It was fun to see Kami's past projects still effective and in place in Mukeu area.
The milking/feed storage barn that the Canadian team organized to build in 2009 is still standing(!) and functional. The plan was to build it as a template for farmers to model. Well... it turned out a little bigger and more expensive that we may have originally thought, but GOOD NEWS! We have been told that farmers stop by to see it, get ideas and work on their own systems with these new ideas. One farmer replicated the barn on a smaller scale and built it "just down the road", so the idea just may have "worked"?!
The deworming program Kami started in 2009 and continued in 2010 moved forward again last week. We headed out with Mike to re-visit farms targeted for the program. Again we offered the first de-worming treatement free if they agreed to follow-up.
It was great to hear that the farmers noticed a difference in their livestock after the previous deworming treatments. Some continued deworming because they saw production increase, their livestock looking better and understanding that feed is used more efficiently.
Education is important for any program to be effective. For this program we explained (thanks to Mike's interpretation for us in Kikuyu!): how the drench/injection works, why it is important, what it means to them (greater production, healthy animals and profit) and why the practice needs to be continued. Thank you Mike (and brother Geoffrey!) for helping this program be effective and for following up with the farmers when we are gone.
The fodder shrubs introduced & provided in 2009 at our workshop (held for area farmers) are still growing! Well, not ALL of them (some drown in a flood), but we saw some! They are growing, being cut and fed to livestock as a rich protein source, used as a "fence" boundary, potential wood fuel source, and do not take away from the existing species of plants. Learning to harvest seed needs to be demonstrated and practiced to further benefit this program, but we were excited about what we saw. Yipeee!!!
Our new "project", thanks to wedding donations (!!), is ready to begin. Mike Njihia, our sponsored student for an A.I. Breeders program is set with supplies and ready for school! "African time" is not always "Canadian time" so we try to be patient as the course start dates changes... for the 6th time?... But Mike is excited and looking foward to it. So are we!
