My little excursion to ECHO

I am not going to sit here and lie to you all and say I was really excited about our field trip to ECHO. I am not a huge outdoorsy person and thought it would be just a very hot walk around a not very exciting place. Boy was I wrong! I found it completely facinating and a real eye opening experience.
The fact that they are able to utilize every single area of land so effectively, and that each section has a specific purpose was so intriguing to me.
I could write for pages about my outing to ECHO, however I shall try and keep it brief. I would love to share with you some of my favorite aspects of the trip. First of all, the Neem tree, a truly amazing tree that can produce not only medicines and toilitries, but can also be used as mosquito repellant. I never even knew it was possible for a tree to have so many useful products made from it. It's originally from India and people in India would crack the stems in half and brush their teeth with them, AMAZING!
We have been learning about sustainability in class, but it wasn't until listening to our guide at ECHO that I really recognized just how important and effective sustainability is. We approached a duck pond on our way round and I found out that the ducks are providing food for the Talapia in the pond. How do they do this your probably wondering? Well, where they sleep at night has mesh flooring, so that when they poo it goes through the mesh and into the pond. This poo provides food for the algae, which the Talapia then feed on. This really is a great example of sustainability and also the circle of energy and food.
I have had a very priviledged life, and so have never really had to look at the random objects around me and used them for other purposes. However, at the Appropriate Technology centre at ECHO where their moto is "USE WHAT YOU HAVE TO MAKE WHAT YOU NEED!" they are making things everyday. From bicycle powered chain saw's, to rakes made out of planks of wood and nails, they really are using innovative techniques to make very useful objects out of really not much. Truly incredible. I also learnt just how important bio diversity is as well. At ECHO, lots of different plants are planted in one area, this is so if a strain of disease kills one kind of plant, this means that not everything will be destroyed, just one specific species. I thought this was a really smart technique, and something I would never really think of, however it is so important. Especially for people that rely on their plants and produce as income.
Out of the whole trip, the part I found the most fascinating was definately learning about the Moringa leaves. These leaves are just jam packed with goodness, and can be a truly life saving source of nutrition in a third world country.
In just 100 grams of these leaves there are:
7 x vitamin c of oranges
4 x calcium of milk
4 x vitamin A of carrots
3 x potassium of bananas
3 x iron of spinach
2 x protein of milk
HOLY COW!!! That is a lot of stuff! I tried it and its not bad tasting at all, tastes just like spinach.

I can't put into words how awesome and educational this field trip to ECHO was. I have only touched on a couple of the cool and interesting things that are going on there, so if you have time I would really reccommend heading their yourself and seeing everything that are doing there. It will be such an educational and informative trip, and something you will definately not regret!

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