12/19

12/19
So I've started my gardens. Today I was getting ready to go to the center to say hello to a friend of mine who came in to Kédougou from Kafori and yelled at me from the road, when my aunt started asking me when i was going to make the garden i had been talking about for the past couple of days. Understandable as i had bought the fencing material for the plot and just needed to get to work on preparing the ground. So i had really been dragging my feet on this and her busting my chops kinda got me motivated. So i said i was going to do it today and that i was going to the center to get tools, which i then did. So i chilled at the center for a little bit and got to see Dan and Willie come in with the Peace Corps land-cruiser. Dan had with him a puppy that had been rescued from his douche. kinda disgusting but he was evidently OK and is doing fine now. He has been adopted by Hayes out in Bandafassi. But yea also with the Peace Corps car came a new stove. Very important for our regional house as we've a reputation to uphold with our cooking abilities. Well Matt's really but we all chip in. But its nice to have that and some other spare parts for bikes and the like.
So yeah anyway I borrow the pick and shovel from the center and head back to my house to start my garden. My brother Mamadou helped me with this and is probably as much mine as it is his. The kids a tank. So basically we had to turn up the soil to mix it up and then toss in some manure. So this involves picking the soil in the desired shape, which is a hell of a lot harder then it sounds as the ground is ubber hard and requires some muscle. Enter my brother who pretty much does this type of work for a side job. He was the guy who made a bunch of the bricks for my hut. So i try to pick with the pick from the center and get about three strikes in and the handle just snaps in two. Nice borrowed pick busted. Luckily, my bro Mamadou does this when hes not at school and has a nice pick we can use. So once we had mixed up the soil with the pick, the cows that pretty much wake me up every day come into play. Yay cow poop! So i thought that there'd be maybe half a gardens worth in their stye, if thats the right word. Wrong. We were able to get enough for two of the plots and then we stopped cause it was the hot part of the day, and boy could you tell. Ok so basically we dumped the manure on the plot and then double dug it into the soil. This involves digging a trench about 1.5ft-2ft down and depositing it at the back of the plot and then filling in the trench from the soil right next to it and then digging a trench where it had been. Continue this till you get to the end where you fill in the last trench with the soil you took out of the first trench. it works pretty well and mixes in manure and the soil in general.
So we stop for lunch at the hot part of the day and agree to come back at 4 to finish up the last plot which hadn't even been started. So i eat with my brother like usual in my room and then decide to take a nap as I'm kinda tired after my tiny bit of work from the morning. So i nap for about an hour and am woken up at about 20 till 4 by my dad yelling at my 5 year old brothers who are knocking on my door bothering me. So i forgot i had a pullar lesson at 4 so it actually worked out as i was able to go to it on time. But when i stick my head out my door and look at the garden there's the cart that was used to take my bags from the center to the house tipped up dumping a bunch of cow poop on the ground next to the gardens. so yea I've got a lot of cow poop right now. I think my brother knows where to get it too so its basically readably accessible manure for free! Very cool. Also sitting next to the cart is the broken pick with a new handle that has been clearly cut from a tree 'en bruce' (see previous entry for thoughts on procuring things 'en bruce'). So double cool.
So i head off to my pullar lesson which is cool, learn about egol verbs which are verbs that mean that the action is being done to you. Also how adding orgol in place of ugol, agol,and egol to the end of verbs means that you happened to do the verb or by chance you did the verb. So kinda neat to learn that. Also got roped into coming and drinking with our tutor tomorrow evening. He just moved here and doesn't have a lot of friends, but is a really nice guy. I've gone and drank tea with him before and he's a chill guy. So yea were doing that tomorrow/today as ill probably post this tomorrow. But yea so after class i go to Hassana's Hendrick's agriculture shop for a watering can and some seeds. He's the adopted son of the country director, who's family Im living with at the moment, and is in fact Hassana's extended family as well. So i pick up the watering can, some onion seeds and tomato seeds, and i know I'm not getting ripped off as he's family.
When I get back to the house I immediately get to work on the last of the three plots. Oh yea the dimensions of these are roughly 2m40cm long(the length of the crentin, woven fence that I bought ) by 1m width. So I have three of them in a row right now with a mound of soil in between them as a barrier. So i just get started on the last one by myself and Mamadou rolls by after I've picked half of the plot and finishes it up. Once thats done we work with the pile of poop. So basically the poop need to be broken up so it can be applied to the soil. So we've got a rice bag and some sticks for this. I start using the busted handle of the pick i broke thinking that its the perfect job for a busted pick handle. Of course it breaks again and i resort to the tools Mamadou gives me. But we get this all beaten up and it is pretty good for mixing in with the soil and we double dig it in. By this time we've got a peanut gallery. Basically all the little kids from the neighborhood are there watching the toubob work. But they were actually really eager to help and i got them working on the poop beating and we were able to spread some more manure on top of the other two plots.
So while all this is going on it starting to get dark and my uncle and host dad come over to watch and offer advice as my dads a big time farmer and my uncles been around it all his life. So once my uncle and dad see the work I've done they remember that when Chris Hendrick was living with them in Dindafelo 20 yrs. ago, he did a garden as well and they got food out of the deal. so basically i was offered the area right next to my three plots for three more to grow more food. So once that area is cleared out, as its a hell of a lot dirtier then the area i was using for the first three ill have a proper garden to look after. And yes the family will be able to get some good eatin out of it! But i think that thats a ways down the road as it'll probably be able to be prepared when my douche is done, who knows when that'll be done. So yea productive day and ill be able use all sorts of neat techniques in the garden to try out, as there's a bunch of natural insecticides and fertilizers i want to try out. Also with the three other plot i might try to do a pepiniere for around the compound. Options options options!
But i need to get back in touch with ethan and do some interneting so ill update again later when I've got something exciting to report, who knows maybe ill talk to some of you before then.