Focal Farmer Elections

Banana Trees blowing in the wind (the hills in the background are Tanzania)

On Monday of this week, I headed out to Kibungo, a town in Eastern Rwanda. Totally Central Africa. There is nothing out there. I've been to some rural areas in Africa, but I honestly don't think I've heard "Mzungu!" more prolifically during a 1 week period than I did this week. Serioously, just driving through these villages, with my white arm hanging out the window, the kids go wild screaming at the top of their lungs.

I told the kid on the right that the Braves had a crappy year and the Phillies dominated them, but he didn't seem interested.

The word Mzungu is used today to label people like me, foreigners, white people. The word originates from a Swahili verb which translates to "to travel back and forth." When missionaries first came to Africa, they would go out to rural places, set up missions, stay for a few years, then leave - only to be replaced by more white people. Africans began to call these people "Mzungu," (plural Wazungu).

The word is very widely used in East Africa today. It gets frustrating sometimes when people call you by your skin color, but you have to understand where they're coming from. In societies as homogeneous (at least in color) as they are here, a person of lighter skin color is truly an anomaly. Coming from American society - where we're supposed to be so PC about everything, its easy to think that these words are offensive, but Africans really don't mean offense using the word. Its all about intent, I think.

Driving out to Kibungo, we came to a fork in the road. One way said, "Tanzania," the other, "Uganda." We took a right and headed South to Tanzania.

Kibungo is actually not a tiny town. There's only on road, but its probably 3-4 miles long. Once again, like all roads in Rwanda, its sealed with no potholes at all. We stayed in a tiny hotel and ate nothing but bananas for the whole week. Banana stew for breakfast, raw bananas for lunch, and fried bananas and meat for dinner. Actually pretty good, although I was definitely ready for a change when I got back to Kigali. They use bananas so much out there, I actually saw a car towing another car using a banana tree instead of rope. Some of the kids in the tiny villages even said, "The mzungu is white like a banana!"

Typical home in rural Rwanda - using mud and all parts of the banana tree

The point of the trip East was to elect focal farmers. Myself and 2 T-S business advisers visited all the groups within 2 cooperatives, explaining to them the focal farmer concept. We needed a leader from each group with a good farm. Once a month, we will conduct trainings on these farms in order to disseminate agronomic education to small scale farmers. We drove around all week meeting with groups and electing these farmers. It was a bit tiring and frustrating because I don't speak Kinyrwanda, but I think it was beneficial for me to see.

One of the small villages near Kibungo