Tis’ the Season...

..for sowing seeds. The rains have come and people are rushing to plant seeds while others are hoping the ones they planted weeks ago won’t be lost to the scorching sun. They say the rains use to be predictable, even down to the day, but over the past few years they have seen a change. This season the rains were late. This change, or delay in the rains means the already scarce supply of food we have in the market will become even scarcer.  Of course during the dry seasons you expect this to happen as the supply decreases and the prices go higher, but they expect it to be worse over the next few months. The tomatoes have already gone from the best picks, to the not so great picks doubling in price… 1,000/= for a heap has become 2,000/=.

Well, tis’ the season for planting and we have joined in. Matt and his counterpart have started re-introducing a health education program into the local primary schools. So far they have started with one and by the 2016 school year they hope to be in all 4 of our town’s primary schools. Since arriving, nutrition has become Ashley’s big focus with projects and a few weeks ago she led the nutrition lessons for the health education classes. As an extension of the lesson, she worked with the school’s programs director to introduce sac gardening to the students.  The result?  200 P4-P7 students have constructed 25 sacs. Now that the rains are here, we have planted cabbage, spinach and what they are most excited for, carrots. If all goes well, we plan on expanding to more veggies and maybe fruits during the next (long) rainy season this October. 

Food Category Activity

Demo with boarding students, who in turn led the lessons to other students the following weeks

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Some P5 Students making their gardens