Old Friends greeting early morning

We met Boyce more than six years ago (Harisen and I) and he taught me to make real compost. (He had also grown the biggest carrots I had ever seen!)At that time he was way ahead of his time using no fertilizer in growing his maize, if only the Government and the NGO's had listened to him, Malawi would now nor be on the edge of the precipice.
I greeted him and told him he was looking well, he replied he was healthy anyway.
We were in his village on invitation to help with conservation farming, but what I was asking for was very much outside their experience and tradition.
I asked for 10 hectares of land to be divided between the women for a model farm. It is a measure of their trust that all the village headmen (and two women) and the group village headmen will sit down and try to thrash out a unique solution to my request. It will be difficult, almost impossible to give ownership to women, who have never thought of such a solution. Strangely, heads nodded and women smiled as I suggested that Malawian men tend to have difficulty co-operating and women work together somewhat better and what might be better could be a little private ownership, not all the land, but enough to have enough maize to eat and some to sell. Everyone using the same, new system, without artificial fertilizer, after Year 1, or noxious pesticides
There were serious rays of hope, they will give it serious consideration for the common good. Men and women alike see it as a positive move and I have great confidence in them, as we have toiled long and hard together, not without our difficulties Exciting times ahead, but only with THEIR plan.