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| 07 January/06 Preparing for 3rd Village Development Course |
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Hi All,
It's raining here. I've got the15 cadets under shelter, weaving coconut leaves to make a dust break for the fence. The illegal logging activity has picked up with many large trucks grinding their way up the valley past our house and farm. The dust drifts in over everything and everyone when it's dry. A few days ago Rama, IDEP's photographer, was here making a film essay of our training. He would film me training the trainers in sustainable community development in one direction, then spin around to film the loggers coming out onto the road carrying their cut timber. The irony of our position is clear to all visitors here at Greenhand Field School. The chainsaws scream across the forest each day cutting the trees from steep slopes facing the village. If they don't stop soon, Lamsujen will be history. Without the forest, the heavy rains and constant earthquakes, landslides and flooding will wipe this village out.
On the positive side we're preparing for our 3rd Village Development Course (permaculture training). This time we have accommodation on the farm set up for 30 people. We acquired some aid tents from a Turkish NGO that was leaving Aceh last year. These large cloth tents are woeful in the tropics so we have built bamboo and driftwood frames as exoskeletons and covered them with white tarpaulins. Now they are luxury tents with lino floors. The tents have created a small village running along the edge of our farm overlooking the running creek. All kinds of wildlife chatters away every morning in the forest next door. It is very pleasant, especially for the students who have been living in the denuded tsunami zone.
We are busy recruiting students from the tsunami zone villages closest to us. We invite twice the number we can handle because not many people actually follow through and show up. There are so many 'hand-out' programs from the many NGOs in the zone that it is difficult to get genuine students. Many people actually ask be paid to come to training.
The tsunami zone is starting to green up. Most of the farm land has been reclaimed although the drainage is poor resulting in constant flooding and many crops going under water. The international NGOs have little expertise in land rehabilitation and I have been trying to help them.
Many box houses are popping up on the way to Banda Aceh as the re-housing programs kick in. We hope to set up some model home gardens and customize some of them on the highway after the next training. Working models are the best teachers. During this training my cadet trainers will handle the entire practical and some of the theory under my supervison. Each course we run converts a bit more land to food production. We aim to become self sufficient in food this year from our own resources. At present all our food plants are still too young.
That's all for this blog. Our website is now ready, please check it out at: http://www.idepfoundation.org/GFS.html
It was a real Indiana Jones mission to get to Banda Aceh through the tsunami zone to send this email. At least I have a new trail bike now!
Cheers, Steve.
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