Kimihurura Farming Cooperative

Since our very first week here at AEE we have been working at Kimihurura farming cooperative most weeks, which makes it one of our, if not, our most regular project we have been committed too.

Kimihurura farm is run by women in a local community. Some of these women are widowed and the income they earn from the farm is what they have to live off.

Rachel and Vicky watering

The majority of our time spent here is watering the crops. Although this may seem like an easy job that they could do themselves, it's the extra time that we are really giving. Whilst we are busy watering the crops, they can get on with other tasks on their agenda's such as feeding the animals or holding their team meetings with all the members of Kimihurura farming cooperative.

Henry filling up his watering can

The watering job itself can be quite tiring especially if the sun is out, as it is fairly physical as there is no hoses, so we have to continually fill our watering cans in the water holes. But we have a lot of fun together, we sing songs, and often it's a great time for us to learn more Kinyarwanda!

Chinwe, Rachel and Beth having a bit of fun!

A couple of weeks ago when we went to Kimihurura they asked us to work the land by using hoes. This was a really nice change for us from the watering we usually do. Also this gave us an opportunity to work along side two of the ladies who work on the farm. We had previously used hoes once before so we all had a fairly good technique. This meant we were much more efficient with our time and the ladies praised our efforts and work that we did!

It was particularly nice to help them with this task as one lady told us she was meant to be doing this work but was unable to due to her being pregnant! Like our previous time using the hoes, most of us managed to come away with blisters over our hands, but at the same time loving every minute of it.

Working along side two of the members of the farm

This particular project is nice for us to come back to and get stuck into physical work as all of our other regular projects are either teaching at schools or teaching English to the staff here at AEE.

It is also nice to come here as it is our only regular project that we get to work as an 8. It has been so lovely to work as an 8 and see how it helps our team to bond and have fun. In our teaching projects we always split up into groups to teach the different levels.

In summary our time spent at Kimihurura has been successful and after every session we spend at Kimihura the ladies are always very thankful of our time.