Agricultural Peer Training begins

Yesterday, the 9^th was the day that CRESS and Send A Cow (SAC) had been planning for months. Six farmers from CRESS, together with Rev. Joseph and I travelled to northern Uganda, Lira to be specific for a ten day Agricultural Peer Training with SAC. The South Sudan team led by Rev. Joseph left Kajo-keji on the 8^th, stayed the night over in Moyo and set out to Lira on a 9-hour bus ride yesterday. SAC was kind enough to send a driver over to Kamdini corner to pick up the team and bring them to the very nice 291 Suites hotel. I joined them from Kampala arriving at 4 in the afternoon. The team was obviously very excited to be in Lira and relax at a vey nice hotel; something really different from their experiences back home. It was such a funny moment during dinner when every single one of the women started to ask for posho when they were served rice.

Today was training day so everyone was up by 6:00am to get ready and have breakfast before devotions and the first training session led by Sheila Taylor from SAC.  Sheila was meant to arrive at about the same time as us yesterday but she had to leave the Kampala office late as she had to take care of a few things. On her way up to Lira unfortunately, their car knocked a child , and though they tried to rush him to the hospital, he passed away in the vehicle. It was such an awful and tragic experience for them and to make matters worse, they had to spend over 5 hours at the police station. Fortunately, their Kampala office sent another vehicle to meet them half way and bring them to Lira, causing them to arrive at around midnight. We therefore just spent our time after breakfast doing our devotions and talking about how our nights went.

Sheila came to meet us at around 8:30am and immediately got everything ready for us to start a little after 9:00 am this morning. Today was mostly about introductions, team building, expectations and an introduction to reflective learning, farming systems and resource mapping. Sheila is such a great and patient instructor, and together with her helpers Tito, Lydia and Dorcus, today was a great success. The most fun happened during the farming systems practical session when our groups had to draw the components of our farm systems and Joseph’s goats looked a lot more like zebras. We all had such a good laugh. Coupled with good food, and a great weather, the team incredibly enjoyed today and we are excited for the remaining week here with the Send A Cow Staff.

Tomorrow we’ll be visiting a farming group to do a little resource mapping with them so everyone is off to bed early. We’ll keep you posted on our Lira adventures.

Written by Golda Poni, CRESS Enterprise Officer