ToT - Tag der Offenen Tür

Last Sunday was the Open Day of FiBL. I am not going to report on the activities of the day or give official figures like how many guests visited, for details you can check here http://www.fibl.org/de/medien/medienarchiv/medienarchiv13/medienmitteilung13/article/tag-der-offenen-tuer-am-fibl-1.html

Let me first started with Saturday the day before the open day, we had another big event for the FiBL colleagues and trainees - the MitarbeiterFest! But the day began with rains, and we were called to help setting up 20 pavilions for stalls in different locations. After working for the morning being soaked and tired, my stomach was compensated with lots of good cheese and bread. In the afternoon we did some shopping for the food stall and got back to the bee house doing some final preparation. The party started sharply at 5pm when the Cuban live music started slowly. Can't imagine the institute all of a sudden turned into a party place. A banquet hall with nicely set up tables and chairs with fine wine glasses on top. Colleagues got crowded around some finger food, FiBL wine and drinks. After some time of chit chat and getting together, we were ready for the food - organic and fresh full course first started with salad, the main course, dessert and unlimited supply of organic wine and beer. Of course, the best part is the dance floor of Cuban music, most of us moved along the music started dancing slowly, and I learned some new steps and moves too.

On the Open day I was running between the international group stall "the world of organic agriculture" and the bee house. At the bee house of course I would have loved to spend most of my time there. We had quite a lot activities such as honey tasting of 3 kinds of organic honey - mountain, flower and forest, the sound of bee - which is a local artist tries to harmonize bee sounds with human vocal. Salvador was giving explanations on organic and bio-dynamic bee keeping  to the visitors. He plans to do an international bee keeping course next year Spring, this course will run for 3-4 months during honey producing season. It would be cool to involve in his projects in FiBL.

Me- searching for my own camera

Salvador was explaining to the visitors - from Asia and Europe

kids looking at a small demonstrated bee frame

the sound of bees

For the international group, they showcased different projects in Africa - the African Organic Agriculture Manuel with some visual exhibition like how to make your own insect trap with recycled materials, a small cinema shows short films about market development projects in Africa and so on. I like the way they decorated the farm house - with African fabric and bundles of dried straws. Outdoor there were stalls for the cocoa projects in Malaysia, Bolivia and Ghana, cotton projects in India and so on. Pictures worth more than words, I will stop here and do more readings before midnight.

small African world in FiBL

Beate was giving out 100% chocolate powder as tasting

Irene our colleague from Kenya was explaining how African farmers practice diversified cropping

Nora and Monika the cocoa and cotton expert

Next month I will be in Germany for a month to attend workshops and conferences... Probably I will update the blog after a month or hopefully earlier!