So, here is a snap shot of what a week can look like for me. I hope it doesn't bore you. 

Sunday:

        Went to church with 3 other students from our school. After noticing what looked like a fishpond behind the church, I asked to see it. It was indeed a fishpond. The fishpond belongs to the church. After resting in the afternoon, I went to the farm, had supper and called it a day.

The Church's fishpond

Monday:

            Monday I spent most of the day working on curriculum with the other staff. In the evening I made another run to the farm.

Tuesday:

          Made a run to the farm. After finishing there I went to look for a cattle buyer for one of our cows. I went to what looked like the Mbale cattle auction. There were cows, goats, and sheep being sold. Men were standing around and looked like they were bidding on the animals. There were also people butchering some of the animals and selling meat. I found a man who said he was interested in looking at our cow. I hired a motorcycle taxi and we went back out to our farm to look at the cow.

            The rest of the morning I was on the phone. In the afternoon, I prepared for our meeting with the staff for our department of community transformation. The meeting began at 3:30 and lasted for an hour and a half; I chaired the meeting. It was too late to go to the farm, so I had supper and called it a day.

Our cows enjoying their concentrates. 

The feeding pen; the resting pen is the structure in the background.

Wednesday:

            I traveled an hour and a half away to the National Livestock Resources Research Institute. I was interested in learning what forage crops are best for this area of Uganda. They were very hospital to me, showed me around their facilities, and encouraged me to stay in touch with them. The head person has a Ph.D from Florida State University, so it was fun making that connection. On my way back from there, I stopped at the farm and spent the rest of the day there.

You can see some of their forage plots in the background.

Napier Grass canes they will sell to farmers to plant. Napier Grass is a common cattle feed here in Uganda, but they don't normally let it get this old. I was impressed by the height.

A Ugandan square baler.

Thursday

            Prepared I prepared notes and graded quizzes for my afternoon class. It turned out that we didn’t have a class that day because students were doing prayer and fasting for the day. Ended up going with Alfred (the school administrator) to look for a tractor and plow to plow our land.

Friday

            Went to a village and spoke at a church with around 20 farmers. The first part of the day I spoke about the origin of poverty, the importance of taking care of the land, and treating our neighbors well. The second part of the day I asked them what challenges they have growing each one of their cash crops. We spent almost 2 hours discussing how to deal with different problems they have.

Couple of highlights of the day:

A farmer gave his heart to the Lord

·      One of their favorite sayings I taught them “Never put all your eggs in one basket” when referring to planting several different crops to help spread risk.

·      “We need to take care of our land so it can remain for our children” Was their conclusion of the day.

·      I was encouraged to come back and continue working with them, we hope to do a demonstration plot together.

I'm in my glory, talking to farmers about agriculture.

Saturday

            Saturday was a hectic day. Stella (a student I planted a garden with) and I transplanted some cabbages and tomatoes. Then we made a trip to town to pick up feed for the cows. On the way to the farm, the truck had some problems and the job took much longer than intended. After stopping several times along the way, hiring some mechanics to come look at it, getting cheated by one, we finally made it home again.

Some of Africa's beauty.