Spanning the Globe

Sunday March 4

(Text by David Moore) On Sunday, March 4th, it rained for most of the day. South Africa was in the middle of a severe drought. This was the first appreciable rainfall that the area has had in months. This rain has brought millions of Rands profit. I guess we brought the rain. In the afternoon, we visited Emoya Estates, a restaurant inside a game farm. We saw giraffes, hartebeest, gemsbok, and many kinds of birds while we ate lunch. We had traditional South African cuisine with Rooibos tea (a non caffeinated red bush tea) Later, en route to a small farm we even experienced elephants. We are sure to see more on the remainder of our trip. Later in the day, we met with Dolf Swanepoel, Projects Director for ADRA-South Africa, a development and relief agency, and visited the demonstration gardens for a program called NewStart Eco Gardens.

 

The farm is located about 15 miles outside Bloemfontein. The gardens are for those practicing organic small farm production for subsistence agriculture. The process allows low-income individuals in South Africa to produce vegetables on limited acreage without expensive irrigation. The process includes barrel collection of water to use in the drip irrigation process. This process can be used on most any kind of soil and has been successful here on soils with limited top soil depth with high clay, high silt content. We are enjoying the experience and our driving abilities are improving. Driving in the dark on the left side of the road is not easy.