The real work begins

So far I have bought a fence, weeded an area for gardening, and began to fertilize soil for a veggie pepiniere. It was hard work considering I was given a more or less junk yard to start with. Check out the before and after pictures on facebook, it’s a serious improvement I plan to have five beds which I will use to demonstrate the  techniques I learned in training which will help improve the soil lifetime and fertility. This includes making burms to hold in water and digging soil deeply while adding green leaves and manure for nitrogen replacement. It is important for me to teach the farmers to use what is naturally in their area to decrease input costs and demonstrate how you can work with the environment instead of depleting it.

            I planted a mango tree yesterday but it was stolen or eaten this afternoon.... I’m a little pissed off about that. I also did food security work at a nearby school. I went to another volunteer’s site and helped her. She works with an NGO called Trees for the Future. We taught ten kids how to transplant mango and orange trees. It was pretty cool. There is a serious lack of trees here. I will plant trees all along my fence so that when it breaks, because it will, there will be a living fence and windbreak to replace it. This is considered sustainable because you have a living tree working as a fence instead of cutting one down to build and rebuild. My fence is made out of millet stalks and I am having trouble keeping the sheep from eating it.

            I plan to seed in the next couple days. They will have a month to grow before I have to go into in service training (IST) for three weeks. During this time my dad will be responsible for keeping the garden alive. IST is the #1 killer of gardens they say, but I’m confident that my dad understands farming and most of all wants the vegetables. Hopefully it survives because I don’t want to have to find and buy more seeds.

            It is really hot and humid here and since I’m working outdoors my schedule has changed. Sunrise is at 6:30 now. I wake up at 6 and am in the garden by 7. I work till about 12pm and then chill in my room until 4:30 or 5 when it’s cool again. And work until about 7 which is sunset. If I don’t work in the garden I either go to the peanut field with my dad or help the women at home shell peanuts. Working with the women is really good because it forces me to talk and listen which improves my language. I have also gone to other volunteers sites to help with their work and to work with a nearby pilot farmer. The pilot farmer is someone who we have taught techniques and allows us to show her fields’ and gardens’ to other farmers in order to spread the knowledge. I don’t feel like I’ve done any real Peace Corps work yet but that’s normal for a PCV before IST.