Friday, March 22, 2013

UPDATE JAN-MAR 2013

Usually work has pretty much been put on hold when management isn’t around, which at the moment is, unfortunately, most of the year, this time we have been trying to provide the workers at the farm with materials, a budget and a long “to do” list. It will be exciting to follow the development and see how it works out. We trust that we have good people there that will manage most of the stuff.
At the moment we have 2 guys there. Hastings, our trusted builder, who has been with us from the start, and who has been given more and more responsibility until this stage where he is both the builder and manager, oh and spokesperson on our behalf. He moved into the farmhouse about a year ago. Now he is rebuilding the small house that fell into pieces a while ago. When he has finished it he’ll be moving in there himself.
That brings me to the next guy. Ocean, a hard worker, who started working at the farm in January. He has already planted sweet potatoes there, and hopefully also do a vegetable garden soon, at least to sustain the farm. Ocean and his family will be moving into the farmhouse when the other small house is done, and after doing some work on the roof. This means that there will always be somebody at farm, which is important in regards to security as we develop more and more.
• THE NEW CHALET. Foundation for a new, single this time, chalet has been dug out. This time including a septic tank. Now that we think we have worked out how to build the toilets we’ll try to complete the bathroom at the same time. Sketch of bathroom After being flooded for all of January and February, it finally started to dry up in the beginning of March. Hastings could therefore continue with the cement.
• THE FENCE We need a proper fence around the farm. The barbwire that is there is not enough, and cattle find their way trough too easily (we suspect with a bit of human help…). So we’ll start 1 metre at a time. Starting with 2 rolls a’ 100 m, 175 cm tall, of game fence. There will be pillars every 30 m to support the fence, these might be filled with bricks one day far far away.
• TOILET & SEPTIC TANK ISSUE The rain hit the farm hard… And the tank has been flooded, and it was not a pretty site down there… Looks like there were too much rain in too short of a time this year… Coz it was not like this at all last year. We started using the toilet in the beginning of March last year, and we can’t remember any issues in regards to water what so ever. Been discussing that we might have to re strategize the whole septic tank, or maybe we give it another chance.
• MAKING OURSELVES USEFUL Jorunn “Jo” (Tove’s mother)decided it was time the “rim” around the chalet was painted.
WE TREATED; The window frames for the new chalet, The gauzeframes, And some poles in the ceiling with wood preservative.
• LOUVERS During the heavy rains this wet season, the water has been coming from every angle, and horizontally, through the gauze window of the chalet. Now, at the end of the wet season, the louvers and glass are finally there. One more “tick” towards completing the chalet. Now we’re left with the floor (flat stones) and the bathroom. 2 projects that we’ll hopefully begin to tackle towards the end of the year. This is how the bathroom looks now;
“Shower”… Storage…
• RANDOM PICTURES ALONG THE WAY
Solar charging station The girl next door doing washing (laundry) Path to toilet one morning after heavy rains The grass is tall this time of year Chilling in the evening Packing – at night – with the new solar light At the month end market by the Dutch Church in Lusaka. Wanted a picture of the chairs in the back for future reference for the farm ;) Lets keep the vision ☺

SITATUNGA RECYCLING STATION

BLACK for general waste. BLUE for paper. RED for plastic bottles. GREEN (lid) for glass bottles. Never mind that for now it's mostly going to the same dumpsite (the one and only), but the plan is to partner up with a group that buy, and re-use, plastic bottles, we don't want to sell them - we'll give them. We know they are there, in Monze, so hopefully soon we can make sure that some of all this plastic is put to some use. Hopefully we can find the same arrangement with glass bottles. And maybe one day we'll be able to recycle some of this ourselves, at the farm. Paper we aim to re-use or use for fire within the farm. Maybe in future, while we try to educate the local farmers, and their children, how to separate, and correctly dispose of waste, we can offer a weekly garbage collection on our way to the dumpsite, as we take our own general waste.