seed purchase

With the 3 women's groups that i have, we've been learning about how to make compost piles, cut the tires, blah blah blah. We're ready to plant now.

When i was in my old site, i sold seeds. I decided to take a different approach to seed attainment now. The villages that i work in are closer to an "urban center", so they have more of an ability to go and make the purchase. That doesn't make it easy. The women have never bought seed before, and it's a rather and somewhat daunting endeavor.

What i am doing now, and hopefully, it's done, and i won't do it again, is literally teach people how to buy seed. It may seem really simple and easy, but it's kind of necessary. Were i to only tell people "go buy seeds", it wouldn't happen, and they may end up getting ripped off. I went around in town and priced the seeds at a bunch of different places in order to find the cheapest and highest quality seeds. Then, we had group meetings to decide what they wanted to plant (ended up mostly radishes, cilantro, cucumbers, and carrots). Then we asked each woman to chip in 75 cents. Today we made the purchase. I asked the women to come in to town, and I met them there, we then went to the store, and they bought them. Now, within the groups, we are going to split up the seed so that everyone has a little bit of each variety to plant in their homes.

Next time, they're completely on their own.

They laugh. I tell them, it's not that i'm a jerk/lazy and don't want to help them out with their seed purchase. I tell them that I want them to be able to do it on their own.

Empowerment.

That was cheesy.