Day 7, Back to Londuimbali for Composto 102

Day 7 Composting 201

The CNFA Team, composed of the driver, Domingo, my new translator, Vasco, the Project Coordinator, Luciano,

and myself, drove back to Londuimbali this morning to teach more about composting to the Cooperativa Dolindo Rodrigues. We stopped to take a photograph. That is Londuimbali in the background

When we arrived in Londuimbali there were already 10 camponez (peasants) waiting for us.

Within 20 minutes we had more camponez attending the second class than we had attending last week’s first class .... a very good sign. I thanked them for coming and told them that having this many camponez attending the class was very motivating to the CNFA Team. An immediate question ….. would those who complete the course in composting receive a certificate. Of course they would! Plus we had a surprise.

Little did they know that prior to striking off for the countryside this morning, we had stopped off at Digital Foto-Diamante and had 26 copies made of the group picture from the first day. We will add these to their certificates. I’m not sure if these camponez had ever seen a digital camera before but the certainly were fascinated with it. This I know for sure: the workers at Digital Foto-Diamante checked my thumb drive for viruses, which I thought was fairly professional but found none. They gave it back to me, as I found out later, with SEVEN viruses from there own systems. I now REALLY believe in the free AVG anti-virus program that Greg French back in Rutherfordton installed on our computers.

So, with the camponez, we first had a review of composting 101.

They remembered the 5 main ingredients: air, water, heat, green material and brown material. They remembered the most important processes when making a compost pile: put the materials in layers and give it enough water so that the moisture content is that of a wrung out sponge. I even had purchased a sponge, had it wetted, wrung it out and passed it around, twice, just so they understood what the required moisture felt like.

Now things started to get serious. We had the camponez break out into the three groups that we formed on Sexta-fiera, (last Friday):Grupo Verde (green), Grupo Castanha (brown) and Grupo Estrume (manure). Did they remember what materials belonged in their group? They did fine; Grupo Verde reported fresh grass, weeds, kitchen waste, cascara de naranga e manga (orange and mango peels) etc. Grupo Castanha reported dried grass, sticks, dried sugar cane and corn stalks, leaves, cardboard etc. And Grupo Estrume reported manure of cow, sheep, goat, chicken, horse, donkey but not pig, dog or cat because they share parasites with humans.

All members agreed to bring two 50Kg sacksof the appropriate materials to the Community Center

Then we discussed the requirenments for locating the site for the compostieria: near water, shaded, level, convenient to get to, accessible to all cooperative members. When I asked for the name of the person responsible for making sure that the compost was workuing, the camponez insisted on electing the leaders, which they did. Next, it was decided that, after lunch of bread, butter and Blue,

we would visit the site with the Cooperative Extension agent, the newly elected leader and two representatives of each group.

The Cooperative owns land near a stream that is used for training. The members had built a hut to hold their meetings. It was decided that this hut would be used fopr the site of the first compostieria. We agreed to return the next day with all materials to this site to build Londuimbali's first compost pile.

I could see them bursting with anticipation.

On our journey back, I asked Domingo to stop so I could take photographs of how ubiquitious the use of 50Kg sacks as a unit of measure is in the countryside.. Charcoal, avacados and all manner of dried beans are sold by the saco no bother that the 50Kg is a measurement of weight and not volume.

Day 6: Sunday - In Memory of Laurieta Chamula

Weekends in Angola are made for relaxing, being with the family, shopping, and, of course, church.
I found my way to the Huambo Cathedral and attended Mass with the Catholic Angolans. It was so gratifying to see so many young people in church.

Returning to my home at the CNFA offices, I was looking forward to a day of writing and walking when my Angolan countertpart, Luciano Silva, arrived to take me sightseeing. He just had one side trip before we would explore the beauty of nearby Caala. He had to pay his respects to a woman in his community who had been recently killed.

Friday night it had rained very hard. So hard that in Luciano's religious community of Sao Blaz, where most of the residents live in mud brick houses, the wall of Laurieta Chamula's next door neighbor crashed down against her house, collapsing it and burying her, her child and her husband. In the pitch black and rain other neighbors ran to help and were able to find the man and the child. Laurieta was not found in time. She was dead.

The entire community, hundreds of people, came to her funeral.

The cemetary was located miles away from Sao Blaz and people piled into any available car, pickup or truck to say goodbye to their community member.

The procession was blocks long, anything with wheels from motorcycles to little transporte buses joined as keening friends and family grieved aloud over this tragedy. The sad journey ended on the outskirts of Huambo in a little valley packed with mango trees where Laurieta now sleeps.

I have never been so moved as to see outpouring of grief for Laurieta who left a liitle one and her husband. The grave had already been dug and as she was laid to rest in the Huambo red clay. As her male family members and friends filled the void with shovels and hoes, the entire community gathered in a tight ring around the gravecrying out in their grief and singing their farewells in Umbundu and Portuguese. I asked Luciano later who would take care of the child and he told me, "the Community". I asked what had become of the man whose poorly built house had fallen on Laurieta's family and he said that it was being worked out but the man would have to be forgiven. I am still stunned from this emotional outpouring of loss and love.

Later in the day, Luciano insisted on showing me what would become another spiritual experience in Huambo. Traveling east 15 miles to the small town of Caala, he took me up to the Capula a Monte. The chapel sits on a prominence in an area where the air is so clear that from some directions, one can see to the horizon.

Amidst the beauty, a nun appeared followed by a column of children, walking single file, without shoes singing hymns as they entered the chapel. Luciano whispered to me, "They are orphans from the orphanage in Caala." Amid the beauty, it struck me that maybe this is the way that a people recover from a 30 year civil war: by taking care of each other

Enjoy the View

Day 3: Our Second Day in Londuimbali: The Composting 101 Class

Yesterday, a lot of excitement had been generated over the idea of composting. CNFA believed in it, the Cooperative Extension agent said that he believed in it and one of the cooperative leaders had heard that it was beneficial and was being used extensively on a farm on the way to Luanda. I had brought my computer from Rutherford County NC and, worked through Wednesday evening in Huambo assisted by images from the Internet, composing a PowerPoint presentation that would show the basics of the what, when, how and why of composting. In the morning, I had the translator, Arnaldo, put the verbiage into understandable Angolan style Portuguese. We took CNFA's LCD projector and headed once again for Londuimbali

To my surprise, we were met at Town Hall by even more farmers than had gone to the land with us the day before. Although the membership is officially composed of 22 women and 19 men, the audience decidedly male.

26 people were waiting for us. But as we set up, we realized that there were several problems. Lacking transport, the generator from the Cooperative Extension office has not been relocated to Town Hall. It was a big diesel electrical generator and it took 6 or 8 men to lift it into the CNFA's Ford pick-up. Then there was not enough extension cord and the multi-outlet surge protector was faulty. We patiently worked through all these issues wile Luciano handed out paper and pens to the participants so that they could take notes.

We spoke for a couple of hours about why we use compost, the differences between composto organicos and cemicas and how composto is made. We focused on the 5 main ingedientes of compost: air, water, heat, brown matter and green matter. The PowerPoint and Arnoldo described them in detail. We taught of the types of piles and the sizes of the pile, and where the compostiera should be placed, emphasizing that composting was a natural process and that the most important aspects were to layer the materials and to keep the material as moist as a wrung-out sponge. We decided that we would build a compost pile as a group and where we were going to build it. Luciano and Arnaldo excellently guided the discussion to the issues of working together, deviding the tasks by group and locating and collecting the materials needed to make compost.. After some discussion, we decide to break in to three groups: Green, Brown and Manure. Pictured is the "Brown" Group. They agreed to collect from around the village high carbon materials like dried grass, leaves, paper. cardboard, etc.

The nine member Green Group would bring high nitrogen materials: orange and mango peels, kitchen scraps, green weeds and grass. Since manure can be either brown or green depending on how fresh it is, it was decided that a separate group of eight would bring chicken, goat, cow, ox, horse and donkey manure and they were the Grupo Estrume, the Manure Group.

The members of each group would collect the appropriate materials packed in a used 50kg fertilizer sack. (50 kg sacks are a universal measurement in the countryside of Angola) We agreed that we would reconvene on Tuesday, bring our bags and build a compost pile near a shaded site close to a stream.

The entire group became animated as the plan came together except for the youngest member of the group who was peacefully asleep through the entire meeting.

After the class, Luciano, Domingo and the Cooperative Extension staff distributed bread with butter and the very popular carbonated pineapple drink, Blue. There were some really noble faces in the membership that I wanted to remember and, once I got started taking photographs, everyone wanted to pose.

Day 2: February 23, Our First Trip to Londuimbali

Londuimbali lies about an hours drive northeast of Huambo. Like most of Angola, the vastness of Africa becomes apparent as soon as one leaves the urbanized areas.

The roads are not very crowded because in the rural areas, there are few cars. Buses abound and at every little crossroads stop there are women and children hawking everything from fruits to fried chicken. This is the rainy season so that the vegetation is lush. These are well drained highlands with plentiful water.

Londuimbali is a fairly typical small Angolan town. There is a main intersection that is paved and a block or two of small businesses and government offices, a City Hall and a school.

The side streets are generally unpaved. The houses are usually made of mud brick and grouped together in interesting formations. Many have electricity and more and more satellite TV receivers are visible.

The neighborhoods blend into the environment and kitchen gardens abound. Corn, milho, is planted eveywhere because it is the basis for the ngolan staple, fungi, which has nothing to do with mushrooms. Squash and cabbage are also seen, tuck in every nook and cranny.

The children that attend school are easy to identify because they take their chairs to school with them. Here I caught some kids going home the adventurous route.

The CNFA ream consisting of myself, the driver, Domingos Lukamba, and the Project Coordinator, Luciano Silva, along with an interpreter, Arnoldo, were greeted in front of Town Hall by a delegation of cooperative members and the Cooperative Extension agronomist. After being introduced to the Mayor where our agenda for the next two weeks was explained, we convened in Town Hall and were formally introduced to the assembled 30 or so cooperative members.

In Angola, 10 or so tribal languages are spoken. In Huambo the native tongue is Umbundu. However, the official language, the language of government is Portuguese. The CNFA team was introduced. I was asked to speak a few words and I explained to them that, through CNFA, I was representing the people of the United States and that I was here to learn about them and to help them return to a form of agriculture that minimized the use of chemicals: organic agriculture.

We then filled up the CNFA Ford pick-up truck twice to get all of us to the cooperative's agricultural land about three miles outside LonDuinbali. I was to go in the second trip and it gave me some time to mingle with my fellow passengers.

We eventually met in the field and walked through it. Cabbage had been recently planted on land that had been fallow for some years. The members explained that while this year's crop would be good that successive years would get worse and worse abd they would have to use more and more fertilizer. Eventually, they would then have to shift to another field. Then they would have to burn off the grass and weeds and start all over. The Agronomist asked me what I thought of burning the field to clear it. Some of the members alluded to the fact that the government had recently outlawed it. I told them that I would prefer to use the grass and weeds as a component of composting that I would add to the soil in place of fertilizer, improve the soil each year and eventually move to permanent raised beds that through crop rotations and green manures, we could improve the soil each year and increase the intensity of the agriculture.

One of the leaders of the cooperative was familiar with all these concepts. We discussed these them at some length and it was decided that we would try to renew the soil by learning the basic techniques of composting. But first, before returning to Londuimbali, we decided that it was time for a group picture.

We returned to Londuimbali in two truck loads. While we were waiting for the truck toreturn, I was able to take some shots of my co-workers Luciano and Arnoldo and some of the cooperative members.

Okuiya Kuwa!

Okuiya Kuwa, or "Welcome" in Umbundu! Umbundu is the native language of the people of the highlands of Angola. Huambo is the capital of the province by the same name, like New York, New York.

I am here on assignment with CNFA, Citizens' Network for Foreign Affairs, a USAID funded NGO. I was recruited to work with Angolan componezes or peasants. My job is to help them convert to organic agriculture because these poor peasants cannot afford to cost of chemically based fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Even though Angola is the largest exporter of oil in all Africa, the economics of bringing the refined product back to Angola is not working for small farmers at all. In the meantime, Angola, where 85% of the population engages in subsistence farming, has gone from being the breadbasket of Southern Africa to a net importer of food in yet one more fine example of the efficaciousness of globalization.

Huambo is a place somewhat remote. Despite being Angola's second largest city, it took three days of travel to get here from my home back in Rutherfordton NC. This is my second time here. In April, 2009 I was sent here by CNFA to assist in a value chain assessment of native dried beans. It was at that time that I came to love the Angolanos. Just two years ago, they were still struggling to overcome the vestiges of a devastating 30 year civil war. The town literally hummed to the sound of Honda generators because there was no centralized electrical service. The water system was still broken and many buildings exhibited the pockmarked scars of intense firefights. Huambo was the headquarters of one of the factions fighting for political supremacy in a land that until 1976 has been part of a 500 year old Portuguese colonial empire. Huambo, the breadbasket, was so strategic that all three sides of the sometimes triangular civil conflict laced the fertile fields with land mines. It was during my legume assessment and my conversations with small farmers that I came to realize that one of the consequences of a 30 year civil war in a country where the average life span is 38 years equated to a multi-generational lapse in the transmission of small farm know-how and wisdom. And that's why I was asked to come back: to teach.

Day 1 In Huambo February 22

There are just a few flights per week from Luanda, the capital of the country and the site of its international airport. I caught the 12:00 flight to Huanmbo and was met by the CNFA Country Director, Chipi, Chipilica Barbosa. The 10-minute drive the headquarters, my new home, was a real eye opening experience. In just 24 months, Huambo had been transformed. There was electricity power in the lines, the water system was improving, there was internet connectivity and there was food; there was even a supermarket. The number of cars on the road had increased dramatically. Angola was coming back. The people looked less haggard, there were more children. CNFA Angola had changed also. The headquarters had been moved some 200 miles from the coast. There was a totally new staff and I was given a professional staff briefing. Instead of a hotel, there is now a discrete bedroom off the hall of what was once a colonial mansion. There is also a kitchen and running water if you run outside and turn on the pump and pump the rainwater out of the 3000 liter plastic cistern that catches the rain water off the roof. What a difference from 2009.

I went straight to the office assigned to me and set up my connectivity to Rutherfordton. My email accounts worked perfectly. I could even Skype the office from Angola!! The only issue is that we are 7 hours East of WNC. So high noon here is 6:00 am in Rutherford County.







View Larger Map