Isabel's South African Adventure: Pig farming... and a road trip!

Hello fellow readers,

Hope you all had a good week. Mine was quiet because of the lack of children but very busy as the “Reach for a Star” project is well underway. All the cards should be distributed to the 49 churches by the beginning of next week J very exciting!

Another exciting thing I would like to tell you about is a meeting we had on Thursday, when a man called Johan came to visit us. He works for a company called SACBC (The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, http://www.sacbc.org.za/). He works in the department which goes and builds houses for orphan’s whose living conditions are not suitable. This is one of the reasons why some of the children are placed here at Saint Anthony’s by social workers. Although Saint Anthony’s is on their database, they have not worked together as of yet... that’s where I come in. As I am working on a staff and child database which contains information such as the reason why they are at Saint Anthony’s, I will be liaising with him to try and find those children who need a more suitable home. This way they can be reunited with their families quicker and make room at the Home for other children. This will be my first priority once the Reach for a Star project is complete.This was the first point on his list; the second was how to keep Saint Anthony’s going. It is no surprise that the state of the world economy means no one has any money meaning funding is slowly decreasing. No funding means no Saint Anthony’s. Therefore the only option is to become self sufficient but how do you do that in a country as poor as South Africa? The answer is simply... agriculture. No matter how poor you are, the one thing you will spend money on is food!

Before passing away, the founder of Saint Anthony’s brought a farm to do just that. However to this day, it has not been used. This is where Johan comes into the picture. He suggested setting up a pig farm! You’re probably thinking why pigs right? There are actually many reasons (as you can see I learnt a lot during this meeting):

They reproduce twice a year and up to 15 piglets a time whereas a cow only produce one calf a year
They don’t need to be vaccinated or dipped unlike cows
They eat everything so we can give them the scraps from restaurants/hotels rather than having to buy hay

Johan, as well as having his own pig farm in Mozambique, has a friend who started her own pig farm. After just a few years, she is making a yearly profit of 2 million Rand (£123 000). The water at the farm is also very nice which means it can be bottled and sold too. In addition to all of this good news, Johan said he would be happy to relocate and run the pig farm himself!!! Everyone was delighted to hear this as I am sure you can imagine J Another positive thing about having a farm is that the children of Saint Anthony’s can help. Here in South Africa, you learn farming from your parents however as a large part of the children here are orphans, where are they going to learn these skills? The pig farm answers this question. By helping out on the farm on the weekends for example, the children can learn important skills which they can use to set up their own farm if they wish to do so once they leave Saint Anthony’s.

In addition, as the government is trying to push agriculture in South Africa, South African citizens (only!) can receive a start-up grant of 35 000 Rand for setting up their own farm. The forms needed to receive this were filled in at the end of the meeting so that Johan could hand all of it in on Monday (1^st October). As farming needs time to generate profit, it was important to get started as soon as possible! With the grant, Johan will be able to set up the farm and buy pigs, chickens and maybe a cow!

I think the pig farm is an excellent idea J

Now I would like to tell you about my amazing road trip on Saturday (28^th September). Having not travelled further than Maria Ratschitz, Malume thought it would be a good idea for me to go with him to Ladysmith. This is a town a little smaller than Newcastle situated about 1.5 hours south of Blaauwbosch. He was travelling there to pick up a priest called Father Donal who was visiting from Scotland. Having had a long week, I was looking forward to having a relaxing Saturday and the idea of sitting in the car for three hours did not sound that appealing to be honest with you. However I thought it was very nice of Malume to ask so I didn’t want to refuse. What I did not realise what that in Glasgow, Father Donal lives with another priest called Father Eddie who lived in this area of South Africa for a very long time. Therefore Malume wanted to show Donal not only Saint Anthony’s but also the places where Father Eddie had lived and preached. The fact that I came along on this sightseeing road trip meant that I got to see these sights as well! I could describe what I saw but words would not do the views justice... Take a look: