27th August
Agroasie comments, prayers, praise & questions
Gee's family
Gee's family is well and nobody has colds or runny noses! I had a fun time teaching English. I can't believe I said that! It was only for 1 hour, but even with a few interruptions, we managed to get some good work done. Noy loves to study. She got smart and took her kids over to 'Ferang's' house while we studied. Ferang's wife just got back from the hospital with the kids. So the kids were over there for about 20 mins. With the kids around it's very difficult for Noy to get any space. Noy really needs some stimulation beyond the house. It'd be great for her to do some small 'cottage' work to help her feel she's got a wider life. I'm all for full-time mum's, but some time with others and something else in a small way is very health. Currently, Noy is a very isolated.
Gee has his new safe in the ground. It looks secure. Let's pray it stay's that way. While we act carefully, we trust in God's presence always.
The water in their house is 'dirty' again. The rain has also got into their neighbor's tank, which they are now drawing from. It is very dirty water. I think we could make provision for Gee's family to bathe with 'Bottled' water?
Selling Agroasie Products
We've managed to harvest some of our first fruits from the veggie patch and the big question is, 'where do we sell?' Perhaps get some Agroasie 'Organic carts' going and hire some people from our 'at risk centers; to sell from wooden carts? This is a serious idea. We sell and we promote our products. And it could be meaningfully work and could be profitable.
Beyond this idea, I've been looking at a few markets and they're not very interested in a better price for organic products. Also, they want big quantities.
Selling Bananas:
The best price the Mei Ka would give us for bananas was 700 Kip a wee (that's a hand of ban, about 8 cents)! I managed to find a market in town who would buy bananas for 1500 a wee (18 cents) if the bananas are 'large and good condition'. But how do I bring we transport them ?
1. Do I bring it down once a week?
- Should Gee bring it down, once a week?
- If we bring it to the markets in Vte, the normal time to sell is 1-3am
I will go to the organic Markets this Sunday to look around a bit more.
Selling egg plant
The best price I could find around town was 2 thousand a Kilo. Gee went to some markets to sell egg plants and that's the best price he could get. But, they didn't want the 'big' ones!!! The sellers didn't want to buy the big eggplant!! Can you believe that!! So we have to pick them smaller, which means we get less per plant. The assumption seems to be smaller is sweeter, or better. We had quiet a few big ones.
In all, it took Gee about 5 hours to come down to VTE drive to 4 markets to sell egg plant and banana flower. The total return was 73,000 kip.
17.5 kilo of eggplant at 2000 kip per kilo= 35,000 kip
41 banana flower at 1000 kip each= 41,000 kip
Total 71,000 kip
What's coming up to sell this year:
- on-going sale of bananas
- 6 hectares of soybean in or going in the ground
- probably 100 kilos of egg plant in the ground at the moment
Gee's neighbor- Mr Ferang
It's nice to see Gee's children playing with Ferang's children. The wives are on very friendly terms.
Ferang now has his artificial leg. He's practicing very hard but he's quite afraid of putting weight on his new leg. He will need many adjustments to get the weight correctly balanced on the new leg and for no sores to happen as a result of the skin rubbing on the prosthesis. Depending on his confidence, he will probably take another week or two.
Tri-cycle
He has requested a tri-cycle to help him get around his village. A tri-cycle would be of value to his mobility down the street to the market, or to the hardware shop. I think a tri-cycle would bring Ferang some more mobility.
A Japanese project funds and trains local welders to make tri-cycles in the COPE center. I spoke to Mr Nori, and he said tri-cycles can be helpful for people with an amputation like Ferang's. To make and send the tri-cycle to the village, the average cost is 150 USDs. We could pay all of this, part of this, or nothing!
The center is trying to be sustainable and asks for a 'contribution' from the user. Some users give 10,000 or 20,000 Kip.
Keep praying for that Mr Ferang won't loose hope about his double disability and his ability to live a meaningful life. He's put on some weight, which is a good sign! He seemed better on my last visit.
Pray that we'll get an opportunity to share the love we have in our hearts for Mr Ferang, his wife, mother and two children.
Questions, prayers and Praise
Praises:
1. The neighborhood road into Khok Peng 2 is repaired
2. We built our first 'bridge' and it works well. So the tractor is now driving
through our land.
2. Still no flooding of Mekong, yeah!!
3. We have our first load 'free' Lao tobacco- about 100 kilos of it. We mixed it
with water and sprayed it on the plants and it seemed to be working well. No
ant problem anymore and so we got the lettuce in the ground now!!!
Yeah…yeah, for 'Lao Tobacco' company!!!????
Oh, by the way, an article in the Bangkok Times was reporting on Tobacco companies in Malawi. The article said that some tobacco companies in Malawi were using children to harvest tobacco plants without protective clothing. The children were tested and found to have high concentrations of nicotine in their blood. It was equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day!
Would this be happening in Lao? Seriously, anybody have any ideas? Lao Tobacco is an ISO company, that's why they are 'responsibility' giving away their waste to be used for organic material. It is part of the ISO waste management requirement.
An ethical question to think about: do we 'deal' or do business with companies who are known to be unethical? Something we may want to discuss. Or do we wanto work with unethical companies in the hope they will change? What are our fair trading and/or fair ethic policies?
