Seedlings and Stoves in Dodoma

 

Papaya seedlings

The new car passed its first test! We bumped and bounced for six hours on the dirt road to Dodoma and arrived all in one piece! Crews are working on a new road, which will be great for a future trip, but for now, it just meant you had to stay alert to which bit of road was the right bit to drive on as great chasms would suddenly appear where water drainage was being put in! Actually the branches in the road or the red and white tape did a good job most of the time, but at times you felt the need to doublecheck!

We went to Dodoma to check out the work of Sunseed, a UK/TZ trust that works in rural villages in the Dodoma region with energy development programmes. They have a fuel-efficient stoves project similar to ours and also have an agroforestry component which is something we would like to add to what we do. We thoroughly enjoyed spending two days with them as they toured us around the various projects they are involved in and we shared together information and ideas.



Studying a "rocket stove" in a village home

We visited several schools where they have helped to install large institutional stoves enabling the school to cook daily for the children. We also visited villages where they have trained a small number of people to build rocket stoves in local homes. It was interesting to see the different methods and technology they use to address similar problems to those we address here in Iringa.

 

The institutional stove at a village school
(being used to cook porridge for the children)

Uji (porridge) for the school children

We visited the home of a man Sunseed have trained to manage a small nursery business, growing and selling seedlings for reforestation. And we visited several schools in which Sunseed have run agroforestry projects to teach and encourage staff and students to grow and plant tree seedlings. They grow a great variety of trees for shade, fruit, firewood and timber. We were able to learn a lot and think about all that is involved in the practical care of the trees and issues of project sustainability. We are excited about the potential for incorporating tree-planting into the work in the Iringa region and now need to look ahead as to how this can best be implemented! If any of you readers can offer any expert advice, we would love to hear from you; or if you know of any means of funding this type of project, please get in touch!

A local nursery (run by the man on the right)

A school seedling project

Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the man he had just made in it. God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat. Genesis 2:8-9

In Dodoma we stayed at the MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) guesthouse.What a great place! We were well looked after, with delicious meals being prepared for us to order! And we met some lovely people there, working with MAF and also SIL (Summer Institue of Linguistics). The girls thoroughly enjoyed being on the compound with new playmates and a playground and ... a swimming pool!!  What a treat! A great place to be for a birthday, and Louisa really enjoyed herself! I think the girls will blog their side of the story this weekend!

Happy 6th Birthday, Louisa!