Where there's a will, there's a way.

A garden is so important to Urukundo. Farm manager Eugene is in charge of this project.

Thanks to clearing and filling, we now have a plot for planting.

Preparing the ground for planting

Soon it will be a garden. This is land beyond Hope House, toward the school. The ground is very fertile, and seeds planted should do well. The harvest should be plentiful. Another reason to give thanks.

Our property ends at the trees. Just beyond the trees is the Learning Center. When funding is available, our land will extend to the road and school. A hope to be made real.

This garden is larger than the garden that is now the home of the dining room which is under construction.

Life without school

Here’s an update on what is going on in the life of Claude, our 13-year-old secondary (junior high) school student.

With opening schools still on hold and the music program finished until school opens, Claude wanted something to keep him busy. He has always liked the farm and the animals there. Yep, he is becoming a farmer.

Theresa, manager of the Sewing Center, made him a coverall to protect his regular clothes. Urukundo bought him a pair of boots, and he was ready to work.

Feeding and watering chickens takes up a lot of his day.

Claude said he does not like the pigs, and the cows are very big. I understand that. These broilers will be ready for market soon.

The cowboy is in the teaching mode, and Claude is the student. Being friends with the cowboy is very important. Cows are honored in Rwanda and being a cowboy is also an honored position.

The farm got a great helper, and Claude has a learning experience to his credit.

Farm update

The pandemic has made us more aware of the need to have earned income and to be self-sustaining. The farm has the most potential as food is a necessary commodity all the time, no matter the circumstances. For some time now, we have looked for ways to improve the farm. Thanks to special donations designated for the farm, our buildings have been made safer for our animals and more day-old chicks have been purchased.

Removing buildings that are no longer usable to make room for our expanding poultry production is a step needed. Demolition is a part of improvement.

Benjamin, our maintenance manager (in the red hat), and his crew of three carefully remove the roof tiles. They will be given as promised to the woman who sold us this piece of farmland. It has been a long time coming and she has been patient.

We used the building as a place to store bulk food for animals. Finally, after feeding mice, other larger rodents, birds, and heaven knows what other creatures who stole our animal food, this old shed is coming down. It is a mud-brick structure. Mud here is red. Age and weather also have also taken their toll.

We now store animal food in this well-constructed building.

There are screens on the windows to keep out birds. There is a door that closes to keep out uninvited guests. It’s definitely a safer place to store animal food and necessary wood chips for baby chicks.

There is a story connected to the old building.

This was the only building on the piece of land when we bought it 14 years ago. The older woman, Esperance, who sold it to us, wanted the tiles from the roof. Now, I ask you, what good would a building be without a roof? I refused, but I promised her when we tore down the building, we would give her the tiles.

For several years she came almost every week to make sure we had not taken the building down and kept the tiles. She was keeping her eye on her roof tiles. I don’t blame her. I was determined to keep my promise to her. That was my first direction when the old building was to come down: “Remove the tiles carefully and call the lady and let her know she can come for her promised tiles.” Bless her heart. She came to see if it was for real and when all the tiles were removed, she and helpers loaded the tiles into a truck and took them away. She was very pleased that at last, the tiles were hers.

Yes, now 14 years later, the dear lady has her roof tiles. We have kept our promise.

The roof is off. The tiles are gone. Progress in action.

The mud-brick, shed-type building was in bad shape when we purchased the land. The rodents in this building were a danger to our baby chicks. No more predators.

All that remains.

July 2020 Newsletter Special

Meeting expanding needs

We are moving forward constructing a dining room big enough to meet growing needs. This dining room will be attached to our current kitchen and can be built and paid for as funds become available.

The first step is clearing and leveling the ground, which has a minimal cost. The new building will be built much like the Sewing Center classroom, only bigger. It will measure 40 feet wide by 72 feet long.

The reason for this construction: The number of students eating lunch at our school will increase. In order to have space to social distance while eating, a larger dining room is needed. It is essential to protect our children, teachers, staff and adult students from the coronavirus.

It also will be more convenient not to carry food outside from the kitchen to the dining room as the weather can be a problem. As we prepare to build the new dining room, it is necessary to remove the unused rooms located between the kitchen and the garden so that we can connect the kitchen to the dining room.

In time, a classroom will be needed as we hope to expand adult education.Teaching traditional arts and crafts is soon to be a part of our tech training school. Our current dining room, though small for a dining room, will be a perfect classroom for teaching arts and crafts once the new dining room is complete. Traditional arts and crafts include baskets, jewelry, hand carvings and items made using available materials

This development means the garden and buildings next to the kitchen have to go.

There are changes on the farm as well.

The cowsheds at the farm are no longer needed as we have reduced the size of our herd to three cows and two babies, a boy and a girl.

We also need more space for chickens. In tearing down the buildings to make room for the dining room, we are carefully removing roofing, ventilators and especially the bricks. We are cleaning the bricks, taking them to the farm and using them to change cowsheds into a chicken house for 1,000 chickens.

The bricks are being used to enclose the ends. The workers also will use the bricks to construct a wall with windows on top of the retaining wall already in place.

This level is in front of the cowstalls.

Preparing to build a dining room and constructing the much-needed chicken house at the same time seemed to be a good way to move forward.

I believe the term is “killing two birds with one stone” or "waste not want not."

One very important thing for me is being able to keep many local neighbors earning a little income to feed their families during this pandemic. I am thanking God that Urukundo can help our neighbors and at the same time care for Urukundo. God is good.

Ingenuity

These three young people and a mom had an idea to help them earn tuition for secondary boarding school. The mom is Libby, a long-time employee at Urukundo.

Having three kids in secondary school is an expensive deal in Rwanda, especially in the aftermath of the coronavirus.

With three months before school is to start, Libby tried to think how she could help her kids stay busy and at the same time give them a way to help themselves earn money for school in September.

Pigs and chickens were chosen as the answer. She would purchase babies at a low price. The kids would have three months to feed and care for the animals. At the end of the three months, the kids will sell the animals to help pay school tuition.

Alain chose chickens. He will care for these two young chickens. You may remember Alain. He was the child who had a run-in with a spitting cobra several years ago. It is good to see him well and attending secondary school.

This young lady, Delice, chose a white piglet.

To be sure which pig was his, Chance chose a black pig to be different from his sister. In the September newsletter, I will present photos of the progress and joy of this special project to earn money. It may be difficult for the kids to give them up. We will see.

They are little.

Sunflowers thriving

OK, April showers do bring June flowers.

Our sunflowers came a bit late, but they did come. We will have some for seed and some to feed our chickens. There are many flowers even though it does not look much like a uniform garden.

When I lived in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA, my neighbor had a cherry tree. The cherries were beautiful. The birds thought so too. The owner of the tree bought a big net and put it over the tree. This kept the birds from taking his harvest. Well, I kept that in my memory bank and tried to apply it to the field of sunflowers. We have lots of birds who like sunflower seeds. I explained to the farm manager how we could take old mosquito nets and put the fine nets over the large plants keeping the birds from devouring the seeds and still allow the sun to ripen them. We might then have the seeds to feed our chickens. I imagined a net tent made up of old mosquito nets.

Imagine my surprise when I was given this photo of the understanding of covering the flowers

Makes sense but too much work. Guess nature will have to take its own path. We may have fat, healthy wild birds. We also will have seeds for planting and food for chickens. My farm manager has assured me of this.

Sunflower

So disappointing! This is what the heavy rains and flooding did to our sunflower crop.
The flooding washed all the seeds to the wall, and it looks like a sunflower jungle. Our plan for planting vegetables could not work. Guess we will try again next planting season because we now have put in ditches around the garden to protect the plantings. For this season, we chalk it up to “live and learn.”

Look closely. There is one little sunflower.

On the farm

Dogs are part of our farm world.

Hey, they haven’t heard about the six-foot separation rule.

Hmm!! Guess they haven’t either.

These farm workers seem to be breaking the rule. However, they have lived together and worked closely together during February, March and April without moving off the farm and never leaving the campus. So close is not dangerous.

Farm News

Production continues at the farm. Nine babies. Mama pig looks tired.

September rain has begun. Workers prepare a field for planting.

Hello from the farm

Old MacDonald had a farm and so does Mama Arlene.

I remember singing this song as a child and teaching it to my children and grandchildren. Here in Urukundo, our children also sing this song and in English.

We don't have all the animals in the song here on our farm.

We do have chickens.

Our egg layers are beautiful and productive. We do not have a cock-a-doodle-do.

Layers are a source of income. As the demand for eggs goes up, so will the number of layers. Seriously, no rooster. We buy our layers as day-old chicks.

Broilers are also bought as day-old chicks. How fast they grow after only one month! They are sold after three months.

Pigs and piglets

Our mamas produce large litters.

The story of biogas:

Our pigs are a necessary part of our farm. We do not butcher pigs but sell the babies to private parties.

Now here is the cycle our pigs make possible. Our kitchen has many scraps as does the dining room. These scraps are fed to the pigs. Pigs provide manure for our biogas. Biogas is used in cooking the vegetables in the kitchen.The kitchen provides food for the pigs.

Hey, it cannot get better than that. A perfect round robin.

Cows. The one outside the shed is me. Oh, yah.

Love the little black and white calves (baby cows).

We have four cowboys and one intern: Pierre, Jean, intern Abais, Everist and Jovith.

We are honored that other schools choose the Urukundo farm to send their students as interns for further training.

Our boys who work the farm are actually called cowboys. No, they do not ride a horse, wear a 10-gallon hat, sing or play guitar. They also do not ride off into the sunset. That was only in movies from long ago. That was Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter & Tom Mix. Showing my age.

Our mountainside farm.

Pigs at top, cows in middle, chickens on bottom.

Built one level at a time. Seems like the pigs should be on the bottom, not the top.

Drainage is well contained and not a problem as it is collected and used in biogas production.

A short history of the farm

Our farm started as a place purchased to move 40 chickens from the boys’ compound in

Gitarama town. When we rented a compound to start a home for boys, 40 chickens went with the property. Chicken dirt and little boys were not a good mix. We decided to move the chickens out into the country, so we bought a piece of land for that purpose. Not to move the boys, just the chickens. Later we moved the boys and all of Urukundo to this land. The cow first came as a wedding gift from one of our employees, so we needed a cow shed. A visitor from Ringgold, Pennsylvania, USA, decided we should have pigs. So like Topsy in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (age again) the farm just grew.

It is now a productive part of Urukundo Village.

News from the Farm

Bringing you up-to-date, farmwise.

At our last monitor and evaluation meeting, it was decided to reduce the number of cows from nine to three, not counting calves.

Owning cows means wealth in Rwanda, but providing grass and food for them is a big problem. We have tried different types of grasses and maize (corn) fodder. When you use the milk only for home use and not to sell, two fresh cows are enough. We do sell the calves, but that does not add up to enough income to support the cows.

What to do?

After much deliberation, it was decided to keep three cows, one for milk and two to produce babies. OK, maybe I am not so knowledgeable, but as I see it, one cow would be giving milk, another would be nearly ready to deliver and the third one would meet with a bull.

Make sense???

Where does the farm make its money? The chicken part of the farm is our main source of revenue. It was decided to convert all but three stalls for the cows into chicken houses.

With more than 100 laying hens, we use the eggs at the home and sell eggs in the community. We also sell young layers to beginning farmers. Chicken manure is also sold as garden fertilizer to community growers.

The largest number of chickens are broilers. These are raised on a rotating basis. We try to bring in day-old chicks every month as we sell full-grown broilers each month. Our customers are hotels, restaurants, schools, other NGOs and our village. On any given day, we have more than 3,000 broilers.

We are trying to get more customers, but we need to have more space for more chickens. We have an old building on the farm that can be torn down and a storage barn could be built.

The building has a bad roof and holes where small animals invade and birds fly in and eat the grain. It is also not a good size for storing food for the animals.

I thank you for the generous gifts you have sent so that we can continue to improve our farm and vaccinate our animals, pay our cowboys and buy food for the animals. We cannot grow enough food for the animals as land is scarce and the growing season short.

With more space we can up the production of broilers and purchase many more day-old chicks.

Our goal is for the farm to be self-sufficient someday or at least break even.

Donations for the advancement of the farm are so needed and appreciated.

Board member visits

Last but not least, Urukundo was honored to have Louise Medland from the United Kingdom come and spend a week at Urukundo. Louise has spent many years as part of our family and was here for our 10th anniversary celebration.

Louise is a member of the International Board of Directors for Hope Made Real.

Louise’s expertise is in financial reporting and management. Her advice and knowledge were a blessing to our staff.

Newest addition

The farm at Urukundo announces, “It’s a girl.”