Visiting real villagers

Today, we set off with a guide to visit a local farm. The walk there is an hour, and even at 0830 it's very hot. ( Midday it's 38C in the shade). The guide is suffering too, even though he is local, because he drank too much the night before.🥴 .

This visit is interesting because it's utterly real. It's not a show for tourists. Nobody is dressed up. No music or singing, other than that from the radio.

En route, the guide explains how the 1st land reform after independence was concieved. The basic idea was to give the tribes goats and sheep, so they would farm them and leave the wild animals alone. Each person got 5 goats and only had to hand over 5, after 5 years. Since goats have 5 or six offspring each year, that should be simple, no? Actually, when it came time to pick up the 5, quite often, the farmer had none. "Taken by hyenas " was a typical explanation. Luckily the government changed course, and encouraged farmers to take up other jobs in town, and it gave those that remained a role in wildlife conservation, and it provided water extraction and storage infrastructure, that made it possible to grow vegetables.

And that is what we see when we arrive. A good quality water extraction, powered by solar, with 20,000 litres storage and a piping system to homes and vegetable plots. There are about 70 goats, and maybe 15 cattle. They go out each day to graze in the savanah countryside. Here, it rains in November, so there is seemingly limitless food for grazing animals.

We visit the farmers house, it is made of breeze blocks with a corrugated metal roof.i It's much bigger than houses we saw elsewhere in Africa, with several rooms, and a toilet and wc However, before we get too excited, I should note that the house is mostly bear, with a very old dirty mattress, and assorted junk.

Outside, they put a baby in my lap, and that all say looks cute. I guess they don't mean me. After I hand off the baby to Lola, I take up the offer to play dominoes. The farmers' brother wins both games, with me a close 2nd. (It's a game for 4). We ask about school. "It's 4km to primary and 70km to secondary, and at both the children stay for weeks, including weekends at the school." Boarding school at a very different level. No Tory toffs there.

There is an offering of food, with what they say is porridge, but looks more like polenta, and a spinnach, potato mix. Everyone except me tries it , and apparently it tastes great, although please note the next day Oscar had fever, though there might be another reason for that, because before food they were all trying their hand at mud hut building. The mud is a water, cow shit, earth mix. Grandma aged 80 shows how it's done. Her granddaughter has a laugh at the foreigners working the shit, as she explains that this form of building is traditional, but nobody does that anymore.Read more