Rufaro Makamure

I have managed to meet my deadline. I sent my sister the proposed set up, to have her produce fodder for her goats to supplement stock feed that she will buy. There was a good reason why it was not easy to start working on this project, because it is a whole new area which needs its own kind of respect.

My sister has 6 hectares of land and I have the privilege to be a part of managing this place. She is already against cutting of trees and she has maintained as much of the trees that she found there as she can. She even attempted to grow some more  indigenous trees of her own. A month or two ago she was greatly disappointed when one of the guys who usually work with her burnt the place up. She had asked for him to make a fire guard because the areas around her plot were being burnt and she didn't want the fire to get into her yard. The boy thought she had said he should burn the inside of the yard and he torched the place up. There were people who were building a house for my sister who had gone away for the weekend, when they returned, they are the ones who called her to tell her that her place had been burnt, even they were surprised how the boy thought to burn the place like he did, yet everyone knows how my sister feels about burning fields and cutting trees.  The trees she had planted were all burnt in this fire.

This part of my sister  makes it easy for me because it aligns with my values. My worry is with the gradual growth of a permaculture approach. She has just come out of trying pen fattening and one of the reasons why she chose it is its speed in giving returns. When I did my research, I liked the silvo pastures, where trees, shrubs and grasses are mixed to produce stock feed as well as fuel (firewood) and even food for people. It also promises stability in the long run. To sell my idea, to start with, I have proposed some plants that I have witnessed to be easy to grow, for example banana plants, mulberry trees and pigeon pea. The space I have been asked to start with is on a low lying area and most of the rain water settles here, as a result it is usually wet (waterlocked I think) during the rainy season. As a result I have picked first the plants that are more tolerant of this and yet they also tolerate drought conditionds. To add to the mix I have included gliricidia and ficus, which are plants I have never seen, but could work as fodder for the goats. Another thing I have considered is the possibility of turning this space into an ornamental garden. All the trees I chose can be either pruned, pleached or made into topiary trees. I figured if these trees are going to have their branches cut, to feed goats, this might be done in a way that makes the space to look "textbook" pretty and this can make the proposal more attractive. Other trees and grasses are for later introduction, and these can be used as hedges and boundaries fir a paddock system as well. As we move away from the buildings the design can become more and more natural with less human interaction apart from adding specific trees and  harvesting of fodder for the goats.

I also proposed a water harvesting pit which will be surrounded by the banana plants.
I am yet to hear what she says, hopefully she will like what I have proposed enough to have me work with her as she moulds the design to suit what she wants. I tried to keep the suggestions very little and if these work, we can grow from there.

One of the motives why I was excited to do this project was the possibility to get paid. This changed when I had time to think about this. My sister has supported me as I grow my space, this is part of the fruits, for allowing me to explore permaculture, knowing that someone has my back has given me time. She is also possibly going to expand my area of influence, which is a satisfying thing on its own. So if she allows me to work with her, she will be funding my dream of growing a regenerative system and in all fairness it will be improper for her to pay me. We already support each other in non-commerce ways and I would like to keep it that way.

I know I am not supposed to write anything before writing about a design proposal for my sister, which I am hoping to finish today.

I just can't keep my feelings bottled. I am beyond frustrated at the moment. Some potato stems, in the keyhole garden have been cut, leaving a whole potato plant destroyed (well I kind of destroyed it digging to find a cutworm). I found a snail instead and I was angry at it, I am a friend, yet it eats my potatoes. I know its not its fault, but I am still angry. I moved it to the banana plant and I hope no additional potatoes will be damaged.

The next thing on my list is working on helping my sister design her space for her goats. I was so excited when she asked for my help, but concentrating on gathering information about goats rearing has not been as easy as I had hoped. The first few days, I would open a page online and sit for some time reading, and I wouldn't understand anything at all. I could make out the single words and their meanings, but I couldn't make sense of what I was reading, and the more I tried, the harder it would get. I was now sleeping whenever I  would start reading, such that I had to stop.
When I did goal setting, I put my goals in a list, in order of highest priority first. The strategy is to work on one goal at a time and I cannot go to the next one until I finish.  I have to write down my progress for not just me to see, but here on my thread. This is actually a lot of pressure because every time I do not have anything to write, it implies I have not done any work, and even if I do something that clears another goal, I can not write about it if I have not fibished writing on a goal that comes before it on my list. So my daily routine is as follows:
I wake up to either sweep our yard or prepare food for the dogs and make some tea that we take as we do our morning devotion, which should be at 6 am every day except for Sunday.  We came up with a duty roster with my sister for cooking and cleaning the house. Before this, we used to just do things, and we realised that it did not work. We never used to sweep the yard, and my excuse, for not doing something that is practiced by almost everyone around here, was because it erodes the soil and for paved parts, its outside, dust is going to gather anyways so why bother. When we stayed with my niece, sweeping the outside was a must do for her, and the space looked nicer when she swept it, so we adopted this when she left and we added it to our daily chores. On my cooking day, I do not leave dishes in the sink after eating, and I am still practicing cleaning as I go, especially in the kitchen. This takes up most of the mornings, and there is a bigger part of the afternoon that is also used up when I cook lunch. I thank God for the  2 meal diet we are following. It has reduced some cooking time, giving me more time for other things. Unlike the past years, it is a must for me to clean the space I am in, for myself, and to prepare proper food. I used to rush to do tasks I thought were of greater purpose, and I would put up cleaning and cooking for later. As a result of this, productive work in relation to my goals now starts a little later in the day.

I can only start reading literature on goats after my chores, and because I cannot go to the next goal before tackling this one, I have to sit and read, whether I am getting what I am reading or not. Today was a much better day. This change came about when I was in the ladies. The seat was more comfortable compared to our sofas and most chairs we have in the house, and the air is so much cooler and moist because we fill up our tub with water that we store for flushing, since we only have a day and some hours in a week that our city council gives us running water. I decided to grab my reading material, and when I started reading, things were clearer. I now have a new reading spot, which my sister finds extremely weird, I think it's not proper too, but it will do for now, and I know for sure that when the time comes to fix our house, temperature regulation, color of walls and an extremely comfortable seating space will be of high priority.

I hope I will be writing about my work on my sister's space soon.

It was so easy for me to know what to prioritize when I began to organize the projects that are floating everywhere in my head. I have been learning and am still learning to shift my mindset from a selfless way of living to a self-awareness one, which makes me the center of my world, without feeling guilty, and at the same time continuing to respect other worlds' centers. I planned to go to the hospital, a place I put in the same bracket as nightmares, because hospitals terrify me. I was worried about my breathing, and this was days after I had choked badly on nyemba beans (cowpeas). When I was in the waiting room this time around, there were very few people about 5, but I still waited for 3 hours before I could see the doctor. I was glad I had carried a novel with me. I also had time to think of the circumstances surrounding my choking incident.
We were preparing for our holiday and this time around all my siblings would be present, so this was a really important holiday. One of my sisters I stay with had gone to have her hair done, and the other one had arrived into town but had decided to wait for the one who was having her hair done. I, on the other hand, had a more important business to deal with. I saw an opportunity to reinforce the value of nyemba beans as a valuable bean, equal in its value to sugar beans as food to have in the kitchen. Holidays are coupled with good "classy" food, and I wanted to throw nyemba beans in the mix for it to mark its own presence without me saying anything. It was late in the evening, when I decided to taste the nyemba bean, which was still on the stove, to see whether it was cooked enough for me to use it  in my rice. It was cooked alright, so I left it with its water. That is what was going to cook the rice and give it an even richer flavor. I must have chewed and swallowed too fast such that I choked badly. I coughed for a while and lay on the bed, coughing by myself. and it was after some hours when my sisters came, and I must have slept because they woke me up. I was still coughing when I woke up, but it was not as bad, and it was now after midnight, so I resumed my cooking because this trip was too important for me to cancel. I still would cough a little during our journey, but it was not much. My throat was painful when I would eat. In some way, it worked in my favor because nyemba bean became a topic throughout the trip. We had the nyemba/rice mix for lunch and for supper. My family was not too enthusiastic about the idea of the meal before they tasted it, but it was a winner when they ate it. My sister-in-law requested a very small portion during lunch because she said she gets an upset stomach if she eats nyemba. A lot of people claim that indigenous food stuff make them sick, and for some it could be true but in some cases I think it has a lot to do with the class nyemba bean is associated with in our community. The rice was a part of the starch for lunch and supper. During supper, my sister-in-law did not ask for a smaller portion. She had her full share, and when we were leaving, she commented on how tasty the rice was. It definitely forms one of my nice memories.
I went back to reading my book, and eventually, I was called in to see the doctor. I was told to get some blood tests and have an X-ray. He also did a physical examination. All the tests costed me, and the most expensive one,  was the blood test, which he never looked at when they came, he only looked at the X-ray and told me not to worry because no food went the wrong way. I was puzzled why he had requested blood tests, the body physical exam maybe he had to do, but I wish he didn't have to.

I sat in the baking heat, which I could barely feel. It was the last thing on my mind because the scenery and the animals had all of my attention. I watched a troop of monkeys that seemed to be undisturbed by my presence. One female monkey had a baby that did not even know how to break the fruit that the rest of the troop was eating. I watched as the mother allowed the other  monkeys to care for her baby while she looked from a distance, as she ate and rested. She trusted in her clan, and in turn, the others proved to be trustworthy. The baby was carried, hugged, played with, and even kissed by the other monkeys. I watched in awe at the love I was witnessing. One particular monkey that looked quite young itself was very protective of the baby. I saw it breaking a piece of fruit for the baby, when it saw the little one failing to break the fruit. There was a time when it grabbed the  baby and held it tightly, as if to protect it from an older monkey that was passing by. The troop looked like a civilized group of animals, showing each other a lot of kindness and affection. They had their share of the fruit from the tree that I was sitting under, the same tree that a few elephants had fed from earlier.

I found myself comparing us humans to these 'savage', 'uncivilized' animals. I wonder which species is actually acting civilized. There is room in the monkey's world to learn and to be loved, yet this comes at a higher cost in our world. There is abundance in the animal kingdom, something that is becoming harder for us. Parents are losing themselves as they try to care for their children, and the kids lose their sense of identity because the grown ups are too busy. We have no time to actually be there for each other fully. As I sat on the game park bench, learning and observing, I thought of myself and how a lot of my projects have all come flooding and demanding for my attention, all at once. For the past days, I was stuck, not knowing where to even begin. I need to clear my head and focus, which is what I will be doing in the next few days.

"CAN WE MAKE A CHANGE?"This is a question that I have been asking myself a lot this week. My answer came when I least expected it. I was lying on the bed thinking of the sorry  glances that I am getting from those who know me when they pass me as I sell peanut butter. I know exactly what they are thinking because I was once in their position. If ever I would see an ex-classmate or someone I grew up with,  selling in the streets, I would see poverty and misery. To an extent, it truly is a reflection of this, and when I  accepted my state economically, it has made selling so much easier.

Some of my selling good experiences are not making things better. We are on survival of the fittest mode, and I am not one of the fittest in this context. I am stuck in survival of the weakest, where everyone  watches out for each other. On Sunday, some women took some peanut butter, the biggest sale I have ever made, and they would give me my money the following day. I have been to their place more than 5 times now, and I don't think I am getting any money from them. I am frustrated, but I am considering this as money that I dropped and lost. This is what made me lie on the bed asking myself if change was possible.
I was startled by a call from my sister asking me what permaculture was, and inwardly, I was thinking here we go again. I have explained this to her a number of times, but my sister is so polite that she will look down upon your work in the most polite manner, but you will feel it and I thought this was one of the times. I told her that in agriculture, it's when you design things to be the most productive you can be while mimicking nature, which will result in sustainability and eventually lower costs. Then she said, " I want you to do a permaculture  design for me at my place, and I will pay you for it." I was stunned, and I did not know what to say. Suddenly, I remembered the plot progress and the growing business relationship I have with the peanut butter guy,
which I will talk about in the next thread. This is change that is happening. Right now, all I need to do is to design a beautiful goats pasture for my sister. I know that if it is successful, the people in her circle who will see the design might also want it, and that's how I will be spreading permaculture.

Broiler chicks were not easy to get. Rearing chickens is the most popular way that most households are earning extra income for them to survive, so chicks are on great demand. The queue to getting them in all proper shops meant we needed to book and wait for our lucky shot at getting the chicks.  Mai Kumbi booked some chicks,  she  was told to get the birds after a week, and when she went there at 6 am the queue was already so long and she couldn't get any because they were finished. She ended up getting back our money and went in the streets and bought some chicks that aren't broilers.

I wouldn't have advised her to buy these ones, it will be months of buying chicken feed, yet I just wanted us to take advantage of the free mulberries to supplement stock feed. The idea was to keep chickens that we wouldn't have to keep for months. I had already started selling peanut butter, physically (I started selling on WhatsApp a while back but sales flattened)  since the beginning of the week. It is now possible to actually sell because I am done with home schooling. In the coming week exams will be starting, so my aunt's daughter went back home to prepare for the exams. If I get good sales, it's going to help with this little situation of ours and so much more with regards to the plot.

The beetroot beds have responded well to the termite mount soil. The leaves are green now.

I am now concentrating on the keyhole garden. The pumpkin plant has been growing, but the flowers dry up when they are still coming out. I have covered it from direct heat, I am managing watering a lot more, and I soaked banana peels so that I can use the water, incase its got something to do with the nutrients. There is some soil I will be adding gradually,  so as to bury as much of the pumpkin stem as I can,  with the hope that it will grow more roots and take up as much of the nutrients as possible.

I am growing seeds from scratch indoors, my first attempt is with cucumber, I am finding the seedlings a lot more difficult to grow outside from scratch either because of rodents or lack of nutrients or just plant diseases. This will give me time to work on the soil before I put the seedlings down.

I am going to buy chickens for home consumption. Meat is a really important part of meals, and a significant part of income, in relation to how much someone earns, is channeled towards meat. I have decided to buy chickens (broilers) for home consumption for my family and for those at the plot. This came about as I was thinking of an incentive to keep the excitement level high at the plot, and I was looking at the abundance of mulberries from the two mulberry trees in our yard. Most of the fruit is just dropping and going to waste. This is a resource that's slipping through our fingers, and it is about to change.

I have started collecting the mulberries, which I will be drying, and I will mix the dried mulberries with maize and have this ground. I will do more research on proper mixes with maize grains, and this will buy me more time with the guys at the plot. Already, mai Kumbi is really excited about the whole idea. She has started drying leftover starch from her household, to add to the mix and again this was her own initiative.

I got to the plot just after 7am, and two beds had already been planted with beans, (we are planting beans where onions were). Mai Kumbi planted before she left for work, and as she was planting, the son was watering the other beds. By 10am, the family was busy with their life, apart from plot business. Mai Kumbi asked me for plant spacing before she planted the beans. It means that they now trust me.

The onions have brought so much excitement, and it's such an incentive for developing a productive culture. The bulbs on most of the onions are not as big as I had hoped, so we are just going round, picking on the  onions that have fallen leaves, meaning they will no longer grow. We will give the rest more time, to grow bigger.
Even though the onions might not give us what we had hoped income wise, the attitude towards work at the plot has improved even more. For example, termite mount soil is being piled in advance on the side of beds that we intend to grow beetroots in, ( the bed that we spread this soil with, before planting beetroots has seedlings that are looking really healthy). Then the plan was that, once we remove onions, we will put beans in the all the onion beds, and already mai Kumbi and Kumbi, are planning to start collecting termite mount soil again, in preparation for this,  which will be spread in the beds, and it's their initiative. I need to quickly come up with a boost in the quality of life, in the present time, to keep these spirits up.

We will not be selling the onions now. We will be waiting for the time when the onion prices are high. This was made possible by my sister, who has promised to buy our onions with current market prices, but she won't take them. A few months from now, when the onion prices are good, we can sell the onions and pay her her money back. This she did, so that we can cover our current living expenses and benefit from our produce in the present time, since we don't have the capacity to hold on to our produce as yet, for us to waiting for best times to sell in the market.

We have started curing the onions, and as usual, my first thought was that, whatever I do, I need to explore using recycled material. When I went to our local scrap yard, I found out that the price of scrap was ridiculously high, and I ended up buying a simple fence for this.