Some people giggle when they are going to die - Extreme Permaculture with Steve Cran

I’m in the shower. There’s blood in the water at my feet. I’m picking bits of glass and small stones out of a wound on my head as the cold water eases my headache. Not a good day but I’m alive and so is my team.

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

I get called to Mbale by my boss. 4 hours drive to meet him half way from Kampala. We have to write a proposal. I missed breakfast and lunch and we arrive at 3 pm. Oh Wow! An Indian restaurant!! My poor little shrunken stomach can barely fit in the several spicy dishes. That night I realize although I didn’t order it, I got a free Deli Belly to go with my meal. No guava leaves here. For a day I nut out the proposal for the next phase with a gut full of demons playing rugby.

It would be great to be free of organizations. They are like the zombies in horror movies. All they want is “more brains”. They stagger on wanting more brains and you give them more brains but it doesn’t make em any smarter they just want more brains! I’m supposed to train 50 “Green Warriors” over 3 weeks and set them loose to solve 40 years of food aid addiction in 6 months. Yeah right!… I have to compromise my lofty goals. I’ll at least give 50 people solid hands on training and some inspiration. Some villages will be able to set up good demo models for others to copy but mostly its the usual “monitoring and evaluation” with my token force running around the edges. I grit my teeth and agree to the scheme because its a toe in the door and my gut says something else will develop. This cats not skun yet!

I head to Morotto but its getting dark and its pouring rain. After several hours of 4X4 adventure driving I arrive at some place called “Nuccups” with my driver exhausted. The vehicle looks like a mud brick on wheels. Its cold and I crash in a room buzzing with hundreds of mosquitoes. In the morning I come out of the room to a magnificent sight. The mountains are stunning. The shapes of the peaks are like old men looking down on us. Kenya is on the other side and the most cattle raids happen here. Its green and lush here. Im putting this place on my green warrior map.

I’m waiting outside the prison in Moroto with my team. Ram, Santos and the driver Buddy. The warden is arranging a meeting with the senior prisoners from our green warrior group. A million flies are buzzing around annoying the crap out of everyone. The rain must have activated them. We are sitting under a huge spreading tree with these little olive sized fruits covered in a crisp shell. They taste like sweet butterscotch. I look around for a fallen fruit. Dam! The goats ate them all, Oh well…Plunk, one lands on the bench in front of me. Thanks tree! I say to myself as I munch on the sweet carob-butterscotch like flavour. I don’t waste my time. I pull out an art pad I bought in town and draw 5 designs of the gardens I want the prisoners to build. The field we started on last week looks like a tractor went through it. They’ve been busy.

The big doors open and we’re led in to an ante room next to the superintendents office. The “super” as I call him is a friendly guy who genuinely cares about the prisoners welfare. He stores the tools we gave him in his office so he knows they’re still around.

The prisoners gather round a table with a blanket as a table cloth. I show them design by design. Ram translates. Two of the guys are being released about the same time the Green warriors project is supposed to start. I offer them positions on the project. They agree. They’ve already got Green Warrior fever. One stipulation though, I tell them they will have to come back to prison to train their mates. This brings smiles and vigorous nods. I look into each of their eyes…These guys may just make the difference in the future. Yes I’m an idealist but I take risks and the combination gets results most times.

I tell them its up to 2 organizations and a donor to fund the project so they’d better start praying. One guy has dreadlocks where the rest have shaved heads. Hey Ram, ask him why he’s got hair and everyone else is bald, I say. Ram reports back after some exchange that the guy is an artist! Oh right I say.

We hit the road the next day in our landcruiser Prado. Its muddy and I take the wheel as I spy a military escort vehicle loaded with armed soldiers speeding out of town. Best to follow them through the bush roads in case of warrior ambush. We are in fourwheel drive sitting on 70-80 kph on the greasy roads. Water is ponding in the potholes so its hard to judge their depth. The soldiers ahead are rugged up in wet weather gear and sit on a central bench seat with their weapons facing out. They have to hang on to their guns with one hand and the vehicle with the other as the ute dodges the worst holes. The desert is greening up and all kinds of birds are flying across our vision.

The military vehicle is about 50 meters ahead. I follow its tracks through the light mud. As I come around a slight bend at medium speed the vehicle starts to slide. I correct but the shoulder is soft an the vehicle slews sideways. Oh shit! We keep sliding. Nothing I’m doing to the vehicle is working. Buddy starts giggling. As we slide the wheels catch in a deep pothole and the Prado is flipped in the air and crashes on its roof. We’re sliding at speed upside down. My head has been bashed in by the roof. We hit the embankment and the vehicle rolls onto its side. I’m trapped on the bottom side staring at dirt and glass where the window used to be. Buddy is still giggling. Some people giggle when they are going to die oddly enough.

I’m cramped in by the crushed roof and Buddy is suspended above me. The embankment has pushed the windshield into the cab. I feel hazy. I wake up standing outside the vehicle on the road. What the…Is everybody OK I yell. Yes yes yes they all answer as somebody climbs out of the window. I see the military escort racing back to us. An officer gets out and his soldiers help us pick up all our stuff flung over the road. We cut some seat belts out of the Prado and make a tow rope. With the aid of the escort 4X4 we and several soldiers try to right our vehicle. No good. I retie the strap on a different tow point just as another old pick-up truck arrives with 4 farmers and 2 soldiers. With the extra muscle we flip the Prado back onto its wheels.

I thank the colonel and tell him I owe him some beers. He grins and shakes my hand. I watch them speed off as the soldiers wave. Lucky for us we still have the other 2 soldiers for security and the farmers. The farmers are bush mechanics and we all work together to make our car mobile. The air cleaner is full of oil. I cut up some water bottles with my $2 flick knife I bought in Kabong. We bail the oil out of the air-cleaner and pour it back in the oil filler. Finally I start the vehicle and drive it back onto the road. Its smashed but it goes. We go.

We make it back to Kotido at low speed. Air conditioned of course. No windscreen. My head hurts. We meet another staff member in town. The vehicle is drawing a lot of unwanted attention. Max tells me we have to get this vehicle out of town asap. The police see a white man in a damaged vehicle and all hell will break loose. This is not Australia. White men mean money and a few twists of the truth and all of a sudden I’m in jail and the vehicle is impounded and stripped. I get the picture.

A Kraal full of fresh fertilizer!

We get another military escort and head out of town. I’m in another vehicle following the limping Prado. Max tells me horror stories of the same situation in the past. I force myself to relax and breath. We make it to base but a policeman spies our wreck and starts making inquires. Max fobs him off with a story. At base we make a plan. Get the vehicle out of here to the next town 3 hours away before the police wake up. The driver agrees to drive the wreck even though he is as flogged out as me. Under escort they drive off into the dusk. Lots of phone-calls to the owner, the boss and several other conspirators. Done, time for a shower and some medicinal beer.

our new tank with garden. This tank is built with local fired clay bricks and rendered inside and out with cement. It holds about 6000 lt.

Town looks different. Hey, the electricity has arrived! Finally, Abim has light! I see the towns people at night for the first time. Ususlly its just shadows and the flash of a few teethy smiles in the dark. Now we are moving up! Santos and I share a cold beer.

I ask Santos how I exited the vehicle after the crash as all I remember is waking up standing outside, the first one out. He laughs and says, “You just went up”. Huh? “Yes you went up, just like that” I don’t get it. He laughs and says. “You got pulled up”

I still don’t get it. Buddy was blocking my escape route. Santos tells me he is happy because the project is going to work and he saw with his own eyes something strange happen. Mmmm… Oh well, we all survived another day in Karamoja. The batmobile is buggered but we live!

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