Back to My Pennsylvania Roots

With the ward closed, there are still other ministries on the ship that need assistance before we finish. Last week I was able to go with Ben Cubbage to help teach local farmers about agriculture. These men and women have been farming for years, so they already had much to teach us. What Ben and the team have been enforcing is how to use the local affordable resources to help in furthering their farming practice. The topic for this week? Manure Tea and Roof Top Farming!! Yeah!! But as is well known, you can't feed the mind without feeding the stomach... so we had a fufu feast before we started :)

This was my first time trying fufu- definately tasted a little different than I anticipated :) Maybe it was just the texture! But I was so thankful for it-. Casava and plantain are boiled for a couple minutes then taken off the fire and beaten (literally) with big sticks especially made for this process. It makes a doughy consistency, very similar to bread dough. A spicy soup, usually with fish, is served to accompany.

Believe it or not, there is a whole technique to this thing. One of which took a while to get a handle on. :) I made alot of friends in the process!! :) And for every mess up, I needed to try again- needless to say...I ate alot of fufu. It was a regular Thanksgiving feast~

If any of you have a deep desire for me to explain how to make Manure tea- just email me... I'll let you know! :) The course is set up so that we are able to explain the creation process and the concept of us as stewards of the land. The farmers are taken through basic biology and given resources that they can keep and use to teach others in their community and look back to for themselves. On a more personal note, Lauren and I shared how we came to know the Lord before we started class that afternoon.

Here Ben and Jean Claude are showing how to make the liquid compost. This is enough to make a concentrate- and then would be used to make solution for multiple gardens.

Roof top gardening covered how to use tires, buckets, bamboo, and garbage many people dispose of to make transportable gardens. Other possibilities of soil were discussed as well. This week was the last week of class for these farmers. Graduation was on Friday :)