St. Amedeus School as a community and an ecosystem

I’m starting to think about this project as a board game or a computer game. Do you remember the game ‘Sim City’? The game required you to design a build a city from nothing. As your infrastructure grew, your population grew. Once the population grew, you had to expand your infrastructure to meet the growing problems. You never really could keep everything in balance because the variables were always changing. The game gave you the ability to raise enough money through taxes to continue to expand. There were options to connect with other cities to import or export services such as power or trash services.

Imagine starting a city in the middle of East Africa with much less money and not quite enough water and little ability to get resources from other villages. The population of this ‘city’ is 700 boys and 20 staff living on site. An additional 80 teachers and staff come to work during the day. The population has increased significantly in the past 2 years and it has outgrown its infrastructure. All facilities need to be expanded including water, toilets, livestock, classrooms, roads, and more. Almost all of the food must be produced on site for the city. It is too expensive to purchase the food from outside sources. The fall rains did not come and the spring rains are several months away. The grass for the livestock is gone and yet there are 60 head of goats and cattle to feed each day. The underground well provides just enough water for the city and for irrigating the vegetables but it occasionally runs dry. The soil has little natural fertility and the animals are suffering. There seems to be enough money but little extra.

This is the picture I have of St. Amedeus Secondary School. It is a beautiful place that has been well planned. Many of the systems work well together but they are struggling to take the next step forward in food production. Now I need to try and figure out what I can do to help. I do not have a budget and I may not get one. Any large expenditure must provide a big return. Next week I will be travelling to farms, seed companies, equipment dealers, and agricultural suppliers. It will be a crash course in farming in Tanzania and in the economics of agriculture. Maybe some of the questions and issues will become clearer as I continue to learn.

As I consider what help that I can offer, I am looking for the limiting factors. These are things that prevent the system from functioning as well as it could. The water supply is the main limiting factor so any suggested improvements must take that into account. Another limiting factor is soil fertility. This must be addressed in both the short term and the long term. Equipment and knowledge are other potential limiting factors. Others may become clear as I progress through this project. My challenge is to quickly understand what is happening and to make suggestions that will help the farm move forward in a productive way.