Ntongamo

On Friday, I had a chance to travel with one of our teammates to a local village down towards Rwanda. John Ward (who we are staying with right now) is from New Zealand and is serving with AIM and working on the "Heifer Project." I think I have the terminology and understanding down (forgive me John, if I mess any of this up). It's this really cool program where they evaluate a need in specific villages who request their help. John (along with a great group of supporters from New Zealand) provides a heifer dairy cow (or cows - Jersey or Jersey/Freisan mix) to specific individuals in the village. They train them how to care for them using zero grazing. Basically, this is grazing using minimal space and bringing the food to the cow instead of having the cow range graze (as we are used to in Texas). They help them construct a shelter suitable for milking. The idea is that this milk will be used to not only provide for the family's food needs, but also provide some extra that can be sold at the local market.

And if that weren't a neat enough deal, they also teach them how to artificially inseminate these cows. The point is to help them impregnate their milking heifer in the hopes of birthing another heifer to pass on as a blessing to someone else in their own village or another village where it is needed. If the heifer has a bull, then they are allowed to keep it or sell it. If the heifer has two bulls, and the third one is a bull as well, they are required to sell the third bull to help purchase another heifer as their "blessing cow." Sorry to be so long winded in explaining, but the program fascinates me!

John was given a lead, so we picked up John's friend, Rabon, and headed out to the Ntongama to meet with a local bishop and some ladies from his congregation who head up the Mother's Union. It was some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen - and that is during the dry season. They say when the rainy season comes, it is a lush green all over.Here is a picture of one of the many hills in this village. Notice the cows way up on the hillside.



We had a wonderful time visiting with them. I was even asked to share! I know nothing about the heifer project and indicated this to Rabon, whose response was, "well share about anything similar you have in America." John just smiled at me and I mumbled my way through some type of improv about being there to learn just like them. Here is a picture of the group. John is sitting on the left (as you look at it) and Rabon is in the middle.



I wish I had taken Jill's camera so I could have taken pictures all the way there. However, I just took my little one, so here are a couple of pics of the church we met in.





I was exposed to a lot of culture and it felt good to be there and feel lke I was helping in some small way. On the way out, we got to witness one of the very somber scenes of this continent. Apparently, moments before we made it back to the main road, a local Matoke (green bananas) carrier had gotten hit by a car. There were bananas everywhere on the road along with the dead body of the bicycle driver. Everyone was standing around - some crying and some just looking on. Fortuantely someone had already covered the body, but we had to drive around a puddle of blood to get back in to town. Along the way, we passed the local police coming back to the scene. We are taught here, that if you hit someone, DO NOT stop, but drive straight to the police and let them either go investigate or go back with you. I guess this applies to locals as well. And after seeing the crowd, I completely understand now. It would be easy for a mob to form in a moment's notice.

Life in Africa can go from very beautiful and awe inspiring to very sobering within moments. They say to prepare yourself for this, but I don't know that I'll ever get used to it.