The glory of seeing green growth in the dry months

One of the distressing things about my 2010 observations in Northern Bahr el Gazal was the lack of agriculture in the dry months.  Virtually no one made the effort to carry water to plants and the majority of the district (and I discovered later, the whole country) waited until the rains to plant.  The country has been dependent on UN food drops for years and a whole generation of people have been almost wiped out so that many farming practices need to be relearned.

This visit, because of Bert's friends within Winrock, we were able to set up an appointment to be introduced to the Winrock Bridge program based in Aweil.  A cheerful and gracious Abebayehu Haile hosted us with a Dinka translator and driver.  The Bridge program is driven by the desire to see good governance implemented in the new nation and they have worked with local communities to bring training and structure.  The hope is that communities will see a need and meet together to formulate potential solutions and work upwards through government channels to petition for support for their idea.  The Bridge folks specifically meet needs for health and water education, and agricultural training.  We saw a granary project (notice the anti rodent shields on the legs!)

 and, at Agor, the model for a dry season garden.  It was balm to my eyes.  I am praying that the idea 'takes.'

This prototype is very close to the river.

We took a lot of pictures because I was so excited!  From a distance all you can see is the vague outline of ragged poles.  When you get closer you can see that it is a carefully erected fence to keep out animals who would love to get their teeth into some succulent greens.  The fence was a prerequisite that the local community had to put in place.  The Bridge program provided some training in how to set up the beds and fertilize, the foot pump and the long hoses up to the vegetable plots, ox plows and training in how to repair them.  All the labor was provided by the community.  Cutting the poles for the fence and setting them up in the dry ground was a lot of work.

The folks harvesting greens January 4, 2012, were, besides feeding their own families great fresh vegetables, taking sacks of the vegetable to market and making a very tidy profit.  At this time of year the local market generally only has garlic, onions and dried okra. The dried beans, dried fish, and tins would all have been schlepped from a distance and available only to those with significant funds.  January 4 evening was the only time we got fresh vegetables to eat and that was because we were staying in the village next to Agor.  It was really thrilling to see so many vegetables growing and ready for harvesting at a time when most folks  were still months from planting seeds.

Abebayehu demonstrated the simplicity of the foot pump which pushed the water up the ten foot bank to the vegetable plots which clearly took a great deal of work out of the daily watering.

In a truly providential coincidence that the model vegetable plot is literally 5 minutes down the road from William Deng's family home so our gracious host of the day was able to drop us off at Gugic (Goo-gich) where we spent the next two days in the Deng compound.