Send a Cow - Visit to Kayonza district

On Thursday I went out armed with a bottle of water, my camera and a notebook to visit some of the Send a Cow Rwanda participants. I went again with David Musoni - an extension worker from a different district, and one of the trainers as a workshop was being given. In all I visited 4 (out of 6 planned) farmers in the Kayonza district who were helped by SAC. (one was at the workshop the other was sick)

I'm currently working on the full stories and profiles for SAC, and can pass on to anyone who's interested when I finish..

Fred and Florence's cow has already had a female calf which will be passed on to another recipient of the project in another three months, Fred had cattle before the genocide so is really happy to have cattle again. The money they have made from selling milk and vegetables has gone towards having their three roomed house plastered, having electricity installed and of course towards sending their seven children to school.

This is Specioza, a recent widow, and below "stretchmarks" who is currently nine months pregnant (I think cows calve at 12 months or so) - this is Specioza's first cow, but she is already reaping the benefits of larger harvests due to stretchmarks dung

This is Dancilla and her family - they are building the cow shed in preparation for the arrival of their cow on August 29th (the cutey pie below has a name I didn't get - only the translation of "lover"..)



Clemence and baby Fiona, their cow has calved during the dry season which has been difficult, and it is also a male cow, which are not economically viable (as they drink more milk than the meat will fetch at market). The family have never owned a cow before, and have someone to help with the milking as they don't quite have the knack yet!

Some facts and figures - each cow drinks about 80 litres of water per day. Each owner makes the trip down to the local lake in order to collect this water in 20 litre jerry cans (between 10 and 30 mins away). Water is available closer from a tap, but this costs money (50 rwf per jerry can), and although some of the farmers collect rainwater during rainy season, the cows prefer the lake water. The cows remain in the sheds / shelters, as grazing is discouraged for environmental reasons - so the owners have to go and cut fresh fodder daily.

At the end of the day I was shattered as it is quite an intensive process - I was also somewhat dehydrated as it is difficult to balance water intake without drinking so much as to need to use the loo...