Monday, May 14, 2007

5/14 Update from Jim - Moringa Project

Briefly from the beginning, Dr T and I (Jim) spent 4 days in preparation from South Africa. We left at 1 am Monday morning, drove all night, all day, and all night. In the middle of the second night of driving someone jumped on our trailer as we were going slow through the town, cut the ropes, removed the tarp, stole our mattresses and some of the clothes that we were bringing for orphans. We arrived alive in Mufulira on Tuesday morning. After 2 hours of sleep we started painting and preparing for the rest of the team.

Along with working on the house, I started planting hundreds of moringa seeds. Many of the neighborhood kids joined in to help. By the time the rest of the group came on Saturday about 600 seeds had been planted.

Today we started planting more seeds. We have about 1000 seeds planted now. We also started our Moringa grove at Dr T's house. So far we have been digging the planting holes (18 in deep by 18 in wide). Tomorrow we are planning to talk to the CPS students about the Moringa and start including it in their food. Wednesday we hope to go to Emma's Kids farm -- they have many large moringa trees but don't know what to do with them. We've also made contact with an orphanage in Ndola that has the same problems: trees but no knowledge. We will have a clinic with them next week. Thursday we are going to Murundu village to get a grove of moringa trees started. Saturday I'm being interviewed on national TV (ZMBC) about the moringa project. Tentatively, on Sunday the national television station will come here to film and interview about the moringa project and Stop The Spread. A week from Wednesday we are planning to speak at a general hospital in Kitwe. Our schedule is filling up fast.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glad to hear safe arrivals. Glad to know Carol is having fun so far.

with love and prayers
Mom and Big Sis(mom says thanks for m-day gift carol)