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At dawn, whenever I draw water, I take my son, France.

When he grows up he will be able to do anything.

I remember he told me that he dreamed he was a pilot.

We see planes passing, and they leave a line in the sky.

I always tell him, "That line you see are fumes,

which are contributing to climate change. "

But he said, "You know what, Mom,

I will be a pilot over there, in the land where they pollute, not here. "

I said, "What they do over there still affects us here. "

And I fear for his future because of climate change.

If I could, I would go to America to bear witness,

to tell them how things are here.

This is my land.

And I am proud when I see this.

I farm with my family.

This is a cassava field.

We planted them soon after the first rains.

We farm one acre.

Maize and beans.

We have also mixed with pigeon peas and pumpkins.

We are combining crops to improve the soil fertility.

The beans fertilize the soil.

The corn is our staple.

And the pumpkin leaves shade the ground, so we don't have to weed as much.

These plants work together.

When we mix them like this,

any crop that is favorable to the rains can be harvested

while others may fail.

We also mix them in the same field

because the older we get, the less energy we have.

In Malawi,

women are the ones that work a lot compared to men.

I spent many years convincing my husband that it's better to share the work.

At first he would refuse to help me

and say, "I don't want to hear about it. "

If you love your wife,

there is no way you can just sit

and wait for her to do everything.

My wife is also a human being.

Here's some tomatoes.

Let's buy from here.

I met Esther at the clinic where she was a nurse.

I had just had my first baby.

and she was malnourished.

Esther is the one who helped us.

She was like a mother to me.

Yes, money is never enough these days.

Last time I was only able to buy packets of sugar,

a bottle of cooking oil, and a tomato.

Esther is important to the entire community.

She co-founded an organization called

Soil, Food and Healthy Communities

to fight hunger here in Malawi.

Hunger is a problem with many parts to the solution.

So I will leave the stage for Anita to do what she does best.

Anita come and lead us in everything.

Let's all sit down. Those in Group One should start the drama.

The husband doesn't do anything.

I clothe my kids. I look for food.

Everything is on me. Yet I am pregnant again.

What kind of life is this?

Here comes my foolish husband.

What have you come here to do?

I said give me porridge!

I said give me porridge!

I will beat you up today.

Today I have brought you the topic called "gender. "

So I will start with the question, what is gender?

Gender means not differentiating that work is to be done by men or women.

Are we together?

Do you know that when we are doing things together as husband and wife,

that job becomes easier? Isn't that so?

When we grow organically, we get more food and more variety.

On Recipe Day we all gather together to learn how to cook new crops.

Togetherness.

♪ Togetherness with our children ♪

♪ We are enjoying ♪

♪ With pigeon peas ♪

♪ With doughnuts ♪

♪ Even with milk ♪

I am looking for a wooden spoon.

Hey, a wooden spoon here.

Let me get it myself.

Recipe Days show that you're no less a man if you cook.

I do not like seeing men do women's chores.

No, no. For men?

It is tough for me and the kids.

We often have no food, money, or soap.

But my husband won't help.

Wow! You have really impressed me.

You have even planted beans?

Yes, I planted beans so that we can use the bean leaves as vegetables.

As you can see, I just finished plucking the potato leaves.

Oh, but these plants didn't grow?

No, but they're there.

But you seem to have some worries.

What's bothering you?

Worries are there my friend.

When all the work waits for you, it's hard.

I keep asking myself, why is my life so miserable?

Winston!

Can you please come here for a moment?

We were talking here. The plants are not doing that well,

and this one has been uprooted.

So I was saying, you should help in the garden a bit.

I'm sure you can help water them, can't you?

Little by little.

You see even in the Bible when God created Adam

He decided to create Eve because he saw Adam's loneliness.

Eve was there as a partner.

The same applies to us. We are your partners,

so how can you allow your partners to suffer with too much work?

Okay. When it comes to gardening I have no problem,

but washing plates, drawing water,

pounding maize, are all the duties of women. .

Do you expect a man like me to perform such duties?

Suppose my friends come to chat with me and they find me busy cooking,

what will they think of me?

Did you not see my husband yesterday carrying firewood on his head?

You can't wash plates?

Whether the husband is poor or rich,

he is still your husband.

That's how God makes things.

My father

had two wives.

He favored his first wife and children.

So we used to suffer.

So I gave up on marriage, thinking marriage is not good.

It is better for me to dedicate my life to the word of God.

I was going to become a nun.

The type of nun that could reach out to people.

How did you meet your wife, Anita?

I was traveling.

She was traveling.

We met, and we loved each other.

And I asked her out.

My husband and I

never courted.

When I came here for a friend's wedding,

he saw me and conspired with Winston.

He told Winston, "I want to marry this girl. "

When we saw her, we thought she was a beautiful woman.

So we organized ourselves and eloped her.

They took her by force.

There were fifteen of them.

They dragged me.

They beat me up.

I could not sit down for almost a week.

I could not sit down.

They put me inside his granny's house.

I really wanted to escape, but I couldn't.

They used to tell us

that if you got abducted

and decided to go back to your parents,

your mother would die.

So I had to think, should I really kill my mother?

Thankfully abduction marriages are less common now.

As you grow older everything changes, including the way you think.

I don't want my son, France, to get married the way I did.

I know what I did was childish.

I wanted to become a nun.

There's nothing I can do about that now.

But showing people what happened to me

can stop it happening to others.

I have this gift.

I do reach people

and teach them how to change.

Now my husband is my partner.

Welcome. Make room so she can sit.

Did you harvest ground nuts today?

Today I didn't go to the field.

My leg really hurts.

It still hurts?

Yes, it's still here.

Maybe because I stepped on a snake.

It came at night while sleeping.

-A snake?! -Yes.

I got up to get some water

and I stepped on something.

I took the torch and saw it was a snake.

I took a big pot, hit it and then ran out.

It's just like we are cursed.

You reckon?

♪ My friend How are you living these days? ♪

♪ One foot in the church And the other outside ♪

♪ Watch out, girl, watch out ♪

♪ Now time is up ♪

♪ Time is up ♪

♪ Time is not on our side ♪

These days, it feels as if both time and rain are running out.

We can drink it straight, no cholera.

Who's thirsty?

Bring a cup, and I'll give you some water.

The water comes slowly.

Meaning if one has filled their bucket,

the next person has to wait for the water to come up again.

The dry season is much longer.

Our rivers and boreholes only have water when it rains.

It doesn't take long for them to dry up.

Maize grains are not of high quality.

The pigeon peas are infested with worms.

When the rains come, they are too heavy,

and everything is more uncertain.

I used to wonder why God would curse us with the weather.

SFHC said that this was climate change

and that our actions

like burning wood without planting trees

are contributing to this problem.

But the trees we plant don't grow

because the rain has been so poor that the seedlings don't survive.

We came up with the idea for these clay stoves

as a way to use less firewood.

France, bring more water.

We call them climate change stoves.

One bundle of wood used to last three days.

Now it will last two weeks

with these stoves.

But we have learned that, despite our efforts,

climate change is going to continue to get worse

because of what they are doing in places like America.

I said, "Do you want me to go to America

to explain what's happening here?"

We know how to persuade people about big ideas.

And so Anita, we can't promise that this can happen,

but if it were possible for us to, for you to visit America,

-would you be interested in coming? -Yes, of course!

We should be able to sit down and talk about this.

France, can you charge my battery for me?

The filmmakers arranged

for Esther and me to come to America

to talk to farmers and community organizers.

We will find out why Americans

aren't taking climate change seriously.

And we will go to Washington, D. C.

to let the government know they need to change.

If you want someone to change,

you go to their doorstep with your problem,

because they will be unable to ignore you.

But I heard that the president doesn't like Black people,

and am worried that everyone else will have the same heart.

It's very green.

Yes, everywhere.

Yes, beautiful.

At home we would see bare land over there.

Yes, I know you all love the camera, but

we do need to get moving at some point.

What a bunch of hams.

I'm Jordan.

So this is Jordan and this is Alex.

This is Esther.

Anita.

-I'm Jordan. -I'm Esther.

-Where are you from? -From Malawi.

Wow.

This is a very big room.

Two days old?

Sunday he was born so. .

Three.

Rebecca and I have been milking cows for 50 years.

Generally you couldn't ask for a much better life because

who couldn't like living in a place like this?

The mower out there mows the hay

and this thing turns and then it bails it up

and kicks it up in the wagon.

So all you have to do is drive. Everything is mechanized.

That's dry hay.

It's so tight.

It's just a different world.

Aye, it's a different world. Aye, it's a different world.

Most of our tractors are 30 years old.

That one is borrowed from a neighbor, so that's newer.

How much is that tractor?

- $160,000, probably. - U. S. dollars?

Yeah, brand new, brand new 160.

She's saying for all that money

that maybe five lifetimes she will buy a tractor.

Most farmers, in order to run as much land as they do,

- they need that big equipment. - Yes.

and the only way to do it is to keep borrowing.

Most farmers are just kind of resigned to the fact that

they're going to be in debt as long as they live.

It's true. Even the farmers in Malawi,

they have a lot of debt.

But our main problem now that we have

is the issue of climate change.

It rains for us maybe three times a year,

then nothing.

All the crops dry out.

Then we have no food, literally no food.

So we're trying as much as possible to grow legumes

so that at least maybe we can improve the soil structure.

I wonder, are you guys in a drought cycle?

Do you think maybe five years rain will come again?

The last two years, I think we've seen

record heat, record rainfall.

I think we'll see all them things again.

I think it's kind of a cycle. I don't know.

Why do you say it's a cycle?

The history, I don't know.

I think the last couple years we haven't had as much snow,

but I think we'll get a lot of snow again. I don't know.

See, for me, I wouldn't believe that it is a cycle.

I would say it's really climate change

because there are some places, even here,

we have heard that it is not raining very well.

I think people at least in, in the Midwest

mistake weather for climate

and, yes, the weather is cyclic.

We still get spring, winter, fall,

but if you look at the poles and the ice caps melting

and Greenland melting

and, you know, it, it's,

a sign of climate change we don't see because

-it's not here. -Yeah, because it's not here.

I think for someone to understand, come to Malawi.

You are most welcome,

and then you will see some of the things that we are talking.

Is there something we should be doing

to help climate change that would help you guys?

- Is there something? - Yes, yes, tell people,

be activists for climate change.

You tell people that climate change is real.

It's not the change of weather only.

God said, "You can increase like sand. "

But he never said, "Spoil the atmosphere. "

I'd say just do what you can, do a good job.

We'll leave it in the Lord's hands

and he'll take us home and that'll be that,

but, it's all going to end some day

and we're not in control of it.

But the world is still going on,

and you have to look after it and protect,

so that the young generation should find trees.

They should find water. They should find good weather.

They should find good climate.

Do you want to see the crops, the corn?

Yes, yeah, we should.

I had not really talked about climate change a lot

with Liz and Jordan,

and I guess I just kind of assumed that,

you know, they were on the same page as we were

because they see the same weather we do.

This is kind of a bad year for this field.

She's saying it's, it looks very, very nice.

Last June we didn't have rain.

April we didn't have rain, March we didn't have rain. .

up to today.

We probably have been getting

three or four inches a week.

We'd be glad to share with you.

Here, I don't know what we could change.

We could get wind or solar for our energy.

That would be great.

And as far as our equipment emissions,

I don't know what we could do here,

go back to farming with horses?

700 acres.

Talking to them,

being with them,

I want to do the best I can for the next generation,

but I don't see it as an issue.

That's my problem.

Change, it starts with denial.

Believe me, he will be the first one.

Because when you debate something,

you talk more about it.

In time something will come out

which we will have achieved.

It's not in vain.

We're just planting more seeds for the fall.

When our grandchildren are here we have to move

because they play basketball.

They have to play.

So let's walk out this way.

My husband grew up on this farm

and that's how I became a farmer.

He works off the farm

and he operates large machinery.

He started doing that after we quit milking cows.

What type of tomato is this one, which grows so big?

These are what people in the United States really like.

They want beefsteak tomatoes,

a tomato that will fit on a piece of bread.

This is oats.

These are cover crops.

So we don't have bare soil

and the carbon isn't released into the atmosphere.

And then here's some radish.

So they go deep and give aeration to the soil.

In Iowa, all of the men are proud

because we are number one in soybeans,

number one in corn, number one in hogs.

We're number one,

but what we have to do is change this type of

agribusiness, whose bottom line is about

profit, not about people eating

or having access to land or food.

Many women want farmers to farm like this

and one of the best ways to check climate change

is to have a lot of small organic farmers

all over the world.

I'm very pleased to see you farming like this.

Thank you very much.

So we're going to a restaurant that the owner,

has made dinner for us out of my food.

We started an organization called

Women, Food and Agriculture Network.

And one of the things that we've done is

teaching women to farm

because most people don't come from farms anymore,

from agriculture, so they come to learn how I farm,

learn about cover crops, learn about the different vegetables.

So do you have a similar organization?

How do women organize?

We have networking groups for women,

and we've also done workshops on gender.

Now my husband and I make decisions together,

we spend money together,

we do the work together.

That never happened before.

So your husband was willing to change,

there has to be the willingness too.

I am a woman in an occupation that's mostly men.

There's a word that is used commonly now,

it's a man explaining things to a woman

and they shorten the form, the two words,

and they call it mansplaining.

Mansplaining?

Mansplaining. Mansplaining?

- Mansplaining? - Yeah.

In Bwabwa, men give instructions and try to tell you what to do.

It seems in America

things aren't so different.

Men everywhere are worried about women becoming

as powerful as them.

But the best men know that when women are powerful,

everyone is better off.

A few potato leaf hoppers, but those aren't a problem.

Grasshoppers.

Crop duster.

Those things are about the worst thing you can have

near an organic farm.

Conventional agriculture is just

spray, spray, spray and pray I guess, but. .

I also do, you know, a lot of conventional ag too, but. .

These are some of the weeds the Roundup

isn't working so well on anymore, it's water hemp.

We try as much as possible

to encourage everyone not to use any chemical like Roundup.

The weed is used as a crop cover

because of drought,

and then every single weed is also

used as manure at the end.

Keep the fertility where it's at.

How big is your land?

I farm about 1,100 acres total.

1,100 acres.

One thousand, one hundred acres.

One.

We farm just one acre.

Farms are going to keep growing bigger and bigger.

And what you are eating,

it's grown by other people?

Who is growing your food, by the way?

You also. .

As far as the produce is consumed, it all,

I mean it's sold in the grocery stores around here,

I mean some of that even comes from Mexico, California.

I mean it's, it's shipped halfway across the country.

I mean there is some local, local produce grown,

but a lot of it you find in the grocery stores is. .

Is, is imported.

All the food you're growing,

the soybeans, the corn,

is fed to animals.

But this would be food for us in our country.

Have you ever discussed with your

fellow farmers about climate change?

Yeah, it's a very hot topic.

Everybody talks about climate change really.

I mean at some level whether you're a farmer, producer,

industry businessman in this country, it's,

you know, we're all in the same boat.

I mean, I've, I've always tried to be,

the sustainable, efficient producer I guess,

but you know, you look at the ways,

you know, the whole system works

how can we change the whole system and,

and that's a hard one to, to figure out.

That's what I really want to know.

What can we do?

It's just, how do we get the entire world on board

to try to do something about it?

We can barely get our own local

area on board let alone the United States or,

or the entire world.

It would take a global catastrophe

to do a, you know, complete 180 really.

While the rich are debating what to do,

poor people have to endure.

It's just like that proverb that says,

"When elephants fight, the grass suffers. "

All right, well, we can get on the Rangers

to view the property.

When I'm a guest, I like to observe and listen.

I want to give it a try.

But that's not Esther.

Whatever happens, don't worry.

-This is an accelerator. -Oh no, that's the accelerator.

No, this is the accelerator, this is the brake.

Okay.

We do not produce food to sell

as far as vegetables, fruits, that type of thing,

but we sell our meat products.

We were conventional farmers

And we didn't want to do that no more.

We didn't want to use Roundup.

We didn't want any of the chemicals or any of that.

So we took out all of our row crop.

Now it's pasture.

We're using the regenerative practices of rotating our cows,

and building soil structure.

Oh ho, here he is.

Hello, hello.

Area farmers around us,

you know, we're kind of noted as

the odd, the odd ones.

We do things different.

If you would have asked me ten years ago

if we would have been certified organic,

I would have said no,

but Eli being born with a heart defect,

When the nurse asked me what we had been exposed to

six months prior to even pregnancy,

that's really what has gotten us

changed to a different way of farming.

It wasn't until we had that personal experience

that we realized that we needed to change.

And I don't think everybody

experiences that.

Ooh!

How are you seeing the climate affecting your farming?

The climate change, you know, for us

it's not a topic of conversation.

We see it more as a political agenda.

Like the people that are talking about climate change

with their business suits and,

and they have an agenda behind it,

it doesn't feel like that's a day-to-day thing you think about

when you're just trying to manage your farm.

But we know the way we farm

is healthy for our family

and it's healthy for our land, so. .

Our daughters are in the kitchen

and they've already started preparing.

They started preparing last night.

Eli, do you cook?

No.

Who is going to cook for you when they are busy?

I'll probably just find something to snack on.

Until they come?

Mm-hmm.

If you learn how to cook, it's not that you'll be like a girl,

but it's just like you're learning another skill.

We're very much a traditional family

and I was raised that way.

My mom did all the cooking and

my dad worked outside and

my husband was raised that way,

so it was just a natural continuation

of the way we were raised as kids.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for our guests here tonight.

We ask, Lord, that you would bless their travels for them,

provide safety and health.

We just thank you for this food and providing for us, Lord.

We also ask that you would bless our conversation.

In Jesus' name. Amen.

Amen.

What's your church?

Reformed Presbyterian.

That's the church I also go to.

And we're required to be good stewards,

you know, so that's why we farm the way we do.

Because ultimately it's not our ground.

It's God's ground.

Our church, they asked us,

you know, is there something that we could pray for you

and we told them some of our farm concerns.

We've had an incredibly hard year this year, financially.

Our off-farm jobs support the farm

versus the farm supports the farm.

So I'm a school nurse.

I work at a coal-fired power plant.

You know it's, it's pretty clean really but. .

When, I know you mentioned earlier on

that when you heard climate change you,

you know, what you hear is men in suits with an agenda.

What, what is that agenda?

I feel that people make farmers

like the, the bad guy.

They just look at big industrial farms

and say they're the reason we're having problems,

where in reality it could be because

lifestyle things that we do are causing the problems.

I was just curious if it's always been that way

or if you've noticed a change?

Like on the weather when we watch the news on TV,

they'll talk a lot about weather trends and, um. .

You can see certain blocks of years the weather

seems to trend to do this, you know?

But there will still be a difference between the weather,

which can really change

the way it can and climate change.

This is climate change.

because it's something changing over the years.

January, February, we used to have heavy rains.

Now sometimes the rain is not there.

What our friends here say makes sense for them,

but we come from a different world.

Everything on the table

is new to me.

These greens, we can't grow.

Finding water to clean and cook with

is a challenge

because it takes a long time to get to the only watering hole

we have in our village.

All of this because of climate change.

I cannot express to you

how humbled it's made me feel to hear your struggles,

because it has made me realize

that my little daily struggles

that we may have with our animals, our finances,

are nothing compared to your daily struggles.

And I'm sorry for that. I. .

I would leave with the word that Jesus left his disciple

to say that peace be with you

and as you live that there is also climate change.

So you could help us in spreading that word

and maybe we could save more lives.

-Thank you. -Thank you.

I don't think people should feel guilt.

They shouldn't feel guilt.

Sometimes you waste time with the guilt.

You know I'll, I'll probably lay in bed tonight

thinking about it and,

uh, you know, my thoughts and opinions

will probably be different tomorrow

than what they are today

just from processing it.

It will take long for them to know the truth

because it's a slow thing.

The truth takes long to spread while the lies spread fast here.

The way they are denying that there is climate change,

they will one day believe it, but it will be too late.

It's discouraging.

But I still have faith.

God put us on Earth as caretakers.

Like everything, the Earth needs more care when it's sick.

How long have you been waiting here?

Not too long.

You don't want to put them in the dryer?

I don't trust.

I trust my hands and the iron.

They're almost done.

I think they can wait until tomorrow morning.

We are more than halfway through our journey.

Now we're going to the west coast.

Then back east

and to Washington, D. C.

What are you interested in?

Just to see what you are doing.

Okay.

I feel like I'm dreaming and I wonder when I will wake up.

The bridges stretch out over the water.

The houses are so big

they have other houses on their back.

She has had questions, hundreds of questions.

How can we walk on the streets

and something is walking underneath?

What about if it decides to collapse?

What is going to happen to us?

Sometimes I'm afraid.

What about the lift?

What will happen to us if the electricity can go off?

Are we not going to die in here?

For me, everything is strange.

Why are there people sleeping in tents?

I can tell that there is a divide between rich and poor.

The poor usually look like me.

West Oakland is a community of about 25,000 people

in about a 4-square-mile area.

The community is entirely surrounded by freeways

which is a legacy of racist development

that put in public infrastructure

and cut off mostly Black communities

from the rest of the town.

You see this across the country.

So economically it's just isolated

and neighborhoods like West Oakland became targets

for putting polluting facilities, factories,

manufacturing and also dumping

because more affluent communities didn't want them.

So environmental pollution,

air quality,

it has the highest rate of child asthma in the Bay Area,

cancer, birth defects, infertility.

These are Americans who need to change their world quickly,

because their families cannot wait.

OK, so this is not for eating but we're going to open it.

Put it into your hand.

- Take home some seeds. - Yes, okay.

So we do community meals. .

in the spirit of the Black Panther party.

And we're really inspired by them because

they really recognized the power of feeding

young Black children to help them get through the school day.

The concept which you have of feeding,

we have that concept.

But it's done by the farmers.

So people like Anita, they feed every day.

Thank you.

So Anita was saying that

she has seen that you were doing a good job

with what you've done but she

is surprised that there are no men.

Here in the United States

we don't have to interact with the indicators

of climate change, more often than not.

And we're living in an illusion right now that everything's okay

but climate change is something that

disproportionately impacts people of color.

I guess I'm curious if there are

things that you think

small farmers here could do to actually

create some sort of alternative

or if there's something that I can take back

to other farmers in my community?

I would just emphasize that we are small farmers

and we need to work together.

Even though there are those who want to oppress us,

they should see a strong unity among us farmers.

And we should carry on the fight.

When you are in the front line, you have no choice but to fight.

Some people in America seem to know this better than others.

Black people most of all.

You might have heard some gunshots earlier.

I don't know if you heard those.

The police department has a gun range near here,

and so they're practicing

in case people want to rebel.

So we have kale, curly leaf kale here.

Although Detroit is a majority Black city,

there's not one grocery store

that's owned by Black people in Detroit.

And so we're trying to encourage Black people in particular

to grow food so that we can become more self-sufficient

and also as an economic driver.

We're in a somewhat similar situation.

Whenever we grow seeds to sell, we have problems setting our own prices.

But when outsiders impose their prices on us,

even if they're higher, we still buy.

So it seems like we don't have a voice

to say what we want for our own community.

So that's the other thing is

that we're creating a model of democracy.

Our organization thinks capitalism

and white supremacy is a terrible

way of defining human relationships,

and patriarchy as well.

So at the same time that we and many other people are working

to dismantle these oppressive systems,

we're creating these models of

how we might relate to each other that is more equitable,

that society begins to shift.

We use regenerative practices here

that don't contribute much to global warming.

This is a rainwater retention pond,

and we're able to capture

tens of thousands of gallons of rainwater in here

and then we run it back down

through the fields using drip irrigation tape.

And this is our solar energy station.

Many farmers would like to not participate

in the industrial style of farming but they feel trapped.

They don't know how to survive

without the use of lots of petroleum

and extremely large amounts of water.

We have to show how that can be done

so farmers can even see that there is a possibility

of doing it and still earning a living.

Yeah, that's very true because you cannot tell someone

without showing what is the alternative.

That's right.

Just like we're planting seeds in the ground,

we're planting seeds in people's consciousness.

Thank you very much. We have learned a lot.

I've learned a lot. Thank you, Anita.

- In Tumbuka we say "Thank you so much. " -You're welcome.

After you plant seeds,

you need to water and weed.

Think about Winston back in Bwabwa.

Every day he grows,

and every day he will need help to be better.

This, this land around here is land that

my family has lived on for many, many, many years.

Have you ever heard of Harriet Tubman?

She was an abolitionist.

She freed slaves here.

She made many trips out of this area.

This tree has seen a lot of history.

This is called the Witness Tree.

Preston actually used to be the county seat of the KKK

on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

And so people are often surprised

when they see young Black people out here working

'cause that's just a sight unseen.

And what are you going to plant here?

I've got sorghum and millet that I just planted.

We've kind of had to change our values

about what a livelihood looks like when we live out here.

We've created different businesses

sprouting up off the farm.

And all of us in the collective, you know,

work the land and also have other jobs.

A village is a very complex idea in the minds of Black people.

It's the idea of something we've never had.

When colonialism happened,

there was a disruption to African people,

and we have not recovered from that disruption.

In order to change someone's world,

we have to enter their world

and bring them out to the land.

We all have to reconnect with the land in our own way.

It's all of our responsibility to figure out how to do that.

We're trying to get back to that,

but also pulling from

the future and trying to create something that's new.

Do you like okra?

Oooo, this is spicy!

Uh-huh, it's hot.

If you don't like it, it's fine. You don't have to eat it.

My mother and my grandmother and my grandmother's mother

have always sort of been the keepers of knowledge

and every place throughout the world

women have always been the keepers of the seeds.

And since they were the keepers of the seeds,

they were keepers of the cultural traditions.

This is rice.

It's called Upland rice.

It grows in dry areas.

And I brought it from my family who are in Trinidad.

Thank you.

When are you coming to Malawi?

Let me know.

Soon, soon!

It's been wonderful hosting you all.

-♪ Sweet friendship, sweet friendship ♪ -Hey, give it to me, give it to me.

-That's what I like. -♪ Yes, thank you from Malawi ♪

♪ Yes, we thank you from Malawi. . ♪

♪ Our visitors from America ♪

♪ We welcome you ♪

♪ To Malawi ♪

♪ We welcome you to Malawi ♪

♪ Our visitors from America ♪

♪ We welcome you. . ♪

This is a whole bowl of clam chowder right here.

And so this meat, that's what you would eat.

♪ We welcome you to Malawi ♪

♪ We welcome you to Malawi. . ♪

In Washington, D. C. ,

we hoped to meet with the American government.

But nobody would talk to us.

Except one senator, who invited us to meet his team.

We want to share

how America affects Malawi.

How did you feel about that?

Too bad.

Because he's not there. And she wanted to see him.

It's rare that

members of Congress will meet with people

who aren't their constituents.

But he is a huge supporter.

He's one of our biggest champions

on climate change, so he's our ally.

She said she will be praying to God

that what she carried

should really go to him.

This country has everything

and they take it for granted.

Many are still in denial.

But as human beings, they should know

nothing lasts forever.

Should I get some more?

No, let's finish these first.

Look at my car over there. .

I will buy a car when I finish my education.

With the way you skip class, how are you going to buy a car?

No, tomorrow I will go. I washed my uniform yesterday.

Do you see that one is dying?

It will survive.

No&

Can it not survive because of an injured leg?

How do human beings survive with such injuries?

Human beings take care of one another, unlike chickens.

It won't die. .

You think it will die. You just have to have hope.

Today Winston is joining a cooking demonstration.

He has been doing this for months.

First, we will wash the soya.

And once we're done, we will pound it in the mortar.

I cook, I draw water,

which is good because

my wife needs to rest, too.

I took her as my maid.

There was no respect.

I realize that I was doing things the wrong way.

I hoped that he could change,

but have you ever seen anything like that?

Winston now acts like he lives in the same village as the rest of us.

Little by little.

As for climate change,

many Americans don't fully understand

what it means that we in Malawi live on the same planet as them.

There are so many ants, but only a few are lifting the grasshopper.

I pray that people who identify themselves as white

begin to look at how their actions as a group

have negatively impacted humanity,

but also to see the great potential that they have

to shift and to act in solidarity with African people.

I'm often reminded of the words of Grace Lee Boggs who says that

"We have to live more simply so that others can simply live. "

. with us now, in Jesus' name we pray.

-Amen. -Amen.

I don't have an answer about climate change.

It's a sad thing,

but ultimately, it's part of God's plan.

And asking us to change would be to

totally change life,

what we eat, how we eat it, how we prepare it.

Yeah, it's, I don't know, it's. .

Hmm.

The chickens like us to talk.

They like noise so they know we're coming.

People are destroyed because of a lack of knowledge.

We have a lot of stuff polluting the atmosphere.

That should not be.

I'd like to apologize a little bit

to the friends in Malawi.

I didn't always have a very good answer.

Sometimes I laughed when you all were serious.

I laugh, but maybe I should have cried.

You are running away.

It's hard.

No, it's not.

We live in a world where people believe lies.

They don't think that poor people can teach rich people.

They don't believe that Black people can teach white people.

They don't believe that women can teach men.

But the truth is that we can teach one another.

And we can forgive.

So much has been lost.

But it's never too late to change.