Dear All,
Warm greetings from Kampala, where I am resting for a day before catching a late flight back to the U.S. on Saturday. I wanted to start with an update from my last post: I am really happy to report that 56 crafts were purchased and we raised $1,285 towards our goal of $1,360 to purchase a grain mill for the Iman youth entrepreneurship group in Imvepi. This is really remarkable! Thank you so much for your generosity. My suitcases are stuffed to the brim with baskets.
My final weeks in Imvepi were also truly remarkable. Between wrapping up our current research and laying the groundwork for next year's projects, Alex, Robilert and I were racing around the settlement and fully occupied right up until my last evening in the settlement. I'll share with you some of the highlights in my final post for this year:
Wrapping up firewood walks
We finished up the last of 240 firewood walks (120 total with hosts, 120 with refugees) on December 1st. On the refugee side, the very last walk took us through a rushing stream beneath a waterfall as we looked for firewood in Imvepi's Zone 3. Crossing the stream was no easy task as we struggled to find footing on slippery rocks, with our participant additionally balancing more than 15 kg of firewood on his shoulder.
On the host side, we had our final walk with a lovely gentleman whose compound was filled with fruit trees, including a 20 year old Jackfruit tree. He sent us home with two freshly-picked jackfruit (called fenne). What I love about jackfruit, in addition to the delicious flavor, is that it is a very communal fruit. One person cannot eat a whole jackfruit, so when you bring it home, you expect to share it with all your neighbors, and they expect to share it with you! My friends helped me cut the fenne into big chunks, taught me to use oil to prevent the sap sticking on my skin as we savored it together.
Training on woodlot measurements
When my advisor John Munsell visited in May, he helped us to create a strategy to estimate the density of tree stands on host property, which is not simple given the size of their landholdings and the diversity of treed areas. We developed a sampling approach to measuring tree stands, yet due to time constraints, I was not able to finish all of these measurements. In our last two weeks, I got Robilert and Alex trained up on measuring trees in my absence so they can proceed to measure into 2025, uploading the data for me to analyze from the U.S.
Harvesting simsim and cowpeas
Refugees and hosts across Imvepi are fully occupied with sesame harvest, which is a time sensitive matter. If over dried, sesame seed heads can shatter in the field and the crop is lost. My friend Lilly's family has planted a field of sesame which they expect to sell and use the income to pay secondary school fees for two family members. Robilert and I offered to help out with the sesame harvest and joined the family in the field, pulling the sesame stalks and arranging them in bundles to be tied and carried home for drying. We munched on cowpeas intercropped with the sesame as a snack while harvesting.
Harvesting sesame and cowpeas
Setting up a new project for next year
Growing annual, staple crops such as maize and cassava is increasingly a necessity for refugees as food rations decrease, yet this often leads to tree removal and can cause soil degradation over time, especially in the absence of fertilization. Planting nitrogen-fixing trees (NFTs) and shrubs along with annual crops could help to boost soil fertility while also providing an additional source of firewood through branch prunings, but right now there isn't data to show the potential benefits in a semi-arid, refugee-hosting context such as Imvepi.
To see whether NFTs can improve maize and cassava production in Imvepi, we are setting up some research sites with randomized treatment plots to test the impact of three tree species on soil fertility, moisture, and crop yields when compared to maize and cassava grown alone. We also are going to test the impact of applying biochar, which is a fertilizer made from burning organic material in a pit in order to conserve carbon and limit methane pollution.
The first step was to find land for the experiment. We identified three host landowners who were interested in participating, under the terms that they will provide land at no cost yet will keep all of the crops and trees planted on their land and hopefully enjoy improved soil fertility going forward. Each landowner next convened a meeting with their family members and had everyone sign a sheet indicating that the land is indeed available and free from family conflict. Then we convened a meeting with all of the landowners, local refugee and host governmental representatives, and a representative from the Office of the Prime Minister to review the project terms and conditions, and sign land contracts for access to a total of four acres in the coming year.
Meeting with landowners and OPM (right) and signing land contracts (left)
For the purpose of the experiment, we need to produce a lot of biochar which will be applied to half of the experimental plots. We are going to make biochar from dried cassava stems which are sold at a small cost by hosts locally. I held a workshop on biochar making this week with my team for this project: Robilert, Alex, and Lilly. We first dried cassava stems on a tarp for one week under the sun so that they burn very hot. Inside a large pit, we layered the cassava stems with grass, set fire, and continued adding layers to keep the flame alive and reduce smoke. Once the material burned, we quenched the burn with two jerrycans of water, and the biochar was complete. The team will keep working on this while I am away and store the biochar in bags until planting in March.
Biochar workshop
Research party!
On my very last day in Imvepi, we held a party at Lilly's home. In addition to Alex and Robilert, we were joined by our back-up motorcycle driver and Lugbara translator Brian, and our original refugee translator Josephine who just returned from completing her first semester at nursing school. Alex bought a rooster from his neighbor for us to cook, while I sent Josephine and Brian to the market to buy meat, vegetables, rice, maize flour, and other ingredients for a big meal. Josephine and Lilly worked diligently in the kitchen for hours, preparing a delicious meal, while the rest of us were out in the field finalizing some land measurements for the experiment sites next year. We all convened to relax in Lilly's open-air meeting shelter and snack on the freshly harvested fruits of indigenous fruit tree Balanites aegyptiaca (also known as "desert date").
Alex and Robilert with our lunch rooster, Lilly and Josephine cooking a beautiful meal
Our party was lovely as we together recalled the ups and downs of our 10 months of fieldwork: the back-to-back 8-mile firewood walks and 6am wake-ups with Josephine, as well as the challenging river crossings and frequent shoe removals with Alex. Robilert and I remembered stuffing our cheeks with local fruits and enjoying the seasonality of the unique tastes. We remembered bumpy rides up and down the steep and rocky slopes of Imvepi with three of us loaded on the motorcycle, and our mantra whenever conditions became rough: "this is Imvepi."
We sat in a circle after eating and shared gratitude with each other. I was really touched when Robilert said "thank you for the joy, the laughter, and the smiles." I felt so glad that he has taken this from our experience working together, and it entirely mirrors my own experience. The past 10 months in Imvepi has been one of the happiest, most meaningful periods in my life and I am deeply grateful for what I have learned-- not just about plants and firewood-- but also about living deeply in community and the resilience of the human spirit amid extreme hardship.
For the next few months, I will miss the smiling faces of my neighbors each morning greeting and hugging me when I wake up. I will miss the energy and laughter of Robilert and Alex, who now call each other "bro," as they truly have become international brothers. I will miss long evening runs around the settlement, with tiny children yelling "how are you!" and trying to run after me. And I will miss that last, cold, refreshing bucket shower at night as the moon rises and insects start chirping.
Thank you so very much for staying tuned with my blog, and I will look forward to writing again as I return to Imvepi in March. In the meantime, I wish you a wonderful holiday season, and a very Happy New Year. Please don't hesitate to be in touch!
In peace and gratitude,
Sarah
A wonderful wrap up. Have a nice time at U.S and hope to continue with you at Imvepi come early March 2025. Kind regards to the family and friends and happy holiday
Thank for sharing this amazing experience! We have so enjoyed reading about all your experiences.