The last two days we have been working hard building new shade structures in
the new nursery. By the end of this year the agroforestry centre here in
Gamboula will be servicing 30 village groups as far away as Bayanga. This
means we are planting trees like crazy to help these groups keep their
nurseries going until their own trees start to fruit and provide them with a
seed source. Right at lunch today a huge wind blew in, bringing with it an
incredible amount of dust, direct from the Sahara. Following this we have
been getting rain, not a lot but it has been falling consistently for the
past couple hours. I even had to put a sweatshirt on!
I am really enjoying the local cuisine so we had Leonard cook it up for us
at lunch. In Zimbabwe, I wasn't a fan of the local cuisine so much so I am
glad I like Central African food. My favourite is this green called coco.
It is a leaf they collect from a certain vine in the forest. They roll a
bunch of leaves together and then chop it really fine so that it comes out
looking like grass. Leonard cooks it in a sauce with oil and peanut and
chunks of beef. We eat it with gozo. Cassava that has been washed, dried
and ground into flour. They then boil it and it comes out as a big sticky
lump that is easy to eat with your hands. Gozo has no nutritional value
whatsoever but it does fill you up and around here, you have eaten if you
haven't had gozo. It also happens to give you heartburn. Darren and I have
a good arrangement in that I get to eat most of the coco and he can have all
the meat!
Tomorrow we are going to go look at the fruit trees around town, see what
varieties are available locally and hopefully get some budwood to do some
grafting. Darren is continuing Sango lessons with Reuben and he also
started trading English lessons for Sango practice with a guy named Massa
who works at the garage. We were hoping to go up north to see a few
villages but bandit activity in the roads was reported so we decided to stay
put for now until we hear something.
In other news, we talked to Darren's dad on the sat phone the other morning
to wish him a happy birthday. That sure made our day. Technology continues
to amaze me with its possibilities and its boundaries. I have also been
talking with my friends here as to how to get more women involved in
planting trees. I am thinking of putting on a women's agroforesty seminar
to see what kind of interest we get. Right now, the seminars are mostly
men, which is good since they typically tend to be lazy and need
encouragement to help with the food needs of the family. However, there is
a large number of widows and single mothers here so I am keen to help them
with trees. Will let you know what happens as we progress.
That's all for now. We are both well, the dog is well, and pictures will be
coming soon to an e-mail address near you!
Angela
