So you Think Monkeys are Cute

As you know if you have been reading my blog, one of my main projects is to work with a woman named Fatou Willane. We have had a very rocky relationship. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that we did not choose to work with each other but were told to work with each other by Peace Corps. She is part of the Master Farmer Program. The objective is to give her everything she needs to have a beautiful and prosperous field that will serve to show other farmers in the area technologies that they may incorporate into their own farms to increase productivity. In some ways the program works. We have demonstrations in vegetable crops and open field days in the rainy season showing some of the best ways to take care of field crops. This includes things such as spacing, thinning, weeding, and pesticide application and alternatives.Although  no farmers could actually afford to do what she does on the large scale, just parts. 

It has also shown many volunteers that even with seemingly endless funds there are problems here that just cannot be solved. Farmers in Senegal have been burning their fields since their great grandparents time and before. It is nearly impossible to convince farmers that this is not the best practice. I cannot for the life of me get it into Fatou's head why this is bad. It removes the vegetation that could be reincorporated into the soil as nitrogen and each year villages or parts of them are burnt down due to out of control fires.

An unusual problem I had was a monkey. This is not unusual to the Senegalese these animals have always been pests. I had never seen one near my village but they appear to be coming back. My site mate saw a whole troop of them the other day. Fatou and I had a beautiful field going. We had inter-cropped eggplant with corn; as well as having cabbage, hot pepper, and jaxatu (Google it). This was all planted inside the drip irrigation system we had installed to preserve water. Then the monkey came. It would pull of ears of corn, squash tomato, takes bites out of the eggplant and then toss one and move on. It also chewed the water cans and the very expensive drip irrigation. I had no idea how to get rid of a monkey as I had no firearm.

We tried a scarecrow. Nothing the monkey was not that stupid. We tried putting poison in a bucket of water. We assumed it was there for water as much as food, but alas it was too smart for that too. Finally, one of her employees borrowed a rifle. He was a poor shot and I really wish I could have done it myself, bit PCV's are forbidden to handle firearms. If we could you see, all the taxi and moto drivers would be dead (they are the scum of Senegal). I thought though maybe the sound of being shot at would do something. It didn't the monkey just kept on coming.

While I was at home I thought maybe I could hang aluminum foil or pie pans to scare the monkey and was ready to try this upon my return. When I went to visit Fatou the first time I was shocked. Her field had nothing left but trees. I asked what had happened. She said the squirrels had come too and were chewing the drip irrigation and since everything was getting ruined she decided to stop everything till I came back.

Back to square one. We have made a new vegetable nursery and seeded our millet and sorghum crops. When things begin to fruit I honestly don't know what we'll do. I'm in favor of hiring one of the French men who frequent the nearby bush hotel for hunting and have them kill the little buggers. I'm open to any other suggestions anyone out there may have.