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Wed. July 1, 1998 - Today we saw the Quaker Rural Appropiate Tech- nology Centre. It is nongovernmental and really well organized. I am impressed. It was started in 1967 with the help of some German, Danish, and Norwegian Quakers. They had arc welding machines that they built, fence wire making machines, pigs, biodynamic gardening, foundry workshop and a working biogas digestor done according to the Chinese model as classically illustrated in the Chinese Biogas Digestor book. They even lit a stove for me with the gas. It was a crystal blue, no yellow, meaning that it was 90 % methane. The day started with a beautiful quaker meeting consisting of an Afrikan Christian hymn sung in Ndebele language. It bought tears to my eyes! I vowed to personally donate to this centre from Amerika. You saw pictures of it earlier. Later we went to the Cyrene Mission School where we saw incredible Afrikan biblical painting with an Afrikan Jesus with dark skin and Afrikan features. It was so beautiful. I think as beautiful as Michaelangelo. There was one painting with John the baptist standing in the water and the fish swimming in front of his legs. It was definitely museum quality. You saw this on the previous day fotos. We are staying in Figtree at a really nice hotel with a thatched roof room. The others in the trip are very agreeable. Looks like Tshuma is not here. Perhaps I will see him later this evening. Unfortunately I did not. It was probably too hard for him to drive here. I know he works several hours drive away. His wife and family are in Plumtree which is only 60 km away. I will have to see them next time. I am still in contact with Tshuma 22 years later and hope to one day see him again. We email each other and share photos.
