Help Zombodze: Way #2

This one is a water project aimed at renovating our community garden’s water-delivery system, which currently fails to provide year-round water. You can be part of this project primarily by helping to fund it: I’ll be posting the project on the Peace Corps’ online, public-funding vehicle called Peace Corps Partnerships (see below entry). You’ll be able to click on the project and donate directly to it—100% of the donation will go directly to the project, and all of the project funds will go through me personally (PC deposits the funds into my Swazi bank account). But before I post the project to the website, I need to get a feel for the level of interest (ie, how much funding can I reasonably expect to raise) and factor that into the project’s proposed scope.
This project will restore a reliable water source to the Zombodze Community Garden—called the bomake garden (pronounced bo-mah-gay, which is plural for mother). The garden is a big rectangular patch of fenced land that once contained many dozens of food-producing plots for our community’s homesteads… but when the water source failed. So did many of the plots. Here’s the abbreviated version…
The bomake garden is where we have our plots, along with about 20 other locals, mostly mothers, grandmothers and kids. During the rainy season—Nov-Apr—this number doubles. But during the dry season—May-Oct—only the strong and determined can manage to haul water up the hill in buckets to their plots, so the number shrinks. But if water was delivered to the garden’s pipes year-round, we project the number of active, food-producing plots would triple, providing food to perhaps 50 different homesteads. Our community census showed an average of 8 people living on Zombodze’s homesteads—4 adults and four children (2 of those kids being OVCs). So using the 50-homestead figure, improving the community garden’s food-producing capacity in this manner would provide a year-round source fresh veggies to around 400 people, 200 of whom would be kids—and about 100 of those kids being OVCs.
There once was a good water-delivery system for the garden, carrying water through underground pipes to the garden’s spigots from a small dam-created reservoir located along a year-round stream 1km away. But about ten years ago the concrete dam was vandalized and never properly repaired, eventually leading to a full breach of an adjoining earthen berm. So today the water-delivery system is far less reliable—and totally seasonal. Water now reaches the garden’s spigots via a 1km-long, open-cut trench, and only when the stream is full enough. The trench is susceptible to pigs and livestock and spongy soils, so it’s a very inefficient water-carrier. In fact, most of the water it carries never ends up on anyone’s garden plot.
Why use the community garden instead of simply having a “kitchen” garden on one’s own homestead? Well, here are the three main reasons. First is fencing: the community garden’s fence is intact and offers reliable protection from free-ranging cows, goats, pigs, chickens, etc. Most homesteads do not have such fencing—it must be taller then an average cow’s head and sturdy to be effective—and they don’t have the resources to install anything like that around their garden plots. So the homestead plots are usually pretty small, yielding much less veggies than a plot in the community garden could offer. Secondly, when one gardens among many others there is beneficial exchange of seed, fertilizers, knowledge, and ideas. The seed-swapping alone is invaluable, and the garden has a ready supply of sweet potato starts, spinach seeds, etc. Gardening alongside others makes for a healthier variety of veggies in one’s kitchen. The third reason would apply if the community garden had reliable water: most homesteads here (like 76% of them) don’t have easy access to water, especially during the dry season. If they had a place to grow food during the dry season, it would dramatically change their quality of life.
There are a few different ways of renovating the bomake garden’s water delivery system, and the community will ultimately decide which one to pursue. I’ll help. One way would be to drill a borehole onsite and either reconfigure the existing underground piping to connect to the new source. Another way would be to make some structural repairs the earthen berm and reservoir up on the stream and reconnect the existing piping to new feeder lines. Both have their benefits and complications, but the borehole option is significantly more complicated and community leaders seem to be leaning toward making repairs to the old reservoir. We shall see…
Anyway I’ll be happy to provide lots more information (and pics) if you’re really interested in getting involved on this project—send me an email: cooktimothy@hotmail.com.