Caring for the Lovely Land

(I posted this yesterday over at Wild Hope's blog...)

Out on Wild Hope's land, large areas have been plowed improperly in the past. A big rant about the damage done all over Africa by poor plowing practices won't help here and the question remains as to why small farm owners plow up and down the slope? Don't they know that the topsoil is being stripped off their farms? Don't they realize it is eroded by wind and water, poured into the streams and eventually dumped into the ocean where it kills the coral reef and puts all other marine life at risk?

Possibly there is no concern for marine life so far away. Few local inland farmers would have had resources available to travel to the coast and be impressed by the warm Indian Ocean. Understandably then, there may be little regard for her, but aren't they driven sufficiently by their own desire for successful farming to keep their topsoil?

But it's just not always as simply as that.

Plowing properly requires that you move horizontally across hilly areas instead of creating furrows that run straight down. And while this seems obvious, the actual size and shape of your farm plays a big role in whether this is an easy task to accomplish. To plow along the contour and not up and down may seem like a simple task. But if your farm, like all your neighbors' farms, is a skinny strip of land that was divided out for you by family, it's quite possible that your skinny strip is short on horizontal and long on sloping hill.

To plow properly you will have to manuever the tractor in tight turns that are difficult to accomplish while pulling a plow. It's so difficult that the whole idea starts to feel way too complicated to be worth it.

"Topsoil shmopsoil. Reef? What's that? My kids need maize and beans NOW."

This weekend, Wild Hope is taking a few friends to a seminar that teaches biblical care for the earth as applied to farming. God's heart for the earth is big and passionate and we are thankful that we can begin planting the seeds of that heart among some of our friends here.

We're also thankful that we can be a blessing to the Wild Hope property.

Last week, Byron sat on a tractor with a local neighbor and corrected past damage that was done through improper plowing of land on the land we now oversee. He just didn't want to watch another rainy season come and channel any more of the topsoil away. So Byron and our Tanzanian neighbor worked together to re-shape the land, restoring her natural lines as best they could.

They were pretty satisfied with the result.

And here's a little secret: when the job was done and the land was returned to her naturally protective shape, Byron says he thinks he heard the earth that he was standing on let out a soft sigh of relief.

It's just a small start, but it feels good to bless the very ground of Africa.

Quiet, Happy, Full, Content.

Tehur is here :-)

Tehur is our 22yr old friend from Portugal. Born in the States to a Portuguese Angolan mama and a Brazilian dad, Tehur moved (home?) to Portugal when she was almost 3.

But we met her when she was about 13, I guess. She went to school with Jesse and Trevor in the cozy days of ICSC, when Mike Bushy was leading the school and the kids all felt like a family.

Somehow, through some trying times, Tehur started dropping by our house in Lisbon for a cup of tea. Our family has forever been the better for her friendship.

Te is here with us till 1 April because she wanted a little break from Portugal and because she knew I wanted a little break from home schooling. You should have seen Heather when I told her that Te was coming. She was dancing in the kitchen and running up and down the hall. This is the friend that used to sit and read poetry with Heather. Heath adores her.

My biggest beef with the curriculum Heather uses, (apart from it's rather alarmingly ultra-conservative sentiments at times and the dreadful singing of one of the teachers on the dvds,) is the lack of creativity. Well, let me just say that Heather's creative brain has woken up since Tehur arrived. She has spent this entire afternoon writing a fairy tale and I really couldn't be happier. Go, Heather! Go, Te! Go, writing and imagining and smiling at your work!

Besides this, Colin has just had a beautiful long weekend in Zanzibar with Hunter and Tait. They attended an African music fest and Colin was in a kind of djembe players nirvana. If you didn't know, Colin plays the djembe like a fiend. His hands are fast and soft and true. He free styles with grace. I'm his mom so you may take comments with a little pinch of salt. But not too much salt because it's all are true ;-)

We just picked Colin and Hunter up at the bus station. Tait flew back yesterday since she had to get to work. I'm excited to get my boy home. It was too much to have him AND the college boys gone all at once. I'm not ready for that quite yet.

The spaghetti sauce is on the stove and there is much laughter coming from the trampoline. It's dark outside and the giggles are thick.

Sweet!

Byro-lai

So tonight Byron gets a bad grade in earth-keeping because he keeps leaving lights on all over the house and is not adhering to the 60 second rule at all!

But he scores very high in sweetness and I can't help overlooking his bad leaving-on-of-lights problem (and turing them off for him) because he's just generally very cute and far too good to me all the time. (I certainly wouldn't complain about that, you understand.)

Tonight he's tired because he only slept about four and half hours and he's been working a long day that is now winding down at 9pm. His cold has him sounding a little weird when he talks and he's dusty and dirty and on his way to the shower.

He's sure not going to like this when he gets around to reading my blog in the next few days. Pole sana, Byro-lai.

Tonight's post has no point at all except to say that I am blessed and blessed and blessed.

Fragile

Life in Africa is so fragile.

Yet as soon as I write that, I think of the hardy life that I know here; people who survive in the most difficult of circumstances. Resilient, stubborn, odds-defying survival is normal.

Like Tait's friend, who shall remain unnamed, who lives around the corner from me in a tiny building that is a bar of sorts. Her mom sells beer to make a living and she lives behind a thin partition, a veil that may or may not protect her from the night. And yet, every morning she dresses smartly and walks proudly to the school where she is training to be a secretary.

On the one hand, then, life is not easily crushed here. Like indigenous plants, it finds a way to beat back against the ravages that come against it. When over-grazing strips the earth, the tangled weeds eventually come up and make the land unusable until the grasses have a chance to return. It may take 50 years, but it will happen, (if we don't interfere, that is.)

But conditions are harsh. Not for me, particularly. As I have said before, we don't live at a hand to mouth level and so we are not held by the whims of condition. Poor harvests may increase my grocery bill, but I will still put food on the table for my family.

Conditions are harsh for my African friends because life is not padded in any way.

Last week a man I know lost his sister; a family lost their 37 year old mom. She was working outside their home, where she has been working every day. She was going about the business of splitting rocks into smaller rocks, to be sold for use in construction. The family land is on the edge of a gorge; a dramatic gorge that provides good rocks for splitting.

But she slipped. And she died. And that was the end of that.

I suppose that her work had her in danger every day. But she likely never thought about it. What where her choices? This was an available job that she could do. This norm of people working jobs that put them in danger is accepted. Providing for your family may just simply require that of you. So she broke rocks with a hammer on the edge of a cliff every day.

I know that accidents happen all over the world. But when I consider that this will be the third funeral that many in that community will attend within the span of a month, I do pause. A road accident... an infant succumbing to disease... a fall... Even after all these years here, I remain disquieted by the fragile nature of the hardy life I see around me.

the mozzies

i don't like the mosquitoes
don't like the way they bite
my feet and shins and hands and neck

i especially hate the ones
who get inside our sleeping net
and dive-bomb me in the night

sometimes we turn on the light
and stand on the mattress
and smash them bloody on our palms

most nights we're ok
but i know there's one in here tonight
waiting, waiting for my flesh

byron has a special name
for the ones that invade our cozy space
but i can't print it here