Tuesday, August 29th

What a day!

After a brief courtesy call visit to the District Commissioner, we headed off to Getamock Village for our first field visits. When we arrived we were greeted by the Village Chairperson who officially welcomed us to spend the day in Getamock learning about the projects they have been working on with CPAR.

Our first visit was to the home of Selina Boniface who showed us how with CPAR’s support she is raising chickens next to her home. She explained that she was given a rooster and some hens which provide eggs which she can sell in the market and use for household consumption. She also explained that, as part of the agreement, once her chickens begin having chicks that she will pass along ten chicks to another woman in the village so that she too can start a chicken husbandry operation. Selina also took the group to see the bee hives that she, as part of a village women’s group are managing as a small income generating project.

Here’s Selina Boniface (middle) along with her children, the Study Tour group and the staff of CPAR-Tanzania:

While visiting Selina we also witnessed the miracle of birth as one of her sheep gave birth just minutes before we arrived…the new calf was still trying to find its feet. In honour of our visit, Selina announced that she would name the new calf Canada!

We then made our way to the other side of the village to visit one the Farmer Field Schools established by CPAR. We were welcomed in according Iraqw tradition with a performance of music and dance:

This Farmer Field School has 35 members who are working together to learn about conservation agriculture and practice new farming techniques. The group is sharing a one acre plot which they have divided into 5 sub-plots. In each sub-plot they are using a different combination of low-input sustainable farming techniques (such as farrows, inter-cropping & cover-cropping) to determine which combination will result in a bigger maize yield on their land. Each member is then able to apply what they have learned to their own plots. Already the members claim that they have doubled their maize harvest!

Here’s a photo of the spokesperson for the Farmer Field School and Japhet Emmanuel, CPAR’s Program Manager, explaining how conservation agriculture works:

After taking a short lunch break we were invited to participate in a community meeting – which quickly became a celebration in which we were invited to join in the dancing!

By the end of the day the group was exhausted but definitely in high spirits!