Farming in Africa

 It is just before the rainy season here in Rundu and that means it is planting time for many people. There are only a few amount of people that participate in the planting even though this part of Namibia, the Kavango Region, has some of the most fertile farmland in all of Namibia. The people that are fortunate enough to have land must travel very far out of the village to get to their farmland and then they live on the farmland until the planting is finished which can be a number of weeks.

The traditional way of farming in this area has been to “slash and burn” weeds to clear the farmland and then plow the land. Often the people have to hire someone that owns oxen or a tractor to come and plow the land. This is an expense that takes much of their profit from the last years season.

This past week AIM brought an expert to hold farming workshops that show farming techniques and practices that are geared for low income people in this type of environment. Carl traveled from Capetown, South Africa to join us here in Rundu and talk to the people of the Kaisosi village about farming.

Carl is part of a ministry called “Farming God's Way”, www.farming-Gods-way.org. “Farming God's Way” is a workshop based ministry that comes along side people and shows them the proper techniques to farm in a Christ centered way. As I said earlier the traditional methods of farming in this area is to “slash and burn”. In the minds of the people the burning is to rid the land of weeds and termites. However, the Farming God's Way method says that termites are not the enemy of the land and in fact termites and insects are good as long as they are not eating your crops. The best way to get the termites to not eat the crops is to provide the termites something else to eat...“God's blanket”. God's blanket is dead organic brush that is placed on top of the field after the field is planted. The blanket provides a land covering that will greatly reduce erosion, hold moisture in the ground, and also provides the insects something to eat. Another big part of farming God's way is to respect the land and give thanks to God for providing the land and praying over your crops. As Carl said during the workshop there is no way to know the type of injustices that have been done on the land and the sins that were committed on the the land especially in the area we are in because in the past there was a great amount of fighting and bloodshed between Angola and Namibia in this area.

 

There were two sessions of the workshop put on, the first was Friday and Saturday and the second was Monday and Tuesday mornings. The group on Friday and Saturday was a younger group that really embraced the Farming God's Way methods. It is very exciting to see the group eagerly anticipate the upcoming planting season so they can plant using Farming God's Way methods. Even though it will be hard for many of them to negotiate with their families and community to switch to this method of planting they are excited to try the methods on a small portion of land and hopefully show the difference in the crop yield. Where so many times new methods are not received well in Africa it was encouraging to see them get so excited about the teachings. Please pray for the people that attended the workshops as they go into their growing season. We pray that the methods that were taught can be attempted and that the crop yield will be greater this year.

During the second session when we were out in the field demonstrating to the people how to plant all of a sudden someone yelled snake! Everyone dropped what they were doing and ran to where the yelling came from. We all saw the snake in the weeds and the two guys with hoes started swinging at the snake. The snake was going moving around all over the place and finally found a tree that it began to climb up. The tree wasn't very tall so the snake did not have anywhere to go to get over. Once the snake got in the tree everyone started picking up rocks and throwing them at the snake in the tree. There were some direct hits but it is more amazing no one got hit by a rock because there were people on both sides of the trees throwing rocks in either direction. The snake was finally hit enough to make it fall from the tree and one of the guys with the hoe was able to kill the snake. It was interesting to see all the men instantly drop what they were doing to kill the snake. Even some of the mamas got in there to pitch a rock at the snake. I guess in a region where most of the snakes are poisonous it is better to take a snake out then chance the snake biting a child from the nearby playground. 

Julie and I kind of forgot that this week is Thanksgiving!  It really doesn't feel like the holidays when the weather is so warm.  However I must say it has been very nice here lately and not as hot.  Well it is either not that hot or we are actually getting used to the temperatures.

Julie and I would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!  We miss you all and are SO thankful for the support and prayers of our family and friends!  Eat some turkey for us!  We are thinking about having a Thanksgiving celebration this weekend with some of the other missionaries and some of our friends from the village.  Those plans are still in the works.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Rundu State Hospital!

One of the roads on a walk into town

Well, I've now worked one week in Casualty at the hospital. The nurses I've worked with have been very welcoming and funny too! Mainly, I've worked with Aina, Rebecca, Junius and Justin. Currently, I'm working Monday to Friday 8am - 1pm. Seems like a short shift- but I am very thankful for it since it is taking lots of adjusting to the heat, the 30 minute walk in sand there and back :), the language barrier, and the different diseases/treatments/medications etc.
I'm slowly learning the daily routines and have become more able to jump in and help even though most of the patients I cannot talk to! The nurses have been great translating for me, but I am eager to continue to learn the language so I can be more efficient. It is amazing though how far a gentle smile and a loving touch can go even with the communication barrier. :)
Right now, I am still waiting for my official papers to come from the Namibia government so I can practice as a nurse. Currently, I am able to assist the nurses and do "non-invasive" procedures - but would love to become more hands on when possible. If you can, please pray for my papers to come though without a hitch, and soon!
There have been some differences here in Namibia from home in the States in regards to medical and nursing care, but I am trying to have an open mind and a learning heart- because this is Africa!! Even though I was a nurse in Zimbabwe, it is easy once returning home to lose sight of our blessings in regards to advancements in medical care and start complaining about the "little things." I am once again reminded of how fortunate we are back home.
One amazing thing is that Casualty nurses in Namibia have much more freedom in thinking with a "medical" mind. Basically, Casualty is broken down into many different areas all with long queues. :) Each patient waits in line to see a doctor and then have a determined treatment. Patients can go from seeing the doctor to getting X-ray and then back to the doctor for re-evaluation and then home (for example) without seeing a nurse or laying in a bed. If however, a patient is too ill to sit and wait in a queue for a doctor they come straight to Casualty ward (where I work). There the nurses can assess, make a diagnosis, treat, and then wait for re-evaluation of a doctor when he makes rounds or if a patient is sick enough, they will call the doctor straight away. I am learning so much here, and am excited to share more as time goes on.

Daylight Saving in Namibia

Many of you in the US are enjoying an extra hour of sleep this week due to the "fall back" of daylight saving time! An interesting fact is that Namibia is the only African country that has daylight savings time, however, the time of the year is different from the US.  In Namibia, daylight savings time starts in the first week of September and ends in the first week of April.  That means until April 3rd, 2011 we will be 7 hours ahead of those of you in the eastern time zone!

This Week, so far...

This week has been great! We started out the week on Monday by going on a Safari at Mahango Game Reserve located in the Caprizi strip. It was Blair's last chance to go on a safari before he leaves Namibia so Alysee, Laura, Julie and I went along. Rob drove in the 2-wheel drive van that we have been doing the majority of our traveling in, and he did an awesome job driving it all around the sometimes deep sandy roads! We only had to get out and push once! The park was very big and filled with many animals. During the morning drive through the trails we saw a lot of deer-like animals such as: impala, kudo, and sabre. We also saw some brilliantly colored birds, wharthog, zebra, and hippo!

Afterwards, we stopped at a beautiful and relaxing lodge named Nunda for lunch and a short dip in their pool, which felt great because it was 41 Celsius in the shade. After lunch we went to a different nearby reserve named Buffalo Park and drove around a bit more. At this place we saw a large amount of water buffalo, hippo, a monitor lizard, and then a dead elephant. A dead elephant is pretty uncommon to see from what Rob told us and it was probably killed by disease. Just when we thought that the dead elephant was going to be the only elephant we saw we went around a corner and came up on a large herd of elephants at a watering hole. I have to say, it was the best part of the trip by far. Seeing elephant in the wild is well, WILD!

Also this week we started our language training orientation. We are learning some skills from a technic called LAMP which is basically learning a language by hearing it and speaking it and not writing it or reading it. This technique forces us to get out in the community and learn the language from the people we are building relationships with.

Wednesday, was the first day at the Rundu State Hospital for all of us. Yes, even me! I had a meeting with Dr. Yuri who is the supervisor/director of the hospital to discuss the plan for computerizing the hospital. Julie started in Casualty, which is like the ER but with a name that really doesn't make you want to be a patient there. I am sure she will write about her experiences soon.

My meeting with Dr. Yuri went well. We began by walking around the entire hospital while he counted the locations he wants to put a computer. After that we went back to his office to discuss what steps to take in implementing the system. We talked about some specifics with the system and I focused on the importance to have the staff ready for the system with some general computer training classes. My main concern is to make the system sustainable and that means that there will need to be staff working along side me.

Julie and I are excited to go to the OVC project today. The OVC gatherings occur formally on Tuesdays and Fridays. This is a time that I get to play soccer or rugby (Blair's sport) with the kids and try to learn some Lucazi.

Please remember us in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to settle in and step out of our comfort zone to meet people and embrace the community.

First meal on an open fire...

What a wonderful weekend we have had! Sunday we were able to experience church in the village of Kaisosi after all 14 of us piled into the van and made the trek there. The church at Kaisosi was much different from churches back home, even the churches in Windhoek! Besides the fellowship, worship, singing, and sermon- church was also a time for distributing mail to the congregation, announcements on the happenings of town, and even going through what the itinerary would be for the following week. Most of the service was in Lucazi, the main language of Kaisosi. Kaisosi is a village of mainly Angolan refugees that crossed the border during the Angolan war. Their mother-tongue language (Lucazi) is different than the language of Rundu, which is Ru-kwangali. Fortunately for us, most of the service was also translated into English! Church was long (4 ½ hours) and hot, but it was also a great time of rejoicing. The singing was amazing! There were three choirs: the women's, youth, and children's choir. The youth choir was phenomenal and the children's choir was so full of noise! I was thinking about back at home, when to hear the children's choir we need 5 microphones and a listening ear. Here, their harmonizing voices were echoing throughout the church and could probably be heard from a mile away. Mark and I both couldn't stop from smiling.

Blowing on the coals to heat up dinner!

That evening, Mark got his first chance to drive the bakkie (aka, pickup truck) out to Blair's place. Blair (the Aussie mentioned in our previous blog), lives out in Kaisosi at the OVC. The five of us (Laura, Alysse, Blair, Mark, and myself), cooked dinner over a campfire. We spent some of the time with some national kids named Foxy and Dokie. They were so fun to kid around with, and also very patient with us asking probably ridiculous questions about Namibia and trying to repeat just a few phrases of Ru-kwangali over and over! We had a great night by the fire making an awesome stew and makeshift s'mores. :) It was so nice to take the time to cook over the fire...

On our drive home we parked the bakkie on the side of the road and got in the back of the truck to stargaze. Seeing the African night sky can take your breath away. The sky is so vast and abundant with stars. Sitting there in the silence and still of the night... makes you truly feel the vastness and beauty of God's creation.