Something of an outcome

This is Ngarash Primary School. We are judging the quality of tree shelters the pupils had made to protect their trees.

It took some time for the system of our project to evolve, and I was at a disadvantage until I came to know Kiswahili.

Joshia had not really become involved with the project because he was away on various courses to cater for his future. The few times we were able to go into the field, he did all the instruction and when he asked me to say a few words, I managed, 'Na omba, tunza mazingira!' I beg you to care for the environment. This meant little to anyone, because especially school kids, could not understand my accent, and it was just a slogan anyway.

Don't get me wrong though, Joshia, just a young fellow, was a trained Forester and knew his craft well, and he was capable in front of an audience; and he loved school kids. The object of my assignment was to empower the people I came into contact with and teach them new skills - without my input, I was just a fund provider.

So we sat down together to work out how we should conduct our seminars. There was the technique of preparing planting holes and the actual planting of the trees. I could not fault the method, and even today when giving advice to customers, I recommend the same technique. I will describe it later.

The format would be that Josiah speak for a while on the environment, and then I would do a role play, modified from what I had done with the Maasai elder. The Josiha would read a story that I had written called 'Ndoto ya Grace' Grace's Dream. A short story about a girl who was committed to save the environment. It will take a lot of writing. but I will post it too! Actually it was published in the Tanzania Farmers Magazine. Josiha was very good at reading the story and used different voices and actions.

Josiah has his own NGO, called 'Green Arusha Society' and there is another story there which I will tell later.

All this also helped my Kiswahili, and I felt what we were making progress.

We were pretty much welcomed wherever we went, and our first concentration was at Engorora, Mkonoo, Nadasoito and Engorora primary schools. Later we encompassed other schools and villages.

Nadasoito and Mkonoo were priority areas because these were villages that we visited with Nettie, and where NZHC had funded water projects with Hifadhi, but were not completed. Big E was too preoccupied with his Bar and had left the water projects unfinished. I was to take these projects over and found our some of the tricks that were going on. I'm not sure if I'm going to get into those, but for example; A load of sand was needed for the Nadasoito reservoir, so Big E went to the school (where there was a load for school building purposes) and told them that if they gave him the sand, NZHC would build the new classroom. Totally unfounded and untrue. He had no authority to say this, but he got his sand and the school didn't get their classroom - I had to smooth this out! But hey, don't think too badly of Big E; yes he was a crook alright, but he did care about the village people and I have to admit that I enjoyed the challenge I faced with him - trying to outwit him. I was like playing chess; and some remarkable things happened and were revealed.

What really played into our hands though was the assistance package to primary schools funded by NZHC and promoted by Mo & Jo. This gave us access into so many areas and of course Big E wanted to take the kudos, and impose where the assistance was to go (to his cronies); but I trusted the guidance and advice of Josiah. However we worked under the auspices of Hifadhi and therefore Big E received his reflected glory; which was appropriate. So we were on our way well and truly.

There was one other thing that helped us.

We went the 700 odd km to Dar es Salaam with Jo who was doing Agency work and needed a 'minder' at the time. We went to visit the Tourism, Forestry & Fisheries Department, under whose authority we worked. The people there were very welcoming and I set up a good relationship with some of them. They had this shipping container, full of forestry/environmental resources that were kept there and stored because they had no way of distributing or otherwise utilizing them. We were welcome to use as much/many of the items as we thought we could use. We took a lot of things on that trip and returned from time to time for more - they were very happy to see them used! The small disk is is a bade with a pin on the back 'Misitu ni Uhai' means

Forestry is Life. And 'Tunza Miti' means Care for Trees. We used these badges as prizes for kids - oh yes many school teachers wanted one too and village leaders/elders.
The larger disk is a sticker, there were two kinds, one for on glass - vehicle windows - and the other to stick on things like doors or walls.
These too were popular and we quickly ran out of stocks. But the container had many of them stored there. 'Panda miti kwanza ndipo ukate mti', means Plant trees first before you cut a tree. See the language - plant trees (and when we say that, we hold up five fingers to note the number of trees) before you cut one tree. For a consrvationist this is a great slogan. It demonstrates also the beauty of Swahili, the language.

We were also given several volumes of Useful Trees and Shrubs for Tanzania this book turned out to be a Bible for us.

So with all of this were were set to carry out an effective project and the cost were no great.

Hang on though, before I close off on this. At Loshoto,in the Usambara Mountains (Google it) there is a project funded by Denmark - National Tree Seed Project. It was a real perk trip to go there, but a very useful place to go to purchase really good quality seed. We made the trip there several times on I will relate some of those stories another time. What is not so well known though is that there is a large, well-kept Herbarium (that is a collection of [pressed of preservation] plants from Tanzania and around the world - fascinating!) Also there is a large Arboretum (that is a collection of live and growing trees from around the world) and you should see the size of some of the Eucalyptus species! There is a large range - I even found some Leyland Cypress which we grow here as a shelter tree and can only be propagated by cuttings.

So the stage was set for us really.