Food and Water Security at Sabina Primary Boarding School

The Sabina Permaculture Garden at the heart of school and community life.

2011-10-09T00:00:00.026+03:00

Contributed by Prue Gill, a great friend of the teachers and children at Sabina Primary Boarding School. Prue's experience is as an elementary, secondary, and tertiary teacher in Australia, and as a Board Member of the Stephanie Alexander Foundation, which brings Kitchen Garden Programs into Australian primary schools. Prue's passion for teaching and teachers, for children, and for gardening and good food, have intersected at Sabina. We thank you Prue, and can't wait to see you again soon in Uganda!

"Recently I had the good fortune to return to Sabina Boarding School to spend some time with teachers talking about the implementation of the Permaculture Curriculum that a group of teachers at the school have devised. This curriculum is aimed particularly for children in Primary years 4, 5 and 6, but it will influence what happens in all classes at the school, and in the kitchen of the home.

The aim of the curriculum is to balance the good work that has been done at Sabina on developing the academic side of school learning, with an equal emphasis on developing valuable vocational and life skills for the children. The hope is that every child who comes to this school will be able to live a meaningful life, and produce food, even in the absence of ‘professional employment’.

We also aim to share the benefits of the garden with the whole school community, including the families and guardians of children who attend the school. We want to produce a varied array of fruits and vegetables for all to share, to spread skills and love for permaculture principles and ethics, and also to use the garden as a site for hands on learning across the academic disciplines. Much of the valuable work in producing food for the kitchen is now being done by children, led of course by the wonderful James Kalokola and Anna Kisakye Nakibinge, the students of the Permaculture Club and the class teachers.

It is inspiring to see how teachers at the school have embraced the garden, appreciating its beauty as well as its productivity. In the time that I was there, we explored the opportunities a garden creates to think imaginatively about teaching and learning, and we came up with a concept that places the garden at the heart of the education offered by Sabina school.

Using the beautiful garden as central to learning, we talked of it as the basis for:

· Educating children in life skills – useful knowledge

· Food and water security – leading to healthy communities

· Educating children to shape their future – democratic citizenship

· Global responsibility and sustainability – caring for our planet

· Disciplinary and academic development - including literacy and numeracy and the skills required to perform well in national testing, as well as science, agriculture, the arts, the humanities

· Thematic and interdisciplinary learning – including problem solving and integration of theory and practice

· Opportunities for children with a range of learning styles – hands on learning, co-operative learning, differentiated tasks

· Improved diet and well being of children - hence optimising potential to learn

· Building positive links with the community through opportunities for sharing produce, running short courses for parents and guardians, inviting others in – including local and district schools

Teachers are now working on the many ways they will integrate permaculture and national curriculums. Think for example of the ‘problem’ of the chickens. The home has 70 hens which are laying about 60 eggs a day. Children are given an egg a week, other eggs are used in the kitchen, and surplus eggs are being sold in the village of Ssanje. This earns a little money that is put back into the garden. But chicken food is expensive, and we need to know whether our chicken project is cost effective? Here is a research question that can be given to senior primary students to work on together.Such research would involve counting eggs, developing a system of record keeping, drawing graphs, costing the regular expenses of chickens, charting the income from eggs, even ‘accounting’ in some way for the improved well being of children. It could require a written report at the end, maybe with illustrations.

The audience for the report would be diverse - James as manager of the FWS project, Margaret Kasekende as CEO of Children of Uganda, perhaps even the Children of Uganda Board. Such a research project would offer opportunity for learners of all kinds to draw some conclusions about a question that is very important for the organisation. It would put literacy and numeracy skills to good use, and children might even be involved in presenting the data orally in a formal way.

Our next step is to develop a beautiful poster which encapsulates this idea of the place of the garden in the life of the school and community. This can be placed in each classroom, in the kitchen, and shared with other community members and schools. It will act as a visual representation of our philosophy, and something to be proud of."

Growing a Better Tomorrow: A Sustainable Plan for our Future

2011-08-27T21:18:00.034+03:00

Over 10 million people in the Horn of Africa and East Africa are struggling to survive in the driest period on record in 60 years. Very poor rainfall has led to crop failures and livestock deaths in the region, which in turn has resulted in rising food prices in an already unstable economic environment.

Our hearts go out to the children and families across East Africa who are facing severe malnutrition and economic strife as a result of this current crisis.

At Sabina Primary School we are making continued strides in our Food and Water Security (FWS) program to help safeguard our kids from the devastating effects of drought and food shortage.A mere three years ago, we introduced the concept of permaculture (permanent agriculture) to our staff at Sabina with the intention of giving them the tools to grow more of our own food, store more water, teach the children sustainable agriculture skills, and move towards food and water security at our school.

Our staff took up the challenge, in spades! We now have fruit trees producing mangoes, jackfruit, avocadoes, and pawpaw for our children. Thanks to new water tanks that store wet season rain, our gardens also produce potatoes, carrots, beets, pumpkins, eggplants and other vegetables that add valuable nutrition to the school's staple diet of posho (corn-basedporridge) and beans. Our chickens, too, are contributing: eggs are now a weekly addition to the children's diet, with surplus eggs sold on the local market (where their bright yellow yolks set them apart).

But, perhaps the most vital crop reaped is the garden's new role as a learning tool, which sprang from the participation of seven of our teachers in a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course held at our school in 2010. Those seven teachers have since drafted a new curriculum in partnership with the Department of Education that will integrate our permaculture-based garden into every classroom subject - sciences, math, arts, reading and writing, as well as agriculture. Indeed, the Department of Education has proposed using our school as a model for experiential learning - taking the children out of the classroom and into the garden for hands-on activities. (How many ways can you cut up a jackfruit to get one-half: two quarters; four eighths; one quarter and two eighths - so much easier to see a fraction when you have your hands on it - and get to eat it at the end of class!)

We are so proud of our teachers and our students. Their energy levels are up in so many ways: proof in the pudding that good nutrition grows the body and the mind!

Please stay tuned for news from Prue Gill, the Australian teacher and Board Member of the Stephanie Alexander Foundation. Prue is working alongside Sabina's teachers to bring our Food and Water Security program alive in our classrooms.

Posted by Jan Smart, Vice Chair (Programs), Board of Directors, Children of Uganda

Permaculture progresses at Sabina

2011-08-24T14:09:00.000+03:00

“Start with the little that you know and learn more from doing” (a guiding principle for new Permaculture managers at Sabina)

Sabina pupils harvest maize

With this principle at the back of our mind I, (James Kalokola, FWS Assistant Program Manager) and Anna (FWS worker), assisted by teachers and staff at Sabina have been hard at work in the gardens. We have followed permaculture principles, including: stacking, multiple uses, and companion planting.

In the background of the photo above, you can see the school buildings. Water falling on the rooves is collected in the gutters and stored in the rainwater tanks. The collected water is used to water the vegetables, as drinking water for the chickens and in dry spells is used by the kitchen.

Sabina pupils harvest maize

Sabina pupils help prepare harvested maize for cooking

As well as the vegetables that are grown to improve the nutrition level of the lunch meal, a main crop is pineapples, enjoyed greatly by both pupils and staff. Maize uses the vertical space and ground nuts fix nitrogen, which is one of the nutrients required by the pineapple. Climbing beans on stands increase vertical yield without shading the pineapples, and they also fix nitrogen.

Sabina pupils enjoying maize from the permaculture gardens

Anna and pupils harvest maize

Older COU students volunteer
Nyero Christopher and Yiga Tom have been volunteering at FWS during their form four vacation. These young men give us hope that there the new generation in Uganda will lead meaningful lives. They have volunteered of their own accord. This is the spirit of giving and hard work that we would like to inculcate in children. We would like them to think ahead to their survival after school. These two young men are now studying at Butende Technical Institute, continuing to improve their skills in construction. With so many skills under their belts they will undoubtedly do well after school.

Anna and Yiga Tom harvest eggplants

Yiga and Tom harvest according to a schedule of vegetable supply to the kitchen

Yiga and Nyero make their way to the kitchen after ‘shopping’, not from a distant market but from the Sabina permaculture vegetable market, a market that supplies toxin free vegetables

Yiga, Nyero and James demarcating an access path in the new banana plantation. Banana is a favourite food of children from central Uganda.

Sabina pupils eat popcorn made from maize grown at Sabina

Vegetable garden with maize sukuma wiki, spinach amaranthus and climber beans. There is increased yield as a result of using the vertical space and appropriate selection of companions. The garden is fertilised with compost made on site.

A wheel barrow contains cabbages sent as part of a vegetable package sent to Kiwanga

During Christmas season it is the time to receive gifts from loved ones, a time when even the poor who cannot afford a good meal most days give gifts, using money from dear ones, or accumulated over time in preparation for the festive season. And so it was with FWS, which sent a Christmas package of vegetables and fresh beans to children with no known relatives celebrating the holiday together at Kiwanga, which is also home to Philip’s House.

Yiga, together with Kenedy, a Sabina staff member, pack fresh beans from FWS to be sent to Kiwanga.

The woodlot
This woodlot, a FWS project, consists of approximately 24,000 eucalypts. Children of Uganda will save money spent on firewood, an expense that strains its coffers. The woodlot will also generate income for Children of Uganda by through the sale of excess fire wood or poles. The money saved and generated can be used to improve the welfare of children.

Juvenile eucalypts in the Sabina woodlot

This is what we have for you on our blog now. Keep visiting it for many more updates. And we hope to see you at Sabina one day to witness permaculture activities.

James Kalokola, Assistant FWS Program Manager

Moving forward with food and water security at Sabina

2011-08-23T15:44:00.000+03:00

James Kalokola, Assistant Program Manager, Sabina Food and Water Security

My name is James Kalokola and I am the Assistant Program Manager at the permaculture project at Sabina, which has been renamed: Sabina Food and Water Security, or FWS for short.

About me and my journey to permaculture
My journey to FWS and permaculture started when I spotted an advertisement for the position of program assistant with FWS. I applied, hopeful that my qualifications and experience in agriculture would get me to the interview stage. To my pleasure I was shortlisted and, after an interview with representatives from Children of Uganda as well officials from the Rakai District Agriculture Department, I was chosen for the job.

But I don’t want to call this just a ‘job’ – it is much more than this for me. I’m passionate about the aims of this project and the values it represents, and I’m committed to improving it and achieving the best outcomes possible.

As a holder of a Bachelor of Science degree in conservation biology, I met the qualification requirements for the position. But I think that what is perhaps just as important is that I was born into and raised in a family that not only practices agriculture but values it, something which is unfortunately not always the case in modern Uganda where the lure of the city is strong. My training and my additional part-time work as a teacher at a local agricultural high school has also given me considerable experience interacting with students and the community.

Permaculture enters my world
To be frank, before I was appointed to this position in January 2010, the word ‘permaculture’ was not part of my vocabulary. The first time I heard it was when I met Jan Smart, Vice Chair (Programs) of Children of Uganda Board of Directors, to discuss the position. Jan introduced me to Dan Palmer, an Australian volunteer who was one of the designers of the original permaculture site plan. Dan is a softly-spoken man. After greeting me, he asked a question of me: “Have you ever heard of Permaculture?”. I knew immediately I was in the hands of a good teacher. I replied immediately: “No”.
Then Dan said simply and quietly, “It is permanent agriculture“, and stopped there, leaving me wondering . He knew instinctively that I would be intrigued.

I left the meeting full of curiosity, determined to investigate further and leave no stone unturned in my quest to understand the concept. When I got back to my home town of Kyotera in Rakai district, I jumped on the internet and did some research. Oh my, what a lot of information on permaculture there was. But I still did not dream that this new word would be such a crucial part of my role at Sabina. And the idea that someday I might even start to teach it was not even on my horizon of thought.

Learning about permaculture
Attending the January 2010 Permaculture Design Course at Sabina School was really the turning point in my journey from conservation biologist to permaculturist. This was the first Permaculture Design Course ever held in Uganda and I attended along with 50 other participants from different corners of the world, including Kenya, Tanzania, Canada, Australia, and the UK. You can read more about this course here and in earlier posts in this blog, including this one.

The main instructor was Rosemary Morrow, a world famous permaculture practitioner and teacher based in Australia. Her teaching colleagues were Dan Palmer, Amanda Cuyler, Lindsay Dozoretz, Claudia and Rachael Otuyar. Rachel is an African lady who works on a farmer-extension project in Kenya run along conservation farming lines. Her knowledge of permaculture came from her time working at St Judes, an organic farming training site in the Masaka district close to Sabina. St Judes is designed along permaculture principles,

On the first day of the course, Rosemary Morrow introduced the concept of permaculture and explained its origins and context. As the course progressed, my understanding of permaculture kept expanding and changing, as we moved from topic to topic. At one point, I saw it as ecology, at another I understood it as organic farming, and then further as physical planning , disaster management, and much more. This segmented understanding continued until the final days of the course, when it all started to come together holistically.

In a way, my initial disjointed understanding of permaculture is instructive. Permaculture does indeed have many disciplines embedded in it. All the topics and approaches above are part and parcel of permaculture. The confusion I faced is one that I suspect anybody new to the field of permaculture would be likely to succumb to .

I now realise that the ‘ingredients’ of permaculture can be found in other areas of knowledge, but the way they are presented creates a unique style of designing and living, which I would urge anybody to venture into. But I have one word of caution, based on my own short but intense experience of permaculture: once you decide to investigate, you will end up digging into it deeper and deeper.

A word of thanks
Though my professional background helped me adopt permaculture practices, I would also like to thank all the permaculturalists who have been involved in FWS, including: Rosemary Morrow, Dan Palmer, Amanda Cuyler, Mike Cloutier, Ralph Skerra, Kim Glasgow, Clive Mullett, Michele Sabto and Andy Trevillian, Cameron Cross and Symmone Gordon, and of course Jan Smart.

Stay tuned to find out all about recent progress at FWS. New posts will be up very shortly!

James Kalokola, FWS Assistant Program Manager

Life at Sabina

2010-04-21T22:33:00.022+03:00

Life at Sabina has been nothing short of full ever since Cam and I arrived here late January. Getting used to our new surroundings wasn’t such a leap, as we both come from Northern New South Wales in Australia and the climate and landscape is very similar, so seeing the grass grow 2 inches in one week (with constant rain) insects which make kamikaze runs into any available food out in the open and bonding with the roster at 5.00am was familiar territory!

Getting acquainted with Sabina was like uncovering buried treasure; it possessed so much potential and with rolled up sleeves we threw ourselves into it. It’s has been a whirlwind of activity in the last three months and just when you think you have completed one thing, 5 others loom up to take its place. We have been looking forward to having some quiet time, but when Sabina beckons and there are a group of kids constantly wanting to learn, I now realise, having dinner with Museveni (the Ugandan president) would be easier.

Below; Being greeted!

Mornings start with the rattle of chicken keys being left at our front door as Steven (one of our Permaculture members) drops it off after feeding and watering the chickens- a duty he loves dearly. We throw back the mosquito netting and open the door to be greeting by the anticipation of the day. The warmth filters in, but still cool enough to enjoy the next few hours without looking for shade every 10 minutes! A big thank you to Clive and Kim for building such a cool Banda!

We throw on some gear to rival any hippy and splash around in a shallow bucket of water, quickly followed by some bananas hanging from the bunch next to the door, which suffices for breakfast until brunch, although Cam need to start the day with coffee hasnt dimished at all to kick-start the day!

James, our intern arrives at around 9, who works for 3 days per week and we go through the day’s activities and then split off into different directions attending to areas, which call out like long lost relatives.

Amongst the daily activities, Cam and I complete a Development and Action Plan for income generating Agri businesses and programs for self sufficiency. Having presented to the Kampala board now, we have formalised a direction and timeline which includes food production-Main garden, expansion of chicken system, water upgrades and repairs, cash crops, orchard expansion and intercropping, a Maize Mill, Bee keeping, Medicinal Plants, Nursery and Woodlots with the inclusion of infrastructure development, Integration of Permaculture Education for children, guardians and community, whilst not forgetting the important task of creating a beautiful environment for all to enjoy.

Making compost

When we arrived, we asked the Sabina boarding kids who would like to be in the Permaculture club and 22 excited kids put their hands up and from there it has been a flurry of activity, learning and teamwork. We now have 25 members and these kids are always involved in looking after the chickens ranging from feeding, egg collecting, replacing bedding, watering and rearing baby chicks. We have been putting the Rooster to good use (after all his claim to fame shouldn’t just be his early morning wake up calls) and we have 8 healthy chicks, we would like to breed more, but we need as many hens as possible producing eggs, so we can maintain our supply of one egg per child per week and to staff members, whilst also selling 3-5 trays a week providing much needed income to pay for the chicken feed and extra bits. A small incubator would do very nicely to continue the breeding program expanding the chicken numbers to 300 in the time frame we would like.

In the meantime, Cam and James have been busy increasing the chicken “grazing” area to include another two bays, one of which extends into a portion of the Matooke area resulting in some very healthy bunches of Matooke springing up. Our main issue now is replacing all the chicken wire, as it disintegrating before our very eyes! The replacement wire is 3 times the cost, but will last for a very long time which is extremely important for containing our ever curious chickens, which are finding holes everywhere to climb through and then there is the issue of stray dogs and wild cats who come to visit at night. We had a predator hawk sit and watch the chickens the other day looking for lunch, but the I think all the criss-crossing of wiring we have put up as support for the new passionfruit, beans and Choko didn’t allow for it to manage easy pickings.

Some shots before the Garden overhaul

The kids have been busy overhauling the main garden and turn up every Saturday morning eager to continue work. Cam and Rico have the boys who have no off switch once hoes, picks and shovels are in their hands and I work with the girls weeding, compost making, transplanting, propagation, watering, collecting grass and harvesting. Now this is an equal opportunity club, so don’t think we have split the roles promoting gender bias…..all of them take part in all aspects of Permaculture during the week, it’s just easier to manage them all at once with specific tasks allocated on Saturdays! Just when I think I’ve allocated all tasks, I have 3 approach me asking me for something else to do because they have finished!

After 11am on Saturdays we stop for a whopping great big jack fruit which the kids distribute amongst themselves and then have a little rest..…once energy levels are back in gear, they are biting at my ankles to continue working again, but this old body waits for the intensity of the sun to back off a little before we start again.

Below; some members of the Permaculture group digging into their Jackfruit....this time at night

Saturdays’ are also special days for the Permaculture kids from the perspective of an informal Kitchen Garden Program occurring at 6.00pm where they all harvest food from the garden, prepare and cook various recipes and then devour their meals! Cam and I supply oil, salt, condiments, flour, pots and gas cookers and the kids supply excitement, passion, hungry stomachs and a lot of laughter. These evenings are such great examples of what can happen when kids are encouraged to create and what is so evident is their strong independence and ability to work in team to make it happen. After dinner, it’s movie time and as soon as those dishes are washed, they all disappear from the Banda area like startled rabbits to be found waiting patiently at the library for Cam to set up the computer and speakers.

Finishing up after making dinner on Saturday

As a result of the program working so well and our own need to have a functioning cooking area, we are building a semi open kitchen with back and front verandah…(lovely view of the chickens at one end and rivals Lake Como!)….Having discussed its potential with the Director of Studies- Jude Ssantale and his unbridled eagerness; the idea is to have many more children benefit from learning how to grow food, its nutritional content and methods of cooking it. We will be introducing far more greens, cooked vegetables, fruits and baked items into their diet. With this new program comes the introduction of a trained cooking teacher to lead the way and we hope our new cook Tina with further training can wear those shoes. Soon we will be building a cob oven to add to the kitchen….. the call of baking bread and making pizzas has been a distant sad memory for us addictive flour types of late! Whilst addressing my withdrawal symptoms, it is a great way to introduce the kids to baking and potentially have the community members learn how to build their own ovens.

The kitchen is half way complete and we expect to finish in a couple of weeks where it will be fully equipped with running water, a sink, gas cookers and kitchen cabinets. It also serves the dual purpose of allowing volunteers and interns a place to cook and hang out in the heat of the day.

Right; Building the foundation for the Kitchen

The water upgrade and repairs are in motion now and thanks to Jeane Kroenigs donation, has helped fast track running water into the medical room, the chicken house, the main kitchen and the Banda Kitchen. It means the end to countless Jerrycans of water continuously being carried to the kitchen and other areas resulting in time efficiency for all. Below; The kitchen built half way

Four tanks at the school are being placed at ground level, all being removed from their raised concrete bases, which are all cracking and collapsing with the huge weight of water and bad workmanship. A much cheaper and practical method is to place the poly tanks on 3mm aggregate, at 100mm thick, which is thoroughly compacted, a method used quite extensively in Australia. The guttering is also being fixed on the school buildings to capitalise on far more water catchment and with the additional good news that the water collected from the red painted roof is safe to drink (a chemical analyis has been done), an additional source of drinking water is available through dry season.

The main garden has had a huge overhaul and has doubled in size adding much needed beds, enough to supply the Sabina kids with a variety of vegetables and salads on a weekly basis when it comes into full production. The next stage of this plan is to upgrade the Main Kitchen to accommodate for the correct preparation and cooking of these foods to add to the daily meal of posho (boiled maize flour) and beans. Nutritional training and different cooking techniques are required for the current cooking staff, as it is an essential component to allow for the full benefits of paddock to plate at Sabina.

Below; The main garden almost finished

The Main Garden now has a shade structure covering half its size, the shade provided by reed mats allowing for protective covering over portions of the beds; some of these beds require permanent cover from the sun like cauliflower and lettuces, while the other areas are removed once the establishment of the seedlings is secured. The great thing about the mats is they allow the rain to come through acting like a drip irrigation system from above, but prevent heavy downpours from shredding the leaves of young seedlings. They also trap moisture and in the morning you can find the steady dripping of water onto the beds, so combined with this and mulching, water conservation is now a reality.

The nursery bed bimming with seedlings ready for transplanting

With the addition of a fifty metre hose and ample water pressure, Cam has built a resourceful water sprayer using bits usually used in plumbing for opening and shutting valves in pipes. The kids love it, as it means no more endless carrying of watering cans for thirsty plants. This also means the water is now directed to the seedlings and not to the surrounding bare zones, which was the result using a full watering can and small children!

The shade structure finished and placed over a variety of seedlings

In two months we should expect cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant, tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkin, Kale, Bok Choy and many varieties of lettuce. Sweet corn, broccoli, Giant cucumber and zucchini have been planted too, but for seed saving purposes with a view to build on seed numbers for proper production.

Based on this new system of shade cover we expect to be able to grow throughout the dry season, especially made helpful with the additional water supply and catchment from the water upgrade and repairs. Succession planning for vegetables is in effect, so there is a continuous flow of seedlings being transplanted out, aiming for no gap in the food production. The permanent areas where the shade structure is will have passionfruit, choko and sponge plants growing up and over the wiring in place, acting as a natural canopy whilst the semi permanent area will continue to have mats.

Before and after shots of the area outside the chickens home

The outdoor class room is finished with some dedicated labour from Cam, Charles and Will, providing seating for 40 students under shade mats when Gardening classes are on. Students are also invited to sit during their free time and watch nature do its thing.

The gardening classes and Permaculture group have been planting out the nursery beds which are divided neatly in sections and named with the vegetable growing in it. The kids now are able to recognise what is what amongst all that green foliage and delight in being tested!

An interesting irony I have discovered is that the kids are totally freaked out by worms and other insects which live in the soil…. whilst catching thousands of flying ants and frying them up as a delicacy is no issue whatsoever…….convincing them that a worm is not a baby snake ready to bite happens weekly!

Tending to a sick chicken

I found a legless lizard (I think) which was a foot long and solid black, which looked very much like a snake and for all I know could have been, as I’m no snake identifying expert….nonetheless in true Steve Irwin fashion, I picked it up to show the kids and didn’t everyone just freeze in their tracks and those that didn’t freeze, ran…fast! It took 5 minutes of explaining it was more frightened of them than the reverse, so when one child dared to touch it with me firming grasping either end….many oohs, ahhs and excited murmurs later, all were ok. I let it go, away from everyone so it could find some sanctuary from the trauma it had just endured.

The worm farm is functioning and producing lots of worm juice where we use it for the nursery, and young trees to give it an occasional kick, but ask the kids to stick their hands in the worm bin and contorted looks start to form…I can only repeat to myself “slowly, slowly, things take time!"

Plans are now in motion to expand the Matooke area beside the Banda’s and a specifically allocated area for sweet Banana’s. Passionfruit seedlings and new areas with cash crops such as pineapple, tomatoes and cabbages are being prepared to take advantage of the wet season and being so close to the Main garden allows for access to water when needed via that wonderful hose and the convenience of its proximately for safeguarding our valuable crops.

The Rakai Agricultural office has offered to donate most of what we require and have been quite impressed with the overall objectives which the FWS program is endeavouring to complete…especially the psychological and physical well being of the chickens! Free range chickens do not exist for commercial purposes in Uganda! They also told us we would not be able to breed our Rhode Island Red princesses based on their own attempts and as a result have been keen to understand our success.

Below; Charles and I on our way to Kyotera to pick up chicken feed

The Permaculture group and I have been busy tending to all trees in front of the library and the Banda’s, whilst James has been busy in the Food forest area. Lots of digging around the tree bases to form a wide circle and to clear grass has been a focus to begin the healthy management of the soil and encourage a fungus environment.

I am still undecided as to whether the excitement of tree mulching is the driving force or whether it is the wheel burrow races to and from the trees to collect the resources required! The kids have learned how to dig, use chicken/ coffee husk manure and mulch the area. I have also added some bio dynamic preps to several sick trees with great results appearing within a few days. At this stage we are also requesting more fruit trees such as Mango, citrus, Haas avocado and Jackfruit from the Agricultural department to plant around the compound.

Below; the assembly area before woodchipping

Another area we have been very keen to fix are the roads around the compound and leading into the boarding section. For a very small cost we have had some really good workers straighten out the road and slant its gradient slightly to one side allowing water to pool and flow down a channel as can be seen by the photo.

Together with the kids we applied woodchip to the road, under trees and the school area. It has certainly made a difference with less mud and less work to keep the place clean. The Permaculture kids had so much fun running races with wheelbarrows full of woodchip and the token 6 year old inside….. that is…… until

one tipped over and the child went flying!

Below; the school assembly area covered in woodchip and happy members of the Permaculture group

By the end of it all there was just as much woodchip over the kids as there was on the ground! That was a really hard day to get them to finish, even with the call of Jackfruit!

Below; the road before grading

Noting how much fun they love to have and the lack of play equipment, Cam and I are planning to build a playground made from whatever we can get our hands on. It serves two benefits, they all stop hanging off trees and breaking fences and the playground becomes a learning tool as much as it is a sanctuary for them to hang out at. It was pretty evident to see after our trip to the Uganda Wildlife Sanctuary (a surprise for the Permaculture group) that the playground and food…..Not the animals, were the highlight of the day, it just reinforced we are all on the same page!

We are currently applying for funding from an organisation called Sawlog which support Woodlot development and all the necessary expertise for establishment. Combined with all the wood Sabina currently uses, it would provide a means to lower the expenses for running the main kitchen and providing building materials, whilst enabling an income stream from the sales. Ultimately, our focus is to implement far more sustainable options such solar ovens and biogas to the Main kitchen, which is the research we are undertaking now. With composting toilets high on the agenda, a resource such as biogas would go a long way to providing a viable long term solution for fuel requirements to the kitchen and with so many bottoms at Sabina, it makes sense! In our next posting, we should have a firmer idea of how to implement this plan and solve two problems with one solution.

In addition to this, we are all getting whoever is interested to participate in some creativity by building benches and sculptures made from Hybrid Adobe…this is made from newspaper mulch, clay, a touch of cement and soil…..who would have thought we would have such a hard time getting old newspapers? This is due to everyone keeping them as an archive for information and will only part with really old ones at quite a cost. When I have mentioned what we want to do, I am give a look similar to one reflected when burning holy books! Thank fully I have many other types of papers collected as part of the waste management program in the compost bay to use!

One of our first priorities was waste management when we arrived, with lots of plastic and rubbish lying about, it was our first step in teaching the kids about using organic waste for the garden and collecting plastics to place in the designating area for burning. Metal bins were purchased and with a bit of paint and a few brushes, the environment club went to work on all the bins labelling them appropriately with their waste type and the section of Sabina they belonged to.

Below Ben from the environment club explaining about organic and inorganic waste whilst I hold up Banana peels

Chained to their new homes, various wastes found its way in the bins, whilst Kenard (the cleaner) maintains them by periodically emptying them into the compost bays, chicken areas and under the Matooke. All plastic is allocated for burning with a future plan to build an incinerator rather than having toxic smoke waft for days. The waste management strategy is also joined by a fuel powered grass cutter to replace the hand slashing which is very costly for the school to upkeep on a regular basis. Whilst Sabina benefits from well maintained, snake free grounds, we also benefit from the regular grass clippings and use the resource for mulching the garden beds, under trees, the chicken areas (they love to scratch around) and compost making. Below; Cam dancing with the kids

On a final note, just so you know how boring we really are, when Cam and I are not playing in soil, rolling around in woodchip and building things , we creating templates for management quietly in the background…who am I kidding….. there is no such thing as a quite background with a few hundred kids darting about.

Templates such as; the Volunteer and Management induction, Operation manuals, Handover documents, The Development and Action plan with associated timelines, raising the profile of the school with a view to increase school fees and the networking and negotiation which goes hand in hand with the practicality of daily activities provide the binding glue with which we need to move forward ensuring continuance and longevity for those who come after us with a strong focus on empowering Ugandan ownership and management of this program……. sooner rather than later.

For further details of the Development Plan or anything else about Sabina, you can contact us on symmone@visionaryventures.com.au and Cameron@visionaryventures.com.au.

So until the next blog posting……..farewell

Post PDC - busy times

2010-02-06T12:47:00.038+03:00

A Sabina chicken surveys the world outside the coop

Hello from me, Michele Sabto, assistant program manager from Jan-Feb 2010. Cameron Cross and Symmone Gordon are the new program managers, and have hit the ground running with new outdoor classroom construction, waste management plan, and much more. They are ably assisted by new Ugandan intern James Kolokola, who also teaches at the nearby Mbuye farm school.

In the quiet week after the PDC, before the children returned, Alex, a teacher from nearby Mbuye Farm School, visited and toured the site with Eric, a PDC student from France. With Symmone and I in tow, me with camera in hand, Eric and Alex identified over 40 native plants with edible and medicinal properties - not the well known mangoes, avocados and paw paws, but lesser known plants that many would dismiss as weeds. Among them are a type of oxalis (Oxalis corniculata) that is edible raw and has a tasty sweet flavour, and Black jack (Bidens spilosa), a plant whose leaves are edible when cooked. The outcome of this research will be a booklet, 'Plants at Sabina', which I'm putting together - stay tuned for its iminent internet release.

Eric PDC student, and Alex, a teacher at nearby Mbuye Farm School, with Alex's reference works on edible and medicinal plants in Uganda

The main vegetable garden is producing nutritious bounty, including cabbages, pumpkins, squash, dodo (amaranth), many different types of eggplant, kale (known as sukuma wik, in Luganda, pronounced sqwoomaweetch), nakati, ceylon spinach, and more. Harvesting happens in the morning, with the harvest handed to the kitchen staff who add it to the beans that are part of the daily posho (maize porridge)-and-beans diet of the children. The fresh garden produce is added towards the end of the cooking period so that the nutrients are preserved. Here is Mattias, one of the Sabina cooks, checking out some of the morning's harvest.

And here is the finished product, a tasty and nutritious combination of beans, squash, pumpkin, eggplant, capsicum, and greens (dodo and nakati).

The children are getting to know the garden. Here is Violetta and her friend Philip enjoying green peppers and bitter eggplant in the main vegetable garden.

Thanks to the 67-strong brood of chickens, the children are now eating one egg per child per week, which is apparently a Ugandan nutritional standard. The eggs are large with strong hard shells and bright yellow yolks.

Two youngsters at the school, Daniel and Stephen, feed and water the chooks and collect the eggs. This is a big undertaking for them as they must do it before and after school. They were trained by Kim and Clive, the previous program managers, and are doing an excellent job. They are occasionally helped by Samuel, shown here preparing greens for the chooks. Each day the chooks get big bunches of greens from the garden, including comfrey but also a wide range of 'weeds', including many of those identified by Eric and Alex. Extensions to the chicken runs to allow the chickens more space to gather their 'green pick' are underway. We believe this will raise egg production even more.

Despite all the hard work, there is still time for play. Here a game of scrabble is underway, played in Luganda of course!

One of my big ongoing jobs has been sorting out the seed room. It now has a set of recycled shelves, salvaged from an old disused chook yard. After cleaning them thoroughly, Nyero Christopher and I painted them a jaunty blue colour and I set about organising the seeds. Seeds are now stored in alphabetical order on the shelves, and I have put many into sealed containers which I recycled from around the site and cleaned. A seed log book records all the seeds held in the room, along with details such as expiry date, source, planting notes, and culinary and other uses. Anyone can now look in the log to see if we hold a particular seed. So that this recording and cataloguing continues, I have written up seed room rules to be pinned to the seed-room wall. We hope to have these translated into Luganda soon.

I've enjoyed my time at Sabina and am looking forward to reading future blog posts about the exciting developments underway, as Cam, Symmone, James, and of course the children and staff of Sabina, take permaculture at Sabina to the next stage.

Michele Sabto (that's me!) in the main vegetable garden

Names, faces, people, places

2010-02-04T13:32:00.008+03:00

Some names and faces of people and places at Sabina leading up to and during the PDC (a more detailed description and report of the actual PDC to come shortly)...

Will and helper Muenda Ronnie digging holes for the chook run extension. The honeymoon banda in the background.

The mighty Nyero taking to the caliandra with a panga (machete) - the pruning tool of choice in the tropics, where everything grows so fast that little clippers literally just won't cut it. Cam (co-manager with Symmone for the next six months) finished the job after the PDC, and the visual access through to the matoke (banana) area is great. New Ugandan intern James will be spending a lot of time here, and has already spelled a death knell for the banana weevils with his local knowledge.

The gorgeous Stephan who works in the kitchen, carrying some pineapples for afternoon tea. We ate incredibly well thanks to Stephan, Annette, Agnes and Stella, along with helpers Bukenya, John Boscoe, Matea, Todeo and Wynne.

Aunty and house mother Annette harvesting beans from the small mandala-style garden the aunties started in 2008 in the middle of the entrance area.

Aunt Stella upon first meeting Amanda after 18 months. She shrieked and jumped up in the air!

Eric from France planting one of four gliricidia cuttings he brought along with him from Malawi wrapped in wet newspaper. Gliricidia is a superstar legume, great for fodder, trellis, living fence, nitrogen fixing, mulch, and much more. A few weeks later all the cuttings had burst into leaf. Let's hope they make into trees so we can expand and share them (Sabina is just entering a short dry season so they will need a bit of watering until the next wet season in early march).

High-ranking Ugandan politician Matias speaking at the official opening of the PDC. He is a gifted orator, and during his talk he declared the Sabina library, with some emphasis, a "permanent permaculture training centre." He was followed by Dr Godfrey from the district agricultural office who said three times during his talk that he will do anything he possibly can to support the project (words very much in correspondence with all the help he's given so far). To paraphrase: "The Sabina permaculture project is aiming to help improve food security for Sabina and for the local community. This is exactly my mandate. So, Sabina does all the work, and I reap all the benefits!"

The wonderful Leslie (right) with equally wonderful volunteers Michele (left) and Will (centre) preparing salad from the garden. Every day of the PDC we had a fresh salad, with two PDC participants working with Michelle to make a salad every day. Not just any old salad either - fresh mango slices amongst many equally delicious ingredients.

Michelle and Charles making a start on a fruit tree inventory. In the end we located 150 fruit trees that have been planted since the project started (about ten in the last three weeks), and that are alive and doing well. About 20 or 30 are doing spectacularly (1.5-4m high), and the future of Sabina is looking very fruitful indeed.

Intern Mugarura Charles feeding the chooks. Charles popularizes catch phrases, and this season everyone was soon saying "push forward" and "big drum" (important person). In Charles and Nyero speak, one doesn't make an advance on a lady (remember they are 18 and 19 - year old boys), one "sends a missile to a secretary." The both of them speak in riddles, and it can be quite entertaining (or frustrating, depending on your mood) figuring out what on earth they are talking about. Potential permaculture sitcom makers, these are your men!

Lule, a PDC participant sent from Godfrey's office with a phenomenal understanding of local trees, plants, animals and insects. With his irresistible smile Lule would delve into details of trees at length, and is hoping to help Sabina establish a apairy for commercial-scale honey production.

Rachel Otuya from Kenya, a much appreciated PDC participant and teacher. Here she has just harvested a giant Russian sunflower head from the mandala garden.

Our dear friend Moses, an employee of Leslie's in Kampala, and a truly lovely man, in the throes of his final individual design presentation. Apparently upon arriving home after the course, Moses jumped out of the car and ran to start implementing some of his learnings. Within a week the garden had been tweaked and an amazing new chook house was complete.

And a few of the practical activities during the course:

Bamboo trellises for climbing beans etc with Andy.

Compost making with Will and Amanda. Within two days it was steaming - I think they actually cooked an egg in it.

Water level contour marking with Dan (so much faster and accurate than an A-frame, though does require expenditure on at least a metre of clear tube whereas an A-frame is free to make - it also requires very clear communication between the people at each end of the tube, as we discovered during this class!).

And a photo of Will, a real joy to be around, and who has put so much into Sabina these last few months, and who will be there for one more week before moving on. Safe journey will!

(Note - thanks to Dianne for those of the above that she took - basically all the good ones!)

Design Draft

2010-02-04T13:31:00.000+03:00

Here's a pic of a diagram of a lot of the stuff that's been done around the home (bottom half of pic) and some of the shared strengths of the five school area (top half of pic) designs from the PDC (done in groups), which we'll try and add to this post shortly. The shared strengths were:

Move football field north of school (wow - radical!)
Open visual access between school and home (no thick tree plantings)
Make current paths of least resistance between home and school official paths lined with fruit trees
Extend food forest west from main driveway to the above paths
Locate multi-purpose building south-west of school
Have small zone 1 learning garden adjacent to food prep component of multi purpose
Have path from school leading through existing large vegie garden
Keep area north and south of east-west school building clear for assemblies
Add a compost toilet for kids with separate toilet for staff
Have dedicated carpark east of school
Have zone 4 harvest forest then 5 wild forest north of relocated playing field
Have a zone 4 harvest forest strip around whole school - especially western boundary
Separate playing field from outer zones with living fence of caliandra
Stabilise steep slope immediately north of school with vetiver grass or similar

Current project managers Cam and Symmone will be developing the design and an accompanying action plan in consultation with the school and home staff and other stakeholders over the next month - stay tuned!

Serious Rain

2010-02-04T12:06:00.006+03:00

On January 19th it hailed and rained extremely fiercely for about 35 minutes. Rosemary stopped teaching as nothing could be heard underneath the tin roof of the library, and while the students got on with their design assignments, Will and Dan dashed around outside seeing what the water was up to.

A flood of water rushing past the kitchen, to flow into the mandala garden and the new banana circle.

Splashing down the Auntie's swale.

The top swale.

Bukenya Peter checking out the Aunties swale.

When the rain stopped the water continued to flow, overflowing from the Aunties swale into the large pond.

Amanda viewing the full pond.

Here's Will leading the banana circle implementation a few days prior.

After the rain it was full to the brim!

A few more random photos from recent weeks

2010-02-04T06:47:00.000+03:00

A garden snail about five times bigger than what Australians are used to...

The chooks having just been released into their new run, where they will prepare the ground for vegetables for humans and food for themselves. As a rule of thumb, each chook can prepare 1 square metre in two weeks.

A chicken kindly letting us know the fence needed to be higher.

The mandala garden-cum-food forest in wet season wild lushness. See it 18 months earlier here.

Counting down towards the PDC

2009-12-24T17:42:00.003+03:00

Okay high time for a quick update (this one from Dan) leading up to Sabina's January PDC!

I really didn’t know what to expect returning to the site after over a year. In terms of the growing systems, however, I was blown away. The long dry season has stunted the first year’s growth of many fruit trees, weakening them and triggering a few diseases (including leaf scale on a few mangos and aphids on a few citrus, which the trees now seem to be outgrowing themselves with the rains). Yet about 90 of the 100 or so fruit trees I remember going in are alive and growing strongly, reaching for the sky with soft green fresh growth. The swales have been doing their thing to divert, slow and infiltrate water, and the top swale trench is filled with about 50 cm of moist organic matter and silt, the water having carried in the plentiful grevillia leaves from uphill. The legumes (cassia, leucaena, pigeon pea) sown as seed are coming up all over along the swale mounds, and in places are almost two metres high (the cassia seem to be growing slightly faster than the leucaena which is interesting). Vetiver grass and comfrey has grown strongly and has been separated out and replanted. It’s interesting that many of them have only germinated after a year of sitting in the ground, now they are emerging everywhere and are here to stay. The tallest trees so far are a moringa (4m +) and a couple of mulberries in the entrance areas (about 3m+).

1.5 year-old Moringa!

On Monday Nyero, Bukenya, Paul Kotu, Will (Sabina is lucky to have this fine fellow on board!) and I gave about half the fruit trees (totaling perhaps 200 now including mangoes, avocados, guavas, mulberries, jackfruit and moringa) a three course snack of comfrey leaves, worm castings (yes the worm farm is cranking!) and fresh cow manure, topped by cardboard and mulch to reduce grass competition.

Nyero purposefully strolling towards the task at hand

Will and Nyero treating the fruit trees.

With the legumes coming up on either side of the fruit trees, it’s exciting to think that many of the fruit trees will not only have a support tree at their service during the next dry season, proving windbreak, shade, and nitrogen, but that their roots will be well down into the moisture accumulating in the trench above them.

The top swale behind the football goal as we found it - a tough guild having survived the wet season to now 'push forward' with the rain...

The mandala garden is being managed by the kitchen staff and house mothers, who are planting strong locally-grown vegetables (eggplant, nakati and carrots) amongst the passion fruit dripping from above, the pawpaws within some beds, and four very healthy avocados which mark the beginning of a gradual transition over the next three or four years from vegie garden to food forest.

The mandala garden dripping with passionfruit (batunda)

The small round garden in the middle of the entrance area started by a few of the house mothers is continuing to produce plenty of veggies, and there are large scale plantings of sweet potato, Irish potato and beans coming along well.

What else – there is a lot going on! The tanks are full (100,000litres worth) and the taps are working fine, though the guttering and pipe work need a bit of attention (the tanks lack overflow outlets so when full the water backfloods back up the gutter!). The large vegie garden has recently been wrestled back into shape by Will and Sabina interns Nyero, Robin, Sharon and Charles, and there is a fair bit of food online and at different stages of maturity.

Will planting out in the large vegie garden

As for accommodation, the new bandas are unexpectedly luxurious! 68 Chickens are starting to lay (I think only about 5 eggs per day so far) and are in great health. They are weird chickens by Australian standards though – they won’t yet eat worms!

Kim and Clive’s work organizing implementation of the tanks, bandas, chicken system and large vegie garden is awesome as is Ralph’s work on the worm farm, paths, trees and Mike’s conversion of the entrance area from dust to grass and trees. A group of us harvested worm castings to not only fertilise fruit trees but to set up an experiment comparing watermelon grown with nothing, with cow manure, with worm castings and with both. Hopefully outcomes will be evident during the PDC in January.

The experiment to see if worm castings make a difference to watermelon growth. Each seedling is shaded with a banana stem cover and mulched with cut grass.

Socially things are hard to assess as the children and many staff are absent, and I understand that progress has been slow and in some places negative, with the students not being interested overall in gardening and the staff mostly busy with their own agendas. However, on Tuesday we interviewed 14 potential Ugandan assistant farm managers with several showing promise in terms of integrating gardens, the school and the home, and the local woman Anna who has been working in the large vegie garden is back on deck in a couple of days.

The financial sustainability of the project is far from a sure thing, though 80 avocados will go in shortly, an initial beehive is there and waiting for some occupants to arrive, and plans are afoot for major eucalypt planting on the 100 acres adjoining the main school area. So there are major challenges to be negotiated, and I look forward to seeing how things progress after the PDC and over the next year.

September Update from Clive and Kim

2009-09-21T02:41:00.005+03:00

It’s lovely to be joined by Ralph (a volunteer from NSW Australia) with great practical skills and farming experience. Ralph has been supervising and teaching a group of secondary students (who were here for the holidays) to dig and prepare planting holes for an avocado orchard and a eucalyptus woodlot. So far 70 holes (with pan swales) have been prepared for the ungrafted avocado seedlings and 100 holes for the eucalypt. We are waiting for a few good rains before we plant the trees …

Ralph slashing grass mulch for the orchard trees – “this isn’t as easy to do as Nyero makes it look!”

Nyero relaxed and happy as he digs a pan swale in the soon-to-be avocado orchard

Everyone is asking the question “when will the Wet Season begin”. We’ve been teased by a few light rains but then it returns quickly to hot and dry, dry, dry. Our supply of water from the water tanks ran dry yesterday … the fact that we lost 15,000L from a leak (in June) has meant that we’re quite a bit short this Dry Season.

Ralph has also been busy constructing a permanent home for our compost worms (brought all the way from Australian by Dick Copeman in 2008). They are now comfortably housed next to the compost bays in a 3-compartment worm farm with its own shade structure using an old iron bed frame, left-over wood from construction and with a little help from a local carpenter. We hope to breed up loads of worms to feed the chickens and to use castings and worm wee in the vegetable growing areas. They use of compost worms seems to be entirely new to Ugandans but Anna is very keen to learn more and to use this resource.

We also have 70 gorgeous chicks in residence.

Rico amazed by the tiny 2-day old chicks (they’re the blobs slightly larger than the woodchips)

At 3 weeks old and looking scruffy as they lose their chick fluff

After an initial fright with coccidiosis (a common disease from commercial hatcheries) the chicks appear to be doing very well and Kim is enjoying being the Mother Hen.

Clive overheard a Sabina child talking seriously to another .. explaining that these are “layer hens, to lay eggs for the school children” – spot on!

One of the flocks at 5 weeks old

The Large Vegetable Garden is taking shape well under Anna’s supervision but the vegetables are all hanging out for some rain. The main crops are silverbeet, cabbage, collards, garlic, chilli with interplantings of herbs (eg dill, basil, coriander). Some of the garden beds are being visited by red ants and the most effective control seems to be chill/garlic spray (used sparingly). Anyone have some other suggestions?

Anna and a helper doing the evening watering

Anna at one of the taps (water coming from the tanks at the school)

Watering the vegetables each day is a time consuming job for a numer of people. There is a need to provide shade in the Large Vegetable Garden and to carefully plan the types and amount of plantings during the Dry Season.

And, of course, there is always time for some socialising, which usually takes place around food …

Charles perfecting his pancake flipping skills

Some happy pancake customers

Some of our Permaculture helpers during school holidays – Irene, Paul, Opio

Opio happily anticipates a goat meal (Ralph hung the meat overnight in the banda, where it’s cool)

And, finally, one of our ‘friends’ along the path to Ssanje ...

August Update from Sabina

2009-08-11T12:33:00.007+03:00

It’s dry, dry, dry at Sabina these days despite heavy rain recently in Kyotera and Masaka. Occasionally dark clouds tease us with the idea of rain but then they move elsewhere.

We are feeling a little dry ourselves on the project with some hassles around the building project and a shortage of labour for the veggie garden. But we are regrouping, planning and expecting a break in the drought soon [stay tuned!]

Kim and Clive have moved into their banda accommodation which is very comfortable, cool and perfectly located near the boarding house (but not too near!). The concrete floor is still sweating so we can’t place mats on the floor or put our suitcases under the bed, but it’s just a matter of time. We’re having a ball sitting on our ‘private’ verandah at the back doing our latest craze of cooking mountains of popcorn with lots of salt, yum.

The second banda requires only ten more days of work to be completed and it is now long past its due finish date so we’re keen to see it finished. Unfortunately the main roofer fell off the roof a couple of weeks ago and broke his arm! (The steep pitch of the roof is proving to be a little intimidating to some of the local roofers). We are confident that this banda will provide adequate, cool accommodation for up to eight people at a time.

The 2nd banda, and our poor roofer .. not long before he fell off the roof.

The compost structure has also acquired a lovely, cool grass roof –

Now that the building phase of the project is coming to an end we are turning our energies to establishing the chicken system and to productive veggie growing areas. Seventy layer hens are due to arrive on 5th August, after a frustratingly long wait. We have a completed chicken house and strawyards .. but no hens yet!

As shortage of labour and distribution of water have been the limiting factors in growing vegetables to the level we want to, we have employed a Ugandan woman (Anna) with the major responsibility of vegetable growing (and care of the chicken system in the future). Anna will join us from 3rd August. We are also waiting for the arrival of Ralph, a volunteer from Australia, who will provide some extra labour, practical help and advice.
In the meantime …

Carl harvests some comfrey leaves to make ‘tea’ for the seedling beds in the Large Vegetable Garden

Kayinga modelling with the veggies.

Derrick, Amos and Joash.

Dan helping with the daily watering

Bukenya harvests the first cabbage from his bed in the Large Vegetable Garden!

Bukenya and Rico join a group of us for end-of-week refreshments on our verandah.

Brisbane Fundraiser makes over $4000 for Sabina

2009-08-11T11:37:00.003+03:00

On Sunday August 2nd 2009 an amazing group of folks from Brisbane's Westend area held a fundraiser especially for Sabina Home and Boarding School. It was a wonderful day as well as a very successful fundraiser, and here are some photos:

Entry - which got you into the event with an amazing line-up of world-class musical acts, talks (including one from Dick Copeman at Northey St City Farm), and performances. Art from Nyero Christopher (a key helper on the permaculture project who features in many earlier posts) was displayed and cards bearing copies of his work were sold. Thanks Nyero!

The stage and some excellent rap-artistry going down, yo. There was even a banda for food sales and this big bamboo stage this group called the Boo Crew volunteered their time for.

Early on with folks starting to arrive. The event went from 10am till 10pm so was a very full day.

The ever-gorgeous Amanda with the menu of fine Ugandan fare which was prepared and sold on the day. Banana pancakes, rolex (egg roll) and posho (maize cake) and beans. Everyone loved it, though unlike the Sabina children they don't have to eat it every day for lunch and dinner!

The phenomenal Janey who basically organised the whole event. Amazing person.

Ana Heke during one of the performances. In this one banana meets bamboo and forms a happy unity.

An amazing fire dance as the darkness arrived.

Then upstairs where hone from New Zealand led an auction where donated goods and services were auctioned off. It was a hoot, and the room was packed with happy faces.

Thanks also to Christian for his fine MCing along with all the musicians and performers and helpers for helping make this happen. And thanks to Cafe Chococo (69 Hardgrave Rd, West End, Brisbane) for proving such a wonderful venue. The $4000 raised will go a long way on the ground at Sabina!

Volunteer

2009-06-29T04:12:00.001+03:00

Would you like to volunteer at a Permaculture Food Security Project at a Primary School and Boarding House in rural Uganda?

To start ASAP, preferred length of stay 3-4 months.

This project has been going for close to a year (see
www.childrenofuganda-permaculture.blogspot.com) and is at an exciting stage of its evolution. Major infrastructure work has been done this year and the emphasis is moving to productive food growing and the establishment of a chicken system to feed the children.

You will be privileged to be part of a very special school community.

There are three permaculture volunteers and two other volunteers from
Australia and the US.

You must
• have experience in growing food in a tropical climate
• be resilient enough to cope with basic living conditions
• be strong and fit for work in the garden
• appreciate and enjoy the value of another culture
• be keen to have an adventure!
Clean, simple accommodation and all meals are provided at a cost of
US$25 per week.

Come and join us!

Responses to clivemullett@gmail.com

The Wet Season is Over

2009-06-29T02:15:00.006+03:00

The Wet Season is over, the soil is rock hard again and the grasshopper-eating season is coming to an end. This Wet Season was generally regarded as unusual, intermittent, short, but it did at least fill all our water tanks, so we start the Dry Season with 90,000+ litres, of which the garden and fruit trees can claim about 70,000. It will be interesting to see how useful that volume proves to be, and just how systematic and careful we will need to be in our usage.

We ordered 70 day-old chickens a couple of days ago and hope to take delivery soon, by which time our chicken house and brooder will be ready to receive them…this is an exciting, nerve-wracking time and it will be great to have some little animals to look after. We have been planting vegetables and medicinal herbs around the Strawyards to aid in the chooks’ diet. They will lay 200+ eggs per week (we hope), enabling a valuable improvement in the kids diet. Thanks Permaculture North for your generous donation which has paid for the construction of the new shed!!

The almost-completed chicken house & strawyards

We (Kim and Clive) have also reached a milestone with the bandas (volunteer and visitor accommodation) and will be moving into the small Banda this weekend, after 6 months living in a room in the Presbytery next to the School. We hope to start a week-long housewarming party involving lots of pancakes, cups of tea and coffee, roasted G-nuts and cookies...

John Bosco & Bukenya in front of the almost-completed small Banda

The large banda, to accommodate up to 8 people at a time, is also underway, here is a shot of the roofing truss in progress.

The new Large Vegetable Garden is proving to be the major challenge at the moment with a shortage of labour being a real constraint. So, we have posted a volunteer opportunity for someone to join us who has experience in growing food in the tropics .. if you know anyone, please put them in touch with us. Currently the staff are fed vegetables everyday and the children twice a week (and we would obviously like to make this 7 days a week). We have been building a covered compost structure over the last month or so, and this is becoming a critical item to complete, as uncovered compost just doesn’t seem to work well – either it rains hard and soaks it, or the hot sun bakes it.

A welcome addition to the Sabina team recently has been Rico, assisting the school in a number of ways but also a keen member of our permaculture team when he is available. Here he is (in red) with John Bosco (in yellow), Andrew (kneeling) and Samuel assisting with watering of the fruit trees in the evening...Rico has agreed to help us out with that important task a few times each week.

We’ve enjoyed watching the children as they practice their singing and dancing for Education Week which began last Sunday. Usually Sabina does well in this competition and we will be cheering them along as they compete. Hope these pictures give you a sense of the colour and fun …

Wereba Mukwano

2009-06-26T12:49:00.003+03:00

On May 30^th we farewelled Mike Cloutier after around 8 months volunteering at Sabina. Mike will be remembered for his tireless commitment to planting and nurturing 180 fruit trees (mango, avocado, mulberry, loquat, custard apple, tangerine, pomegranate, Indian water berry, jackfruit, guava…) and for the friendships he developed with many of the children, who will miss him.

Mike joined the project in late 2008 as Dan and Amanda prepared to depart, and held down the role of Project Manager until January, then continued as a volunteer, also helping another project part-time. Mike was a smiling face in the dining area and was known for long late-night reading stints, as well as being prepared to eat ‘anything’.

Mike is travelling home to Canada via England, then he plans an extensive trip into the Arctic Circle, before he settles down to a steady job and raises a family (just kidding Mike).

Best wishes for your future permaculture projects and thanks for volunteering with us.

Thanks for the tanks!

2009-05-18T07:07:00.002+03:00

The tanks have completely filled during the recent rainy season and are providing water for the vegetable gardens that give our children the most nutritious meals they have ever eaten, as well as drinking and bathing water. We expect to have enough water in the tanks to get us through the dry months that precede the next rainy season in February. Thank you MIMN for helping us achieve water sovereignty!

May update from Kim & Clive

2009-05-15T02:10:00.004+03:00

We’re back from a happy, refreshing two-week holiday with our daughter (Claire) who came over from Australia to visit us. We went to Nairobi, The Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater and Jinja in Eastern Uganda (for some white water rafting). East Africa is a fabulous part of the world for an adventure holiday! Claire also visited Sabina School to meet some of the school community (although many of the children are away during holiday time), and to see the project here.
Sharon – Nyero – Kim – Charles – Claire – Bukenya – Irene (with the volunteer accommodation ‘Bandas’ in the background).

Work didn’t stop at Sabina while we were away ... Bukenya did a sterling job overseeing all the construction work while we were away. Our good mates, Charles and Nyero, have almost completed the construction of the strawyards for the new chicken system. Sharon and Irene (also ex-Sabina School children, now at Mbuye Farm School) did a lot of good work in the Mandala garden. What a great holiday permaculture team we have!

Construction of the new Chicken House is almost completed except for a bit of carpentry work, the verandah, the separate small brooder strawyard and the final rendering of the walls. The main strawyards are just a few days away from being finished and Kim has already starting to prepare the ground to plant food and herbs for the chickens (when they arrive).

Charles and Nyero proving the strength of the strawyard frame they’ve constructed! (Clive and John, our Contractor, in the background).

Nyero attaching chicken wire to the strawyard frame.

The new ‘hero’ of the permaculture project is John, our Contractor! He had a nasty motorbike accident while we were away, spent a couple of days in hospital and then, in typical no-nonsense-Ugandan-style, came back to work with a badly swollen face and a lot of bruising. John, you’re amazing and we’re very glad you’re on the job.

The 1st Banda, to accommodate a couple (This year, Clive and Kim). The indispensable Bukenya standing in the doorway.

The 2nd Banda, divided into quarters to accommodate 4 people (or 8 in bunk-beds)

A holiday snap .. Clive, Kim, Claire standing on the edge of Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

End-of-March update from Clive, Kim and Carl

2009-04-01T01:09:00.006+03:00

We’re thoroughly enjoying life here – happy to respond to any/all of the following greetings - “Auntie Kim/Uncle Clive”; “Jaaja”(Gran); “Auntie Nakato”(Female Twin); Grandpa (or “Grand” as Charles calls us). We’re trying to improve our panga (machete) and hoe skills, two tools unknown to us before we arrived here. “Be patient” is Nyero’s advice to us. We now know who cooks the best pancakes in Ssanje village (made with bananas and cassava flour); what the usual price is for pineapples and bananas and how to charm our way through a Police roadblock - all essential life skills in rural Uganda. Kim has had her first boda-boda (motorcycle) ride and driven a local taxi with seven other adults in the car. Clive has bought an African-style shirt and had his first Ugandan beer in Kyotera (Mike congratulated him on finally acting like an Ozzie).
A few weeks ago we purchased a large quantity of tools for use by the Agricultural classes and by the Boarding School students after school and on the weekends. Bukenya is converting the unused Canteen into a new toolshed for secure housing of the tools.

Kim with Dembe (the man-who-knows-everything-we-need-to-know) & Jude (Agricultural Teacher) with the new tools, painted and numbered for easy identification.

The four water tanks are connected to the gutters and have started to collect rainwater! The contractor, John, is going to build some security fences around the three tanks at the school and the Agricultural Classes have dug the ditches for the pipes to connect the tanks to the Large Vegetable Garden.

We’re settling into a good programme of working with the children in the garden – each evening after school, for a few hours on Saturday morning, and for three sessions per week with the Agricultural Classes.

Carl doing the strenuous work of instruction as the Ag class prepares a ‘nursery’ bed for propagation.

Work has begun on the new Chicken House which will eventually be home for 60 layer hens, providing eggs for the children’s diet. Kim is looking forward to having some little animals to nurture but Clive has insisted that she stop short of naming each one. The “Chook House” will have two main rooms for the hens (with attached Straw Yards), a storage room, a Brooder area to raise young chicks and a Sick Bay to quickly isolate sick birds. Carl has volunteered to test out the accommodation before the poultry arrives by moving his bed into one of the rooms (he figures it will be quieter there than next to the boys dorm where he usually sleeps).

A few more photos ...
Is Nyero smiling or grimacing in pain after his thumb got in the way of a panga? (He’s wrapped it in banana leaf)

Charles cooling down with a passionfruit drink after a hot day in the garden

Three of our constant companions in the garden .. Anthony, Innocent and Rona

Report back: Uganda's First Permablitz!

2009-03-06T03:59:00.008+03:00

Uganda Permablitz #1 was held on February 28th at the home of Mathias and Ted and their four children, in the village of Ssanje. Ssanje is less than one kilometre from Sabina School and Boarding Home, where Clive and Kim are spending a year on a permaculture project. The day was made possible initially by Luke, a local School Teacher who had attended Dick Copeman’s (Brisbane City Farm) workshop at Sabina in late 2008. Luke connected with Kim one day walking in the village, and the idea of a Permablitz to help maintain momentum after Dick’s departure was born. We hope to have another 5 or 6 during the course of the year.

Before the blitz, our host Mathias working through the plan for the day with Kim. Mathias is already a skilled gardener/farmer, with chickens, cows, goats, bananas, maize in place, but precious little in the way of vegetables. His interest and quick understanding were evident from the questions he asked and the close attention he paid to everything that was happening

One of Mathias’ children, on the Ugandan ‘one-size-fits-all’ bicycle that he is quite able to ride as shown here. A group of kids stayed with us for the whole day, fascinated by the muzungus (white people) and the work being done, and especially by the camera.

More people arrived, including our Sabina volunteer Carl, and some neighbours, including Mathias’ sister Josephine, a qualified lawyer, who lives next door. Some of the neighbours had limited English, so Luke acted as an interpreter whenever Kim spoke. We had the involvement of some current and past Sabina School students, who also assisted with communication.

Work started with some clearing of the site, and collecting of materials like that wheelbarrow full of cow dung that Mathias had been drying out over the last few weeks or so since we first planned this day.

And that banana tree had to go. The site chosen was a gently sloping part of the front garden, covered before we started with leaf litter and twigs and the odd banana leaf. We cleared it initially to get a better view of the dips and humps we were facing, and also to help us get rid of some major roots and other obstacles.

Beds and swale-paths starting to take shape, with the help of an A-frame, and all the volunteer labour and sharing of tools. The work was completed in about 3.5 hours.

Planting – carrots, eggplant, green pepper, silverbeet, beans, zucchini, tomato (and some comfrey around the corner near the chook shed)

Happy family at day’s end, with Luke our co-organiser on the right. As we mostly planted seeds direct, not much immediately to show for our work, but we shall take more pics in a few weeks, hopefully showing a productive vegetable garden.

PS. It rained during the night of the Permablitz (as we suspected it might) .. so we applied mulch material the next day.

Cheers,
Kim and Clive

Word from Kim and Clive

2009-02-27T14:19:00.004+03:00

Well we’ve been at Sabina for just on 2 months now, and some of the key work is starting to take shape.

A fair degree of excitement was caused by the arrival of 4 x 25,000L water tanks kindly donated with money from the UK.

No, not a giant Dutch licorice … a 25,000L plastic water tank. Installation work to construct concrete/brick bases and install the gutters and downpipes is also underway. Here’s the team at work.

Even the Manager, John, ensured that he got into the shot.

To finish that work we need to secure the tanks with some fencing, dig two trenches and install pipes and taps etc to get the water from the tanks down to the Large Vegetable Garden (LVG).
Speaking of which, the LVG has started, a bit earlier than we originally planned. Our newest volunteer Carl has arrived and is focusing on the LVG at the moment. The preparation of the ground, to remove all the kikuyu and elephant grasses, is a monster task that we have hired a labourer to do – the fact that she is a 60-year old woman has not seemed to slow progress! As she gets an area cleared, we are moving in behind to have a second go at the Kikuyu and to establish the paths and beds ready for planting. We know what we will be planting, (cabbage, eggplant, silverbeet, beans, nakati, ddodo, carrots and a border all around of comfrey and pineapple(!) to try and form a barrier against weed/grass invasion) but we’re just not sure what will go in first as the wet season approaches, we need some advice from the locals.

Carl looking relaxed and undefeated by the Kikuyu grass roots.

Starting next week, the Agriculture classes (three of them) will be spending one lesson each week in the LVG with us, and so we have decided to invest in a swathe of new tools, so we can keep a class of 30+ occupied and productive while they are with us. We have sent out an appeal to our friends and colleagues for a few hundred dollars to help us pay for this unplanned spending.

The next big projects are the new Chicken System and the Volunteer Accommodation. The Chicken System has had a lot of discussion and the ideas are taking shape, it will have 90 chickens divided into several locks, separated into their own shed areas and straw yards planted up with medicinal herbs and chicken food. The straw yards will be adjacent to three fenced vegetable growing areas where the chickens can free-range between harvests. The purpose of the system is primarily to produce eggs for the children, with ‘extras’ being sold to cover costs or to hatch for replacement hens. Jude, the Agricultural Teacher, is keen for the children to learn about the care and maintenance of this type of system so we hope to find some really keen children who become pivotal to the ongoing success of this system.

The Volunteer Accommodation will be in ‘Ugandan style’, i.e. round ‘bandas’ with grass roofing. The probable configuration of the first stage will include one banda for a couple, one with two bunk beds (i.e. 4 people in peak times), and a smaller one that functions as a shared bathroom, with a shower and composting toilet. Just maybe, if funds permit, they will have solar lighting and piped water from a tank off the Dining Room roof.

With the Mandala Garden an educative process is ongoing to stop the dumping of rubbish and breakage of support structures.

That’s enough about the project. The Wet Season seems to have started, with luck all the tanks will be in place and catching the rain, and the Large Vegetable Garden will be planted out (at least in part) to take advantage of the rain. We continue to enjoy the community at Sabina although we still need convincing about twice-daily rations of posho and beans. This is a fascinating place and we are very glad for the adventure and the chance to get to know the kids, teachers, staff, volunteers from around the world and the village community.

Laundry washing Ugandan-style!

Best wishes to all
Clive and Kim.

Some recent photos

2009-02-21T15:30:00.008+03:00

First, Clive on the woodpile with Rony. One of the objectives is to grow a woodlot which will enable the school to save a significant fuel cost - this woodpile is used to fuel fires in the kitchen every day

Next, a shot of the planning for Permablitz #1 in Uganda, that was referred to in the last blog. Kim is talking through a plan with Luke and Mathias at the home of Mathias and Teddy.

Next Kim saying farewell to Christopher Nyero (right) and Mugarara Charles after they spent the weekend at Sabina helping with the project. Christopher and Charles are ex-Sabina students and talented permaculture enthusiasts who have been invaluable whenever they spend time with us. Both now study at the nearby Mbuye Farm School

Permablitz hits Uganda!

2009-02-16T12:45:00.001+03:00

Uganda Permablitz #1 will be in Ssanje at the home of Mathias and Teddy on February 28^th, to establish a vegetable growing area on their land that already boasts some bananas, coffee, chickens and cows. He is a subsistence farmer, with 4 kids, and the day will involve about 10 neighbours from the village, and hopefully a couple of teachers from Sabina. Kim will run some workshops, we'll be terracing a few beds and making path/swales for access and water catchment. To learn more about permablitz, which started in Melbourne, Australia, see permablitz.net

Latest from Kim and Clive

2009-01-21T21:56:00.001+03:00

Aarh – a wonderful downpour of rain two days ago after several months of hot, dry conditions that have had an effect on the whole Rakai District. Christopher Nyero and Bukenya did a rain dance in celebration!

We (Clive and Kim) have now been in Uganda for three weeks and are gradually acclimatising ourselves to a total lifestyle change, with all its challenges and adventures. We have been warmly welcomed by wonderful people at Sabina School and the surrounding community and can’t wait for all the children to return after the school holidays.

Mike has been showing us around the permaculture project at the school and it’s exciting to see all the work that has been done so far. With the hot weather and no children around to do the watering, the garden has suffered. Several fruit trees haven’t made it and the Mandala Garden has experienced a lot of die-back and the organic material has composting down exposing the roots of many plants and toppling them over. The front entrance looks great although we’re waiting expectantly for the grass to grow to help keep the dust down.

We’re making compost again as we slowly sift through the muddle of organic material and plastics that has accumulated at the back of the Mandala Garden. And following the rains on Monday we sowed seed directly into the Mandala Garden, protected from the sun by banana leaves laid loosely on top (a bit of any experiment, so let’s hope it works). Nyero and Charles are constructing a shaded nursery area for propagation of seedlings to restock the Mandala Garden. After looking around at other nursery set-ups, we have commissioned Ben and Charles to make small clay pots at Kiwanga in which to grow seedlings (most seedlings here are grown in small plastic bags which results in further litter in the environment).

With Charles and Nyero getting some experience at building shade structures, we have also asked them to extend the existing shade frame in Freedom Park to provide more shade for the kids when they return.

Mike is busy tending to the 100+ fruit trees that have been planted – watering, mulching, clearing around then, replanting any that have been lost to the dry. He is involved in establishing the grey water system outside the boys dormitory which needs some remedial concrete work. His advice and local knowledge is invaluable to us as we find our feet.

In a week or so we hope to be able to place the order for about 100,000 litres of plastic water tanks, which will most likely sit at the main school building and also at the library, primarily to feed the proposed main vegetable garden.

Plenty on the go .. and lots to do in the future. But in case you’re getting the idea that we’re go, go, go, that’s really not the case. We’re keen to take our time – to observe the natural rhythms around us and to get to know the special people here who make up this community. Everyday we are touched by the generosity of people who are keen to pitch in when something needs to be done, and the laughter that’s never far away. A few nights ago we had a spontaneous Dance Party using Kim’s radio. It’s true, muzungus can’t dance (certainly not as well as Ugandans) but in a typically generous gesture Clive was declared the ‘winner’, despite Mike admitting that he had to turn away when Clive got going! Lots of laughs.

Kim and Clive Arrive

2009-01-14T15:49:00.006+03:00

Hi, we've arrived in Uganda and are healthy and hot. We are checking out the site guided by Mike (see here with Kim and a few kids) and Bukenya and Dembe. The mandala garden is a bit dry, and a few fruit trees didn't survive a few weeks without care and attention. We'll update in more detail soon, now that the Internet connection has been resurrected, but in the meantime we can say that we are going hard to get large water tanks in place by March (wet season), to get some planting into the mandala garden (again to establish some growth before the big rains hit the garden), to reshape some diversion drains in the entrance driveway, to get an improved and extended nursery area in place, and to be ready with some activities when the kids return from the break in a few weeks

Snakes and Superstitions

2008-12-05T16:02:00.000+03:00

Snakes are a very big part of life here in Uganda and there are many strong fears and superstitions towards them, some warranted and others unfounded.

I (Mike) have seen five different kinds of snakes since I have been here. I’ve only been able to identify one of them and it is poisonous. The others I’m not sure about, people say that they are all poisonous, but that is just one of those unfounded fears.

Today I found a 5-foot cobra in the driveway orchard which is obviously a threat to the hundreds of children who are constantly running around here. I killed it with a garden hoe.

The people here (including the well educated ones) believe that holding a special black stone will cure a bite from a poisonous snake. They think it works because when someone gets bit and they hold it, the person usually lives. But this is not because of the stone, it is because most of the snakes aren’t actually poisonous and even when the snake is poisonous their bite is not usually fatal (unless of course it is one of the major ones like a mamba).

It was kind of scary today to think that if any of those children would have gotten bit by that cobra that they would have run for a black stone and not the hospital. I sat down with the ones present and told them what they should do, but it was very very difficult to convince them, and I even have a book here, “Where There is No Doctor” that discusses the superstitions around the black stone. Their grandparents and parents have been telling them since birth to hold the black stone, so this is what they believe very deep inside of them. And it is not just snakes; they have very strong superstitions about many things.

Anyways, poisonous snakes and very deep superstitious beliefs are a couple of the challenges we face working here in Uganda.

The Entrance Area is Transforming

2008-12-05T15:56:00.001+03:00

The entrance area is undergoing a radical and sometimes controversial transformation. It is the centerpiece area of the site, the place that everyone sees as they are coming to the home, and that everyone walks through to go just about anywhere. Until now it has been an open area of compacted earth. There was very little shade from the hot hot sun, cars drove all over it, and it created a lot of dust which dirtied everything and made it hard to breath sometimes. The children swept the entire area twice a day which caused a lot of erosion. In the rainy season more soil was washed away and it turned into a mud pit which is difficult to walk on.

Below is a draft design of the area along with photos of some of the changes that are taking place. We have planted 20 fruit trees in the area and will be planting 22 more in the hopes that this area will be a lush food forest someday providing shade, a place to hang out, and many varieties of fruit throughout the year. We have also fenced out vehicles, dug up the hard compacted earth and will be planting Bermuda grass to control erosion, dust and mud, keep the soil loose to absorb more water for the trees, and to provide a lawn for children to walk and play on.

Before

The design for the area

The transformation is happening

Good Luck Joseph

2008-12-05T15:42:00.000+03:00

The past few weeks Ssegendo Joseph has been a huge help with the project and has been showing a strong interest in permaculture. Here are a couple of photos of Joseph’s work.

His garden bed just outside of the kitchen with a little pond (which we have filled with gravel and reeds) to catch the grey water coming out of the kitchen

Joseph making his artistic and functional goat-proof tree protectors for the tangerines and lemon out front of the library (and unfortunately next to the tree-eating goats)

Joseph has recently finished P7 and has left Sabina to begin secondary school, although I am hoping that he will come back now and again to continue feeding his interest in permaculture. Good luck Joseph and thank you.

Our Latest Designs

2008-12-05T15:38:00.005+03:00

Some of our latest design creations

A draft design of the entrance area to provide fruit, shade, a place to play and hang out, and a beautiful entrance for visitors

A draft design for behind the dorms to deal with grey water, collect rainwater, and use the area to grow food

Lake Sabina for water storage, beauty, and more eco-diversity

Circa 2011-2013

Circa 2038

A brief whole site water design

Some Misc Photos

2008-12-05T15:36:00.001+03:00

Paw paws, yams, and matooke (cooking bananas) at the bottom of our Mandala Garden

A few weeks ago:

Now:

Veggies growing in our Mandala Garden

Godfrey and his garden

Beautiful yams

Kids chillin’ after finishing the term

Dembe with his 89 baby chicks that he has been mothering day and night

Washing day

Our extremely talented Sabina girls and boys practicing the traditional Buganda dances

And eventually performing them

My beloved Rashida

Some of Kayinga and friends’ garden creations

Anthony helping himself to the Mandala Garden

Dan and Mike teaching some village women about composting, garden planning, and pest management

Anthony with his homemade football

The adorable Rona

Why is it called the Auntie's Swale?

2008-11-18T05:26:00.007+03:00

Because this is who planted the mango, avocado and jackfruit trees in and around it (on October 6th):

Auntie Stella

Auntie Silvia

Auntie Namaze

Auntie Kowala

Auntie Flo (we miss you!)

Auntie Agnes

Auntie Sarah

Uncle Richard

Uncle Mike with a grafted avocado in Freedom Park with young Golobus Edwards

Apologies to Auntie Deborah, Auntie Justine, Auntie Mirembe and others who did plant a tree, but whose photos we've yet to get up here.

Goodbye Sarah

2008-11-12T14:00:00.003+03:00

Once again we have lost someone very special. This time our beloved Peace Corps volunteer, Sarah, has left us after spending two years. All of Sabina is feeling the gravity of her departure and she is already greatly greatly missed. Take care Sarah.

Report from Dick Copeman

2008-11-12T02:52:00.002+03:00

After two and a half weeks travelling around Uganda with my family, I arrived at Sabina on Wednesday afternoon 22nd October, to be met by Dan and Mike, plus the kids and staff. I spent the next two days getting acclimatised and helping a little with the permaculture project.

The mandala garden was most impressive and very productive. The extensive water management system of swales, diversion drains and ponds had recently been dug and I was able to help Dan and Mike with planting of the swale mounds and the banks of the pond.

On the Saturday I ran a workshop for about 20 people, including Sabina staff and teachers, two local farmers, agricultural college teachers, three community gardeners from near Kampala, some American Peace Corps volunteers, and a couple of the Sabina students. The topics covered in the workshop included soil improvement, seed saving, worm farming and, by special request, pests and diseases.

With most people in Uganda being able to grow their own food, the workshop became more an exchange of ideas and practices between me and the participants. They were all knowledgeable about crop rotation and companion planting, but seemed to have little awareness of composting and the use of mulch. The rationale for saving seeds and the disadvantages of hybrid and GM seeds were appreciated by most but one participant spoke in favour of GM, mentioning an improved (?GM) variety of banana in support of his argument.

They were very interested in the 'white oil' (soap and vegetable oil) spray concentrate that I made and then used on some aphids on cabbage in the mandala garden. They were particularly enthused when we started a small worm farm in a container Mike had fashioned out of an old trunk, with compost worms that I had brought with me from Australia. A tour of the permaculture project led by Dan and me was also included in the workshop and one of the agriculture teachers said he was most impressed by the productivity and health of the mandala garden.

The workshop was held in the library which had been recently painted and cleaned, and the Sabina kitchen made a sumptuous lunch for the workshop participants, including some greens from the mandala garden. Three photographers from the US and Ireland were visiting Sabina and took photos of the workshop.

Evaluation of the workshop by the participants was quite favourable, though I had overestimated the ability of some of the participants to fully understand my Aussie English. I could have used an interpreter more than I did. Ten year old Kayinga Andrew's comment, when asked to say one good thing and one not so good thing about the workshop, was that "The good thing is that I learned that worms are good for the soil. The bad thing is that I am sad because I used to think they were dangerous and when I was digging I would cut them"!

The success of this workshop, and of the others that have been held, certainly indicates that one key activity of the project should be an ongoing series of educational activities.

Dan and Mike and I spent some time discussing the permaculture design that Rowe, Dan, Amanda and Mike had done for the Sabina site. I was impressed by the design, and proof of its effectiveness was already evident in the productive mandala garden and the performance of the swales in the heavy rain. My only comment was that it may be preferable to stop vehicles using the turnaround area between the library and the home, so that it could be planted with trees and grass or other ground cover plants to prevent the dust in the dry and mud in the wet from such a large expanse of bare earth.

I did make some suggestions for other trees that could be included in the plantings, including Inga (Ice cream bean), Acerola Cherry, Tamarind, Carob, Ibeka and Black Sapote. I said I would see if I could post some seed of these trees to the project. However, I have found that seeds and plants are restricted imports into Uganda and I would have to get phyto-sanitary certification and a whole lot of other paper work, unless I lied on the declaration, and then I could be liable to prosecution. Inga is a legume that has shown weedy potential in some areas of Australia with a similar climate to Sabina's, so perhaps it should not be considered. Most of the others may well already be in Uganda and may be able to be tracked down at other permaculture projects or tree projects. I wil do some more internet research and let you know if I find anything.

After the workshop, Uncle Ddembe Joseph showed me his family's garden next door to Sabina, and then took me further on to show me a plot of land on which Bkenya Peter, with Uncle Ddembe Joseph's support, is growing passionfruit on wire trellises with an understorey of coffee. This great example of productive permaculture stacking has been established as a cash crop to generate funds to support Bkenya Peter's further education, and I was impressed by the effort that Bkenya Peter and Ddembe Joseph had put into it. It also demonstrates that the local people can be quite enterprising and that the permaculture project can work with those people and support them in their own projects.

While the first priority for the permaculture project at Sabina must be to grow vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk and meat to broaden the diet of the children, it may be worth exploring, as the project develops, the future possibility of growing cash crops as well, along the lines of Bkenya Peter's project.

So thankyou to you all for giving me the opportunity to visit and contribute, in a small way, to this exciting project. I learnt a lot and enjoyed it very much, even the cold sponge bathing, the posho and the beans! And the kids, of course, were amazing. I will never forget them.

Cheers and Best Wishes
Dick

Dick Copeman
Northey Street City Farm
Brisbane, Australia

Note: See photos from Dick's workshop here

Swales in Action

2008-11-07T13:23:00.003+03:00

Here are a couple of photos of a couple our swales after a rain.

An article about the project by Rosemary Morrow

2008-11-07T01:35:00.003+03:00

Check out Rowe's fantastic introduction to the project (Although note as far as I know it was only ever two Saturdays where it was tea only for breakfast - otherwise the maize porridge is there and it's actually not too bad, though we found we'd be hungry within a few hours if working outside).

It finally rained!

2008-11-07T01:07:00.003+03:00

So after months of planning, marking out, and digging diversion drains, swales and ponds, I was kind of eager to see some rain. The rainy season was supposed to start in mid-September but it never did. By late October, when I was due to leave, we had had one good rain (that I was away for) and several smaller rains, with some but not a whole lot of water flow happening. Almost daily dark clouds with thunder and lightening would loom overhead then go and rain about three kilometers west - we learned that Sabina is in a chronic rain shadow. Anyways, I was hungry to experience a decent downpour - to see the ground completely soaked to capacity and then for hard rain to continue with 100% run-off. All our earthworks were in place and like open arms waiting to receive.

I had resigned myself to the fact it probably wouldn't happen when, at about 1am on my very last night, October 26th, it rained! And it rained hard and long! After an hour of good rain I leapt out of bed, borrowed Mike's headlamp, and headed out into the night in my boxer shorts to splash up and down the swales. It was just fantastic, with the top two swales (in the driveway orchard) full and overflowing into the third, which was about 2cm from overflowing, the diversion drain behind the library starting to flow, and two of the three long swales (what we call the uncles swale and the blind river - you can see them in the Our Latest Design Efforts entry below) almost totally full, the latter receiving an enormous flow of water flooding in via a diversion drain from the bare-grounded entrance area. Thousands and thousands of litres of water channeled, caught, sitting still, and soaking in. The papaw and yam circle was impressive, totally full and just starting to overflow, as was the last swale below the bathrooms. I used the water level to check the different spillways and then went back to bed. When it kept raining I headed out again at about 4am. Deborah the home administrator saw a light moving around and thought she better investigate before realising "Oh it's probably just Dan or Mike in the swales." It was a wonderful goodbye treat, and I'm sure Mike will have some photos of the water fun up on the blog soon, as the rainy season continues and hopefully picks up its pace. For a while there I was thinking we should rename it the slightly less dry season!

Some random quotes

2008-11-06T03:09:00.004+03:00

A few statements made in and around Sabina over the last month or two that made me smile. Not exact quotes but as close to them as I can remember:

"The usual rules about planting fruit trees don't apply in Uganda. In Uganda, to put cow manure in the hole when you plant a mango would be a waste of manure" - Father Edwards

"I learned that worms are useful. I used to think they were dangerous and when I was digging I would cut them" - Kayinga Andrews, age ten, giving feedback to the group after Dick Copeman's recent workshop

"Permaculture is a design system for sustainable living and landuse" - Random student overheard replying when asked by another student what permaculture was near the garden during lunchbreak - made me raise my eyebrows I can tell you!

"Now we've planted all these fruit trees we cannot go backwards. We can only go forward" - Uncle Ddembe Joseph

100 Fruit Trees and Counting...

2008-11-04T10:38:00.002+03:00

On 29 October, Sabina had the official opening of its community resource centre, and the day was filled with speeches, entertainment, and district officials. As part of the celebration we had Rose Nalubowa Kalyesubula, the Assistant Education Officer of Rakai District plant our 100th fruit tree.

Weeraba Mukwano

2008-11-04T09:49:00.005+03:00

On 27 October, our dear Uncle Dan departed to the saddness of many and to the utter delight of others (See the photo below of Rashida after we told her he was leaving). Goodbye Uncle Dan, you will be missed and we hope to see you again soon. Gebale Ssebo.

Workshop with Dick Copeman

2008-11-04T09:33:00.003+03:00

On 25 October we held a workshop taught by Dick Copeman of Australia. 21 people came from all over the community to learn about Soil Improvements, Seed Saving, Natural Pest Management, and Worm Farming. The day was a great success and everyone involved, including us, learned a lot. Read a follow-up report from Dick here.

Our latest design efforts!

2008-11-03T14:48:00.005+03:00

Designs

2008-10-13T20:41:00.008+03:00

Here are reasonably high-resolution scans of the designs we've completed to date.

Overall Site Zone Analysis, placing the things that need to be visited the oftenest the closest to activity centres.

Design for our initial mandala vegetable garden (which has been implemented and is in production). From above...

And from the side...

Design for 'Freedom Park' - the current washing line area in the middle of the home. The first design is for 2009 and the second is for 2039 when the fruit trees are mature. So far we have put in a small swale, planted most of the fruit trees and put in a temporary shadehouse structure. For the boundary we sourced some Kenyan Guavas that grow tall but only 4 feet wide!

Design for the driveway orchard we created by moving the giant football field 17 metres west. Again the first design is for 2009 and the second for 2039 when the mainframe trees are up to size. So far the swales are in and fully planted out and all the fruit trees are in and protected.

Design for the large area west of the old cow shed.

Big thanks to Amanda for her amazing skills both on the design front and in making them look so beautiful!

Notes from Namibia...

2008-10-13T17:38:00.006+03:00

After three wonderful months at Sabina, ‘Auntie Amanda’ as I have become known by the students and staff at Sabina, is now in Namibia and missing the children and project terribly. A huge thank you to everyone who made my time at Sabina so very special and big gratitude especially to the amazing Auntie Jan Smart for her continued and generous support.
The permaculture team experienced a set-back a month ago when our project laptop and cameras (with all of our images) were stolen. That said, (‘Uncles’) Dan and Mike have done a wonderful job updating all that’s taken place over the last little while.
I wanted to add some documentation of a community outreach project that took place in Kibale, deep in the West, for a group living with or affected by HIV/Aids. The workshop, facilitated by local NGO, Network for Holistic Community Development, included a presentation by our wonderful Peacecorps volunteer Sarah on mother-to-child transmission of HIV, a discussion on nutrition by NEFCHOD director John Robert and a hands-on demonstration of sack-garden building by Amanda and Dan. The success of the day was just another example of how permaculture practices are being eagerly embraced across Uganda. Here’s an image of the cabbages going in…

And here's a gorgeous shot of the most talented drummer, and diligent planter, Victor (P6) with one of his first flowering marigolds in the garden…

Aaah! Students welcome relief from the equatorial sun when eating lunch or doing their laundry. This is the well-used shade structure that’s been erected in freedom park, complete with its own small garden to utilize grey water…

Our paw-paws don't grow poorly! Here's Angel with one of the trees in the paw-paw circle adjacent to the mandala vegie garden...

And just to reiterate how phenomenal the young Kayanga Andrews is… here are some more words from a card that he presented upon my leaving.

Thank you for having me and thank you to Mike, Kim and Clive who will continue work on the project for the next year - the seed of something truly wonderful has germinated here at Sabina, and I so look forward to watching it grow from strength to strength.

In his own words: Kayanga Andrew - Our Agricultural Whiz Kid

2008-10-13T13:58:00.003+03:00

My name is Kayanga Andrew. I am ten years old. I study from Sabina. My best subject is maths and English. I like working in permaculture. I have many gardens and watermelons, sugar canes and many others. If they grow, I will send you some. The plants in the main garden are growing well. They have planted fruit trees, for example mangos. They have been planted by Uncle Dan and Uncle Mike. Permaculture will design Sabina Home and we will eat a balanced diet of fruits and vegetables. I send this to Aunty Amanda and Aunty Rowe. But we are missing Aunty Amanda. Aunty Jan, Joseph and Silas are missing you. We enjoyed the permaculture party, it was so marvellous. Sabina has many permaculture gardens made by the Aunties. They are interested in permaculture. The library has been designed and has many interesting books. I greet you in the name of Jesus Christ – goodbye.

Note - Kayanga leaves us in awe. Every day he comes up to me and says "Uncle Dan, one of the new oranges is flowering," or "someone removed one cucumber," "or let me transplant these cabbages, they are in the wrong place." Then last week we asked if he would be comfortable managing other children in the garden he nodded. When we visited the garden a few hours later he had about eight boys and an older girl working hard and in three hours they had planned, dug, fully planted, mulched and watered a large extension to our vegetable garden. This boy is truly amazing - thank you Kayanga!

Veggie Garden / Forest!

2008-10-13T13:35:00.006+03:00

Aunties' Garden

2008-10-13T13:28:00.002+03:00

We were overjoyed when, after watching us circumspectfully from a comfortable distance for the first three months, the 'aunties' or house mothers approached us and asked if they could make their own vegetable garden in the central turning circle of the main entrance area. We said yes please and have done nothing - they have marked it out, dug it, and are about to plant it all on their own initiative. And they are planning more! What's more, shortly we'll add pix of Uncle Jospeh's wife's garden (Aunty Mirembe) - she has also decided to copy what we've done at her own home. This stuff is slowly starting to spread out across Uganda!

Earthworks

2008-10-13T13:11:00.006+03:00

So here are some recent pictures of what's been happening on the water-harvesting earthworks front over the last month...

Marking out swales using an A-frame and Bunyip level...

Our hired boys digging (we're developing a great working relationship with them and they do an excellent job)...

Here they are, looking like rap stars ;-)...

Here is the freshly-dug top driveway orchard swale (the driveway orchard was created in the space gained by moving the football field 17 metres west)

and from another angle...

and the one below it, which is now full-sized, planted out with fruit trees (jackfruit and mangos), maize, beans, sweet potato, comfrey and hopefully tomorrow vetiver grass...

See later photos of them holding water here.

OutReach WorkShop

2008-10-13T13:10:00.001+03:00

Last week Mike and Dan visited a rural site on the Eastern shores of the bay of Lake Victoria closest to Kampala, where we ran two days of workshops with a new woman's community gardening group. Here are some pictures:

Making compost was out main focus and it went great - the women really got it, and arrived in the morning carrying basins of animal manure on their heads...

Here Dan works with the women to help plan their planting and transplanting to ensure a continuous harvest for sale and to nourish their families...

Here's the group on Thursday. On Friday even more came along and they are just the most lovely amazing people ever!

Here they sang and danced for us to welcome and then to thank us for the workshop. It was just beautiful and everyone in the room was up and dancing...

Pump House gets a Trench Job

2008-10-13T13:06:00.000+03:00

So when we arrived outside the pump house was a wet slippery big trench that all the children walked through every day to fetch water for drinking, washing and bathing...

So we got our friend Patrick to mix up some concrete and knock up a covered waterway that feeds into a little pond just uphill of our vegetable garden. Collecting water by dipping in a watering can is so easy some of the children water the vegetables just for fun!

Permaculture Sabina

2008-10-13T13:02:00.000+03:00

A close up of Amanda's fine mural...

Uncle Richard

2008-10-12T14:37:00.000+03:00

Uncle Richard is the truck driver at Sabina and a lovely character in the Sabina cast. He observes the permaculture activies between driving stints (his room looks out on the garden) loves his football and basketball, and in an upcoming entry you'll see him planting a mango tree. Go Uncle Richard.

Design Visit

2008-10-12T14:29:00.000+03:00

Adam was recommended to us by Godfrey, the Rakai District Agricultural Officer. He has much expertise in local fruit trees so we were delighted when he visited us to give us feedback and advice on our orchard designs, here flanked by Dan and Mike...

In his own words...

2008-09-16T10:58:00.007+03:00

My name is Christopher Nyero with 17 ages and I was born in Uganda. I am good in playing Basketball because of the good height I have. I play Cricket, Baseball and some time soccer. I support Chelsea football Club in the English Premier League in England. I study from Mbuye Farm School and I would like to become an engineer of architectures in the future.

I have managed to spend the whole two months of my holidays helping Dan Palmer and Amanda who were my best leaders in the Permaculture Project at Sabina. And it is not because I study from Mbuye Farm School but it is because am so interested in practising Agriculture. I have enjoyed learning a lot of things about permaculture and am having enough experience in it now.

And let me take this chance by passing through Dan Palmer and Amanda to thank the one sponsoring this project. May God bless you abundantly. Bye! Bye!

Note: Nyero Christopher has been the most amazing helper during the last three weeks, present from dawn (7am) to dusk (7pm) every single day quietly, competently and accurately assisting us with whatever we were up to, from watering to planting to measuring, designing, marking out and digging. No one shapes earth like Nyero - the man is an earth artist, and his almost 7 feet of height were a help when erecting poles and wires for the passion fruit around the mandala garden. Thank you Nyero for your massive contribution and see you at the end of term one next year!

Some general pictures from the last few weeks

2008-09-15T13:48:00.004+03:00

The day 200 K-Apple fence seedlings arrived to begin our living fence around the 3000 metre Sabina boundary.

Gorgeous young Antony (Uncle Ddembe's son) and Rahita visited us preparing holes for fruit trees in freedom park the other day and when they picked up the tools we couldn't resist a snap!

One of the mandala garden passionfruit poles going up.

You saw Sarah with her sack garden in a below entry - here it is five weeks later - pumping out many a fresh garden salad and a full three steps from her kitchen...

How we made our sheet-mulch gardens

2008-09-15T13:41:00.002+03:00

First we marked out and dug from path to bed, getting both dead level to slow and soak rain water, then edgebanked the bed with soil again to retain water, before banging in stakes around the edge.

Next comes soaked cardboard overlapping by at least ten centimetres to halt cooch grass seed and root growth.

Then we added nitrogen in the form of cow manure and cow urine.

And carbon in the form of wood chips.

Garden Party

2008-09-15T13:32:00.002+03:00

So during the holidays we had a breakfast garden party with a bunch of the student who have been helping most in the garden and permaculture project. We all sat in the keyhole beds and ate delicious maize porridge, chapati and sweet bananas.

The lovely Charles entertained us from the compost area with sweet tunes from a local instrument...

While Doreen sat back and enjoyed.

Charles, also our Master of Ceremony, then finished the party with a heart-warming redition of the Permaculture Anthem he had written, watering can in hand.

Water Works

2008-09-15T13:22:00.002+03:00

After marking out and digging a diversion drain through the main entrance area (Which sheds vast amounts of water) we test with water.

Nyero observing it work beautifully! Moving slowly away from the buildings towards...

The planned large vegetable garden and nursery area.

First Harvest!

2008-09-15T13:04:00.003+03:00

One of the Ddodo just before harvest.

The harvest begins...

The harvest continues...

In to the kitchen for chopping...

More chopping...

Adding to the pot...

Onto the plates...

And into happy mouths!

We're having a swale of a time at Sabina!

2008-08-26T19:25:00.004+03:00

Silas and Joseph wield their machetes expertly to prepare banana fibre for the garden beds.

Today we have traveled up to Kampala to take advantage of the capital's many nurseries, hunt for compost worms and access computers, scanners and copiers which aren't affected (too regularly) by the power cuts that plague our closest internet provider in Kyotera.

There has been much action at Sabina since the last posting - the small vegetable garden is taking form more and more each day (more seedlings planted, paperboxes and woodchips laid, poles erected etc.). Off the top of our heads, thus far, we have tomatoes, eggplant, ddoodo (amaranthus), nakati, swiss chard, spinach, beetroot, cabbage, collards, coriander, lettuce, maize, carrots, onions, marigolds, watermelon, pumpkins, beans, sugar cane, paw paw and passion fruit growing happily. A crawling critter seems to be enjoying a gourmet swiss chard diet at night so we're starting an evening patrol to encourage him to leave the leaves and some tomatoes have just started to form their first fruits!

We have also started to expand our energies into other parts of the property by marking contours and digging swales and trenches. Yesterday, rumbling skies and rising humidity heralded the first rains of the season and we eagerly ran into the wet to see how the water flowed through the swales. Dan also presented a workshop to our 'holiday' students introducing key permaculture concepts.

There was much laughter as we played the "capture and store energy resources" game and 'Sunlight' (Francis), 'Water' (Apriona) and 'Nutrients/Manure' (Steveni) were held captive by 'Coffee Bush' (Baron), 'Cow' (Christophe), 'Mango Tree' (Charles), 'Pig' (Amanda) and 'Chicken' (Elvis). Everyone also enjoyed watching Bill Mollison's DVD 'Global Gardener' and seeing places similar to Sabina being transformed into abundant food forests through permaculture. Some students asked really insightful questions and we feel the seed of interest is starting to germinate in many.

We recently received a very generous donation of seeds from Eden Seeds in Australia and have planted a range of species in the nursery. There are many questions about the taste of rockmelons, rainbow chard and rocket and we're so looking forward to the fruit and veggies answering for themselves.

We are finishing up the designs for 'Freedom Park' and enjoying the processes involved with putting together the overall design for the home.

It's much quieter at the home with so many of the children away for the holiday period, but this project is certainly making some noise in the local community. As we walk through the local village, Ssanje, we are often asked "how are the tomatoes?" and "how is the permaculture?" along with the standard greetings.

More photos

2008-08-26T18:11:00.003+03:00

July 11: A before shot of the garden-to-be with three young men letting the cooch grass know it's number is up.

July 20: Young Golobuz Edwards shows that height doesn't hamper enthusiasm when it comes to compost making.

July 20: Musoke Moses harvesting water from the pump house overflow trench. This has been an extremely handy source of water for the garden, nursery and compost, though it dries up during holidays when most of the children aren't around.

August 4: The wonderful Sarah shows off her newly planted sack garden bursting with swiss chard, tomato, lettuce, cabbage, marigolds and love (and just two steps away from her kitchen).

August 6th: Ground manager Uncle Ddembe Joseph measuring out paths in the mandala garden.

Catching up - snapshots of what we've been up to lately!

2008-08-26T11:30:00.008+03:00

July 14: A bunch of keen seed planters in our little nursery that is supplying the mandala garden.

July 29: The winners of our permaculture garden sign competition - well done Rukuto Caroline, Ssenjenjo Joseph and Kayanga Andrews.

August 3: Bed 1 in the mandala garden under construction - the first of many!

August 14: On the last day before holidays began, we had an afternoon and evening of festivities including goat for all, a DJ with huge speakers, prizegiving, and a wheelbarrow race. Here Moses and Kalim - two of our star garden helpers, strut their stuff. They came in second.

Dan and Amanda with the wonderful Kalim and Moses shortly after they were awarded prizes at the school prizegiving for being such brilliant helpers in the garden.

August 16: The design for the mandala garden - with thanks to Amanda and her wonderful paintbrushes!

August 17: Putting in a little system to take kitchen water (the concrete floor is washed at least once per day) into a wet bed where we plan to grow sugar cane, taro, water chestnuts and kang kong. It works well and is constantly holding water. Rainwater run off also enters it and we'll make the levels such that water then backfloods up the drain and then into the main garden path system where it can soak down into the waiting leacaena roots ;-).

August 17: We were honoured with a visit from Rachel and Douglas, trainers from St Jude's Organic farm near Masaka, both trained in biointensive agriculture and fluent in sustainable agricultural practices for this region. They walked the site with us and gave us great feedback and new ideas on the design. One comment from Rachel upon seeing the chicken house so far away from anything was "who put this here!?"

August 19: Testing out diverting the compound greywater and rainwater sideways into the greywater swale - Sabina's first! It rained August 25 for about 40 minutes and sure enough water flowed along the contour about 15 metres - so we'll dig some more and await more rain!

August 19: Our most advanced cabbage - through it is a lot bigger now!

August 19: Christophe (an amazing helper here for the holidays who intends to practice permaculture on his family farm in the future) planting in Bed One

August 19: Another shot of bed one.

August 19: Innocent and Antony seiving compost for seed-raising mix - a great stage to have reached. We've found that including plenty of woodchips and cow manure really makes for a gorgeous end product.

August 23: Poles going up in the mandala garden - thanks to Charles, Uncle Dembe Josepn, and Christophe.

August 23: The (in progress) permaculture mural facing the mandala garden - complete with notice boards for garden jobs and seasonal information and what not.

Recent Pix

2008-08-07T18:51:00.002+03:00

Here we used water to get the paths within the mandala garden level. It was with much jubilation that five large bins of water were poured into the garden. The water soon let us know where more digging was required!

27 July - 6 August 2008

2008-08-07T18:07:00.001+03:00

Sunday, July 27
Yesterday we turned the first compost pile (which is still a few turns off ready), turned the big compost pile into two smaller piles, and started a large new compost pile with all the incoming organic matter (Thanks Segujja Kalim!). Amanda spent the morning in the nursery planting out a lot of the new seeds we purchased in Kampala on Thursday (coriander, lettuce, cantaloupe, onions) and seed we’ve saved (tomato, jackfruit and passion fruit). A troupe of about six girls eagerly assisted. A thought was that we might move away from making newspaper pots, which require expensive masking tape and focus more on plastic juice containers and yogurt bags that we can collect onsite and from the village.

When we arrived in the morning several children were already at work continuing to dig out the paths in the mandala garden, and throughout the day we made good progress on better defining and levelling the paths so that rainwater flowing into the garden will be evenly distributed. Father Edwards came to see our work and deliver the $40,000 shillings worth of cardboard boxes we bought in Kampala (from his uncle).

While Silas amused himself digging out the large trench carrying water away from the pump house, young Andrews carefully planted out some sugar cane, made a fence around it, wrote a sign (“This is Kayinga Andrew’s sugar cane garden. Please don’t put anything here. Thanks”). He then asked if he could plant some watermelon in the trench where it could access much water. It was a great feeling to see him preparing these little plantings which he will take care of.

Uncle Dembe Jospeh came by in the evening to see our work and we discussed the possibility of taking some of the most interested children away from their other chores to focus on the garden (e.g., Musoke Moses, Kayinga Andrews and Segujja Kalim). We will meet with Jospeh and Deborah at 9:30 on Monday to go through our project plan. Joseph stressed the priority of starting on a living fence to exclude trespassers from the site.

Jan also called from Washington and it was great to chat about various aspects of the project – she also googled compost worms in Africa and found two places in South Africa who can hopefully mail us some worms shortly. This would be a real winner, composting the bulk organic matter coming in and supplying fertilizer for the garden and food for the chicken system we want to expand (hopefully to the point where there is one egg per child per week).

Today the three boys mentioned about have just arrived as we finish our breakfast saying they are ready to work and are just waiting for us.

Tuesday, July 29
We’re both down with the flu today but this evening after school Uncle Dembe Joseph was supervising about 14 children eagerly working on the garden, further digging the paths, clearing out the to-be banana circle, and so on. Surplus soil was being taken to the north-eastern corner of the dining hall where we will use it to send water sideways rather than flooding down the side of the building. It was a good feeling to see staff and children working independently on the garden without us having to be there – bodes well for the success of the project when we are no longer here, though it sounds there is a chance Dan’s friends Kim and Clive from Melbourne might come and spend a year here which would be just fantastic. Seems there will be a continuous permaculture volunteer presence here for at least a few years!

In the morning a school assembly was held to announce the winners of the permaculture poster competition. Last week around 30 students spent their Sunday evening diligently designing these works of art and given the quality of the entries, it was a tough decision for our judge, Aunty Deborah, to narrow the prize-winners to just three. Congratulations to Kayanga Andrew, Rukundo Caroline, and Ssanjjedo Joseph! A number of the beautiful posters have been laminated and will be installed in the garden as signs indicating where to place manure, urine and plastics (which we don’t want to see at all!).

The assembly was also a great opportunity to reiterate the need for students to separate plastics from organics (although getting better day by day, there are still soap and biscuit packets making their way into the compost) and publicly thank all the students who have been actively involved in the creation of the garden thus far, and welcome any others who may wish to become involved

Yesterday we visited Kyotera for various tasks and Dan spent a few hours at a local day care centre running an introduction to permaculture with about 24 participants, including a carpentry teacher, a social worker, a social work student, high school students, and centre staff. They already had a compost toilet up and running and in addition to making a few specific suggestions we were able to help them begin a site analysis and design process. We look forward to seeing what they come up with! Two participants, Joseph and Smith, were exceptionally keen, and very much want to be notified about any PDCs and other courses run at Sabina. Smith, incidentally, is our contact for bulk free woodchips, and we plan to pick up another truckload later this week, as we’re almost through our first load.

Thursday, July 31
This morning we were turning one of our three on-the go composts when teacher Jude came by to say hi. He asked if we had work for a pre-lunch agriculture class and we said yes please. Jude said 30 students so we brainstormed tasks. Amanda then caught a ride to Kyotera for various supplies (including blackboard paint for the latrine wall which Amanda realised this morning is perfect for a big permaculture display). Dan was ready for the students to arrive though wasn’t expecting 60 of them! (P7 and P4). So we had plastic picking up, compost tidying, compost turning, grass pulling, grass chipping, future banana circle cleaning out, dirt pile raking and planting with grass (on corner of dining hall), digging out the mandala garden and wheelbarrowing excess to extend compost making area terrace, marking out the new beds, and other stuff all happening at once! In only about 35 minutes we got a lot done – it was great. Then in the afternoon we dug quite intensely and then tipped five big bins of water into the garden to check the levels. Uncle Joseph has organised the children to rotate through the garden as part of their daily evening work so virtually all the children are cycling through the garden and contributing to it. It is fast getting there and it is only a day or two now until we can lay out the cardboard and start planting. In the afternoon we also made a sack garden for Sarah.

Friday, August 1
Due to a library meeting, rearranging our room, and still-recovering Dan sleeping for three hours we didn’t get over to the garden until 3pm. Yet we got a great deal done before dark, including watching the rain flow during a brief shower (the second during our time here) and channelling it into the garden. We also marked out two broad beds between the mandala and the tank which look great and did heaps of digging and earth moving. Musese Simon Peter and Ssenjedo Jospeh independently built themselves another compost pile which was a bit exciting. Laurie Spears (a lecturer in the School of Nursing at Baylor University in Dallas, Texas) and other visitors came by and were really enthusiastic about the project, especially about the implications for the children’s nutrition. One group inside took apart the cardboard boxes anticipating the next stage, which is now very close indeed! Jan called and we had a great chat. We need to get some costings on tanks and gutters and details for the school that has donated $1600 towards water-related infrastructure.

Sunday, August 3
Today we started sheet mulching the first area within the mandala garden! First we carefully levelled, edge-banked it and staked the boundary (where bed becomes path). Then water, cow urine, soaked cardboard, cow poo, wood chips, with banana stem fibre weaved through the stakes to form the edge. A team of older students also assisted in chalking out the design for a wall-sized Sabina Permaculture mural and notices black-board on the latrine building’s external wall facing the kitchen. The design is based on tropical food-forest images (complete with mango, cassava, pawpaw and, of course, matooke) and will contain a painted design diagram of the mandala garden, a definition of permaculture, garden news (what’s ready for harvest, which compost needs turning etc) and guidelines for gardening (care of tools etc.). We hope that this mural will be a good information point for when Sabina starts permaculture tours through the school in the future and believe it will also allow for clearer communication with the students on what needs to be done.

Amanda enjoyed a Sunday arvo craft session with a number of students creating colourful purses from the juice boxes currently making their way into the garbage.

Tuesday, 5 August

After much measuring, work on a detailed garden design that details the different categories of plants (frequently-plucked/everyday greens, those picked frequently over a short to long season, and those we cut and remove) continued this morning. We then jumped aboard the trusty truck (many thanks to our wonderful driver, Richard) and visited St. Judes Organic Farm near Masaka, where Amanda enjoyed her first tour of the site (leaving her feeling very inspired about what can be achieved at Sabina). Jan’s earlier blog entries detail the farm and all the amazing work they are doing.We purchased some grafted avocados, oranges and passionfruits; cabbage and eggplant seedlings; and mint, comfrey and false-sunflower (excellent for compost) cuttings. Rachel (the farm’s fantastic trainer) will visit us this Sunday and we are looking forward to making the most of her expertise with regards to any thoughts she may have on our design and contacts for tanks, guttering etc. Returning to Kyotera, we continued to glean disused cardboard boxes from the sidewalks, purchase some kitchen supplies for the permaculture volunteers’ home and filled the back of the truck with another load of free woodchips from OBCO.

Wednesday, August 6
An absolutely huge day in the garden, working all day long with many helpers. We completed two new beds (edge-banked beds, stakes to define path/bed boundary, added cow urine and water, soaked cardboard, edged with banana stem shreds, added wood chips, cow manure, and other organic matter) and planted eggplant and swiss chard in one of them. Some boys marked out and dug the perimeter path on the outside of the centre circle and others started digging the holes for the poles we’ll put in the middle to grow beans and vines up. We built two new sack gardens, one for the compound and one for the ladies at the parish.

Thursday, August 7

It’s great to have so many hands on board at the moment. Students in the lower classes have finished their exams and are now free to help in the garden throughout the day and we also have some older students from a nearby college spending their vacation at Sabina. The garden is a seething mass of activity and we’re excited about how much we’ll be able to accomplish over the next few weeks. This morning we planted out some new seeds in the nursery; cleared beds and paths; turned compost; planted out tomatoes, dodo (local amaranth used as leafy veg), marigolds (from seeds sourced at the local parish); levelled and started to stake out the remaining beds in the mandala garden. We planted out the new sack gardens and the dorm mothers have requested more. We’re spending the afternoon trying to catch up on the office-side of the project (including sourcing ever-elusive compost worms from somewhere on this continent!) – something which is easily sidelined when there’s so much fun to be had in the garden!