The VanHeerden's Farm

Today we went out to a 30,000 hector farm where a member family has been working.  They are moving next week so it was today or not at all.  It was nice to get out of the city.  They raise about 1,000 pigs there and also many chickens.  In the past, some of the missionaries had been able to go inside the buildings and see the operation.  However, today we were not allowed to do that.   

This family, the VanHeerdens, are originally from Zimbabwe where they had a good sized farm.  However, the government came in and took it away from them because they are white and then gave it to a war veteran.  They allowed them to keep their house there, but they could not live there because they had no work.  That’s when they came to Zambia and started farming for this other big farm.  They are moving now about 6 hours away from Lusaka in order to work on a smaller farm with his cousin.  We will miss them.  They said the government is considering compensating them for their farm, but it may not happen with this generation, but maybe the generation of their grandchildren.  Governments in Africa are scary.  Kathy, Andrais and Anna VanHeerden.

The place they stayed was very beautiful with nice landscaping.  We love the Jackaranda Trees, the pretty purple one.  The picture doesn't really do them just as to how beautiful they really are.




They also raise potatoes and were harvesting them.  So we went to the potato fields and watched them “lift” and pick the potatoes.  There was actually a potato digger and then they put them in bags and threw them on a truck.  It brought back many memories.  They really needed baskets or a belt, but they were working successfully in the hot sun without even having gloves. 
 
They raise some seriously BIG potatoes.  The don't fill the bags very full so they are much easier to put up on the trailer than the ones we used to fill.



Then we stopped at a cheese factory and bought some cheese. They have quite the operation there!