In Rutanda, the Project

The project I am working on is teaching farm management to and preparing a strategic plan for Mr. Arao Mutova, a farmer who lives in Rutanda, which is in Manica Provence about 6 hours west of Beira, Mozambique. You read that correctly, I am working with one farmer. But it is not as strange as it sounds, given that Mr. Arao (pronounced Uh-Ral) represents approximately 70+ people, including wives (3), children (20) and grandchildren (38) and some son and daughter-in laws, not sure of the number. Six of the adults and Mr. Arao work on the shamba (farm) full time and many of the older children work there when they are not in school. Mr. Arao has a total of 13 hectares and raises mostly maize, dry beans, soybeans, and wheat. He also raises vegetables mostly for family use but also some onions and potatoes for sale. Working with my translator Zacharias we have spent the last 5 days with Mr. Arao gathering information needed to make a strategic plan for the farm including assessing profitability with whole farm budgeting and preparing enterprise budgets as well as assessing the potential for value added products and then see Mr. Arao on Monday morning to give him a verbal presentation of our findings and recommendations before heading back to Beira the same day. We will then get the final document translated into Portuguese and print out English and Portuguese versions. Hopefully we will be finished by noon Wednesday so I have a little time to look around Beira before needing to get to the airport about 11:00 am for the flight to Johannesburg and then on to Atlanta and to Baltimore. Not looking forward to the nearly 17 hour flight from Joburg to Atlanta.