Charles and I meet with the Village Chiefs

This country is falling apart – the small town of Kasungu where I am staying is most of the time without power as is the rest of the country. Only the brave villagers of M’ndaka are making small but , I believe significant steps towards a sustainable future as we discover Permaculture together.

After a bit of a shaky start ( I almost turned around and left) we are doing really well: Water and Soil Management, Compost Making, Agroforestry, Site Design – all topics we have started on and many of the ideas have come from the villagers during lively discussions. I just had to compare the bare vegetable plot to the leafy ground cover of the nearby forest for someone to come up with the idea of mulching. Next day the whole plot was neatly mulched and the vegetables  – drooping the day before – were crisp and healthy. So lots of practical stuff – all the ladies were dead keen on the idea compost toilets ( I had been rather cautious about mentioning te possibility) so we will try and set up a demo model this week.

I am staying in town at at the funky Kasungu Inn (“at around 4 o’clock in the morning you are most likely to have a hot shower if you can try to manage that”) and have just got back from a short break – a birdwatching weekend at Ntchisi Forest reserve which was – weird and wonderful – another world, sort of Somerset Maugham with Cell phones, a bunch of time-warped ex-pats from Lilongwe and some super birds in the magical rain forest (Starred Robin, Striped-Cheek Greenbul, and the much sought after Narina Trogon) .

Tomorrow I go back to M’ndaka and push on with the enthusiastic villagers and Charles my indefatigable colleague from WESM. Remke who has been down with Malaria since I visited her and the Elephants in the park , has recovered and will be with us for the next week as well. Lots more to tell, and many lovely photos – all will have to wait till the week after when I will be back in Europe (if it’s still there) and high speed internet.

Elephants cooling off in Kasungu Nat. Park