Well, it’s been a busy couple of days. Work for me in Malawi is not that dissimilar to work life at home: basically going from meeting to meeting. The main differences are that (a) The meetings here never start on time and (b) Refreshments are pineapple Fanta rather than tea and coffee.
Just before leaving Scotland we received news that we have won a funding bid which will provide what we need to restore three of the eleven irrigation schemes which we have planned. This money will get the irrigation schemes working; extend the irrigated land to a total of 120 hectares using solar pumps; and support the smallholder farmers to grow cash crops on that irrigated land. This is all good news and so we had a planning meeting yesterday and another is planned for tomorrow to work out the implementation of this great initiative which will transform the lives of nearly 3000 people. Irrigated land means cash income for farmers and they will spend that on sending their children to school, buying livestock for their farms or improving their very basic houses.
Our partner her in Malawi s Nyika Food Trust (NFT) and this morning was their Board meeting. I was privileged to present to them the long term vision for our partnership and we had a great discussion and everything was approved. We will achieve great things together in 2017.
Now looking forward to a full weekend – life here is every bit as busy as at home but it does feel like we are getting stuff done!
And it’s 30 degrees….what’s not to like?
Kevin