Summer 2015 Outreach Founder’s Update

Hi everyone!

I realized I had been writing about what Floyd and I have been doing on my thank you cards and not to everyone, so sorry I didn’t mean to leave you out!

Floyd and I left on May 24 on our way to Lusaka, Zambia for the AGCO open house. On the 26^th we were to meet around the pool to mingle. We all went up to the banquet room for dinner, with lots of interesting things to eat.  One interesting dish was worms, I asked the waiter about them; they are found on trees and people look forward to eating this delicacy – must be like a morel! I’ll never know, I couldn’t try them, they looked too wormish!  The next day we went to the open house at their demonstration farm.  It was very interesting, with small equipment for the smaller acreage farmer.  They had planted ½ acre or ¼ hector plots with different crops.  They had harvested a few rows in each plot to show the quality of the crops produced.  There was a table at the end of each different crop so we could read about the crop and see the results of the planting.  They had groundnuts which here are peanuts, sunflowers, millet, maize, beans, and squash.  Behind the demo plots was a larger field of hay, which they were cutting, raking, and bailing one right after the other.  I asked how they could do that without letting the mown hay dry.  They said that after we left they would cut the bales and scatter it to dry; they just wanted us to see the equipment in operation.  We walked on down the lane to their beautiful chicken house.  I had never seen one that was so technologically advanced.  I told them I wanted one in Tanzania.  They said to do the market research and show them the need.  They could handle 55 chicks per feeder and 22 chicks per nipple waterer.  There were rows and rows of feeders and waterers which could be raised and lowered as chicks were added or taken out, chicks were ready for market in 34 – 36 days vs. 3 years for the local breed.  Of course there was a shower room before entering the poultry area, it was all about cleanliness and being disease free.

The next morning we left for Zimbabwe.  We were picked up by Mike from Dimbangombe, which is the Alan Savory Ranch. Dimbangombe is a teaching and hunting lodge.  We are here to learn about rotational grazing and the Savory Method of Planned Grazing for cattle.  We met Alan Savory and his wife Jodie at the dining hall/community gathering place.  We had a great evening listening and learning; it made me anxious to share with our herdsmen! The next morning, Alan took us to several pastures to show us the before and current pictures. One of the pastures has a stream flowing through it; there was a man and woman fishing.  The man held up a little mesh bag (like you would buy onions in) to show us his fish, none of them were over 2” long!  The woman caught another while we were there; we would have used them for bait!  I am so glad we came and glad Alan was here to spend some time with us.  Floyd made the comment that he needed to go back to the drawing board for making plans for the farm. Alan is wanting to do Planned Grazing in the national park which boarders his land, he took us through some of that area also, to show us how it could be improved.

The next day we went to Victoria Falls, the falls are beautiful and huge! Floyd booked us a sunset cruise on the Zambezi it was exciting, fun, and beautiful!  The river is divided into 3 channels; one is on the Zambia side, one is the shared channel, and the third is on the Zimbabwe side.  We saw elephants and hippos in the water as well as many birds and ducks.  The sunset was so pretty, I recommend everyone take that cruise!  It was a great way to end our visit to Zimbabwe.

The next morning Alan and Jodie came to tell us good-bye and we flew back to Johannesburg to spend the night.  At the hotel we ate their Sunday evening buffet; it was the best food we had eaten since we left home!  They had a cucumber pineapple salad with mint sauce which I thought was delicious – if anyone knows how to make it, send me the recipe.  Monday morning June 1 we were at the airport on our way to Dar es Salaam, we loaded out on the tarmac and had to carry our bags up the stairs. Mike Kitwaka met us when we arrived; it is always so good to see him!  Lots of construction and traffic everywhere; downtown Dar has grown a lot! We had meetings in Dar Tuesday morning then on to Morogoro to the conference at Sokoine University.  The first evening there was a lecture then a tour of the science and agriculture departments.  It was fascinating; they are using big pocket rats which have been trained to find land mines, to detect TB in saliva!  The rats can detect TB in 40 saliva samples in a few minutes and it takes a lab tech all day to examine the same 40 samples!  The Ag area was equally interesting; we saw the chicken and fish farm, then the orchard and veggie gardens; they are intercropping and using drip irrigation.  The fish were trained to come eat when the student made a specific noise and threw food in the corner of the pond.  I asked for tilapia and catfish to take to our farm, they said I could have some, but we left without them. After the tour we went to the reception and met lots of people. We met a lovely lady named Janet Moro, she has a farm not far from here which she is using the holistic method of “agro ecology” and has built a center for training people.  I asked Mike to find out how to get to her farm. We listened to lectures for the next 3 days; R.C. Kone made it for the first half of the first day, giving us lots of credibility.  The first evening we went to the Morogoro Rotary meeting then on to the dinner meeting for the conference. The next day we learned of a cattle buyer, called him and he came to meet us.  Saturday we got some supplies then picked up Maria (she helped us get into the conference, was a speaker, and knows Janet) and drove out to Janet’s farm, it was a long rough ride.  Janet has two dorms which will sleep 22 each, and are building staff housing. We had lunch then Janet gave us a tour of the gardens, they were beautiful, I hope to have gardens like them at our farm.  The next morning we left for Mombo.  Heard from Hebron our farm manager, that hyena killed 6 of our goats.  We spent the rest of the month working at Shallom, our farm. Floyd had the caterpillar operator build up the dam more, and to clear out an area for a road; the spray race was replumbed, our cattle were sprayed, the watering trough was started, and 40 steers were sold,.  Floyd stayed at the farm working with Ray and Hebron, while Mike and I went back to Arusha to pick up Gary our CFO.  We made a really fast 3 day trip to introduce Gary to the staff at the Manyoni Children’s Center, the Singida Children’s Center, and the new head master at Gunda Secondary School, also stopped to see Zephaniah Gunda and Mikes mother Sarah. It is school break time so not all the children are here.  Emanuel our teacher at Singida center is now teaching 76 young children who attend.  We need repair work and painting on the walls at Singida Center.  The children love the rice and bean meals; they send their love and thank yous. At the Gunda School dorm there are 96 girls.

We went back to Arusha to pick up Richard Hatfield, from Kenya, and to get supplies which Floyd needed at the farm.  Richard came to teach our managers Hebron and Ezekiel how to herd and manage rotational grazing.  It was very interesting learning as well; I would like to have gone out with the herders one morning to watch what they had learned in practice.  Richard also started documenting plots so we can see the results of the rotational management.  We had to get as much done as quickly as possible because we were out of month.

We arrived in Des Moines on Friday the 26^th of June, and left the 27^th for the SHRM trade show in Las Vegas.  We worked the show with Matt.  It was the greatest trade show I have ever worked!  We came back to Iowa on July 2^nd.  We had a great time on July 15^th packing 50,000 macaroni & cheese meals with 10 Rotary Clubs.  On the 17^th we went to Savanna, GA to pack 50,000 tomato basil meals with the Southern Legislative Conference.  Saturday the 25^th we drove to Minnesota, got to visit with John Neison, Orville and Elvera, we shared a wonderful dinner with friends.  Sunday we had breakfast with Matthew and Heidi Martin, then went on to visit with Sharon Kramer.  We are planning for a busy August (State Fair), September (2 separate million meal events on the 11^th), and October (World Food Prize & medical mission). We would love to have you join us on the medical mission October 21^st through November 4^th.  Check out the incentive for nurses! Check out our new web page!

Thanks to everyone for all your support of Outreach and our programs, and a special thank you for caring for the children in Singida Region.

Love to all,

Kathy & Floyd