I just wanted to share some REALLY GOOD NEWS with everyone.

At our meeting in Imisigio (first borehole site) on Wednesday, April 14, we asked how things were going at the borehole. Several people reported that last October, at the tail end of the hideous drought with no rain in sight, people carried water from the borehole to their fields and used it to plant tomatoes. They have gotten great harvests and are recovering from their losses of the last years of drought! They are really happy AND are very enthusiastic for using the water at the borehole site to do irrigation.

If we had tried to start the irrigation project before they had had their own success, it would have been much tougher to begin! They also talked about buying a mill to grind their maize into flour – the staple here is ugali – heavy cornmeal polenta – and the maize is high in the fields right now. Really gorgeous and tall and green in every direction you look.

They are really excited to have a visit from the local agricultural officer who will help with the project so they can learn about irrigation techniques. The community plans to start clearing the land next week. I have already met with the Ag officers in Loitokitok and we are scheduling their visit.

Everything we have been working toward, all the work that we all do – this success in Imisigio is the result – real life changes, real improvements, real development.

Thanks to all of you!!!

Joyce

This entry was posted on Friday, April 16th, 2010 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.