Dirks fabulous adventures in Uganda: my return to Africa

After we returned from our little excursion to the elephant trench I inspected the Eco Farm to find out about the changes since my last stay.

The first thing that caught my eye when we arrived is the new gate that has been built. The pigs were all gone. Instead the pighouse was temporarily used as a carpentry as Claudia had built two new cottages. As one was built for a friend of Claudia’s who later withdrew, Stefan bought it right away. It’s a nice cottage built on a solid foundation, with brick walls and a traditional grass roof which is way more effective in terms of keeping the outside compared to roofs made of corrugated metal sheets. There’s another unfinished cottage next to the other one. Further up the land Claudia had drilled a borehole for a water pump. While I lived at the farm, we had to get water from the nearest pump which is located at a distance of approximately 1.5 km. It was hard work to pump the water into jerry cans and took around three minutes each. We were able to attach three of them at our bicycle. Depending on the season we needed to go for water several times a day. The drinking water needed to be boiled before use. As they drilled down to the ground water, the water from the new pump doesn’t need to be boiled anymore. That saves a lot of time every day! Claudia allows the neighbouring families to use the pump for free but she had to define opening hours as there were too many people on the farm during the whole day.

What else did I find… Ok, the kitchen… we used to hang shower curtains and plastic sheets to protect the kitchen and ourselves from the heavy rains and winds during rain season. All the constructions never lasted for very long. Currently there’s a curtain made of plastic caps of soda bottles. I don’t know if it really works but it looks nice anyway.

In front of the kitchen you will find a lawn and benches. Then Claudia changed the paths that lead through the garden. I was pretty astonished that the garden was still pretty green even though it was the end of the dry season. I could see a few bunches of banana, papayas, pineapples… still green though but that will change very soon. Then there was another new place with chairs and a table. I guess they were made of bricks and cement.

Down at the green houses I discovered bunches of grass that were used to cover the roofs of the cottages. And then, what a surprise, I found out where all the caps that they made a curtain from stem from. Instead of using tarpaulin to cover the green houese, they built a cover made of plastic bottles on sticks. It looks great and I’m sure it will withstand the rains and wind for a much longer time than the tarpaulins that were pretty much worn down only after three months during the dry season. What a cool idea!

In the garden I only found chili and peperoni that was soon to be ready for harvest. Part of the chili was put on a rust for drying.

The fireplace for burning the garbage was moved from up where the latrine is to a place farther down where the green houses are. The land beyond that place was now entirely prepared for planting maize. At the end of the field Claudia had planted many eucalyptus trees.

In the meantime a sponsor bought the land beyond the eucalyptus trees where a neighbour used to live. The land is currently not in use. There are still a few bandas and other constructions on site, traditional ones, partly destroyed. It’s not yet defined what this land will be used for but who knows, maybe someday tourist will come to this place to spend a night or two in tree houses.

the farm’s entry is now gated