Rural Leaders ― a Travel Log Vol. 19

A journey to meet ARI graduates in Zambia & Malawi, 2024

We are sharing with you a series of travel logs written by ARI staff member Steven, who visited Africa in August.
The finale of the trip will be the ECHO East Africa Conference! In the first half of this log, we will tell you about the conference and some interesting topics and ideas.
Let’s get started on our trip to Africa!

【An African journey to visit ARI graduates, Day 20-23 Part 1】

The ECHO East Africa Conference
Okay, so here we are at the conference with folks from all over east, central, and southern Africa talking about the issues they and their farmers are facing and the creative ways they are tackling these issues. The official title is ECHO East Africa and Canadian Foodgrains Bank Joint Symposium on Best Practices in Sustainable Agriculture & Appropriate Technologies. I didn’t take a lot of notes, preferring to just listen and take things in, so this post isn’t going to be long! Whew!

One big reason Kai and I are here is to network and share about ARI, what Kai has termed active recruitment. In this line, one big, unexpected encounter was with Erwin. Erwin is the founder of ECHO. It turns out he lives in Arusha, Tanzania which has been his home for more than 30 years. He is super soft spoken and laid back, but so on top of things…culturally, African contextually, small scale farmerily (okay, that isn’t a real word, but you know what I mean).

It was also amazing to meet so many talented and shrewd community leaders. These are not “third hand” folks, who have come to Africa to talk about everything the Africans are doing wrong and how to do it right. These are “first hand” folks – on the ground, in the community, ‘these are my own people’ folks. I loved listening to them speak about their people, their problems, and their own approaches to improving their lives with such eloquence. These are the kinds of people ARI is here for. During mealtimes, when we had a chance to talk and get to know each other and share about ARI, well, those were some lively conversations!

A few snippets

ANAMED – Mindset change
ANAMED is an international organization that promotes natural medicines. The couple that presented has been living and working in Malawi for a very long time (30 years, maybe). The main premise of their talk was “mindset change” in relation to sustainable agriculture. They work with farmers for the long term, which is a big contrast to the project approach, where outside experts come and do a project in a village and then leave. In the end, nothing really changes. Changing a person’s or a people’s mindset requires long term commitment and dedication. Mindset change is something our ARI graduates speak about frequently as being both a big challenge and hugely important!

The name ANAMED sounded familiar and during the presentation I finally remembered why I knew it. One of our graduates in Cameroon is affiliated with ANAMED. They produce all kinds of herbal medicines. The place is called Rural Transformation Center and there are actually two graduates from there – Collins and Ben.

VSLs
This presentation answered a question I had in my mind for a long time. Village Savings and Loan groups (VSLs) are a great way for rural folks to save and pool their own money and then make it available to each other for small loans. In this talk I learned about two main categories of borrowing – consumption and investment. Consumption loans are when money is borrowed for an expense like school fees, doctor bills, purchasing a house. These kinds of loans are helpful when a villager needs a large amount of money up front but must be repaid with their existing income. Investment loans, on the other hand, are when money is borrowed for business purposes, so that money brings in more money! So, investment loans are more suited to growing the economy of a village. This was my Banking 101 class.

Raised beds
This presentation was given by our own ARI graduate, Patrick Kullie from Liberia (2019). He has been growing seedlings in raised beds and a few points I jotted down are:
▪ The frames are made of bamboo (very local resource).
▪ The soil is treated with boiling water to disinfect and kill the seeds of weeds.
▪ Having the beds raised makes it easier for disabled people to grow seedlings.
▪ The seedlings can be easily transplanted to gardens or sold to local farmers.

Farming on Crutches
This session was also given by an ARI graduate, Mambud Samai, from Sierra Leone (2018). He talked about his work with amputees, which he has been at for more than 20 years. It all began when he formed an amputee sports association. After ARI he started a permaculture project teaching amputees how to earn a living through farming. I personally know his story very well so I didn’t take any notes, but one day soon I will share more about it. In the meantime, you can take a look at this video that was produced in 2019. I was there with the filmmakers but did my absolute best to stay out of the way of the camera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjOBhgwUasA

The thing that stuck out most for me in his presentation were the photos of “permaculture couples.” Mambud has performed at least two wedding for people who met each other while working on this farm! Oh, did I mention that he is also a pastor?

Words from a random mealtime conversation
Meals were one of my favorite times. Not only because I like to eat all the good food they were serving up, but also because of the vibrant conversations. The following are a few words someone passed on to me said by the principal of an agricultural college. So sorry, due to my bad memory I can’t credit the principal or the college, but I thought these would work well in an ARI admissions brochure:
“If you don’t want to touch the soil, don’t come here.”
“If you think you already know too much, don’t come here.”

Chaya
This was my favorite presentation overall. The woman speaking was so passionate and so articulate, you just couldn’t help wanting to run out and grow some chaya and cook it up for dinner. Chaya is a kind of bush, and you can eat its leaves. It seems to thrive in many kinds of climates and soils and is more nutritious than spinach. She shared a chart that showed vegetable consumption by country within Africa and then a chart of life expectancy. There was a direct correlation between the two, so “eat your vegetables” was her strong message. She and her team even brought several cuttings of Chaya, which only need to be put in the ground and watered to start growing. But be sure to plant it right side up. “Do you know which side is up? I’ll teach you!”

A small debate started when one audience member said they were afraid to eat Chaya because it contains toxins. This is true, it turns out, but only needs to be boiled first, just like spinach and casava. It’s better not to eat it raw, but even then, only great amounts consumed would have harmful effects.

The most memorable part of her talk was when she went on a tangent about relish. Relish in this context was sauce, or soup, that is obligatory for any African meal, as you need something to dip your Nshima in. Traditionally, “the worth of a woman is in the relish,” she explained. “If a man has five wives, he will eat and sleep with the wife that makes the best relish!” In a roundabout way, this was connected with eating more vegetables I suppose, especially chaya!

Prayer from all nations
The second to the last evening, ECHO had a big community supper which featured a mouthwatering braai, known as a barbecue in other parts of the world. This was followed by a traditional dance performance, which some of our graduates joined in. Finally, we had the “prayer from all nations.” This is quite a moving experience wherein a representative of every language speaker present is invited to come and give a prayer. For some reason, Kai wasn’t around, so for the second time in my life I went forward to pray publicly IN JAPANESE. Well, since there were no other Japanese speakers, no one would know my mistakes, and I’m pretty sure God would get my meaning, no matter how badly I messed up. So, no worries! We all lined up, there must have been at least thirty different languages represented, and one by one offered our prayer. If you ever have a chance to attend an ECHO conference, be sure not to miss this!

Written by Steven Cutting (Graduate Outreach Coordinator)
Travelling with Kai Shinoda (Admissions and Recruitment Coordinator)

Click here to read the series of articles

Vol.0 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Prologue】

Vol.1 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 1-2】

Vol.2 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 3】

Vol.3 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 4】

Vol.4 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 5】

Vol.5 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 6】

Vol.6 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 7】

Vol.7 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 8】

Vol.8 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 9】

Vol.9 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 10】

Vol.10 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 11】

Vol.11 【The African journey to visit ARI graduates Day 12】