The Wonderful Things About Growth...

Well I just spent three weeks away from my village to get trained. Now I have been back for about two weeks, and have been able to follow up on my gardens, and am continuing to find my place in my village. When I made those gardens I had no idea what would happen with them. I kinda of left it up to the people because I figured they had years of experience with growing things.

Well the gardens that came from the ones I made were all over the board. Several gardens started sprouting but were eaten by bugs. Some gardens never sprouted and some have sprouted amazingly and grown faster than weeds. For the gardens that haven't sprouted I have come up with several reasons why. Chickens and birds can get it and dig holes, scattering the seeds. This happened to me before. Bleh. Also, there was a one week period in which the forage was broken and there was a huge water shortage. Two gardens died because people didn't water them at all for three or four days. They told me this. Some of the gardens sprouted some things but not others. This were the strangest cases for me. I am replanting several of the gardens and taking pest control problems more into account.

The attitudes of the people whos gardens didn't succeed were surprisingly good. They were just a big sad and confused, and glad to hear of any suggestions I had and were excited about the idea to replant. Most of the gardens that failed grew a few things, like cucumbers, zuccini and green beans, so they were happy to have something. I swear, those things grew in every single garden, even the worst!

After all this time it's starting to sink in what the most important veggies are for my villagers. At first I just wanted to plant everything for them with the idea that any variety is great for their health. But there are veggies that every single person wants, and wants them bad. So, for anyone super interested in what Senegalese village people want to grow, I made a list of three categories.


Veggies they really, really, really want: Lettuce, Cabbage, Okra, Beans, Manioc, hot peppers, and Jaxatu (a local sort of bitter eggplant).

Veggies they know and love: Tomatoes, Carrots, a giant squash thing, watermelon.




Veggies they don't really know but plant if I have them: Chinese turnip (Nave), Cucumber, Zuccini (They love to eat the leaves of this, ever tried it?), Green/Red/Yellow pepper, and green beans.

Some interesting things that have been happening in my garden. First, a pic of my garden, taken yesterday ;) Oh and that is corn drying in the middle.Our plot was made on a piece of land just outside of our compound, where trash used to be thrown. Heck that may actually be why our garden is growing so well, because of all that compost. Well we had quite a few "mystery weeds" sprout so one day I went to weed and before picking everything that I hadn't planted, I opted to ask my sister what the weeds were. Well, We have about 10 baby baobab trees growing in my lettuce plot. Baobabs, in case you didn't know, is only the most amazing and beautiful tree in the world. We also eat it in our breakfast 'porridge' almost every day, so hundreds of seeds get thrown out every week or so. I wanted to raise some baobabs just to learn, and maybe plant them somewhere. I have lots of seeds for them. Who know they would grow themselves for me!


Anyway, here is a pic of my baby baobab weed.


Big baobab. happens to be the one I climbed in Oct.
Oh and just for fun, this is me and the biggest baobab in the region :) And a random guy who "protected me" the whole way.Another 'weed' that I was about to pick turned out to be Okra. Okra (or Takko in purlar) is the one plant everyone wanted but I didn't have seeds for. They eat it every single day in a common dish, Mafe Tiga. Mafe Tiga is a peanut butter sauce that put on rise or corn (specially prepared corn, crushed and either steamed or boiled.) In the Mafe sauce there is water, little tomatoes, peanut butter, salt, Jumbo (africa's seasoned salt) and okra. Crushed dried okra makes the peanut butter sauce thicker. I guess they throw some of those seeds out, or they just get blown around, because we have Okra sprouting in every plot. Oh, and corn! That just sprouts everywhere! We let that grow as well. All the rest of the things I pick.

So I've learned that you don't always have to go to the store to buy seeds. We eat a sauce with Couscous every day or two that has beans in it. They buy the dried beans in the store and add them to the boiling pot. The beans are seeds. Plant them and they grow. Same with dried Okra. And local fruit trees! Seeds are everywhere here. It's fun to learn how to find your own.
I've been asking my sis in the mornings to save the seeds from the fruit she adds to our breakfast. There are two kinds of fruit that goes in our breakfast porridge, called Mbuiri. One is Bwuey, or baobab fruit, and the other is tamarin. Its all a kind of dried fruit. Well she puts boiling water on the seeds to get the fruit off, which basically cleans them off for me. So I just take them and dry them.

There are lots and lots of fruits here in Senegal that I have never even heard of in the states. Maybe I'll post some pics. Or if you are really interested you can just look them up. One is Baobab fruit. It's great! You wait until it is dry and falls off the tree to eat it. It's covered by a hard shell that you break by hitting against something. Inside is a mess of dry white stuff. It dissolves in water, and if you add sugar to that it is a delicious juice, more delicious than any juice I have ever tasted in America. You can also just suck on it like candy, as it comes in bite sized pieces, and you just spit out the seeds. Another kind of fruit is tamarind. It's brown, kinda looks like tree pea pods. You generally dissolve them in water and they add flavor to food, and you can also make a sort of juice out of it, which tastes kind or like tea, a bit lemony as well. It's really good. Every month or two a new fruit comes into season and they are all over my village. Right now tomboros are in season. They are tiny little berry type things. They are yellowish orange. They don't taste good at all until they dry up and fall on the ground. Then you just pop them in your mouth and chew gently around the seed and it is sweet and really good! They are all over my village and every day old ladies go out and gather them for hours, hoping to send them to the city to sell. One lady passes by my house every day and gives me two big handfuls of tomboros. I love that. I kinda collect the seeds for those too.

There are also fruit here that everyone know.s Mangos here are huge. They come into season in April. They have several kinds of citrus fruits, like oranges, lemons and limes. There are papayas and bananas. Apples are hard to come by but they exist. I think papaya is my new favorite fruit. Those things are absolutely delicious.

Just some real quick village happenings update.

They found gold in my village on a hill about 2 kilometers outside of the village. Lots of mining is on it's way down. I went to see it one day and man is that a dangerous job. They are digging holes straight down into the hill, up to 100 or 150ft deep. They climb down by little handles carved in the rock. They dig with little hand held tools. I have seen some of the gold. Being the only white person around lets you pretty much do whatever you want. Everyone shows me their hole proudly and invites me to descend and do some digging. I politely decline each request, saying I don't feel like dying today. Them man everyone hired to oversee the whole project is a friend of my friend and he shows me all the findings, and tells me what to look at and where to look. Who would have known I'd learn about gold mining in Senegal. There are supposed to be a lot of people coming to my village start their own holes, in the hope of striking it rich. Hmmm.... There are already about 15 holes going on. They deeper ones are just starting to give gold. It's looking good, according to the boss man.

This is my friend leading me around to look at all the mines Each hole has a hand made shade structure above it. The hot season is starting to shade is crucial.

Some guys posing for a picture that I promised to print for them. They are sitting proudly over their hole, which is about 60 feet deep now.

The descent.

Not so exciting, I'm learning to cook. My sister is teaching me to cook so that eventually I'll be able to make a whole meal by myself, without people telling me what to do. We are starting with the peanut butter sauce and rice. There really are so many varieties of things to cook. We have this dish just about every day though, so it's a good one to start with. Considering that I don't really know how to cook in American, I find it interesting that I'mofficially learning in an African village, using African cookies supplies. We stir with a stick instead of a spoon. Everything is made on and ground in a kitchen hut over an open fire. Everything is made from absolute scratch. It really is beautiful if you think about it. There is never any measuring of anything, it's all done with eyes and judgment. I'm learning that as well. Oh and our 9 chickens live in the kitchen, and they sleep there at night. My sis is often making me pick bugs off her that get on her from the chickens and crawl around on her. I had always made fun of her for that. Now that I'm spending so much time in the kitchen, she has been picking them off me as well. I've started preaching the idea of making a miniature house just for the chickens.

Here is Mafe Tiga and rice. And yes, this is how people eat it, with their hands. I'm ust about to dig in as well. I use a spoon ;p

I have lots more to say but I'm going to end this for now because I think I am boring whoever is reading this. Questions and comments welcomed and appreciated.
Until next time.