The General Secretary wanted us to carry out an environmental programme at Mareu. I think his encouragement was because he had a farm there and wanted to plant some trees.
Mareu is West of King'ori and the main part of the village seems to be a micro-climate influenced by the nearby forest. Where the actual village and church are situated, the climate favors tree growing but there is a sub-parish down by the King'ori road which is drier.
The General Secretary's farm is on a drier ridge West of the sub-parish, but that ridge leads right up to The main part of Mareu. [well I understand all that!]
After all, the General Secretary was my boss, so he recieved his trees. I did not demand that the holes be prepared first, as I do all others, so his trees were not planted well and many did not survive. This is a typical outcome - a lot of trees arrive at once and there is failure to plant them on time and properly. Then the dry weather starts and the trees have not established well enough to survive. Invariably it is better to supply small lots and do it properly!
So he received a second lot with much the same outcome, but I did put him under pressure a little and he employed a planter.
He received a mix of fruit, indigenous and exotic timber trees - the value of which could be more appreciated in some of the other areas.
We carried out a seminar in the small church at the sub-parish. The church was simply built and there were rocks for seats. This is the way churches start and when the community comes together the building begins for the new church.
We took our nursery workers with us to participate in a role play and for the village people to hear from them what we were doing in the nursery.
The Bishop's driver, Samweli lived nearby and his wife was the leader of the women's group there.
The village plantings were very successful and Samweli & his wife wanted extra plants. Theirs grew well and they were genuinely interested, making the programme a success. Which goes to show what can be done under the right circumstances.
While the environmental problems at Mareu village were not in any way as severe as say, Kisimiri, and there were lots of trees already established there, it was still useful to carry out a programme there. Why? Well look at the Amazon and how much indigenous forest is lost per day. Look also at Borneo and the replacement of indigenous rain forest for palm oil crops.
Through education, some difference might occur.
The village people proved to be enthusiastic and took note of what the seminar taught, then wanted to plant trees.
There was vacant land that was owned by the church and it was decided to plant trees there as an investment for the church. This proved successful and it copied to some extent the nearby state forest.
We divided the participants into groups of 10 households and after checking that the planting hole were prepared correctly, we supplied the trees. Fodder, fruit, fuelwood and timber species. The deliveries took several days and it is a pleasant experience to be accepted into those rural households.
Later the village chairman turned up at our nursery with a Landrover, requesting more trees for his village. He probably made some money out his trip, but that is no problem as the object of the exercise is to establish trees in the rural areas.
The Chekechea [nursery school] that was started in the church while we were there had no resources and from time to time our friends would send small amounts of money to us. Sometimes meant to help us out personally, or to use in any way that we thought appropriate. All money sent to us was used to help people or organizations. In fact all official project money was used within the project and did not go towards helping people in a personal way. But the donations and some of our personal resources could be put to helping in a personal way eg. paying school fees. But sending money to us was expensive as we had not found Western Union, instead a bank draft was sent and a good chunk was lost in fees as the transaction passed through LA [something like USD40] then once in the Tanzania bank, the funds were not released for three months! In fact our local bank in New Zealand did not know that money was deducted at LA nor that it was held onto by the Tanzania bank!
From some small donations (Potts) we bought writing slates and chalk and some teacher resource material. The items were well used.
Mareu is West of King'ori and the main part of the village seems to be a micro-climate influenced by the nearby forest. Where the actual village and church are situated, the climate favors tree growing but there is a sub-parish down by the King'ori road which is drier.
The General Secretary's farm is on a drier ridge West of the sub-parish, but that ridge leads right up to The main part of Mareu. [well I understand all that!]
After all, the General Secretary was my boss, so he recieved his trees. I did not demand that the holes be prepared first, as I do all others, so his trees were not planted well and many did not survive. This is a typical outcome - a lot of trees arrive at once and there is failure to plant them on time and properly. Then the dry weather starts and the trees have not established well enough to survive. Invariably it is better to supply small lots and do it properly!
So he received a second lot with much the same outcome, but I did put him under pressure a little and he employed a planter.
He received a mix of fruit, indigenous and exotic timber trees - the value of which could be more appreciated in some of the other areas.
We carried out a seminar in the small church at the sub-parish. The church was simply built and there were rocks for seats. This is the way churches start and when the community comes together the building begins for the new church.
We took our nursery workers with us to participate in a role play and for the village people to hear from them what we were doing in the nursery.
The Bishop's driver, Samweli lived nearby and his wife was the leader of the women's group there.
The village plantings were very successful and Samweli & his wife wanted extra plants. Theirs grew well and they were genuinely interested, making the programme a success. Which goes to show what can be done under the right circumstances.
While the environmental problems at Mareu village were not in any way as severe as say, Kisimiri, and there were lots of trees already established there, it was still useful to carry out a programme there. Why? Well look at the Amazon and how much indigenous forest is lost per day. Look also at Borneo and the replacement of indigenous rain forest for palm oil crops.
Through education, some difference might occur.
The village people proved to be enthusiastic and took note of what the seminar taught, then wanted to plant trees.
There was vacant land that was owned by the church and it was decided to plant trees there as an investment for the church. This proved successful and it copied to some extent the nearby state forest.
We divided the participants into groups of 10 households and after checking that the planting hole were prepared correctly, we supplied the trees. Fodder, fruit, fuelwood and timber species. The deliveries took several days and it is a pleasant experience to be accepted into those rural households.
Later the village chairman turned up at our nursery with a Landrover, requesting more trees for his village. He probably made some money out his trip, but that is no problem as the object of the exercise is to establish trees in the rural areas.
The Chekechea [nursery school] that was started in the church while we were there had no resources and from time to time our friends would send small amounts of money to us. Sometimes meant to help us out personally, or to use in any way that we thought appropriate. All money sent to us was used to help people or organizations. In fact all official project money was used within the project and did not go towards helping people in a personal way. But the donations and some of our personal resources could be put to helping in a personal way eg. paying school fees. But sending money to us was expensive as we had not found Western Union, instead a bank draft was sent and a good chunk was lost in fees as the transaction passed through LA [something like USD40] then once in the Tanzania bank, the funds were not released for three months! In fact our local bank in New Zealand did not know that money was deducted at LA nor that it was held onto by the Tanzania bank!
From some small donations (Potts) we bought writing slates and chalk and some teacher resource material. The items were well used.
1 comment:
Nice to read that you visited my village.
Your love and material support toward educations will be apprecaited specifically for Mareu Village children and youngs
Post a Comment