May 1 Workers' Day and Farm Day

Wednesday, May 1, is Workers’ Day.  So, all the children were out of school.   The young men of DBLCH took the opportunity to wash their clothes - Chris, Leonard, and Alyn (Agrey and Maka had already finished).   Neema and the others still prefer to cook some things outside on charcoal clay burners.   Also, later in the day, Mboka was scraping a coconut.   Neema demonstrated how it works.   You can’t see but Neema is sitting on a folding wooden stool.   On one end is a round metal blade that has small saw-like teeth.   She scrapes the coconut white on the blade for grated coconut.   This is an amazingly creative tool. 

While on food, Chef Samweli, Mpeli and Neema’s youngest son, prepared his own creation.  A modern man, he used the stove inside.   First he prepared a roux out of tomatos, spices, carrots, onions, and peppers.   Then he added ground meat.   The result was very tasty, especially with chapatti.    Mpeli and Neema are teaching all the children how to do everything.   The boys are learning to cook and wash. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our project for today was to visit the farm and to look at where the Secondary School will be built, to pray together on that spot, see the animals and new barn, and the crops.   The pictures are of one of the calves born this year.   We have had two out of three calves survive.  Two of the three cows have survived.  Currently we are selling 6 liters of milk per day in addition to the milk the children receive at the Children’s Home.  Already, a crop of beans have been produced on the farm.   Then, where the beans were a crop of peanuts has been planted.   In the garden area, new banana trees are coming up, and tomatoes, onions, and greens have been planted.   The farm has also produced a few oranges.  

We can’t seem to downsize our pigs.   We have five new piglets.   Currently we have 11 goats.   Also, we have about 40 local chickens that are producing eggs.   Kairo is waiting on 80 “Malawi chicks” to be delivered.   These are being produced for meat for the Children’s Home and for selling.   Already, a contract has been made to use the eggs from the new chickens to produce more of the Malawi chickens to sell.   The farm continues to expand.  

Two critical needs are the development of an irrigation system and a flood management system during the rainy season.  

 

On the human interest side, I have shared how Workers' Day was spent by Kathryn (Neema’s niece who is living with them now), Nicole (the child of a friendswho is going to school in Iringa and lives with Mpeli and Neema), and Huruma (one of the DBLCH staff).   They are weaving Nicole’s hair.   I was shocked to see that Nicole has very short hair and “fake” hair was being weaved to make the long weaves.   The end result was this star looking hair.   Nicole explained the star was to dry the hair after she had put hot water on it.   Mpeli could not stand the star and insisted Nicole braid the weave.  This was really funny hearing Mpeli talk about this.   

 

  

At worship with the children, we had a great time singing and dancing.  I really enjoyed Winnie, the toddler who is dancing on the video.   I included a short clip (no singing, just so you could enjoy this with the children/young people).