RESILIENT COMMUNITY
Here we are on Period Seven of DNS program – When Humans Calls, Teachers Answer. Students with their respective coregroup teachers are invited to take action in the communities. 6 Charter Subjects are on the table to be discussed and it is up to the core groups to select one. Among the core group teachers, some chose to be involved in Health Care, others opted to Entrepreneur and others decided for Media / Information Activist. In our case, we took part of Food producer team, together with 15 students and Mr. Joe Ndawala, the one that was supervising the group.
Very early in the morning we walked together until the selected community. It took us almost one hour to arrive to the final destination. A trilling journey through the mountains. There, we found a very special community, full of life. Fruit trees were sieging the village. Impressive, how many mango trees along the fields. But it was not only mangos also oranges, bananas, guavas and even Mexican apples were part of the life in the community.
It was not difficult to realize, why Joe Ndawala as a Core group teacher, had chosen that village, even far from the College, to carry out the action. It seems that there is a continuity, all the members are involved on the process of a better future for their children. They sacredly practice what they learnt and a clear example of this it is the conservation farming. The results of their inputs are astonishing comparing with other communities.
They recognize that techniques like intercropping and mulching are vital for a good yield and in their crops we can find maize planted together with cowpeas and pigeonpeas. Both they fix atmospheric nitrogen in the soil, thereby improving the growth of the maize. They also grow pumpkins and cucumber for intercropping with maize, since they shade the ground and keep weeds down, working as a mulch.
Other fascinating example, of practicing conservation farming, it is that they harvest rainwater using vetiver hedges, as a result they can grow more crops for a longer period, and soil erosion is reduced. This system works in two ways:  
The roots open up the ground, so that more of the rainwater penetrates into the ground. Rainwater running on the ground is stopped or slowed down.
Conservation farming is part of the answer for the consequences of climate change. Without such knowledge, farmers and their families bear the risk of a poor yield due to droughts and soil erosion. This was the message that Joe Ndawala shared with his students while we were on the way to meet the chiefs and the rest of the community.
Under the shade of an old tree, we started to sit next to each other - chiefs, mothers, students, etc. Together we were approximately 50 people. One of the chiefs knew our names. He was Petres. We had met before, a long time ago, in the beginning of our projects in Mzimba. He was one of the participants who attended the tree planting lessons in DAPP TTC. Before anything, we started with a small pray. Then, each one of us introduced him/herselves with a brief description. We tried in Chitumbuka but it didn’t work so well!!
Then Joe Ndawala explained the plan so everyone understands the importance of what we were doing. Creating a nursery bed and sowing a diverse rack of seeds, was the bridge to raise awareness about the value of nutrition in the communities. To move forward together, Joe started to instruct the students and the members of the community about all necessary steps to create a nursery bed. After a brainstorm of ideas and concepts, we stand up and move to the action place.
The land was full of weeds and we needed to remove all of them. So, this was the first step. Holding the hoes, we dig the soil in order to take out the weeds. Then, we started to delimitate the beds with a string. We opted to create sunken beds instead of raised ones, since the rain season has come to an end. In fact, this type of bed help to collect water and guide it down to the roots of the plants that it is extremely important in drought times.
The tough job was already done. Adding compost in lines, sowing, and watering were the last tasks together with mulching. We brought different seeds with us, from Chinese cabbage, to thyme, to Portuguese cabbage, to carrots and so on. We sow all of them in rows.
Everyone took part of the action and everyone enjoyed it as well. The mothers boiled for us pumpkin and maize, so we could get energy and stamina during the work. We also picked some sugar canes. For the first time, we found ourselves chewing a sugar cane. It is fresh and tastes good.
In the end of the action, more food was waiting for us. We were invited to lunch together. We gathered around in a big room and after few minutes of conversation, the community shared a nice meal with us, Nzima with beans, pumpkin leaves and scrambled eggs. We enjoyed so much the meal as well as the environment lived there. It was warm and familiar. Suddenly, some of the mothers in the village brought cucumber, maize, bananas, and Mexican apples. They didn’t want to sell it but instead giving us for free. A small gift for our work. We took the Mexican apple, but it was still green. They told us that after harvesting from the tree, it always needs 3 days to ripen.
Outside of the house, the chiefs were smoking a huge tobacco. All the families there own tobacco plantation, it is a source of income. After harvesting they need to dry the tobacco leaves during 4 days in a shelter made by straw and wood.
When we went to the toilet, it was a surprise to see a tiptap. A simple idea, to save water. It uses only about a tenth of the normal quantity of water per hand washing and it is extremely easy to build, just a used plastic bottle with a handle and a string. Later we discovered that all the toilets in that village had a tip-tap.
But the biggest surprise was about to come. On our way back to the college, and even in the same village, we found a peculiar item. A Waterpump! The interesting part, it was not a common and expensive waterpump that we could buy in the market, this one was made by hand with local materials. Such an invention!
We wonder why not all the communities have the same commitment like that one. This could perfectly be a model to be followed, a kind of sustainable lifestyle. They use what the land provide to meet their needs and through their knowledge and skills they harvest more than enough food to ensure that everyone has a prosper future. A self-resilient community, it is what is about.