Farm to Table

As part of our stay here, they have a few activities planned out for us to do so we can really get a feel for the village life. The first activity we did today and is called Farm to Table. At 9 a.m. we met near the guardhouse to get ready to go to the garden. It was cold and rainy, but we had been told we would be working rain or shine, just like the members of the village do. The purpose of this particular activity was to show us just how hard life can be for some people. Many of the secondary school students are on a work-study program. They have to work in the garden while attending school. Of course I thought that was tough, but I didn’t think about it too much because I myself held multiple jobs throughout high school. However, my mind was quickly changed not long after we began our work. At first, it was really fun. We were using a ho to dig weeds up out of the garden. After about 5 minutes though, it was no longer fun and had become real work. The garden here is on a hill, and that says enough. Not only we had to do physical labor, but also we had to walk up and down this hill while doing so. It got very tiring very quick. Not to mention, it hadn’t stopped raining since we got there. Luckily I had on my rain boots and a raincoat, but the people working in the garden weren’t even wearing any shoes! It was freezing outside! I could only imagine how cold their feet must’ve been.           

            I really think this was a good activity because it showed us just how hard life can be. Even though we are living in the village, we aren’t really experiencing what other people experience on a day-to-day basis. We live in a nice house, with our own big beds, and running water. We are even lucky enough to have a house mama cook all of our meals for us and do our laundry for us. By participating in this activity, we were able to really get the full experience, if you could even say that! We only worked in the garden for 2 hours, not even that long. However, students will often times work out there for hours after school until dark just to pay their way through school. It truly was an experience to be able to do this activity. After working in the garden, our house mama, Upendo, came to meet us at the garden. We picked some vegetables with her before turning back to the house and then cooking what we had just picked! That was a lot of fun.