Where did the vegetables go to get a few drinks? The salad bar.
They have their national exams in 5 subjects: English, Math, Science,
Social Studies and Kiyarwanda. It has been a little bit of a
stressful week because these marks could determine if these students
pass onto the next grade. Because some of these kids have felt
overwhelmed, I’ve made this week a “review week”. The kids have been
bringing in their regular school work and I have been helping them
with their studies.
Because of this impromptu “review week” I have had some free time away
from lesson planning in order to focus on the garden project. Since I
have last written we have had much progress. But to recap, Hope
Shines has sponsored CSC in order to create a garden that will provide
the center with self-made produce for their feeding program. Since
many CSC children are living in poverty and/or living with HIV/AIDS a
healthy meal is imperative to their diet. In the future, should CSC
be able to produce a large and steady amount of various vegetables,
they will provide additional days to the feeding program. However,
just getting here has not been that easy. Like I have stated before,
CSC received this land from the local authorities… FOR FREE! However,
after much speculation I had learned that the land was not actually
free of cost.
In Rwanda, there is something called “expropriation”. By definition
it means “the taking of private property for public use of in the
public interest”. It is a process that has made possible by the
Organic Land Law of 2005. In essence, the government guarantees the
people of Rwanda the right to own land and will protect it from being
dispossessed. But in the public interest and in accordance with the
law, the government may expropriate (take) land paying appropriate
compensation.
Now, let me explain further in terms of the CSC land. A portion of
the vacant land was in fact being used by the local people. However,
the local authority believed it to be put to better use by giving it
to CSC, an organization that works with disadvantaged populations.
Now, this brings us to into grey territory. Technically, the
service CSC provides does not fit like a cookie-cutter in to the
definition of “public interest” because the services are only being
provided to its beneficiaries not to the general public. Even so, the
Organic Land Law acknowledges that there are special cases where
expropriation can occur for private activities that are of public
interest and the “nation at large”. CSC fits into this special
scenario because it is addressing the issue of providing better
nutrition of children living in the area. But we must not forget the
magic words here in this Law “appropriate compensation”. The law
states that the owners of the activities “shall be liable for payment
of charges for inventory of assets and of just compensation of the
person to be expropriated.” Further and in terms of our scenario,
basically even though the local government had been nice enough to
give CSC the land, CSC/Hope Shines must give the local people
compensation for any work they had previously done on the land.
Now, don’t think I stopped here. I started to think about the
ambiguity of “just compensation”. How does one appropriately
determine a price on labor on a free piece of land? I had been given
an “expropriation” price from the directors of the center. I, again
skeptical, started asking questions about who gave this quote, how did
they determine it and is it negotiable? Basically, this expropriation
price, which will be given to the local people who had previously done
work on the land, is a quote derived collaboratively from the local
people, the local authority and the recipient of the land. It is
based on the amount of land, the amount of work gone into the land and
whether the recipient of the land (CSC) will take crops that the
locals have already planted. Since, this is all overseen by the local
authority most of the time the quote is appropriately priced. (That
does not mean I tried negotiating it lower.)
Okay, I know, I thought I left the “legal” profession behind, but I
had done this research 1) because I was slightly interested and 2)
because I wanted to make sure they weren’t ripping us off! At the
end of the day and after much questioning, reading and speaking broken
Kinyarwanda, I conceded and realized this is just common practice in
Rwanda.
Since then we are seeing much progress. With the loan from Hope
Shines, CSC has been able to employ a farmer and a guard which will
protect and oversee the gardening process. Additionally, with our
friends at Gardens for Health International, we had an Agrinome visit
the plot to give us suggestions about how to go forward. He suggested
we take an organic approach since these crops will be used to provide
sustenance to malnourished and HIV+ children. We have taken his
suggestions and are using organic fertilizer (made from organic
material and cow and goat manure). Some of his other suggestions are
not within our budget at the moment but we are in the process of
creating compost which we hope will spearhead a sustainable organic
initiative going forward.
The seeds which have been planted are: onion, eggplant, tomato,
spinach, do-do, beans, carrot, cabbage, green pepper amongst others.
We have been working to prepare seed beds in order to prepare the
initial states of growing. Hopefully, it will rain enough in this
season that we will see the product of our hard work by December (a
nice Christmas treat!).
Although, this has been a long first phase in the gardening project I
forsee this project being a VERY positive initiative for CSC and the
children. There is much work to be done. In the future, we hope to
involve the children of the center in the actual act of gardening, in
order to provide lessons in how to cultivate crops. Additionally,
(although this is in the works) we hope to involve the widows and
parents of the children, employing them by providing wages for their
labor. And lastly, we hope to see some livestock in the months to
come, if it is sustainable. Maybe some rabbits, a goat and in the
distant future a cow. Needless to say there is much work to do but
this is a step in the right direction. Step by step.
“Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a
thousand miles from the corn field.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower
