Sh*t Rocks!

Field visits to cooperatives who received goats and began composting in January, 2012 were an awesome and reassuring experience.
Over and over we heard uplifting stories of small but significant (and repeatable!) successes, related to us by people filled with joy and pride.
And remember, this is all organic fertilizer, with none of the health risks associated with chemical fertilizers
Take a moment to read these brief but incredible testimonials...

GOOM (opportunity) + TICHA TEK (hard work) = KATO (success)
YEE WA YOM! (we are all happy!)

Abraham, Community Chief and leader of the Kamdini Cooperative
Understanding that there is strength in numbers, 110 cooperative members (each a group leader) have come together to create a Learning Centre on his land.
They all contribute goat and cow manure to common pits and farm larger plots together to create even larger yields which command a better price.
From first round of fertilizer production - harvesting corn, millet, sesame and beans - the yield is expected to fetch 5 million shillings (roughly $2,000.US)
Strength of numbers allows for good bargaining and increased profit sharing!
And please note that this is the first time in over 20 years that this community has generated any monetary income!!!
And, they have begun a Pine Tree nursery, using fertilizer, that produced a bumper crop of 2000 saplings in 2013 alone.
These will be planted on various farm properties to create the forests that will clean the air, hold the soil, and provide shade and future building material.
They will repeat the process next year and begin to sell excess saplings!

James, leader of Barlonyo Cooperative
Using the motto 'Together We Are Stronger' they are no longer selling their sunflower seed harvest individually, but have entered into profit-sharing with a bumper harvest of just under 8,000kgs grown from an upgraded seed.
Their yield will fetch 8million shillings ($3,100.US)
And James is leading members of his cooperative to test different seeds using compost in controlled environments, showing increase in yield every time.
He is also trying out different different growing methods for dry-season farming using direct-to-root irrigation planting in tubs and black polyurethane sacks so that crops can be generated year-round.
Wow!

Molly
planting Nakati, a cabbage-like vegetable
in 2012 another year of poor quality harvests nets 20,000Ugandan Shillings (roughly $8US)
in 2013, after applying her organic fertilizer, harvest nets 80,000 Ugandan Shillings (roughly $32.US)
a 400% increase!
and a buyer said, "next year don't take your nakati to the market, we will come to your farm and buy the whole harvest from you directly."
and nakati seeds mixed into chicken feed helps to prevent diseases so Molly has set aside 2kg for her chickens and plans to sell extra seed from increased crop yields.
and Molly has begun to set aside funds to purchase a cow in the coming years.

Phoebe
planting Antola, an eggplant-like vegetable
in 2012 another year of poor quality harvest nets 50,000 Ugandan Shillings (roughly $20.US)
in 2013, after applying her organic fertilizer, harvest nets 150,000 Ugandan Shillings (roughly $60.US)
a 300% increase!
Buoyed by this wonderful result of her hard work, Phoebe has expanded her farm plot for harvest in June.

 

Lois (in front of a communal compost pit)
diligent use of her fertilizer allowed her to harvest enough peanuts, potatoes and tomatoes to cover school fees for her 3 children.
Lois, like all too many of the women in this area, suffer abuse at home because they are seen as 'not producing anything!' 

Now there is a new peace in the house as their weak (lazy!) husbands have stopped nagging (yelling and often beating!) seeing a return on their dowry 'investments'.
Lois looks forward to going to the field each day knowing there will be a benefit to her toil.
And her 'weak' husband has even started to help out!

 

 

 

 

Taking Our Sh*t Even Further North...

this frontier town is putting it's dark past behind them and re-building

Good morning from Kitgum, northern Uganda, about 100kms from the South Sudan border.
A heavy rain storm knocked out all the power in town last night, but a hotel generator ensured cold beer, pizza, and that ever-present spaghetti bolognese, as well as good company - a small and motley collection of Ugandans, Canadians, Americans and one Japanese, all trying in one way or another to enable a better future for Ugandans in an area brutally decimated by Joseph Kony and his LRA not so long ago. 400,000 people perished in unspeakable ways around here.

ever-present signs of conflict

The rains, (cherished by all as they mark the end of the dry season) have washed away the red dust that settles on everything (and every one) and the morning is crisp and fresh.

Chickens and ducks drink from newly formed ponds and two young children play with a toy car made from an old plastic bottle, a couple of sticks and 4 pop bottle caps - can you picture it? 

 

People head off to work and school as small shops open their doors to the day's business.

We're here to visit our friend Sam from Memphis, who runs a chicken farm operation that provides an egg each morning to many hundreds of school children as a way to get protein into their diets.
The school owns land nearby to set up the farm and there is excess. We are hoping to start a co-op of war widows, who's children attend the school where the breakfast provided is their only meal each day. The women could farm that land using the TSSH model. Rent for the land could be paid through a percentage of the crops raised.
Fingers crossed.

land awaits development

 

And then, all too soon, we're back on the road, heading to Barlonyo to visit the cooperative there that received goats over a year ago.

 

Back To Our Unusual Usual Sh*t...

A 2-night stay in the jungle forest of Rumangabo, 2hrs north of Goma, got us out into the verdant Congolese countryside, passing through very basic, frontier villages, and directly into the area where the Congolese army and the M23 were warring just a few months ago.
A group of children playing on an abandoned rocket launcher was chilling, to say the least.
Babies are everywhere.
Often vestiges of soldiers who were stationed in the area that have moved on.
Oh, beautiful Congo!
Mountains, volcanoes, and an opportunity to hike into the jungle forest for a magical encounter with mountain gorillas.
And back at a lovely lodge called Mikeno, we had meetings with national park authorities to discuss bringing our initiative to the farming cooperatives living in the critical zone along the park boundaries when we return in September. 

Roughly 450 families along a 45km stretch of farmland that abutts the national park.
Once again, as in Rwanda, if the communities around the park can become stable, with food on the table and excess to sell at market along with surplus animals, community members will not go inside the forest to cut trees and poach animals.
Nor will they throw in their lot with SOCO, a huge oil corporation that has discovered massive oil deposits under the forest floor and is attempting to fill the community's heads with big, empty promises.

So now we have become a "stick-it'to-big-oil" initiative as well!

And Now, An Entirely New Kind Of Sh*t...

After a few more intense meetings, working in english, french, and a creative combo of the two, The Guardian Project is proud to announce that we have launched our first Micro-Finance/Village Banking initiative (name to follow)!
Pages of notes and numbers will now be drafted into a contract and translated to french.
We will begin with CPNCK on Idjwi Island.
CPNCK will now be able to create an on-the-spot market for the coffee, eliminating the long period between harvest, transport to far-off markets, payment and reimbursement to farmer.
In the past this has been a major stumbling block for simple farmers, with limited access to cash, to make ends meet.
How wonderful for Jeff to be able to apply his extensive understanding of finance to such a productive end!
"Jeff, i-na-na!"
Three cheers for Jeff!
And three cheers for the cooperative for being so hard-working and committed to their obligations!
Sensitizing within the cooperative has already most enthusiastically begun.
"CPNCK i-na-na!"

the idea begins to percolate as Gilbert explains (in french) Jeff's vision to Chance and Victor

"Jeff e-na-na! Jeff e-na-na! Three cheers for Jeff as the news is shared

working out the details of forming a common vision and understanding

and of course, more celebrating!

teaching the teachers to sing "hokey pokey" with the kids

New Sh*t In The DRC

We finally meet with the heads of the CPNCK Cooperative that Gilbert is so proud of.
An incredibly joy-filled over-night on Idjwi Island officially launched our newest expansion, complete with a meeting with the King of the Island (who received 2 goats!) and the Governor!
What a peaceful, though terribly poor, paradise, isolated from the on-going conflicts that plague the greater region.
Introductions, speeches, initiative review and dancing were of course an integral part of the event as 50 tagged sheep were distributed to the first of a very large, hard-working coffee cooperative with 76 more to be purchased in the coming week for a Women's association of war-widows that are also part of the cooperative.
And the next group will be 120 ex-soldiers who have laid down their weapons to grow coffee...inspiring more soldiers to do the same on a regular basis.
What an incredible peace initiative.
And we take a moment to remember the hundreds of farmers who have drowned in their small dugout boats in rough waters, while trying to get their beans to Rwanda to sell, quietly, as the industry here in DRC is still in it's naissance. We will be supporting their wives with goats as well.
Tragic yet inspiring stories were shared by many men and women and tears were shed amidst the laughter.
Please consider donating to this exceptionally needy, proud and hard-working people.

the ferry from Goma to Idjwi was filled with a global buffet of soldiers including Hungary!

 

 

  

A warm welcome of song, dance and drumming...

everyone is smiling, laughing and talking...right up until someone points a camera

 

 

one last review and good thing, third party misunderstanding had unnecessarily complicated the whole program

meeting the king, a kind and thoughtful man, committed to improving the lives of his community

telling our story so far...and one last review of 'memo of understanding1'

nearby, some of the tagged goats waiting for distribution

and, as always during distribution, we play!...head and shoulders, knees and toes...

more dancing to celebrate, especially after the widows learned they would be the next recipients!

spreading our "skinnammarinky-dinky-dink..."

celebrating coffee

Congo Sh*t...

Ahhh, Congo...
"I don't think we're in Kansas any more Toto!"

Goma, Eastern Congo.
The ever-present AK47s.
And U.N. and NGO vehicles outnumber everything except moto taxis!
The sheer volume of foreign aid workers spending donor and tax money here in Goma has made the cost of everything soar.
Western prices rule at the few hotels and restaurants.
And yet no real sign that anything is happening to better the lives of the locals.
Show me the money!
A sharp contrast to Rwanda.
Haiti all over again.
Cold beer on our hotel balcony, and the fisherman coming in with their catch as the sun sets gives us a peaceful, easy feeling.

Another overnight in Goma, epicenter of U.N and NGO activity, and except for the lake, a drab and dusty border city.
Ex-pat employees and high-ranking officials are tucked away behind high walls and oodles of barbed wire in homes that rent for prices higher than those we would pay at home.
And the presence of so many NGOs and UN employees, spending donor and tax dollars, has created quite a thriving prostitution industry as well!
Pasty-faced, middle-aged western men with local women young enough to be theirs daughters or even, most sadly, in some cases their grand-daughters.
UGH!
A beer on the terrace of the Ihusi Hotel can easily, and did, present many an opportunity to talk to the directors of government, NGO and private enterprises that would otherwise take a chain of emails and introductions.
Meetings, both planned and chance, are making connections, and helping to illuminate the complexities of all that is Congo.
The more we learn, the more we know that we know nothing!
And, as always, with every cooperative we've encountered since we began The Shit Starts Here, we are meeting hard-working, (and I mean toiling!) people, who manage to be joyful in the face of so much adversity.
No room for depression here!
As we continually hear, "it accomplishes nothing!"
We in the West could learn from this.
I'm avoiding "poverty porn" pictures as many here call it...you know, close-ups of raggedly dressed, barefoot children and the simple homes they live in, with their struggling parents nearby.
But trust me, it's here, in numbers and degrees!

Look Who's Talking Sh*t...

We are humbled, and overjoyed to be recognized by Dr. Jane Goodall!

Through my recent role as a judge for the G Project, I became aware of an inspirational project in Africa led by Rita Rayman and her husband Jeff – a project which they describe as micro-finance but the currency is sheep. The Jane Goodall Institute’s success in protecting habitat for chimpanzees in Africa depends on creating programs that are controlled and embraced by the local people. Our community-centered conservation programs in Africa empower local people to build sustainable livelihoods while promoting regional conservation goals such as reforestation and ending the illegal, commercial bushmeat trade.
That is why I am pleased to endorse Rita and Jeff’s project, aptly named The Sh*t Starts here. The concept is simple - by providing sheep to farmers who compost the manure into fertilizer, crop yields increase, food production increases, and people are able to generate an income.  I believe that these results decrease the need for poaching and create stable communities which work with us to protect and conserve the environment shared by all Earth’s living creatures.
I commend Rita and Jeff for their commitment to this innovative, effective program and I wish them great success in the future.
Jane Goodall, Ph.D., DBE
Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute &
UN Messenger of Peace