Kumwandika, Nasundu, Mlanga Irrigation Sites

Abdul Aziz (Mai Aisha Trust Manager) came to pick us up at 8:00am, today was an opportunity for us to visit the irrigation projects that Drop of Compassion have funded. Our objective was to see the progress made since the last visit from the other volunteers. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to see all the projects because of the floods some areas were inaccessible.

We went to Kamwandika, which bordered Nasundu Irrigation in the Madziabango area, as we drove into the area we could see the benefits already the land was filled with greenery and lots of crop growing.

On my previous visit I had met some of the people in Nasundu and for me it was heartwarming to see that they had surplus of fruit and vegetation that they were able to sell and make an income to build on their children’s future. Some of the children were coming back from school with their porridge.

This was a very tough day, the walk in the hills between the irrigation sites with the scorching sun hitting the back of our heads. Made us appreciate the tough terrain the locals lived in and the appreciation for water. As we walking we noticed that some of the pipes had been damaged by the rain which incidently had speeded up the local river where the pipe were connected. The locals in the area planned to get this sorted out as soon as possible, Abdul Aziz will report back to us about this.

We found the irrigation to be a very successful project, as it empowered the locals to take an initiative to grow, develop and harvest their own crops. The issue they faced was that the fertilisers they used wasn’t enough, but with surplus they were able to solve that issue.

While walking on autopilot and really struggling towards the end of the visit we received a call from Akif Jakhura (AMRA Team member) to attend a meeting at 5:30pm to arrange the logistics for the following day.

There was four of us attending this meeting with Akif, Omar, Irfan, Khalid and Bilal who are also volunteers for AMRA.