....2011 has begun!

Usman the Guinean, left us after
he got paid for his peanuts.  He
says he'll move back permanently with
his wife in a few months! We hope so!

It's been a lazy few weeks in Sare Fode, just watering the garden and studying for the GRE.  It's this time of year that makes me appreciate Senegal and this job - not terribly hot, but hot enough you can grow anything you want to; and since it's not the main agroforestry season, and it's always culturally acceptable here to lay around all day, I get to do a few hours' work in the morning and evening, and then lounge about and read all day.  When else will I ever have such an awesome job!?  At least that's one way to look at it.

Regional strategy 'retreat'

There have been a few events to break up the monotony of watering and GRE prep - our region had a 'regional strategy' planning meeting recently, where we shared what we're all working on, and what our goals are, as work sectors and as a region. I stayed after that to write a grant proposal for a palm reforestation project in a 10 kilometer stretch of seasonal floodplain in our rural community.  This will hopefully be an inter-regional cooperative project, taking place during the rainy season, and resulting in several thousand improved variety of oil palms being replanted.

See the couple lonely palms?  This will all be replanted,
inchallah.

Working in Tumani's garden

A week or so later, Massaly (my supervisor, and the pilot farmer project administrator) came down to Tumani's demonstration site in Sare Gagna for a workday, in which we dug improved beds and outplanted all of Tumani's nursery starts in companion planting formations.  There were around 10-15 people there, volunteers and local villagers, and we all worked pretty much straight from 9:30-5:30 or so.  It was an incredibly productive and fun day.

Nene and I watched from the village

It's the dry season, and people are also burning their fields - a combination which often leads to bush fires, like the one we had a couple of weeks ago.  It got so close to our village that everyone, men and women alike were rushing out with buckets of water.  It turned and went off towards Kolda, but was a little nerve wracking for a few minutes.



I'd like to make a request of anyone who is thinking about sending me anything, or doing anything to help me out here - instead, I'd love any donation, however small, to Jessie Seiler's Peace Corps Partnership grant for library books for Senegalese schools.  Sare Bidji will receive a portion of those books.  Thank you! :)
The link is: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-164