Growing Shamba

This week we started a very exciting project that I previously had zero knowledge about! We began, and will hopefully complete the construction of 2 green houses on the shamba(farm) tomorrow. This has been a long talked about project, but at last an angel was sent to guide and begin it.

For a brief background let me explain once more what the situation here is like. There are 140 children living at the orphanage and 860 additional children at the school that we are trying to feed daily- free of cost to the families. That is 1000 mouths to feed and I am sure you can imagine that is a lot of food and even more money to spend. We started a feeding program back in October that guarantees 1 meal a day at school for all of the children for 2 years. It has totally transformed the school attendance and the quality of learning. But it is limited to 2 years, so in order to look to the future, the reality of a greenhouse started to surface.

This is when Nimrod, our brilliantly smart, motivated, economical and caring angel came into the picture. He cannot be more than 28 years old, and has the most impressive resume including being the head farmer at 2 major farms and a university degree in agriculture. He is the farmer down the road from us so we went last year to see how his greenhouses were constructed and the rest is history! He jumped right on board the Mogra family is volunteering his time to plan our 3 acre farm. He is here everyday, for at least 5 hours making estimates, plans, and now planting in the farm. I could go on for hours about how sweet he is!

But the crazy part that I am learning is how incredible green houses are. Nimrod has it planned so that within 2 months the greenhouses will pay for themselves, which cost about $3,500. The tomato plants he is planting will provide 1000 kgs of tomatoes every week, providing enough for the school, orphanage and even more to sell! Within 1 month, there will be enough onions for an entire year, so the rest is excess to sell. He is planting broccoli and cucumbers to export, and give to the children, along with watermelon, mangos and banana plants. The spinach-like plant that the children eat will never have to be bought again. He is planning for life stock, once we can afford a few cows, goats, fish etc. We already have 40 rabbits, and his plan is by August to have 300 in order to eat them! His plan is incredible, we will be completely sustainable within months, and able to make a living by selling items. It is so exciting to see that the children will be cared for, and they will be helping the process and learning. He is teaching them how to properly farm the plants and watch the growth.

The biggest problem is the water, right now it is so hot and dry here I thought there is no way we could afford to water all the plants. But Nimrod has that figured out! He installed a system to take the water from a nearby river and water the plants… free!

I am not at all an agriculturalist, but it is interesting to see what an art this is, and how much you can actual formulate from seedlings! Stay tuned and I’ll let you know how it turns out by the time I leave!