Busy, busy, busy

Some photos:

A working mother taking a quick break from ploughing.

Introduction to a skit at the girls' camp.

One of the campers, reading on the dock. Beautiful area by the mangroves near Sokone.

Learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. His "I have a dream" speech was translated into French in these booklets, along with other information about the Civil Rights Movement. If you want to learn more about the program that put on this camp, go to 10,000 Girls' website: http://10000girls.org/

It's been a fabulously busy three days! The bus from Kolda dropped me off near

Kaymor, where I spent the night with Kate. We slept until 9:30, a ridiculously late time here in Senegal, but we were so tired after the Ag meetings! And sleeping in just one day is incredibly refreshing. The next morning I wrestled with vetiver grass, which was the reason I'd gone to Kaymor. Vetiver is a kind of grass that is very hardy, with a fragrant root system. It's supposed to work well when planted in water erosion sites, to catch the fleeing topsoil that would otherwise be washed away. It is, however, difficult to get out of the ground, as I discovered after sweating and hacking at the stuff with a machete. Still, I got enough to bring home to Keur Ali Gueye, and worked with a couple farmers transplanting it in their fields, perpendicular to the eroded ditches. They're flimsy little sticks now, but if all goes well they will plump up, spread out around the central piece, and inch'allah make an effective blockage that will make it so they can farm between the walls of vetiver, increasing the useful area of the field. That's the theory, anyway. The farmer who'se working on neem pesticide solution has kept it up, which is great, and his beans are bushy and green. Though I attribute that to his farming skills more than my neem solution. Tis also the season to outplant trees. I've gotten pretty militant about it, because the common refrain here is, "Later, later, we'll do it later," which gets me very worked up until I'm insisting, "No! Leegi LEEGI!" which means "now, RIGHT NOW!". It doesn't get me very far, though. However most of the vetiver got in the ground, and just yesterday I assisted at the planting of a twelve-tree cashew orchard. Not very big, but it looks so pretty and well-spaced. I hope they survive! At least better than the poor papayas. Probably five, maximum, have survived outplanting. The major killer being goats, of course. C'est la vie. My little test plot, however, looks fabulous. ECHO's basil and sesame seeds shot up and are growing nicely. Here's ECHO's website, too: http://echonet.org/ They're a great resource for us Agriculture Volunteers. For the moment that's all, but my goal before the end of the week is to outplant ALL my trees, and hopefully organize the two farmers who want live fences to drive charrettes to Eaux et Forets in Nioro to pick up their thorny species, and visit all the fields of Peace Corps ISRA seed. Can I do it? I think so! But I should really stop being so American. A "to-do" list, trying to check off things as they happen, can only end in tears here in Senegal.