In December 2010, our team embarked on an experience we’ll never get in Singapore – farming for a good cause. Yes, you heard us right – farming. We were given the task to create a vegetable farm out of a plot of waste land in the education center that Genacts is developing, with an objective to create future sustenance for the center and a project that children in the center can work on during their discovery time. So there we are, a group of Singaporean who knew nuts about farming going into an agricultural nation to create a vegetable farm out of a plot of land covered with weeds as tall as some of the little children. A daunting task indeed, but we took it on with great enthusiasm and faith.
We read up as much as we could as we prepared for our project, and discovered the wealth of Science behind farming. With so much information to digest, we did everything possible up to the last night prior departure, and everything that came after that was a leap of faith.
On Day 1, we started cutting the weeds and ended the day with little encouragement. We could only work a few hours before we got subdued by the sun, the ground was hard as cement and tough to work on, and we’d only removed patches of weed at the end of the day. However, we decided it was just way too early to give up, hence we went earlier the next day to avoid the sun. Surprisingly, it hard drizzled the night before, and the ground was softer this time! The gardener of the center, who is a Cambodian, had started work and was progressing with great speed – and that was a AHA! moment for us when we realized that there’s a particular way to removing weeds – cutting from one end to another and rolling them up like carpet as we cut. That was when we realized that the smart aleck we were the day before when we plunged into work thinking we knew best, only to realize that we’d messed things up! From then onwards, we understood the need to work with the locals and learn from them, work through the communication challenges and achieve a real cross-cultural collaboration towards a common goal, and that was when things began to work out well in our project.
So on Day 2, we had successfully removed the weeds. The next step will be to plough the ground. After some discussion with the locals, we learned that there’s a machine to plough the ground, and that allowed us to rest well for that night. The next day, we arrived early again, only to realize that the “machine” is a cow with the plough! We had a good laugh, and went on to prepare the beds and sowed the seeds. By Day 4, we have about 10 beds of chilli, tomato, papaya and brinjal seeds planted, and the final step was to put up a fencing to prevent children or cows from destroying the plot.
Besides farming, we ran a children’s program as well in the afternoon when it was just too hot to do any outdoor work. We collected and brought a lot of educational toys to introduce to the children in preparation for the future education center that will implement the play and learn methodology, and the children indeed enjoyed themselves tremendously. The number of children just kept growing everyday as word goes around, and we ended on a high with a party for the children. The children left really excited with their goodie bags, and we had a great time of sharing with the local teachers after that as we celebrate a successful collaboration that crosses different culture and language.
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