Changing the face of Zone 4 in Thembalethu

One of my best friends in the entire world is Abdul. Abdul is one of the founding members of The Themba Development Project and he grew up in Darfur, Sudan. One of my favorite activities is sitting with Abdul, his wife Fatima (Sudan), and our friends Afsa, Fatuma and Rukiya who are from Congo. We tell stories about our life, they tell me about life before coming to Canada and I get to learn about other cultures and lifestyles. One day while I was sitting with Abdul he was telling me about when he was a child, before the genocide which is currently taking place as you read this. He would spend the entire day in the bush with his friends, they would play, and explore. I asked him one day how he was able to play for so long without going home to eat when he said, "Catherine, everywhere you looked in Darfur there was food, food growing in the trees, on the ground, in the bushes." This is when it dawned on me that the missing piece of the puzzle in Thembalethu is fruit trees!

After a year and a half of planning, fund raising and a lot of hard work, one of my dreams took place this week. With Abdul's story an idea was born and this week we planted over 100 fruit bearing trees throughout this community. We planted guava, pomegranate, plums, avocado, peaches and apples, all of which are in public spaces for the entire community to enjoy.

Today when a person is hungry they suffer, but soon when the trees have time to grow, when a person is hungry they simply need to walk to the street and pick a basket of fruit.

Not only will the trees provide an improvement in the food security of this community, they will also provide shade from the hot sun, wind resistance from the strong ocean breezes as well as protect against soil erosion. Any fruit which is not eaten will return to the Earth as fertilizer.

Armed with a team of men who are unable to find work, we set out to change this community. It was a wonderful day that united us. A special thank you to Radermachers Nursery for providing such a generous discount on our tree purchase.