Vision will not feed your children Part 1

 The Beginning

It was 2008, the year of Zimbabwe’s most remembered economic melt-down, drought, political and civil unrest. I was a final year student at Africa University and a single mother of one, facing an uncertain future after graduation. At the beginning of the final semester, as I sat outdoors contemplating my future, my eyes rested on the University’s field of winter wheat. My heart stirred and I remember it was a beautiful healthy green color, dense and weed free. Swaying to a dance in the breeze that even I became a part of as I watched, the crop held an endless promise of a better future for me.

That semester, I chose to do my work study program (working for the University in return for a financial scholarship) in the Horticultural department even though it would have been easier to choose working in the Library. This gave me an understanding of how the basics of horticulture worked and how on a small piece of land things could still happen and happen well. With time I realized that in as much as I didn’t have the academic qualifications required to study Agriculture, I had fallen in love with it. 

  I graduated in June of 2008 and now had to face an uncertain future filled with the promise that only I could see. With high hopes and excitement I used a portion of my parents’ yard to grow vegetables for the family and for resale. The beginning was me waking up at 6am to dig and plant Rape, in the excitement I didn’t even feel the cold or the hard work. For someone who didn’t grow up in what can be considered a farming family, or study Agriculture at school it was hard work. My maternal grandfather was a farming manager for an academic institution but the only influence I had caught from him was a love for motor bikes. He had a red  ‘Mudhumeni’ bike as part of his perks and that I loved.

The vegetables were beautiful to look at, big green leaves that tasted as good as they looked. I had a cousin who had received a farm during the Land Reform Program and I became his favorite in a way. He saw potential in me I didn’t see, he was more excited than I was. But I had planted during the peak season for Rape and so not only was there a glut in the market, this was also 2008 when prices changed every two minutes. It was a nightmare that reinforced the notion that this wasn’t for me regardless of the dream. This was when I was told  “vision will not feed your children”,  even now I still get teary just remembering those words. And I stopped pursuing it, I smiled and shrugged off any questions that my cousin asked about my farming ambitions and moved on with life. I wish I could say the dream forgot about me………

In time I got married and gave birth to 3 more amazing children. The marriage became toxic and as I tried to cope, my garden became both a source of food for the family and a place of therapy. It was evidence that I was good at something and as I talked to my plants  I figured things out. ((Don’t look at me like that, I remember reading many years ago that the then Prince now King Charles talked to his roses and they grew phenomenally well. If it worked for the King, it would work for me too)

 In 2017 I lost my job and the daily struggle was to save a few cents whilst ensuring that we got sufficient, safe and nutritious food. It wasn’t easy since I didn’t have much knowledge beyond the basics and no one to ask. Eventually I got divorced and moved around a lot, but the one constant was, I would establish a garden whether in the ground or in buckets or sacks it didn’t matter. It was common to find Spring onions, green leafy vegetables, sugar bean, garlic and pumpkin leaves in my spaces, they were the easiest I could think of. For my kids it was a legitimate way to play with mud, my youngest loved the idea of the family “buying” and eating the vegetables he had planted,  if they had been in the ground long enough. We had to convince him that not all plants were meant to be transplanted after he had moved pumpkin plants numerous times around the garden. My cousin gave me a free range hen for consumption one day and I figured why not start a free range project even without the requisite standard housing. We used plastic as a covering in place of a roof during the night. A friend gave me 10 chicks and I started my project.

 

I got the idea to start a brooding services operation for extra income. I underestimated the work required, raising 10 chicks is different from brooding 200 chicks. Long story short, they all died and I was physically ill for sometime. It was traumatic, picking dead chicks every morning and coming home to a report of more dying. I had to replace the chicks as they weren’t mine. I vowed I would do it again,in the mean time I needed to build capacity not only in knowledge but also in equipment.  

This was the begining of my relationship with agriculture. A story of missed opportunities regained, about vision restored and the beginning  of the many years to come of trial and error, falling, moving on to other forms of employment but always coming back to Agriculture. New always opportunities present themselves, part 2 loading.