The tree that is....not!
on Melissa Hipkins (Rwanda), 01/Oct/2010 13:39, 34 days ago
Since finishing my training with the scanner at ISAE, it’s been rather tranquil here in Nyanza. The second session of training took almost a week and concentrated on Ferdinand, the most competent of the trainees identified during the first session. His other attractive quality was that he was the only one who turned up regularly and did not have some excuse to be somewhere else. The problem of the lack of cows at ISAE had not been addressed. My suggestion of using ISAE’s other herd at Rubrizi near Kigali was met with objections on grounds of budget; the college could not afford the transport and accommodation costs. Transport I could under stand, but accommodation? It would take 2 hours by public transport to get there, say 4 hours on the farm and another 2 hours back, we’d all be safely tucked up by 6 latest. If we’re looking at accommodation then there’s a serious problem with their cattle handling system.I obviously have yet to convince the Dean that he has a valuable asset to offer other herds and that in any other country this service is worth a lot of money. It isn’t ISAE that should fund the travel to other herds but the other way round. Perhaps it’s the managers of these other herds we need to convince that spending time and money on fertility is worth the effort.So the long suffering ISAE herd was brought once more into play. It was pretty useful to compare the same cow over an interval of 7-10 days and to see the advancement of some of the very early pregnancies. We also identified one or two that needed treatment to bring them into oestrous and allow them to be inseminated. However, it all came to naught when it was admitted that there was no semen to serve them with even if they did come on heat. How exactly this has been allowed to come about remains untold. There is talk of a manager dismissed-revenge? Incompetence? The return of normal service could be weeks away. Inseminations were believed to have ceased in the middle of July, so where the 2 pregnancies have come from that both date to August, we shall see next May.The rainy season has taken a rain check and every day for the last fortnight the sky has been blue with the promise of clouds building in the afternoon but no delivery of rain. It is tantalising to have had the mains water restored for the whole day during that brief wet period. Now it’s back to 12 hours on, 24 hours off. Farmers without irrigation, and there’s a lot of them, must be worried for their young plants just put out. My courgette and sweet corn plants started outside are doing much better than in the beginning of the year. One reason may be that my compost heaps are more mature and probably at last doing the surrounding soil some good. I have even been able to call in a favour from Aphrodise and added some cow muck to the mix.I thought a fork was out of the question here, but Melissa has proved me wrong. She found one in Kigali and although it is styled muck fork, and its tines are a bit curved, it’s allowed me to dig the ground previously opened up with the big hoe. I can get a much better penetration with it and I’m turning up all sorts of rubbish that my last effort merely skated across. Basically, the soil is good albeit on the sandy side and pretty deep for an urban garden. I’ve learnt now to leave the main digging until there is some moisture in the soil, if you don’t it’s like concrete. They make mud bricks out of soil not dissimilar to this; it only takes a few days in hot sun to render them as hard as kerb stones. The tines on this fork are a wee bit bendy if I hit anything hard but it’s a vast improvement on the hoe and I don’t have to walk on the sections I’ve dug.What’s more, I put it to its proper use in claiming the generous donation of muck from next door. While there, Aphrodise proudly showed me his new enterprise-rabbits. He’s only got 17 but obviously he’s hoping for more. He has no buck at the moment, he’s afraid of cannibalism by a male, but he has had one litter of 6 about 10 days ago, presumably she was bought pregnant.Jacky had more work than she needed when the clothes line broke and one of the bed sheets hit the dust. I had some spare line that I had bought for another use so I was able to restring it fairly quickly while Jacky rinsed the dust off. Looking at the other two lines, and seeing the break in this line was not where it goes through the metal pole, I thought it best to renew all three to prevent a recurrence. The sunlight has patently got to them, the new line being a much stronger colour than the ones I replaced. Even though they’re nylon, conditions here are extreme for plastics.I have mentioned before about the easy chairs in the front room. Easy they are to make, mostly crudely finished and held together with nails, but not easy to sit in. Thin foam on wooden slats numb arses make. While at Zebounissa's we saw some chairs made from thin wooden poles and banana fibre, a bit like rattan chairs but a bit more rustic. At least they were wooden slat free. And they were cheaper than a new set of cushions. The ones we saw were too small so with the stipulation that they would be bigger, we asked her to get her man to make us some. Monday last he came out to the house with the finished articles and a coffee table to complete the set. They still looked suspiciously small so I needed to road test them before paying up. As I thought, the dimensions of chairs must be handed down father to son because these had been made to a genetic code with no variation for bigger people. I had difficulty explaining this to him as he couldn’t see the snag. It was not until he saw me half way out of the chair with it still jammed on my bottom that he conceded there needed to be alterations. I felt a bit mean as he walked away crestfallen but at least he won’t lose out, they’ll still sell in the market.Saturday marks a first for us, we shall be hosts for a party celebrating both Melanie's and Melissa's birthday. There is only one day separating them but a perhaps a few years. Parties here come in two main forms, birthdays and leaving for home after your placement is over. Most are held in Kigali as it’s a natural centre to the country with good transport, plenty of cheapish guest houses or a generous supply of volunteers’ floors. We hope about 30 to turn up which is well over the floor capacity of our two houses combined. Melissa and Melanie inspected some of the rooms available to book in town. The standard of rooms is not great; exposed concrete and hole in the floor loos. Nyanza has still a way to go before it hits the levels expected of the more recognised tourist destinations. Much planning has gone into this communal effort but we shall bring in some catering to cook the brochettes-we don’t have the savoir-faire to thread and spice them the way they do in the bars throughout the country. I have undertaken to supply as much bread as I can bake, I reckon about 7 or 8 loaves is doable in 3 days. It stays fresh for long enough and most people won’t be that fussy. We can supply a crate of beer and two wine boxes but the rest will have to come from the local bar just up the road.Just opposite this bar has been a large and somewhat gnarled eucalyptus tree just shy of 3 feet in diameter. A new house had been finished a few months ago with this tree in its front yard. Over the last weeks this tree has been whittled down to a contorted trunk about 35 ft high. At the beginning of the week men began labouring on its complete felling; all done with home made axes with rather short handles. Saws are not favoured for this job and even the cutting up of fallen trees is done by axe. The wedge cut out of the trunk to direct its fall had gradually deepened until it was held by less than half its diameter. The amount of unencumbered space they had to aim for was pretty small but one morning there it was placed as neat as you like parallel to the road awaiting ultimate disposal. It will take quite a bit more work before it can be carted away; probably end up by being sat on as another batch of easy chairs.