The grass is greener on the other side of the world

The grass is green, the trees are green, the maize is green—its all green, green, green.

It’s Malawi in February.

I’ve been away from Malawi for just over a month (home for Christmas and in Toronto for the EWB annual conference), but now I’ve returned to an entirely different country. Where before there had been rows and rows of dusty, heaped earth waiting for rain so that farmers could begin to seed, now there are rows and rows of maize, groundnuts, and potatoes. It’s a pastoral transformation.

Ground zero for this transformation is back in the village with Enos Banda (the farmer whose family I live with). I arrived to find him full of smiles, laughter, and low-fives (most friendly Malawian conversation is punctuated with frequent low-five hand-slapping). There was only just enough time to set my bag down and say hello to his family before he pulled me away to go take a look at his crops.

As I wrote last fall, I made a loan to Enos to purchase fertilizer for his crops this year. The impact of $600 never looked so good. We had only just turned down the path to his field when I could already see his maize—standing tall, having been fed with fertilizer, clearly head and shoulders any neighbour’s crop. We walked right up to it to see two or three long, plump cobs on each stalk.

More smiles, laughter, and low-fives from Enos followed.

Seeing that tall stand of maize was much needed for my heart. The transition back into Malawian agriculture headspace had been a bit disconcerting thus far—mostly my mind kept tracking back to my mom, dad, and sisters who I had said goodbye to for another year, and my 4-month old niece Agnes, who I won’t see again before she’s started walking and talking next Christmas. The last few days had me wondering if being so far away from home made any sense—if there was really any difference for me to make in a country of so many farmers but so few resources.

Enos’s maize changes all this. So do his groundnuts and potatoes. It makes me hopeful.

Being back at work, hope is necessary. I’ve set to work writing a critical report of my partner NGO’s efforts to commercialize cassava production. Bluntly, I think that they’re at a dead-end. Writing reports that say that a full years work has little chance of future success tends to be a brake on my motivation. But even if we haven’t got things right here in the office, seeing Enos and his crops makes me feel that it’s still possible to get things right—to make good things happen for farmers. Maybe not maize, maybe not fertilizer, but something.

Green, green, green. Maybe I’m a sucker or just an agricultural optimist. Maybe seeing Malawi go from dry and dusty to lush and green is enough to convince me to stay put.