If you’ve watched year one or two, you know I sorta struggled. I have been here in Tanzania since August and it finally feel like I am doing it right. I learned a ton about farming from YouTube videos. I’ve written about it before:
I spent a lot of free time this past year becoming educated. After you pass a certain threshold of learning the basics and your location, you begin to experiment, and I have quite a number going on.
After watching hundreds of YouTube orchard and tree videos, the farming solution I came up with is a regenerative/syntropic practice that cuts and drops any branches, along with pigeon peas planted between the rows, to produce nitrogen and mulch.
Everything is organic, with no chemicals, poisons, or formulated fertilizers. I’ve multiple layers of trees that will be successive into the farm’s future now. I also consider my technique to have integrated biodynamic farming into the solutions. Although I don't have domesticated or farm animals, I’ve wild animals—specifically the mongoose, which eats mice and snakes—to provide solutions to problems haha.
I’m really involved in my community now, and I’ve never gotten into local politics—surprisingly! And I have to say, I kinda love it. I get into the conflicts and am surprised at how I deal with them and learn more about my own mind. I would rather just be all alone but the world still pulls me in, and it works out better. I’m talking about fixing water lines, dealing with erosion and roads, and noise and light pollution. Crazy things I never even thought about before living here. I’ve always considered myself a Libertarian, but some of these people are out of control—and there’s no such thing as a building code!
The one failing I still have is my lack of Swahili. I do learn more words, but not a ton, and when I listen to people talk I still only pick up one or two words, but I can get the gist of what they are say— though I don’t know how.
The guest house I am building is in the video background, but it’s still incomplete. I expect it to be around May, hopefully. Right now, it is starting to rain a lot, so I am dealing with a lot of mud while riding my motorbike down the hill to the tarmac road.
I am befuddled by the outside world and can’t make much sense of anything, so this is a great landing place for me at this point in my life. And oh, I finally got my residency approved and am about to get a national ID for Tanzania. I would have never guessed this would be my life five years ago but here it is.
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