G’day again from Karamoja, Uganda. The Green Warriors have been dispersed into the field.
Source: Steve Cran, Global Sustainability Corps. Content created by Steve Cran and Global Sustainability Corps is licensed under Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
Local NGO’s now have trained sustainability specialists from the local culture and language group advising them how to help communities take their first steps in permanent sustainability.
Back at base I have a team of 7 taking extra training to prepare for the master training week next week. Their task is to build a nursery shade house and compost bay system using local materials. The design was a combination of things I’ve done in other countries and what is possible with local materials. We have agreed on the design and from here on they get no help from me. It’s time to throw them into the deep end. I’m off to Kampala!
We tear out of Abim at 8 am, an unheard of time to leave as usually the paperwork can take half a day. This time Hyenas driving. Why do they call him Hyena? It’s something to do with how his reputation with the ladies. He’s the organization’s security guy and he spent 4 years in Iraq working for the Americans as a hired soldier. The USA hires thousands of Ugandans for their military operations abroad. Hyena and I get on because we love a good laugh and we’re both ex-soldiers.
Hyena has his foot flat to the floor. The rains have been constant lately and the road is soft. We make good time. In fact with Hyenas careful planning we shave off 2 hours on the drive to Kampala. It also had something to do with his lead foot. We cruise into Kampala at exactly the right time to miss the rush hour…Thank God!
stunted hybrid cabbages in karamoja
I check in at the backpackers. It’s located on the grounds of a huge old soap factory. The little cottages used to house the colonial bosses in the 1950′s. I spy a coconut tree, some asian bamboo clumpa and several other plants of interest for the nursery. My mission is to get planting stock and any extra OPV (open-pollinated variety) seed I can find.
I chuck my bags on the bed and tour the old cottage. There’s some beds, enough for a van full of backpackers. There’s a kitchen with electric stove and refrigerator! Luxury! Finally I test the shower. Eureka! Hot water! Yippee! I haven’t had a hot shower for over a month.
I have a secret list for my Kampala trip besides the tools and seeds. There’s a hot shower, a pizza, some Indian food, ice cream and a foreign beer…Shower time now!
I look out the window, there’s a grey monkey sitting on the fence chucking sticks at the barking dog next door. I cant forget I’m in Africa.
I get the organization to supply a vehicle to take me to the central market in Kampala. I’m bracing myself for what I know is coming. The driver drops me and an interpreter in the filthy crowded street outside the market. The smells drift into my nostrils.
Rotting fruit, meat, dust , animals, poultry and cooking food all mixed together. My nose is a veteran and I slam my nostrils shut, well almost. We make our way to the vegetables. They are sold from concrete benches under a rusty tin roof. I can barely squeeze through the crowd. I manage to score corriander, shallots, amaranth and several unknown greens with the roots and some soil still attached. I also find soursop, lemons, custard apples, tamarillo, pomegranite, rock melon and heaps more fruit for seed. I buy enough to generate enough seed for this phase of the training. Struggling under our load with an army of followers trying to sell us more, we trudge up hill to where the driver is waiting a couple of hundred meters away from the market. I load the ute, good score, I tell myself. I hope the greens make it to Abim alive. I’ll pack them in wet newspaper when I get back to the backpackers.
We stop on the main agriculture market street. Every kind of chemical and hybrid seed is for sale here. Little shops stocked with enough poison to start world war 3. If ever there was terrorism this it! Many of these chemicals are banned in Western countries. The chemical companies continue to make them and sell them to ignorant farmers in africa. Squillons of litres of the most poisonous biocides sold in small plastic bottles with tiny writing on the labels, so tiny you can barley read it. The poisons go with the hybrid seed, seed deliberately weakened so it needs a chemical cocktail to grow it. Pests love hybrid vegetables because they are genetically weak and insects exist to eradicate the weak so the strong are the breeding stock.
ex-combatants in East Timor
The farmers don’t know this. They buy the latest chemicals and fancy seed packets. They buy the backpack sprayers but not the safety gear that goes with it. They cant afford to protect their health. When was the last time a poor Ugandan farmer sued a multinational chemical conglomerate for compensation? Never! They get the shit end of the stick.
I walk into the chemical sales arcade. I was told I could find some “effective micro-organism” mix here. Everywhere I ask they try and sell my fungicide, pesticide, herbicide, planeticide! The smell is crippling, literally. I wouldnt want to work in here or anywhere down wind or down stream from this hellish place.
For an organic earth loving Green Warrior, this is enemy territory. If Mr Monsanto crossed my path I’d make him drink his poison….Keep calm dude, I tell myself. The only reason this crap exists anywhere on this planet is because of the lack of real education and the corruption of agriculture by the chemical giants. If anybody disagrees just drink a teaspoon of their product and you will know their effects rapidly.
I go to the bookshop in the city. I look for books on sustainable agriculture. Plenty of books on conventional agricultural practices. All of them pushing biocides. No sustainable agriculture books. I do find one book on traditional family medicine gardens. Another good score. I look through the text books on agriculture.
Geez, agriculture looks boring through the idiots that wrote these books. Where’s the passion for the earth? Where’s the love for nature? What about the living soils? According to these morons, soil is just a bunch of chemical compounds holding up plants so chemicals can be applied. I start to realize why young people no longer want to farm their family’s land. Farming is heading towards being dominated by agri-buisness. It’s not cool to be seen with dirt under your fingernails. Everybody wants a job in an office in the city. Its not just Uganda, its everywhere. It gets me thinking. How do we change this? Why hasn’t permaculture been more effective…
Green hands in Aceh, Ex-combatants
Why hasn’t permaculture been more efective? Well the plain truth is permaculture is just information in a book.
Permaculture doesnt have a leader, it has an author. Permaculture is what we use to achieve sustainability. In short, permaculture on its own is not sustainable. Many times I’ve seen good systems put in place only to become overgrown or redeveloped into conventional systems. To really make a change in the world it has to come from the heart and it has to be permanently part of our culture.
Green Warriors, East Timor
It takes passion, dedication, initiative and determination to beat the problems of this world. Most people really want to change the world for the better. Ask around and people hate the current ways that destroy our planet. They feel powerless and constantly ask “What can you do?” and put their mind in neutral so they don’t have to think about where we are headed. People get passionate about sport….why not the planet. Young men join the army and die for their country…why not live for your planet? How can we draw out all the people that really care about the world and are prepared to do something about it. How can we give those people the skills that will help them change their world? How can we link them together and support them with money and resources. How can we make that group of people grow exponentially?
We need Green Warriors in every country. We need a new path for the dissatisfied youth of the world. We need to harness this wasted resource and empower it to heal our earth. Nobody owns the term Green Warrior. Nobody should either. Every organization that teaches sustainability, every permaculture school, every primary and secondary school and every university should have and nurture its own Green Warriors. Why not, nobody else is going to change the world. The current system is failing all around. I propose we all begin to plan how to start up a Gren Warrior movement in our areas. Ugandas Karamajong that have been addicted to aid for 40years can do it. The East Timorese have Perma-scouts. The Achenese have Green Hands, They are all warriors doing it for the planet.
I will publish the basic training syllabus for Green Warriors on GlobalSustainablityCorps.org website in the next few weeks. If any trainers or people with the right stuff want to assist in creating a network of Green Warriors accross the world I will assist them to do so.
In fact I cant do a job this big on my own and I have no intention of being its leader. It needs no one leader just many leaders and many groups putting sustainable systems on the ground. We can pool our knowledge, skills and resources and the Green Warriors will have a snowballing effect.
The Green Warriors as an organization will not exist, it will simply be a path for the people who want to make a difference to follow. We have enough organizations, enough administration, enough foundations, charities, schools, universities, groups, cliques and felowships.
Why not have them form their own Green Warriors and put them to work building something sustainable where they live. They can download a syllabus and a basic manual and off they go. If you can see yourself as one of the Green Warriors stay tuned, the tools are being developed right now.
Source: Steve Cran, Global Sustainability Corps. Content created by Steve Cran and Global Sustainability Corps is licensed under Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
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