GETTING BACK TO MY ROOTS

Day 11

September has been Arbor month, the plan was to plant as many as 400 trees throughout the month. The guests have paid and planted throughout the month and will continue to do so, in fact I’ll be accompanying a young couple who are planting two more trees on Wednesday morning. I have just met them and their from Gatley, small world as they say. Gatley is just a few miles from where I live. I’ll bet they were a bit gutted when they heard my accent, they come all this way and they still meet someone from around the corner, its always the way. They were really nice, I’m looking forward to meeting them again and going into the village.
Today’s planting was on a pretty big scale. The aim was to plant 126 fruit trees in the gardens of six Pride n Purchase sponsored houses. These six houses have been built using the donations of guests staying at Ulusaba and the labour is provided by volunteers, people from the community (generally the people whom will be housed there) and a contractor. The people whom benefit from the houses are ’priority cases’ in the village. They vary from ‘child headed houses’, one of the houses is headed by a girl aged 13!! Can you imagine? In my eyes she’s a young child herself, yet due to both her parents passing away, this young girl takes care of the family, I think there are six of them. Another house is the Makula house, Mr Malueki is extremely ill, I’m not sure what his illness is but it has rendered him a shadow of a man. I’ve already been involved with the family as I’m fitting guttering to their house and installing a Jo Jo tank, meaning they can collect rainwater into the 2500 litre tank. At present they have to walk up to three kilometres for water, the containers they fill are 25 litres so that’s 25 kilogram’s in weight that has to be carried home again. This is done on the heads of his children and his pregnant wife. Prior to PnP involvement the family lived under a piece of corrugated metal and a sheet of plastic. One of the other houses I’m not to sure about the history but one of the children would not have survived had Pride N Purpose not intervened. Prince is an absolutely beautiful little boy, he’s five years old but due to his illness, he’s the size of a three year old. Prince was born HIV positive and last year he was found by Lindsay in a small out house in a terrible condition. It is a terribly sad and it has to be said a very hard to understand story to hear but the good news is he is now a relatively healthy young lad, with a real fighters spirit (but we‘ll come to that later, the little bugger) and a great character.
Today PnP was working with Trees for Africa, another great foundation (put these into the search engine and check out what the do: Pride and Purpose, Trees for Africa and whilst your at it check out Clic Sergeant). We had had the trees delivered the day before and I was the one whom checked them in, and I thought I’d left them in a ’safe’ place. However after placing them in this position, everyone in the staff village at Ulusaba passed me and said ’Are you leaving them there? The elephant will love them’. so I had to again move 140 trees to a different location. The words ’arse’ and ’pain’ spring to mind.
We started off in Mnesi house garden, luckily it was a cool day, with even a little drizzle and there were plenty of hands to help. Most people whom lived in the houses helped but also quite a few other people from the village joined in. they wouldn’t directly benefit from the scheme so that was a real bonus and a very applaudable gesture.
The atmosphere was fantastic, people digging, the ground was bone hard and I’ll have to admit (and slightly embarrassingly) after my first six holes it was the enthusiasm and hard work of everyone else that spurred me on. It was hard graft. Other people were doing the composting and planting and the kids took up the role of watering the trees. It was dead funny though as some of the children are real nippers and their little legs were wobbling under the strain and weight of the water and when they reached a tree some of them were to small to tip the watering can. They stuck at it though. The work was always carried out with loads of chatter and laughter. When people did start to fold, Daniel, the guy from Trees For Africa roused everyone with his enthusiastic and intoxicating personality. This guy has a smile that would light a room.
When not digging, my adopted role was ’big white climbing frame’ for the children. At one point I had six children dangling off me, to be honest though, I love entertaining the kids. Anything I do seems to crack them up. One of the girls literally wouldn’t let me put her down, every time I tried she wrapped her legs around me and held on vice like.
I didn’t know until back at the staff village that Prince, the little boy found in the outhouse, was HIV positive, I’m glad I didn’t find out until after I’d played with him. I would have probably treated him differently, not in the ’stay away’ sense, a lot of the people in the village are HIV and it doesn’t bother me. However I may have felt sorry for him and I think that would have changed the dynamics of the day, I also think this would have been a huge injustice to him.
Prince is a right little bugger. He is constantly looking for mischief, even stood still it can be seen in his eyes. At one point he was terrorising me, a five year old kid was literally terrorising me. I was scared of bending down. All the kids are fascinated by me in one way or another. Normally its my hairy legs, I can be stood having a conversation, I’ll then feel umpteen hands below my knees and when I look down I’ll have half a dozen children pulling hairs or stroking my legs. When they look up at me looking down at them, they’ll burst into fits of laughter and leg it. Prince though, Prince stands his ground. My team for one tree plant was me and five children. On the first few times I bent down I received a resounding five year olds boys bash to the head. Then I learnt to dodge them and even get a few good digs in of my own. I had to do the old ‘what’s that over there’ and point to nothing behind him. As he turned round I’d get him with a little tickle on his belly, if I wasn’t fast out though, I’d get a thwack on the ear. It was at this point that the ‘battle at tree plant’ became completely and unfairly one sided. My hands were full and my guard was down. I knew I’d made a terrible mistake and I was dually punished for it. Before I could retreat I felt, what can only be described as a vice like grip, take a hold of my beard. Prince had glued his fingers to my face and in my feinted (I think feinted) screams of agony he laughed and gripped all the more. I resorted to ear pulling, a bit girlie, but hey, if it works and then I used my own advantages. I gripped him by his legs, whipped him upside down and dangled him six feet in the air. When I put him down he laughed, smacked with a watering can and went on to terrorise someone else. I firmly believe the battle was mine but as for the war, well we’ll see.
Half time was at Pmnesi’s house (one of the houses where trees were being planted), we got stuck into some peanut butter sandwiches and litres of fizzy pop. Pmnesi had been boiling a chicken in a big cast iron pot when we arrived and promptly but good naturedly took it inside out of the way. It was only Charles who was lucky enough to get a piece. I don’t know how he does it.
At the end of a very enjoyable but tiring day we had planted one hundred and forty trees, a staggering amount. There were a few trees left over and Lindsay very kindly gave the volunteers a tree each for their own garden. It may sound like a small but the smiles on their faces told a different story. One, I think a mango tree, had already started to bud, promising indeed!
The real beauty of this day was that for all the hard work that it was, the returns are almost incalculable. Every tree that survives (they work on a 10% loss due to the environment) will fruit in the next two or so years. When it does it will yield over two hundred pieces of fresh fruit, none of which will be wasted. In season the fruit will be eaten fresh and then as it ages it will be made into preserves, chutney’s or dried and ground down into a powder for storage.
The day was fantastic, well worth an aching back and some tight hamstrings. That was everyone else’s ailments, I was fine!!!!