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.