One of the Cooperative members had used he services of a CNFA volunteer previously. A 71 year old retired government official, he had several hectares of plants and fruit trees.
He invited myself and the CNFA staffers, Luciano Silva, my interpreter Vasco Capingala and the driver Domingo Lucambo to visit the progress that he had made. His farm or fazenda was situated in a beautiful valley. He actually had some good looking soil. he said that he had tried citrus but they did niot thrive so that switched to passion fruit and pineapple. There was not much I could add, since I have never grown either crop. But his fazenda was well organized and fairly clean of weeds. But it was certainly a gorgeous piece of real estate. The passion fruit, if on the ground, were free for the picking and the CNFA staff obliged.
We returned to the main highway that serves as the main paved street of the Municipio do Londuimbali through a fairly typical neighborhood. There are poor peasants. Whatever oil wealth that the country garners, it is not reflected here. There is no running water, a generator produces the electricity and the people cook with charcoal, usually in mud brick huts. Many have the openings, but the actual windows and doors will come later.The streets are unpaved and rutted and the rights of ways are shared with a menagerie of dogs, chickens and goats and the occasional oxen.
How or can they relate their world to that?Leaving Londuimbali I saw the saw a site that reminded me of a scene that I had encountered two years ago. A camponez who was driving us to his fazanda, bouncing over rutted roads in a bone shaking RAV4, asked me when he saw me staring at a team of oxen that we had drawn next to, how many teams of oxen did I own. I had to tell him none.
Then he asked how many were in the State of North Carolina and I told him that, as far as I knew, oxen did not exist in the United States, I had never seen any. He fell silent over such an absurd statement.
He invited myself and the CNFA staffers, Luciano Silva, my interpreter Vasco Capingala and the driver Domingo Lucambo to visit the progress that he had made. His farm or fazenda was situated in a beautiful valley. He actually had some good looking soil. he said that he had tried citrus but they did niot thrive so that switched to passion fruit and pineapple. There was not much I could add, since I have never grown either crop. But his fazenda was well organized and fairly clean of weeds. But it was certainly a gorgeous piece of real estate. The passion fruit, if on the ground, were free for the picking and the CNFA staff obliged.
We returned to the main highway that serves as the main paved street of the Municipio do Londuimbali through a fairly typical neighborhood. There are poor peasants. Whatever oil wealth that the country garners, it is not reflected here. There is no running water, a generator produces the electricity and the people cook with charcoal, usually in mud brick huts. Many have the openings, but the actual windows and doors will come later.The streets are unpaved and rutted and the rights of ways are shared with a menagerie of dogs, chickens and goats and the occasional oxen.
Nice. Other animal inhabitants include jaguars, maned wolves, howler monkeys, and caimans. And when it comes to birds, the owners have counted at least 394 bird species! Hotel fazenda interior sp
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