Planting a Nutritious Future

So,  I have been back at home for a few weeks now and I am happy to report that the Fruit Tree Orchard grant project at Maria Nyerere Girl’s Secondary School  has been successfully implemented!
The project started in November as we installed 2 more water spigots at my school. These will provided a close water source during dry season the water the trees.  After the spigots were successfully installed in November, we started ordering fertilizer from a local village farmer and the students starting digging holes. The holes were about 3 feet deep and just as wide in diameter. Digging the holes this large allowed us to fill it in with organic matter, soil and fertilizer to give the roots space to expand. The soil in my village is very acidic (an average of pH 4.5- 4.7) because it sits on granite.  The ground has thick layers of clay and rock not far below the surface and almost no top soil, so we knew the area would take a lot of preparation to ensure a good environment for the trees.  After digging the holes, the students and teachers alike left for December vacation.

How is she so happy doing manual labor?!

a lovely day to dig some tree holes

Several loads of fertilizer were delivered during the first week of school as students and teachers began arriving. Unfortunately, after 4 loads, the tractor broke, so we were forced to use a little manual labor. My counterpart and I took 100 students with buckets and walked to the other side of the village valley to manually shovel and carry back the manure.  My counterpart dove into the shit pit in his teaching attire: dress slacks, dress shoes and a button up and filled all of the buckets. I was very impressed.

skipping to the shit pit

My counterpart is such a trooper

hauling it back through the village to the school

 My counterpart was very eager to get the trees delivered to the school and begin planting. Also during the first week of school, we had 500 trees delivered: 200 avocado, 100 apple, 100 peach and 100 pear.

 

This shipment arrived in the trunk of a car. The rest came on the back of  motorcycles

my counterpart putting the trees in safe keeping

our tree provider and my counterpart all smiles 

When I returned to the school that afternoon, he said he wanted to surprise me and had planted about 350 trees while I was gone. I looked around and asked him “Where? I don’t see them.”  He told me that they were IN the holes. I think my counterpart tends to only listen to about the first half of what anyone says, which lead to a few problems in implementing this project. I went to look and he had simply thrown half a bucket of fertilizer in the 3 foot-deep hole and then planted the tree in it. I had to explain to him that by doing this, the trees would drown because it is rainy season right now and that the roots now have nowhere to go since they are placed up against solid clay and rock. He understood that he made a mistake and the following weekend, we had the help of several hundred students and a few teachers to help supervise as we corrected the 350 trees and planted the remaining 150 trees.

This poor tree 3 feet too deep just waiting to drown

Mwakapala showing the students how to correctly plant the trees

We even planted between the corn crops

A shipment of fertilizer being delivered by the tractor

The finished product 

The trees have now all been planted and will hopefully thrive in their environment.  We are hoping that 80% of the trees survive. Due to the method of transportation, we are skeptical that this will be obtained, but we will see. Some of them have to be resilient enough to make it, and eventually they will bear fruit to improve the nutrition of the students at Maria Nyerere Girl’s Secondary School long after I leave.