Catching up, Botswana Independence Day, 50 years!

 Bots 50 as it was being called, was the Botswana Celebration of 50 years of Independence.  And it was celebrated this year on September 30th.  It is hard as an American to understand what exactly this meant but it was easy to tell that it meant a lot to the citizens of Botswana.  I believe they began preparing for this day years in advance.  There were huge celebrations all across their country.  Of course, this meant that our students were going to be celebrating this day abroad, without there families and close friends.  Also, with the time delay it meant they had to watch all the celebrating that happened in their homeland before we celebrated here.  I imagine this was just a wee bit difficult for them.
We did managed to throw them a pretty good party here in honor of this great day!  

Charlie, Max, Phil, and Moitato maning the grill!

The guys leading us in prayer and singing their National Anthem.

We are pretty international here at Alliance. I believe we had at least 7 different nations represented at this celebration!
Botswana, United States, Philippines, Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Brazil and Mexico!

Milk Afric and Alliance Dairy celebrating Botswana Independence Day together!

 It has not been all celebrating since the students got here.  In fact I am pretty sure the guys would tell you that it has been a lot of hard work!  It takes a lot of hard work to run a dairy efficiently, it takes hard work to run any business efficiently.  But I am thankful that we have been able to celebrate some good times together.




Maggie

Catching up, 4th of July Celebration

The blog has been silent for awhile.  We apologize.  We have still been working hard, just not documenting it here.   The blog will be managed, at least temporarily, by the wives (one is a publisher after all)!  We would like to play catch up for a bit and then get back on track with updated news about the students and daily dairy ongoings. My husband, the Milk Afric General Manager, and I arrived in Florida June 1st.  We had a quick get together with the students and then it was off to work! Dairy farming is relentless but we have had a few reasons to celebrate every now and then...

As an American one of my favorite holidays is Independence Day!!  What a fun time we had this year.  The accountant of Alliance Dairies graciously hosted the team members of Milk Afric at his river house for the Fourth of July.  So my family and I celebrated the US holiday with our Milk Afric Botswana students and it was a wonderful day!  We are in Florida without our family and they without theirs who better to celebrate with!

General Manager of Milk Afric and 2 of his boys (my family)

Thabo and Amo enjoying some rays on this beautiful day.




Quick boat trip down the Suwannee River

Chow time!!!

Our family didn't go to see any big fireworks this year. After a day spent on the river we were pretty wore out.  The kids and I let off a few small ones in the yard.  But it was a great day spent with great friends.
Check back soon..this Independence Celebration was fun but nothing compared to the Botswana 50!!!!

Twinkies

These three donkeys have been part of LDE since we got here....

.....and they now all pregnant!

Agriculture Apprenticeship - The Tale of Two Interns- Tumi and Moitato

In Southern Africa today, farmers are aging with the average farmer in their 60’s.

The transfer of the skills of farming, the art and science of agriculture to the next generation of farmers starts with training.

Our obligation to sustainable agriculture compelled us to incorporate an internship/apprenticeship programme for young agriculturalists seeking an inspiring, unquestionably rewarding and valuable work experience before embarking on our dairymen training programme in the USA.

These future farmers form the next generation of farmers upon which the replacements for the mature farmers is derived from and have had an opportunity to see our Lobatse Dairy project from infancy.

Tumi and Moitato have learnt the ropes from more experienced professionals and “agropreneurs” and now form part of our intellectual pool vital to the expansion of the emerging sustainable food system.

Moitato (left) and Tumi (right)

Tumi (left) and Moitato (right)

 A quick soils lesson......

 Mzee - our Madala - a walking encyclopedia on anything CAT Dozer related!!!!

Construction Updates

We started with the construction of our bio-security entrance........