Go’n fish’n

Jabuka expressed with gestures like holding a fishing pole, drawing a lake with a boat in on a snippet of paper and one word from Mia “fish” that he wanted to take me fishing.  He wrote 40 km.   So happens that I have no plan for Tuesday.  The interpreter is translating the training material.  I am suggested nothing from my USAID hosts.  I say yes.  After calling his buddy with a car 7:00 am departure is negotiated (it is now 1:30 am).

Our car is and older quite dusty Mercedes Benz with a cracked windshield.  We stop for fuel and it turns out it uses compressed natural gas.  We travel north through brush covered hill and then tree covered mountains.  The driver is a very careful driver and I like the way he respects the car slowing for rough spots.  About 45 minutes out we see some nice farm land and examples of the primitive farms that I expected to visit on this assignment.  But now the roads are unpaved – drive more slowly.  Then we come to roads so rough they make my field lanes look like public thoroughfares.  The car craws in low gear for miles.  At a crossroads we met a 35ish man holding two fishing pole then walked to a very primitive house/farm with evidence of all kinds of animal whose droppings were everywhere with a pig tied with a rope. An elderly lady stood quietly as the men dug into small manure pile for worms.  Then we all pile into the car drove several slow miles where potholes were big enough to bury a cow and stones scraped the bottom of the Mercedes to a pristine undeveloped lake.

We fished taking turns with the two poles catching only a few three or four inch fish.  The fishing was unsuccessful but the day was perfection for me.  I got out of the city and got into farming.  The man with the fishing poles showed us his place with a lovely garden.  The house was primitive (outside toilet) but had two satellite dishes.  His wife a teacher was at school.  The kids walk many miles to school.  Shey showed me corn they were proud of – might yield 40 bushels and compared American hybrid corn with Georgian open pollinated corn which they thought was better.  Jabuka showed me his land – 200 square kilometers which is farmed in corn by his fishing buddy.  He dreams of building a home there.  His asked my opinion of the soil – it is black with topsoil one meter deep.  Alfalfa fields in the neighborhood were as good as back home.  There is agricultural potential.

This was a perfect day for my day off.