event, Big E sold them and pocketed the money!

So I asked Big E if we could revive the area and establish a nursery. He agreed, and showed us some rolls of polythene tubing and a store of various seeds - so he had been thinking about things!

These rolls of polythene were actually a long tube of plastic, flattened and rolled up. Cut into sections of perhaps 100mm long, then opened out to make a plant pot with no bottom. It was of course a bit tricky to fill them, you had to pack the soil solidly on the bottom so the bum did not fall out of it!

In clearing the grass and weeds, we found some other pots with trees in them, so we cleaned them up too - they were mainly Madras Thorn more suitable to the Dar es Salaam climate, but if they could be established, they make a very useful tree.

We made good progress clearing the site and it became time to start filling pots and growing seedlings. The nursery jargon is potting media, and I asked what was used - 'just dig soil out of the ground'. We had saved some soil from the discarded pots, and Ole helped me scrape up some more. I scrounged a piece if chicken netting to make a screen so I could sieve the soil, but I found the texture to be too tight for good plant growth. I asked Big E for some sawdust (to add in) and he brought some for me in the wee Suzuki. But fertility was a problem too, (I later used dry, rotted cow manure but had no access to it at this time) so I tried to make compost.

Pots set out and shaded area

There were no worms! Siafu probably kept the population low. Termites took the vegetative matter away, so compost as I knew it was not possible. I collected fresh cow manure from Mama B's cow and watered it down using it as a liquid fertiliser.

There were no tools available, Ole borrowed a wheelbarrow from a neighbor - a miss-shapen thing but adequate - and a short handled shovel; well the blade was flat and the handle made out of piece cut from a sapling, but it worked for me!

I could see that the tree roots would soon go through the bottom of the pot into the soil below, so to avoid cutting them, I asked Big E to buy me some plastic sheeting to use as a 'floor'. New car tyres were wrapped in strips of thin, pink plastic sheeting and Big E had them sewn together to make sheets! Cheap but effective enough!

The seed was labelled wrongly and the Dovyalis (Mchongoma) was old. I was learning and reading a lot. Dovyalis needed to be fresh, almost straight from the apple, dried and sown. Viability of seed was often very short except the hard seeds like Acacia and Leuceana. So I began to collect seed myself.

I found that growing seed in a seedbed and pricking out was not a good way because the small seeds needed to be watered and shaded. If water became a constraint, then the seedling did not survive. I found it better to direct sow, and thin out seedlings, maybe if water was available prick out the extra seedlings.

I did all this to emulate what could be done in the more severe conditions encountered in the villages. I hit upon an idea - direct sow and cover the seed with a thin layer of sawdust - this hold moisture and keeps down any weeds. Cover the sawdust with chips of marram (volcanic ash) to stop it washing when watering - with a can. There was a small supply of marram there, but Big E removed it to the bar once he twigged on that I was using it - and gave me instead a handcart filled with stones from the river. When that ran out I talked him into supplying marram because it was much better!

So this is how the nursery started and how we became established - there is much more to it, but this is a long enough read for now. I will continue it on next.