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Saturday, August 15, 2009

Odds and Ends


This is my kitchen counter. It was a big project and it isn't finished yet because I am having a hard time getting the boards, which are very nice local hardwoods. However, they are hand-sawed and very rough. I have to cut each piece and plane it by hand which takes a long time. What you see here took a full week of hard work - I bought the plywood.
There will be one more shelf on the top and 2 wide shelves under the counter top. I will also have two offset shelves off the left side with another endpiece to hold the blue water container you can see to the left of the counter which I use for washing dishes etc. and the stainless steel water filter for drinking water in the lower left corner. Under each will be a basin to catch the water.


This is Mr Petro Shawa who adopted me when I first arrived. I'm known locally as Jime Shawa. He is a wiry little guy in his forties and is a traditional village farmer. He is progressive though, and willing to try new ideas.


Here I am talking with McFarlen Nyirenda, my counterpart and best friend. We spend a lot of time together visiting farmers and projects, as well as supervising and starting new ones. We are in the irrigated wheat field at Chilakonda village which I wrote about in an earlier post.


This Saturday there were over 100 people planting onions for a farmer. They will get paid a couple of dollars each for the days work and it was used for the GVH celebration I described further down.


This is a brick nkhokwe or grain bin. Most are woven like a basket and built on a wood platform but this one is a special "food security" project. Every year around December people start running out of food until the new crop matures in January or February so each family will but a bag of corn in here and will not be allowed to use it until the "hunger season".


This is a Catholic Church I visited one Sunday.




1 comments:

MAMMALO said...

Saturday...1:37 PM...8-15-09...Love...Ron responds from the Willits' Library via my MacBook with the Library's free WiFi after eating breakfast at Ardella's with my wife, Pam and our friend, Juice...Pam just left with our Jeep to drive Juice to the Catholic Church so that he will be able to mop their floors...I have shown your mini movies to Pam...We miss you but via this blog of yours we are getting to view your various exciting experiences, too...Eat well and sleep well and be well, too...Thanks for your continuously giving us the opportunity to see another planet or culture...

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Even though it is just little bits of electricity flying through the ether the contents of this blog are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the US government or the Peace Corps.