Well this is the first time I will post straight to the blog - hope it work and thanks guys for setting it up.

  Today was the best day yet!  We drove to Sargodha again to attend the farmer field school - similar to our cittgroups.  They have 25 farmers registered to come fortnightly and all attend religously - farmers not registered are also allowed to attend.  From the farmers I saw there they seem to have the same demographic as us - all older.  They use a system where they get the farmers to teach themselves and each other and are only facilitated by the extension officer.  As they have never really been educated in farming they are learning to identify insect pests, nutritional disorders, disease etc.  They are also learning canopy management - no pruning has ever been done in the past.  The school is held on a growers property who has canopy management trials and high density trials on his farm.  Today they were sent into the field to observe damaged leaves, branches and fruit and they did this in groups of five - each group has a spokesman.  They bring the items back and stick them on to butchers paper and write down what they think is the problem - then the spokesmen take turns in describing what the identified problems are and how to manage it.  The rest of the groups soon tell them if they think they are wrong in the identification or how they would manage it.  This leads to much discussion in the group and seems to get them thinking on their own and makes it easier to remember what they should be doing.  This is very new to them as in the past they relied on the extension officer to make all the decsions for them.  The session lasts for half a day and then they are given lunch - a cooked lunch with rice, naan bread and curried mutton or chicken - I know I have mentioned this a few time but the food really is fantastic.  I am having trouble getting the food into my mouth without having a knife to use to remove the meat from the bones - you only get a spoon and sometime a fork.

  They included us in the discussion and were very interested to hear how we manage nutrition, pests etc.  They are extremely grateful to have visiting 'experts' ( i use the term very loosly) from Australia to share our knowledge and experience.  Again I was asked to talk about our grower organisation and how it operates and from what I could understand of the following discussion they are keen to get started in this direction.

  The farmer whose property we were on has a lovely property (25 Ha) and besides his citrus he has planted dates, plums, apricots, almonds, mangos and pomegranates.  He also has many types of flowering plants - a real garden of eden.  He also farms fish so has a large lake with an island in the middle.  He grows fan palms as well to sell as advanced plants.  Again I caused much hilarity when I took him up on the offer of rowing me around the lake - not really sure why that was but the cameras came out in force again.  The farmer introduced me to his wife (only the second woman I have spoken to while I've been here but I've seen plenty) and she insisted on having her photo taken with me.  She also showed me around her house which was fairly modern compared to the nearby village.  Great tiling and exquisit carved wooden furniture.  Speaking of women - not many wear the burka or any covering on the hair at all, and many are dressed in western clothing.  The people take great pains to tell me that their country is safe and it is only in the north west province where there is trouble.  In their words 'where the idiots with the turbans live'.  I would have to agree with this from what I've seen and heard most Pakistanis are moderate peace loving muslims who have been very repectful, warm, kind and generous.  While we were sitting around having a cup of tea there was much discussion on how they are ruled by their wives - again in their words 'before we were married we were lions now we are jackals' to which I replied 'Men they are the same the world over - all complaining about their wives'.

  English is the national language however most of the growers speak only a little english, so some translation is needed fom Urdu (not sure of the spelling). 

  As alcohol is not really allowed in Muslim countries (they tell me it is served in certain bars/clubs and it is in every mini bar in the hotels) they have a non alcoholic brewed malt drink that tastes like beer.  They gave me one and as I'm not really a beer drinker (i don't like the taste) I couldn't really see the purpose of it.

  We travelled back to Lahore this afternoon for another meeting tomorrow with more project collaborators.  They will be taking me to visit some gardens and if we have time have a look at the old city.  I will be flying out to bangkok late tomorrow night and arrive back in Australia on Thursday after another days stop over there.  So hopefully more shopping and another massage - depends on the floods I suppose.

  cheers

  Mary

  I will try and post something if I have something remotely interesting to tell.