This will be the last edition of postcards from Lynedoch as I am already in Tanzania. I wanted to write an update of how my last few weeks wrapped up though.
I had mentioned the module on Facilitation for Just/Sustainable Transitions that I was going to take- I took it. It was similar to the previous module I had taken on Leadership and Environmental Ethics but at the same time different. The style of teaching was the same of putting students experiences at the centre of learning, and the class was co-facilitated by Eve Annecke, one of the co-founders of the SI/Lynedoch development, and a former SI student. The mood was different for me- I found it a lot more pensive- but that might have just been me, and something to do with endings, etc.
Credit: www.minersshotdown.co.za
Within the class we had for a guest lecture a screening of Miners Shot Down, a documentary on the Marikana Massacre in 2012. One of the miners who had been shot in that Massacre spoke to us afterward. The miners strike is still going on- the longest strike in South Africa’s history- and the documentary screenings are a way to both raise awareness around the country of what really happened in the week leading up to the Massacre and on the day; filling up the many gaps that what was presented on t.v. had, and to raise funds and support for the striking miners- striking for a living wage. I am amazed and glad that the footage is even available- and it is everything from powerful, shocking, angering…..everything. Information on how to organise a screening somewhere and other things one can do are available on the website.
I gave 2 presentations on getting to know various groups and projects of Transition Brasilândia while in São Paulo. This was good because I finally was able to do a bit of the passing forward of what I had learnt from, and about what was going on in one place. I need to figure out how to do that more and such that the first place I went to learns about the rest, etc. Ideas?
A 50m2 garden in Gugulethu that can produce enough vegetables for a 4 member family every week-Abalimi.
I did an interview with a homeowner, visited the iShack project (finally- it’s a bit ironic that coming to Lynedoch I knew about the iShack project and was very excited about it, and then I only managed to go in the last week I was here- life, 😀 ), and visited two innovative organic agriculture schemes that link organic food producers to consumers who place weekly orders- a box scheme but it’s really more complicated than that. One is in Stellenbosch (The Green Road) and the other in Cape Town (Abalimi bezekhaya).
I also did a bit of research on planting taro (also known as ndũma, arrow root, magimbi, malanga, yam, colocasia esculenta, amadumbe, khoai môn, inhame dos Açores, inhame-coco, what other language?) because part of the gardens at Lynedoch get flooded every winter- and besides rice and lotus, only taro can grow in flooded conditions.
The Sustainability Institute, Lynedoch
And then it was up and away, not believing how fast time really had moved. Off to a new place, and getting ever closer to home.