Permaculture Email from Wayne Weiseman

The bird has landed in Nigeria. The sites and smells here are very familiar. It is as if I have landed in Bangladesh and Dahaka City yet again. The people are so warm it makes you melt on the spot.

I will be working with the large agricultural ministry here and around Kano. We will be putting farmer cooperatives together and looking at ways to develop value added products. I won't really know the goals until I sit down and find out exactly what they want.

Poverty? No way. The people are so rich in what they are: simply human. I think that sending pictures from here will be a bit of a stretch. I will leave them in the camera for when I return. Life takes us to many strange places, does it not? How different and yet the same it all feels. Americans could use a good dose of Nigerian hospitality. There are at least twenty people involved in every planning session and transaction. Where are all the people in the US. Hiding out in little boxes?

Visited the sprawling and dirty vegetable, fruit and grain markets today in the hundred degree heat. Dusty man. Fumes from every machine you can imagine. The largest grain market in Africa is here in Kano.

You can't believe how many cowpeas and tomatoes these people grow. Not enough markets. Everything rapidly rotting because of the heat. Too much of the same thing, eh? Sound familiar? Another unsustainable mono-culture, just like home.

Same issues, same problems here as anywhere else. Same conflicts between the know-it-alls, the have-nots and the in-betweens.

Anyway, already this has been an enlightening experience. Next week I begin training 60 agricultural extension educators. I am putting together an agenda based on my observation and assessment to date. If you have never visited a culture like this, and there are many of them, it is worth its weight in cocoa beans. It is a rich and revealing window into the modern predicament. It kind of makes you wonder what it's like down here.

Message 3 (2-8-07)
Bill,

I just returned from a day of visiting farmers at rural villages.
They are superb farmers. But, ironically, I was giving them advice.

This place bends your mind into another dimension. It makes you
respond with immediacy without all the accoutrements of American society.
After all, how many cars can we drive at the same time? How many beds can we
sleep in at once? If we put on more than one pair of pants in the summer we
are hot and people would think we're nuts anyway. Why do we really brother,
eh? What is it that we value? Is life for show and tell and one-upmanship?
What is up with all this Western way of so-called life anyway? Of course
the villagers are the happiest people on earth. Of course they have only
what is required for sustenance. Get the message?

Tomorrow I will be visiting another village area and then next week
I will be training these 60 extension educators. I feel more than up to it.
I feel that the training I have received in my community covers all the
bases and I am blessed for it. I feel I could go almost anywhere and be of
service. It makes me feel happy.

Life goes on, does it not? We can't stop the dang thang. The baby
will pop out no matter what the pregnant woman thinks. It is so simple and
we make it so complex because we stupids want to complicate everything.
Developing countries? Bullshit. Highly developed. Maybe just a little
hungrier than us.

Yours, Wayne

Message 4 (2-9-07)
Bill

Well brother, I visited some amazing farms today. Spoke with all the
elders. They know how to do it. Their irrigation system, called fadama, is
brilliant. In America we plant on top of the hill. Here they walk on the
hill and plant in the low lying area. Obvious, right? Obviously not to us.
You see, the hill will naturally dry out first, eh? Are you getting it?
Simple, eh? Eh? Eh? I want to institute this practice on our farm. It will
save unbelievable amounts of irrigation water.

They are growing all the same vegetables that we grow here. They
even have the same weeds. I love these guys. Sweet as honey and then some.
It is still dusty and hot as hell here, but dry. It is the kind of dry that
keeps your boogers in a petrified condition and you have to use a knife to
extract them. The Nigerian food is like eating in a new fangled health food
restaurant. Greens, chicken, yams, etc. So far, no stomach problems.

I love it here Billy. I love the richness of life, the colorful clothes, the smells, everything open and out on the streets. Nothing hidden. The US always feels so isolating. Neighbors hardly know neighbors, families are so damn fractured. We always think we have something to teach these so-called third world people. It is the other way around. I am not saying this from some perch of idealism. It is the reality and I am sitting in it right now.

Anyway, I will be in touch as much as possible. Next week I will be
over at the agricultural ministry doing trainings. I will be raising many
organizational issues and marketing questions.

Adieu bro, yours, Wayne

Message 5 (2-10-07)
Bill

To date. Life is worth living even if it is in the middle of the
wasteland. And this wasteland exists only because we think we live in
paradise. Everybody always wants the thing the other guy would rather
avoid. Desire is a gnarly thang. Longing is not gnarly but it makes you
ache. Get on the horse brother (or the donkey here in Nigeria), and take a
goat to lunch (they are all over the street). Or take a goat for lunch.

Today in the middle of the sprawling and exhaust and odoriferous
and the sprawling and bags of groundnuts and phone cards, I had a pizza and
a frappaccino. What will our Lord think of next. And right after that I gave
money to a family of beggars and asked them to please share it amongst
themselves and meanwhile I was sipping this frappaccino from a straw and
walking out of the internet cafe into the sprawling wasteland that is not
really a wasteland...

Message 6 (2-11-07)
Miss you guys.

I am off to the institute now to work with 100 extension educators.
Should be interesting. I have a pretty thorough agenda but it will start
with why are they not on time, ever. This one thing would solve 75% of their
current issues.

It is hot here everyday, about 100 degrees. The dust is intense,
blowing down from the Sahara. The colors are intense. I went to the
graduation for the jobs section of this NGO and thousands of village women
showed up in all their garb. Blinded by the light. Dancing and drumming.
Even the Emir of Kano showed up. This is surreal but no more surreal than a
permaculture course. Pigeon English is a funny thang. Life couldn't be more
full at the moment. How can one set of ears and eyes take all this in?

Yours, Wayne

(Later the same day)

Willo!

Just returned from my first training in one of the three ecological
zones here, the wet one. Thirty agricultural extension educators and little
ole me talking up the permaculture thing, seeds, budgets, documentation, you
name it. The people I am training are totally inspired and ready to sit down
in small groups tomorrow and brainstorm new ideas.

You see, this system works anywhere when you are dealing with
heartfelt folks who want to do something for others in this world. This is
definitely the case here. The farmers are the real salt and bread and butter
of this earth no matter where I go. It is the people that come after them,
the middle men, the sellers twice removed and all the others that control
the markets that f--k things up royally, and I mean royally.

I love this country. I love all the life here that is in your face
all the time, always. Look forward to more discussions and work tomorrow.
Then it is on to the second and third zones for more training. It looks as
though next week I will be in the south in the tropical zone. Should be
hotter and muggier.

Anyway Bro, what an experience, full, full, full! Love ya, Waynerd

Message 7 (2-12-07)
Hey guys,

They do speak English here, and Hausa, and pigeon English and a host
of other things. I spent yesterday in the boonies teaches these ag-extension
men. All the issues are the same with farmers it seems all over the world.
Bugs, funguses, cide this and that, seeds, etc, et al. So here I am
somewhere else and yet else is somewhere here.

I am missing everyone back home. The people are so welcoming that it
eases the longing somewhat, but when I think of little Halima (Wayne's 4
year old daughter) back home, it breaks my heart. I look forward to sharing
my experience in more detail with you guys when I return. Mark, hope your
shoulder is coming around. Sorry to hear that it is taking so long to heal.
Maybe the rest is helpful and you will be at full speed for the spring.

Love ya, Wayne

Message 8 (2-14-07)
Hey Bro,

Well, I saw my first massive camel caravan today way up north here,
close to the Niger border. I am working with these dudes way out in the
boonies. Clay and thatch villages, women in dark green colors, men
carrying concrete blocks on there heads. If I could balance things on my
head the way that these people do, I would be enlightened.

The dust is thick and my lungs feel like a rock is stuck in them.
This is Africa full force. All the things we have read about it are
happening in my face. I am not sure if I could live here over a long period
of time. The comforts of home are such an enticement, but you know...
somehow I wake up every day and go do the work. I have a week and a half
left here. They all want to know the truth about Ammerrrrica. What can I
say, Mr Bush and all that.

I am constantly on the go here as I am everywhere. I guess in human
time, God will not let us sleep until we are dead, if we are doing any
worthwhile work (this is not a prideful statement).

Love you brother. Wayne

Later that same day.

Finished the first training yesterday and off to another one today.
It went well beyond expectations.

Love ya. Dud

Message 9 (2-18-07)
Bill & Mark,

Hey there. Well, I picked up this lovely thing called malaria about four days ago - Intense fever, chills, nausea. Wouldn't you know it? I am being treated by an Egyptian doctor in a Lebanese clinic in a sprawling Africa wasteland of a city. Maybe I should get a camel on outta town, eh? This has been one of those windows into life as we know it not. I recommend it to everyone and at the same time I don't recommend it to anyone seeking to hold onto creature comforts and the American way of life.

I am here one more week, and depending on how my heath goes, may not do too much more work. Great time for reflection on all the things I've witnessed and about life in general. I look forward to being on home turf, but I know this experience will swirl around in me forever like a whirlwind that I can never stop. Anyway, brothers, I will be in touch as much as I can.

Love ya, Yours, Wayne

Message 10 (2-19-07)
Brothers,

So, malaria is an interesting dis-ease. You see, you take all these precautions against getting stung by this little bugger called a MOSQUITO! Well, this little impish creature from God knows where is a dive bomber extraordinaire and well, you may as well know it, we don't stand a chance. So, I was lying there on Thursday evening and the sweat starts pouring off of me and the heat in my body is like, well, hotter than coals, and then the chills start up full force and you are laying there with your stomach gurgling and you are trying to figure out, how you can be so damn hot and cold at the same time and you know that this is some kind of KOSMIC trick and somehow you let go into the experience and there you are still going through it and...And now I go to the clinic for five minutes to get an injection in my butt (not in the same side each time I want you to know) and you know life really does not never end, ever.

And tomorrow I am back out in the boonies doing the last training of my Nigerian tour. And I have pictures for all of you and stories up the wazoo (whatever a wazoo really is, does anyone really know what is a wazoo?). And this city still smells like a latrine and life is still hanging out all over here, and you know, if you look close enough, you will see life hanging out everywhere, full force, and the people here all share in what we all share in: life is struggle when you are attached. And even here, they seemed to attached to their own poverty. Go figure.

I will be in the friendly skies on Sunday at midnight flying into rich, rich, rich Amsterdam and then to Amerigo Vespucci-ville. I wouldn't trade this life I am having with anyone. It is all too rich to comprehend. And I am a baby just beginning in the middle of all of it.

Love you guys, and we will be speaking to each other on the device for ears in a minute, eh?
Yours, Mr Wayne

Message 11 (2-20-07)
Bill & Mark,

This culture is stratified to the extreme, to the point of military protocol. The guys that open gates salute you when they let you in. There are always three or four people come to greet you and work with you and they all have positions. This goes on in every area of life here. Position. I guess with the pressures here and the poverty, anything that smacks of position helps to relieve some of the stress.

There are no Wal Marts. There are no supermarkets. There is very little grass. There are shitloads of cell phones and small motor cycles. And they listen to plenty of hip hop and music from Amerigo Vespucci, the consummate mapmaker and Italian spaghetti chef who our beloved country is named after. His sauce is suspect but he serves up prime pasta.

So today I go off for my last series of trainings way the hell out there in nomad's land (get it?). I will see camel caravans and mud buildings. Concrete of course is taking over and corrugated tin, the building materials of choice in all these thirteenth world countries to date. But when it really comes down to it, it is the people that keep you on your toes and loving every minute of this. They are so gracious and they know how to greet you in a devotional sort of way and they have genuine concern of your welfare and they suffer like all humans do at times and they are the happiest bunch of folks in the world.

Anyway, I am running out of poetic things to say. The poet in me has to search deeper and find fresh facets of the experience, because, if we are not careful, even an experience such as this, so full and rich, can become stale. It really is all in the eye and mouth and ear and touch and smell of the perceiver.

Love you dudes dearly, yours always, Dub

Message 12 (2-21-07)
Guys,

Today I am heading into the boonies for the last time and finishing the trainings. It has been exhausting working with these folks. It takes time to get them to break down walls and begin to think out of the whatever. There is much stagnation here and it is reflected in everything they do, from politics, to getting up in the morning and facing the day. Lord help them if there is a deadline to aim for. They are sweet, perhaps a bit too sweet. There seems to be three directors for every employee. This need for position overwhelms any sense of propriety and stick-to-it-ness. Granted that this country has had its problems, but I feel that if they had some management skill this place could be a paradise. Maybe it is the constant hot weather. Maybe it is just the human devil in us, that wily ego thang.

I am looking forward to heading back to the farm on Sunday. I miss my family very much. But I also look forward to coming back here and following up the work. Without follow up, all the work disappears behind the foibles of the human mind. It adds another layer that maybe we simply do not need to add. Better that we always put all of this information and our discoveries into practice in this world. So, I feel that I need to come back here at some point to move this thing forward. If these guys could find one product to take to market that hits the mark, they could transform the entire agricultural sector. Think, think, think! With 80% of the people in Nigeria in agriculture it is overloaded. Only 40% should employed in farming in any society. If they could shift the other 40% into agro-industries life would certainly change here. They are always complaining about how corrupt the government is and that there is no money, but we know the trap this puts us in. Isn't it really about how we take steps, or that we even take a first step? I have been trying to encourage them to do just this. Take a step. But, hey bro, this is same problem no matter what culture. Why is it so hard to take that first step? Babies are persistent about it. Why not we?

Love you guys and look forward to seeing you soon. Wayne

Message 13 (2-22-07)
Brothers,

I completed the trainings today and they we overjoyed. This group was more on the money than the others. I feel that they will all move forward with this work in the future after I am gone. This, of course, is always a concern, that it will fall by the wayside with all the black-plastic bags blowing about here.

Tonight I will be going for dinner in one of the old markets called Sabon Guri. I have been hosted by the big agricultural agency here in the north by the director named Isa. A very dear man and always concerned about my welfare. He has been in the US so he understands the vibe. When I spoke about all the directors before I wasn't kidding. It is really hard to say what they do outside of having powwows about nothing all day. What a job. Somebody has to do it I guess.

I have enough dust in my nose to pack a kilo of oranges and I will auction off the rest of it on e-bay. This office has an air conditioner so I am free of Saharan dust for a few moments. Tomorrow I do a wrap up meeting and then on Friday I will visit a couple of more agricultural sites and then finish shopping on Saturday.

This is last place on earth that still does natural indigo dyeing in these big pits dug into the ground. I will buy more indigo cloth for the ladies in Carbondale. I have a tailor making a dress and jacket for Halima (Wayne’s daughter) out of this colorful cloth and bought an indigo dress and shirt for Frannie (Wayne’s wife). You know you could spend a shit-load and a butt-load of money here on gifts. Got to slow down.

Anyway guys, life continues to continue... Before you know it, we will be tromping around Mr. Shepard's land in June doing our thing that we attempt to do. I will miss all the people here and I will welcome home soil. Even life in paradise must end.

Yours always, Mr. Wayne

Message 14 (2-23-07)
Good Morning Guys,

Well, I completed the trainings yesterday so last night we went to the Christian section of town and I celebrated with a malt, non-alcoholic. Now, the Christian section is wide open and not sedate like the Muslim section of the city. Booze and lots of it. Music and dancing in the streets. It is more what we think of when we think of "Africa".

Today I will have a wrap up meeting with the host organization which is basically a bunch of the directors I have been writing about. Billy, I will be writing an article on the farming system called "fadama" when I return. I feel that the whole trip has been so interesting that it will pique interest. I also will be incorporating this irrigation model into our farm.

Always an interesting set of emotions when you leave a place like this. Sad and happy. Keep thinking about my little daughter waiting for me at the airport. I am so looking forward to our year working together. I had a flash of Mark's farm in the summer. Wisconsin in the warm weather, eh? So, I will be getting on the plane Sunday and flying home. The world is too small and yet, beyond our comprehension.

Yours, Wayne

Later in the day…
Just came back from the indigo dye bits. Quite a process. I am now purple after taking a dip. You may not recognize me. Love you. Wayne

Message 15 (2-24-07)
Brothers,

I am very ready to be on US soil. I wrap up with a final meeting with the agricultural ministry and all the thousands of directors that do nothing but sit around and... Then I have the weekend to finish my report for OICI, the host organization, and then get on the flying machine on Sunday.

I so miss having our weekly chats on the phone. I am so excited about the year ahead and all the time we will spend together doing the good work. I treasure our new found relationships. These kinds of connections are rare in this life and I do treasure them. So, what is it that we value in this life, eh?

WIll be in touch next week. My best to you Bill and to you Mark, the Shepherd of trees, and your crazy, wonderful, families.

Yours, Dub

Message 16 (2-27-07)
Hey Brothers,

I am home after 24 hours of travel. It is very surreal. I am up at 3:00 a.m. wondering how it is that Africa is over there and I am over here. What an experience. I thought of you guys often and wondered why you weren't with me. I look forward to our year together. I will call you this week.

Love ya, Wayne

Summay Article by Wayne: Permaculture and Illness: Relections on Nigeria

Midwest Permaculture

Wayne's E-mail from Kano, Nigeria