On Tuesday, March 5th, I spent a few hours before lunch helping Emma sow his mihindi (corn) seeds on his shamba (farm). I’m not entirely sure how many acres this farm of his is. It sits behind our house. If I had to guess, I would say it is between one to two acres, but I don’t really have any clear idea. The point is, is that I played the farmer for a few hours and I liked it lol.
Emma contracted a group of three Tanzanian laborers to set a line using a string and two pieces of wood to mark the rows and dig holes. Emma and I were tasked with going behind them, after they had finished a row, and dropping two to three seeds into every hole. From there, we covered the holes with the dirt that had been laid aside as the hole was made. We used our rain-boots as field-boots for the farming expedition.
The seeds were covered in pink dust to protect them from insects until the rains come and the seeds germinate. It was a hot and humid day. We worked quickly and seeded his entire farm. In high school, I spent a summer working on an apple orchard. I picked a lot of weeds, graded a lot of tomatoes (gah they can spoil quickly and get real nasty fast) and watered a lot of beds of flowers. This was my first time sowing seeds.
We are technically in the middle of the heavy rainy season. So far, we have had one hard day of torrential downpour type precipitation. It seems to me that Monduli could be in a bit of a drought. Fingers crossed for some stormy cloud formations materializing soon. Not only do people’s livelihoods depend on it, but the food base for the entire country is at-risk. Food scarcity is no joke. Earlier this week, we ran out of water for 48 hrs. Pray for some moisture and precipitation here in Monduli. Please. Asante (thank you) !
Tanzanian Times 