Okay, so I know I've been lax on this whole blog-thing. I apologize. Now that I've gotten fairly settled, I hope to send out emails, post blogs, upload photos, etc on a much more regular basis. :) Inch' allah!
An example of what I'm up against here:
My toma (namesake) took me with her to one of the women's fields the other day. This is a field which I helped to "clear" a few months ago and is the epitome of the term "marginal space"...full of shrubbery, trees, and very hilly!! They have 4 good-sized pepineres that are quite appropriately covered with netting to keep bugs away. (They planted when I was in Tamba for an Ag Summit). Pulling back the netting, I see very healthy rows of cabbage, carrots, and onions. Very overcrowded. The rows are like little carpets of sprouts. :( Maybe they didn't realize they had bought good seed and had expected the germination rate would be lower. Maybe. Next year, I'll supervise better.
I hear voices coming from over the hill (really, it isn't a big field...just really not suitable for planting since it could maybe be terraced...). And I discover the real purpose of today's mission.
Fencing.
They have been blessed with the funds to buy barbed wire and I note they have leather gloves. Score! However, I notice no other familiar accoutrements. Women are setting about pulling branches off of trees and stripping the bark. Other women are hacking at dead trees with dull axes to cut posts. Others are digging post holes--a small child dutifully digging the dirt out (who needs a P.H.D. when you have a small child?) I want to cry as I watch them build this 6 strand barbed wire fence. 3' tall. Fence posts 2-3' apart. Wire only stretched by hand. Wire tied to the posts with strips of bark.
And I had to stop myself to ask what is better? Or worse? If I were to stop what they were doing, miraculously write a grant, buy steel fence posts and staples and a wire stretcher? If I were to stop what they were doing and have a live fence of thorny shrubs ready for 2 years from now? Or the fence they are building that will last 3 years before termites eat the fenceposts and goats will start slipping through the loose wire immediately?
Not to mention the waste of time, energy and funds. They could have used have as many fence posts and 1/2 as much wire....had they only known how to efficiently build this type of fence.
But what is more sustainable? The quick injection of my money and knowledge? That will need to be refenced in 10-15 years. Does anyone here know how to refence it? The fence they've built will have to be rebuilt 3 times in the next 10-15 years and is more expensive to build. But they did it themselves. Using their own means and methods. And a live fence can't be started at this time of year and takes longer to get established and more training on how to maintain it. And goats might still eat it. :(
There is the real riddle of sustainable development in practice.
