ECHO Conference in Arusha

By Sara:

After my visit to Mwikali in Nairobi, I traveled to Arusha, Tanzania for the ECHO biannual agriculture conference.  It did not happen in person last time, for obvious reasons, so it had been four years since the last one.  During the week, I stayed with friends, Brett and Christie, which made the trip even more fun.  You might remember that Brett and I wrote a Bible study curriculum together and are also working on an agriculture curriculum.  Since I was in Arusha for the conference already, we took this opportunity to get some work done on that new curriculum.

ECHO conferences are always a good opportunity to meet other people doing agriculture or development work in this region, to network, and get new ideas.  One of the people I reconnected with was Charles, who had shown me and Anthony around Musoma when we visited Tanzania for the first time back in 2014, with World Renew! 

Here are some pictures ECHO shared from the conference:

I ended up unexpectedly becoming a speaker at the conference - doing a presentation on Helping Without Hurting in Africa, since Jonny, who was supposed to do the presentation, was unable to attend.  It's a good thing I helped edit the curriculum while Anthony and Jonny were writing it and have participated in many of their trainings!

One of the topics I thought was very encouraging was from a presentation about Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) and rainwater harvesting.  The presenter showed amazing photos of how people have allowed the stumps of trees to regrow and reforest areas which had been clear cut.  And also areas where half-moon bunds were used to capture rainwater, prevent runoff, and allow grass to regrow in a previously overgrazed area (that looked like it would never be able to grow anything ever).  Those stories and pictures demonstrated the possibility of bringing back vegetation to devastated places.

There was also an optional field trip day at the end of the week.  Brett's teaching farm was one of the field trip locations, and since I was staying with him and Christie already, I got to go to that one.  Here are some of the cool things going on there:

Tilapia farming and harvesting.  I learned a lot and took many notes for Anthony in case he starts raising fish in the future.  It's one of Anthony's dreams to be able to go outside in the morning and catch a fish from his own pond for us to eat at lunch.

There are also a couple boxes of social stingless bees.  Throughout the world, there are many different species of bees, besides honey bees, and some of those other species also live together in a colony and make honey, just in smaller quantities than honey bees.  But the good thing is they don't sting, so working with them is very safe, and their honey is naturally fermented and therefore healthier.

Of course it can't be a good demonstration farm without cover crops.  Look at how nice and green they are, even though it is the hot dry season.

Finally, it wasn't really part of the farm, but for part of lunch, Brett smoked chickens in a homemade smoker and who wouldn't find that interesting?

I didn't take many pictures of my travels by bus and other public transportation means, but here are a couple.  Waking up in the morning on the night bus to Nairobi: 

The view out the bus window:

Sheep on a motorcycle in Nairobi (normal in Uganda, but to me, it was a bit unexpected in Nairobi):

Looking out the window of a matatu (14 passenger van taxi) in Nairobi: