Rufaro Makamure

It will be a bonus if ducks can eat this plant and it's something I am willing to try out.

There is something I cannot get out of my mind from the day we hosted people. When the guys we hosted were leaving, they left a $5 note and I felt so offended because it seemed like we were being paid for our effort. One of the guys tried to explain that it's his way to show his appreciation and he learnt a habit of tipping and he wanted to show he was really happy through this method and he also felt he really didn't do much for him to be thanked in this manner. I might be over thinking things but at the back of my mind I cannot take away the possibility of him feeling pity for us, because of the phone I showed him. It was in a bad state of course but it was doing its job. Maybe I did not explain myself enough, that it would be better for me to be left behind materially, if it means crushing those around me or ignoring our impact on the environment. Eventually being able to buy a good phone, is something I thought would have proven that I am slowly catching up.

I don't know the name of this plant. It's a plant that I have grown up seeing in some of the oldest neighborhoods, and it's a succulent plant, well it looks like a succulent plant. I don't really know anything about the plant, except that I chose it because it seems to grow easily and it doesn't need watering at all once it develops roots.

I was able to plant the hedge and once this grows, I can get suckers to finish off the whole front side. It's raining almost every hour, I was lucky I got to the plot and back without being rained on. The soil is so saturated with water I could see it as I was digging. That's a minus labor for watering the hedge.

We finally talked with Kumbi and we discovered that he actually needs our help. At least he opened up, so we are teaming up with his mom to see if we can help him.

One of the pumpkins that I covered is growing successfully and it's exciting. I don't know though if I have to leave the pumpkin in the plastic until it matures. We have a lot of water we are trapping in the yard and eventually I think I have to start calculating how much water we are stopping from running off. It's been almost a day now without any rain and the shallow part of the water we are collecting gets to the ankle. This is water that could have been washed away. Now we are able to plant things and not water, because the area has its own water source for now. When I  went to the water harvesting pit, something black and relatively big swiftly moved on water towards some grass to hide, and I am so sure now that I love animals but I am definitely afraid of them. I am not proud of this but I need to be honest with myself. I would have loved to find out what it was but I chickened out, I stood quietly by the pit's side for a couple of minutes and my imagination started running wild, and it grew bigger than my curiosity, and I left.

I am now working on growing a hedge outside our yard which will help with privacy and also be a source of organic matter. The hedge grows so fast and wild, so all the trimmings will be going into our weed water. The organic matter we feed our beds with, dissappears as if no organic matter was ever put. We need to catch up with our soil's demands and it helps for us to have as much control as possible on most of the organic matter. During the dry season is when it is hardest to get organic matter. Mai Kumbi is now really invested in the field which means I need to be extremely organised in my planning. I gave Kumbi a break for him to clear his head and also so that he knows that working in the garden is not his only option. I went to him the first time when we started working together and he can easily think that the reason I helped him is because I cannot do without him, a position I do not want to be in. He will join me only if he wants to and he will be the one coming to me this time.

We hosted the guys who helped me get my phone at our home and it was a success. It's been weeks since I had this day in my head and for some time the most dominant fact was where I am status wise and one thought was to go out for lunch, but it was not practical. When they came they were so humble. The time we shared, made our house and all the surroundings that I had thought in my head were not good enough disappear and I was not self conscious anymore.

Mai Kumbi came and we had a highly uncomfortable but fruitful talk, which mainly focused on how we need to prioritize honesty in how we work together. We also agreed on a way forward on how to work with Kumbi, I do wish the best for the boy and I hope his relationship with his father will be mended.

I got a new phone and it was right on time because the one I was using was no longer working. This phone solely rest on the alternative regenerative system that I am developing. I raised the money for the bulk of last year and the money is all from regenerative projects. I mentioned my intent to buy a phone, to my friend who suggested buying a phone from outside the country was best because, I wasn't going to get a good phone as most people are not selling good phones. I have no one I can ask in the diaspora and through her boyfriend and his friend I got a really good second hand phone from America. There is a friend who was raising money at the same time as me to buy a phone and he got his around the 30th of December and already his phone has problems with network. If I did not have time, I would have never spoken with my friend about my plans and if we had not created a relationship, which we have been building in the past few years, she and her boyfriend would not have bothered to help me with getting a good second hand phone. The money I would have worked hard for would have bought a broken phone or something in this line, which would have meant circling around one point resources wise, not out of choice. So the gift of time is something I'm noticing a lot.

Mai Kumbi decided not to come, though it's no longer raining, to some extent proving what I am seeing. She decided to cancel the meeting saying she was waiting to hear from me for her to come and yet I had clearly mentioned if it does not rain our meeting will proceed. It is exactly what her son would do, where you tell him something and if he has a different thing in mind, he would just do what he thought and when l asked he would say he heard something else.

I did call for our meeting to take place tomorrow and there is no better action than this, to give as an example and have her see that we can point at Kumbi or blame evil spirits for what he has done, but we cannot rule out the fact that our children just follow our footsteps. If we change and have the kids see the change, who knows what impact it will have. I really hope she comes and I am not happy at all about what she has done but it is also an amazing opportunity for me to put my point across.

I had planned to meet with Kumbi's mom so that we could plan on how to deal with him, unlike just having him come home and expect changes without deliberate actions. It rained in the morning and I had to cancel my meeting with her, since it meant her walking to my place and because she is still not well I could not have her walk in the rain. I also could not go to the plot because I feel like I have been bending way too much and it's sending a wrong message, so through small things like having her once in a while, walk to me for meetings could be a small message hopefully to show that we all need to sometimes get out of our way for each other, it is not a one way street. When I called to cancel I had a few things to tell her from my observations one of them was how we need to pause on pruning the pumpkin plant leaves for relish on those that have started flowering at least up to when there are some pumpkins. Some of the vines are being stripped of all the leaves and it seems like it is delaying them from developing. I did manage to tell her things I needed to say but I was chocking mostly and I have no idea why it is so difficult for me. I hope it will not get in the way of our actual meeting because in the meeting I need to say some hard truths, if we are to help Kumbi. We need to live the life we wish for him and it will come with multiple changes.

It's raining consistently and in appropriate amounts. The maize is growing so well and not just in our field but everywhere. The system I am working to create has grown a little. Before, all the focus during the rain period was on the maize and there was little room to concentrate on other crops. This time we still have maize which is not taking up too much of my time, we are building more on growing cow peas and finding how to create it's importance to everyone involved in the project it's success will help in adding organic matter to the maize field as well as fixing nitrogen naturally. I also have added pumpkin to the mix and I will admit that for now, it's a struggle to figure out how to grow it. After learning how to help pollinate it, the next stage is finding how to deal with pests. We have tried covering with cloth and now I have covered every fruit with plastic bags. I briefly sprayed with a mix of mint and onion after one pumpkin which had grown relatively big was eaten by something, I am suspecting mice, because the bite sizes were big for a tiny insect. I just need one pumpkin so that I can get seeds, it's from the seeds I received and my thank you has to be a success, so I am desperate. The other two crops are bottle gourd and long Thai beans, which are growing well on their own. The bottle gourd was attacked by some pest, so I have that to work out also. But all in all I'm proud that there is some growth in the number of plants that are in the field and it's still based on permaculture principles.

We haven't talked to Kumbi since he came back, because he was sick.

I entered this year looking pretty and with family. This year we spent new year's eve at a relative's and there were many family members. We had fun with fire crackers, and watching the kids' excitement.

When I returned to the plot though, Kumbi the young man I work with had been chased away from home because of something he had done. With how bad our economy is there is a very slim chance that he would have gotten a job to sustain him. Also because of how bad the economy is, it would have been hard to have someone provide shelter and food.
Chasing him away was a little easy because it would have transferred a problem from our hands to the next person. I thought this was not solving the problem, so his mother and I negotiated with his father for him to come back,  since he has been so hard working for all the time I have worked with him. We intend to find out exactly what happened so that we will know how to help him. His father allowed him to come back but we are yet to hear his side and map a way forward.