Work continued this week on the first structure for the Energy Farming campus at Kishong Village. The four-room building will serve as a guardhouse and a toolshed, and provide a base of operations from which the first plantings can be directed. Local laborers worked with Energy Farming and Carpentry & Construction staffs to excavate the hillside with shovels and wheelbarrows, leveling out the 240-square-foot foundation. Soon wooden supports will be set and joined with bamboo walls. When it’s finally capped with a corrugated roof, the structure will perfectly match the farm homes spread out across Kishong.
Conservation-in-Action
In keeping with the theme of conservation in rural Africa, the rocks uncovered during excavation will be carted and used as gravel to extend the reach of the road into our land. This will be a vast improvement over the cow path currently used as a point of entry for vehicles. A gravel road will be most welcome as we approach August and the peak of the rainy season.
Once the house is completed we will begin fencing our Kishong property. Years of grazing cattle, goats, and sheep have given the soil a healthy dose of manure and nutrients, but no plant life will be able to grow unmolested until the perimeter has been properly secured.
