Trekking

I just returned from my first quarterly food security trek.  I am tired of sitting in a car that isn’t made for tall people, crappy pothole filled roads, and drinking water out of 300ml water bags. But, this is Africa and I try not to complain outload. It only takes a few seconds after I complain internally and I realize it’s not that bad and it could be a lot worse. 

We went to about ten volunteer’s sites and looked at their food security projects.  They were in all array of completion.  Some had not even started others where finished and we got to see how happy and excited their community members were. 

Most of the projects are agriculture based, such as gardens, seed banks or demonstration plots. Here are some pictures.  Many of them could look the same but they aren’t and many of them are just pictures of where the garden will be when the project is finished.

Fetching water

The women coming to see us

The women that garden here

It was myself, my program manager and samaka or “Sam” the driver.  We got three flat tires on the trip with the last one happening at 6 o’clock last night in the rain right in front of the transit house where he was dropping me off.  I took some pictures of the first one.  Surprisingly he might have a future in NASCAR if he works on his form and speed a little.

Sam





Sam in action

The trip was a success, we learned a lot about the project and how we will do things differently next time.  It was also great to see some of the projects that are complete and are successful thus far.  To see for example a group of women come running into a garden as soon as we pull up because they are so excited to finally have a place they can garden will put a smile on your face.