Funding proposal for Tree Nursery

Here's an example of a project proposal for funding for the Mbororo Tree Nursery project I am working on, which may give you more of an idea of some of my work.

SMALL GRANT PROJECT PROPOSAL

Title of the Project: Establishment of a Tree Nursery in the Foulbe Ladde village of Jawro Issa Adamou

Area of Land: an eigth of an hectare

Location
Cameroon, North Province
20 km south of Garoua
Israel village, Jawro Issa Adamou
Climate: southern Sahel
Rainy season: June-mid October
Heavy rains: August/early September
Dry season: October-June
Hot season: (temps above 120 during the day) February-May/June
rainfall: 800mm/year
elevation: 1000 m

Implementers: Elizabeth A. Moore, Peace Corps Volunteer, Agroforestry
Abdul Rahman, Saleh, Jawro Issa Adamou, residents

Qualification and Profession: Peace Corps Volunteer


Executive Summary:
How many Trees will be Produced? At least 1000 trees (fruit trees, thorny trees, shade trees, and fodder trees) will be produced.

What species?
During a village meeting, the inhabitants listed the trees they were interested in, which were as follows:
Fruit:
Anacardium occidental
Mangifera indica
Psidium guajave
various citrus (oranges, lime)#
Thorny:
Acacia nilotica
Acacia polyacantha
Shade:
Azadirachta (neem)
Cassia siamea*
Albezia lebbeck*
Fodder:
Ficus#
Other:
Eucalpytus#
Moringa oliefera*

*These following trees were not listed, due to lack of knowledge, however I added them, and in discussion they were very happy to include these.

#These trees, while requested by the village, I either discouraged (eucalyptus) or declined for this year because of difficulty producing lack of seeds (although if we find seeds we may try an experiment)

Where will these trees be planted?
The vast majority will be planted in the village, around homes, surrounding the village and in nearby fields. However others will be sold to other villagers, and friends/family and taken back to different villages.

How many people will be affected? The immediate village is home to 300 inhabitants, men, women, and children. However there are many surrounding villagers who will come to buy trees, and benefit from the project, so that the total number of those affected positively by this project greatly exceeds 300.

What agroforestry techniques will you be using?
Live Fencing
Composting
Open root nursery

Future teaching techniques:
Grafting
Cuttings

Project Starting: March 2010

Grant Sought for: 54,500 fcfa/ $115.72

Background:
I am an agroforestry Peace Corps volunteer working in the North region of Cameroon in a small village about 20 km south of Garoua. Among the villages I work with is a village of Foulbe Ladde/Mbororo, semi-nomadic pastoralists who have settled in the area in the past 20 years. While they are pastoralists, rather than agriculturalists, and have little past experience with tree planting, they have been very interested in planting trees during my work with them this past year. Last year, they ordered and planted around 500 trees, all fruit trees for their houses and fields or thorny trees to plant around the village as a live fence. However, their village is a bit isolated, a long drive on a very bad unpaved road around a mountain. I suggested briefly the possibility of them creating their own nursery for this year, and they latched onto that idea. Since then, they have chosen a site for the nursery, chosen three men who will learn the trade and work on it, and we are doing some nursery trainings right now, in the hopes of starting tree production on a small scale this season. What is notable to me is their true desire, almost thirst, for trees. We will probably be looking to produce first thorny trees for haie vives, fodder trees for their cows and sheep, and some of the more simple fruit trees.

Importance
The work with the Foulbe Ladde, to me, is one of the more exciting areas of my work because it is introducing tree planting (and raising) to a group of people with no previous experience. What is particularly thrilling is the possibility of creating a tree planting culture among a people group who historically have not planted trees, nor grown many crops, because of the constant moving from place to place. Many of the surrounding villages of agriculturalists have been visited by researchers, NGOs, and agriculture groups and most know the importance of trees and some general agroforestry principles. However the Foulbe Ladde are the most removed population, keeping to themselves, communicating solely in Fulfulde, with little school enrollment. They have worked with some NGOs, however not as extensively as other villages.
In addition, the isolation both location-wise and socially means that most of them have never been to village nurseries. In surrounding communities of agriculturalists, those that want trees would easily go to a local nursery to buy them, and know the location of the nursery. However most Foulbe Ladde would not necessarily have a connection with nurseries. The nearest nurseries are 50 minutes away by car, a transport option which is not available to 99% of the villagers, who travel predominantly by motorbike or foot. Though they have little background planting trees, they cut trees (mostly big branches, but sometimes whole trees) through the dry season in order to feed their cows as they pasture. Women of course also cook solely with wood, and look for that wood en brousse, cutting branches. The opportunity to work with them on establishing tree lots for fodder trees for their livestock, and also to participate in general tree planting as replacing those trees cut for fodder is important.
Currently, there is much interest among the Foulbe Ladde in the surrounding area, and the news is spreading from the mouths of the Foulbe I work with of the establishment of their nursery. Already others are coming to that village to ask about trees, about buying them, and also about establishing their own nurseries. As it is a very isolated and reserved population, the Foulbe Ladde are the best people to pass on knowledge and information, to encourage others amongst the region’s Foulbe to plant trees as well. I see the reach of one nursery extending a large distance through the passing of knowledge and encouragement.

Sustainability
In terms of sustainability, providing the first season goes well, I have high hopes that this project will be sustainable. I will COS in December of 2010, and will likely be replaced, as I have been opening this post. However the training going on now is with the view that the Foulbe nurserymen will be trained and have knowledge and be able to continue the work without any volunteer’s presence. I am making sure to connect the Foulbe nurserymen with the nurserymen in my village, doing the training through them, at their nurseries. Thus, when they have any questions, they will go to them, and this will be an avenue of permanent support. In addition, I believe the desire for trees, as previously mentioned, is strong enough to provide a good market, and it will be growing as the news of their nursery spreads. The replication factor is highly possible, in that if their nursery is successful the first year, I am sure their families in other villages will also want to start their own, and they will serve as trainers. The killer of sustainability will be if the first year sees many difficulties or problems in the nursery and the work is abandoned in the first year. But I believe if they get through the first year they will certainly continue the work into the future, as they see the benefits.

Future extension
There is much possibility in terms of extending the project and teaching in the future. The following years after establishment, future volunteers, or other nursery men or NGO workers should introduce more complex propagation methods, such as grafting and the use of cuttings. As we will be starting small this year, there is always room for the expansion of the nursery, both in terrain size and in quantity and variety of species produced. This first year, most of their production will be for their own village and friends in surrounding villages. However if they find success and continued interest in the nursery work, it would be advisable for them to join one of the nursery GICs (common interest group), a network of nurseries who often link up with ONGs for tree planting endeavors, providing a greater network of information, resources, and a larger market. Finally, on top of the nursery technical expertise, basic business and financial principles should be explored, to allow them to extend from year to year, preparing for the future year’s production with the current year’s sales.

Techniques to be used
-We will be experimenting with an open root nursery bed as well as conventional plastic polypots, both those bought and those from recycled water bags.
-A live fence will be planted around the nursery area, incorporating both thorny trees as well as cuttings of other fast growing trees, to experiment with multiple methods and look at effectiveness of different species.
-A compost pit will be dug and compost will be produced, to be used at outplanting time
-The production of many diverse species for various uses
-In the future, we will expand into learning other vegetative propagation techniques such as grafting and cuttings.

Outputs/Expected Results:
1000 trees will be planted in the village of Jawro Issa Adamou and surrounding villages, combating desertification and deforestation
Village nurserymen will be trained in keeping a nursery and tree planting techniques
These nurserymen will share their knowledge with other villagers and friends and relatives from other villages so that knowledge and interest in tree planting will spread beyond their village
Women and children will be included in the nursery activities
The nursery will add another economic resource for the village
In theory, becoming interested in raising and planting trees will allow this people group to take more care of the trees around them, perhaps cutting less and being more careful about bush fires.

Tools Needed/Budget
We are requesting 54.500 fcfa (~$115) to allow the purchase of basic supplies for starting the nursery.

Budget Breakdown

Item Cost Unit Total (fcfa) US $
Polypots medium size 7 500 3.500 7.43
Polypots fruit trees 10 300 3.000 6.37
Watering can 4000 2 8.000 16.99
Buckets 2000 2 4.000 8.49
Shovel 3000 2 6.000 12.74
Wheelbarrow 30000 1 30.000 63.70
Total 54.500 115.72

TIMELINE
December
First talks with local NGO CELDIE and village
January
Site chosen; 3 pepinieristes chosen; field trip to nursery in Mafa Kilda
February
Site clean-up, thorny barrier created; discuss which species and numbers to be produced; well and compost pit dug
March
Seed Collection and Storage animation; seed preparation demonstration; seeds planted; beginning maintenance (watering, weeding, moving pots)
April
Planting; follow up visit to Mafa Kilda nursery; nursery maintenance
May
Maintenance
June
Maintenance; first outplanting
July
Main outplanting
August
Continued outplanting
September
Cleanup; financial breakdown, budget for next year; planning for next years needs and production

Here's some pretty photos of the sky, my garden in the past week

Some gourds I cut stars into and put candles in, to serve as lanterns. They're really pretty at night! One Cameroonian said, "Isn't this what you guys do for Halloween?"

Bougainvillas I bought at the Alliance Franco-Camerounais adding splashes of color

Pretty sky when I woke up in the morning, back when the weather was still nice and cool!

This is Cassia siamea tree planted at the elementary school. Normally its leaves are a rich green but i guess this is the hot season's version of "fall leaves." Isn't it stunning?

visit to homestay family

Last weekend I went to my homestay familie's house to spend the night. My homestay mother was busy and had been busy since six am, working on peanuts. She had taken peanuts to the mill and ground them into peanut butter. Then she takes the peanut butter and puts it over the fire, stirring, stirring, stirring until it changes consistency and separates a bit. Then the solid part is kneaded repeatedly to squeeze all the oil out of it. The oil is kept and sold (delicious!). The remains are then rolled into long sticks (bakaru) pictured at bottom, though dark, or into wafers and fried. Or they are rolled into small balls and then made into a soup called haam haam, which uses follere as well.

kneeding the peanut solid

bakaru ready to be deep fried fried

Apparently my homestay father has come into some money because I turned the corner into his courtyard where normally there is a mat under a citrus tree, and there were 12 sheep and two goats, just sitting right there! What a surprise. I just started laughing. Apparently he started buying sheep at the market, he'll feed them for a few months and then sell them again at markets when they're price is up. Investing, brousse style. (He also somehow aquired a motorcycle!) Anyway he was really proud of his sheep so here's a picture of him posing with them...really with riches, like a king sitting on top of a heap of gold, or American's posing beside an expensive car or house.

sheep here make me laugh anyway, often being quite short haired (these two have hair) and with long swinging tails

pretty little yellow birds sitting in front of a Thevetia bush

Tuesday January 19--visiters to the house

Last Tuesday I had a full day of visitors and work. Here's a little glimpse.

Ramani and Saleh visit the pepiniere

One of my big projects right now is working with the Foulbe Ladde village behind the mountain in establishing a pepiniere. This past year they ordered many trees to be planted in their village but their location is pretty isolated and difficult to arrive at with a car loaded with trees. They still want trees and so we are exploring the idea of them starting their own tree nursery to provide the trees they want to plant among their village and friends. While waiting to hear from funding proposals sent out (for basic materials such as two watering cans, pots for the seedlings, two shovels, a wheelbarrow, two buckets, some fencing) they have chosen a spot, chosen three to-be nursery men, and Tuesday they came for an instructive "field trip" to Mafa Kilda to visit the pepiniere's here. I had hoped that they'd visit all three, but we ended up only having time for one. Perhaps another day they will come see the others. After waking up extra early to sweep the courtyard, to get water from the well, to cook rice, lentils and chai because they told me that they would arrive at 7:00am, I waited 3 and half hours for them to show up, growing slightly and slightly more angry. However, when they did arrive, I found out they walked (they had said they'd take a moto which apparently fell through) so my frustration vanished, as it's a two hour walk. And at least they came! After sitting for a while talking, we went to visit the pepiniere of Bounabe Aamadu, my favorite pepinieriste because of his organizational ability, his honesty and his simplicity. In addition to that, he is very willing to give his knowledge to others. Instead of viewing the establishment of another pepiniere as competition, he is happy to teach the Foulbe tools of the trade, to answer their questions. I love his giving nature. Of course it is necessary that the pepinieristes train these guys, as I am not an expert and they know all about the trade. But it's important beyond the fact of knowledge. If it's the pepinieristes in Mafa Kilda who train them and establish a relationship then it will be them to whom they go when they have questions, they will be the link, they will be the resource, after volunteers leave and no longer work with them. Using resources in the community is the best form of sustainability and capacity building. The visit went well. I had a list of questions I wanted Bounabe to cover, and during and after Ramani, Saleh, and Daly had their own questions. All three seemed very enthousiastic and also seemed to understand what was explained. For the moment we are waiting for news of funding to get them started, which will come to about $250 for all supplies. Hopefully we will be able to get started in the end of February before the real heat comes on, perhaps necessitating me to front money for the first supplies of polypots and watering cans. We'll see.

After the visit, we returned to my house, and I thought they'd be returning home. But no, they stayed. In fact another 3 hours! They lounged on the mat, got up to pray at different times and just hung out. We spent a lot of time looking at photos, those that I had brought from home, and those that friends had sent. They are particularly interested of course of photos of sheep and cows, and I had some of some cows and pastures in Virginia as well as some sheep in Syria (thanks emily!) and we spent a lot of time talking about them: that we don't herd our cows but that they pasture in closed in fields, that sheep in other countries had long hair (here, they mostly have very short hair, and look a lot different!) We looked at photos of my house and they asked, since my parents only had two daughters and no sons who would inherit the house. After explaining a little about that, they asked, well there is some land around your house, will you build a room (hut) for yourself on your father's property? We talked about how if I get married, and I already have a house, and my fiance has one too, we will decide together whether to live in one house, or the other, or look for another together. They were astonished at that, as women here leave their father's homes to live in their husbands homes, who often build a little room near or in the family compound. We looked at maps of the world but that is a little beyond them. So we talk more about more concrete ideas and real photos rather than such grand spacial concepts!

Saleh and Ramani eating the food and drinking the tea I made. "White people don't really like sugar" they said when they tasted my tea (in which I thought I put a lot of sugar!) as I ran to get the sugar bowl. True. Tea here is like syrup and I always underestimate how much I should put in!

Hamadou and Usmanu come to visit.
As soon as they left, I was excited to rest, however a few minutes later another Foulbe Ladde guy, Hamadou, from my village came to visit. He came to talk about one of their biggest needs in the Muslim Neighborhood: a road that extends out to where they pasture their cows. I think he said something about how in rainy season it gets really bad and washes out. He also said he was interested in planting soy and doing small animal husbandry, maybe goats, chickens, sheep. I am excited about the prospect of him joining the soy gic (group of common interest) that was formed this year. The village tends to be very divided between the Christian or Animist Mafa who comprise 90% of it and the Muslims who are a few Mafa and the rest Foulbe Ladde who have settled in that neighborhood to escape aggression in the bush. Thus when their are village meetings quite often the Muslims don't come, aren't called, and don't participate as much in the village life. They are ok with that, as they have their small community. They tell me when they go to village meetings with the Mafa, there's too much talking, too much wasted time, too many arguments. I understand that frustration with meetings! There is also the underlying frustration, the understanding of two different clashing cultures, especially around harvest season when Foulbe cattle enter fields before harvest and eat all the harvest of a farmer. There are always cases before the traditional chiefs about farmers demanding compensation from Foulbe Ladde who let their cattle graze on their fields before harvest. However occasionally some of them do come and participate in meetings, and this participation is necessary that their perspective and voice not be left out in decisions, plans for the school, etc. So him planting soy and joining this group is exciting to me, forming more links between these two groups, perhaps more cooperation. While we were talking, his neighbor Usmanu came. When I had a blow up globe and was showing people at the carrefour back maybe in April, he had brought me a calabash and asked me to draw the world map on it. (later reading the book Poisonwood Bible I saw the same activity!) I drew it and then let it sit for a long time! Months, and I'm sure that he thought I just wasn't going to finish it. I finally painted it all, finished it, and told him he could come get it. So he came to get it, and then we talked about the world, brought out all the photos again, same talks about cows, sheep, horses, houses, etc. It was fun, although tiring! Finally they also left, after maybe an hour or two.

Usmanu holding his globe, with Hamadou looking on.

Pastor and wife come over for dinner
At this point, I had no time for the rest I had planned, as I had invited the Pastor and his wife over for dinner on Sunday, and were expecting them to arrive around 5:00 or 6:00. I went straight into the kitchen and started cooking again, more rice, more cutting onions and ginger, more lentils, filtered water, washed dishes, etc. I kept praying that they'd be African and be late as I didn't think that I could finish in time! Finally 6:30 rolled around, I finished everything and they hadn't showed up. Sent a child to ask them if they were still coming, thinking maybe they'd forgotten or were busy which would be fine. (children are great here, you send them to do errands for you everywhere--go to the boutique and buy me some soap, give this money to this person, go see if so and so is at their house) They sent him back with the message they were coming and did arrive shortly after, stealing away from the church community meeting which lasted longer than expected. By this time, sadly it was dark, and a little chilly so we couldn't sit on the mat outside, and I hadn't cleaned up inside! Still we moved the mat inside despite the clutteredness and the pile of dead ants I killed the day before when they invaded my house, and put out three candles and a lantern and ate and talked. His wife brought their new baby on her back, who slept on her lap the whole meal. They are a wonderful couple who arrived in Mafa Kilda to take over the pastorship of the church last summer, newer arrivals than me. Nale Lazare, the husband had asked if we could talk sometime, so he could know my church background, we could talk about struggles, share Christian brotherhood etc, doing his job in pastoring. It was really nice to talk about the church, some of their struggles (including adjusting to the heat of Garoua!, coming to a village less developed, with less amenities, their dog also killed by a car the same week as Leila, church elders getting older and tired, and needing to bring younger servants into the church) After an hour perhaps, they left, going back to their own guests who had come for a few days for the church meeting. I meant to take a photo of them, but I forgot before they left. So the whole day was spent with visitors, people over to my house. Not every day is like that certainly! Far from it. But I do like how randomly people drop by, with questions, needs, or just conversation. A little visit.

Hospitality. It's really something special, to learn, to be able to open your house up, to cook food for people and have it to offer. To clean up the house to make it look nice and inviting, a peaceful environment. I only hope when I get back to the states people will actually drop by to visit, as I think that's something we have lost...

Another Call for magazine photos

I just wanted to put this out there again, about magazine clippings for the geography class (see post October 14th). Thank you so much Emily for the photos that you sent. They are AMAZING! I was so overwhelmed! and they will be wonderful to include. But if anyone else would be able to send me some picture of any of the following if you run across them in a magazine, old Nat Geographics etc, that would be so helpful, and I could start my geography class!

1. people, faces, clothing from all over, all different countries, to show diversity and beauty
2. animals (lions, elephants, hippos, giraffes, panda bear, wolves, polar bear, lemurs, other monkeys, toucans, highland cows, camels, koala bears, snakes, etc)
3. landscape and plants
4. buildings, new and old

These are for all continents. So far I actually haven't gotten many from Africa and was hoping to start on that first. I'd love to show photos of typical fauna and flora, but also photos of the diversity of Africans, and African cities and villages, to combat some stereotypes. We'll probably also be talking about desertification and deforestation.

Wow 5 packages in two days!

I got 5 packages in Garoua in two days! Thank you!!!

From
Emily Gercke
Aunt Ginny sent Dec 7
the Hubers
Dad sent for Christmas
Dad sent Nov 23

Thank you so much! I've only opened two so far, couldn't carry the rest home from Garoua but will bring them home slowly and savor them!

Anacardium--Cashew Tree

Took this photo at Anitha's house in Douroum. These are Cashew fruit, Anacardium occidentale, which are so pretty, so brightly colored. They're usually bright yellow, red or orange. Don't eat the seeds because they're poisonous (unless you cook them just right, when they're delicious cashew nuts), but the fruit is very good too. It's Anacardium season right now. The first time I ate them was last year around this time, and the ones from Anitha's tree were my first ones of the season this year.

This past weeks schedule

Here's a little synopsis of my schedule of work this week as most people have trouble imagining what life is like on a day to day basis for a volunteer. This is typical, and yet there is no "typical." Some weeks there's more "work", others less. But maybe this gives an idea of the lack of structure, how much time is mainly meeting with groups and talking about things and planning meetings. This week went pretty smoothly. Some weeks, there is a lot more running around, a lot of stand up meetings, or meetings canceled because of death in the family or other work, or forgetfulness! And then in growing season of course all the work is in the field.

Monday: came home from Mandama, rearranged furniture in house; worked on some school lesson planning for Geography class
Tuesday: Had community meeting to give a report about my first year here: what activities we had worked on together, where we are at on different projects, what possibilities there are for the future and what some of the village needs/desires are. 3 hours long, 70 people. Scheduled meeting with Muslim Quartier to talk about their needs/desires for this next year and in the future. Did laundry.
Wednesday: Took moto to small village behind the mountain; met with Foulbe to look at the site they chose to start their tree nursery and talk with the three men who will work on it. Scheduled for them to come to Mafa Kilda next week to tour the three tree nurseries there. Walked back home, 2 hours. Rested in the afternoon, got water; Night: visit pepinieristes at their homes to make sure they are available for next weeks tour. Watched last 40 minutes of Cameroon-Gabon soccer match at pepinieristes house, outside with 30 other villagers.
Thursday: Morning--Went to the School to talk with school director about protecting trees. Went to Health Center to help with prenatal consultation day; Went to next village over market, met with some Foulbe and bought some produce and household things. Came home and worked on garden, cleaned up, rested.
Friday: went to Garoua and to the UNHCR office. Had planned to go to the refugee camp but because today was ration distribution day, rescheduled for next week to meet with women's group; talked about plannification and timeline for Moringa project. worked in office typing up a Trees for the Future exam and correspondence home; grocery shopping, post office, bank, fulfulde lesson
Saturday: Meeting in Garoua with ONG CELDIE to work on filling out information for an application for funding with the US Embassy for the construction of schools in a Foulbe Ladde Village near Nakong. Go to buy wood, go to tailors, Go back to Mafa Kilda. Meeting 4 pm for the Muslim Quartier
Sunday: church, visiting at home, reading, washing, local market

photos from the moto going from Mandama to Guider

Painting in Mandama

Friday morning Jessie and I left Garoua for Guider and eventually Mandama to help Kauleen one of our stagemates, a health volunteer, with a project she is working on. Because there is a lack of resources in schools, no books, no maps, no pictures, she decided to do a series of educational murals on the walls of the elementary school. Eventually the idea transformed a bit into doing the paintings on portable boards, mainly because the school never got around to painting the walls, which was necessary before the murals. However, the portability of the boards means that many classes can use them, they can be hung or transported to other classrooms. Linking up with her sister in the States, who did a penny drive, they raised money for the materials, wood and paint. She then did a series of drawings, some health related (the transmission of Malaria, Wash your hands with Soap, The Major Food Groups) but others non-health related, such as an "elephant" or "slavery". She worked with the teachers on incorporating some of their ideas or requests (such as picture admonishing children not to throw their trash on the floor and to keep the school grounds neat and tidy). The drawings were done on graph paper and grids were drawn on the boards so that each square of graph paper corresponded to a larger square on the board. Besides the fact of Kauleen being a very talented artist, sketching all 25 of the ideas, I was completely impressed with the entire project, the vision of it, how it responded to a felt need in the community, organization of it, the connecting it to a school in the states. Jessie and I were met by three other girls there, and we all worked on the boards over the weekend, drawing and then painting, taking breaks for cooking and eating delicious meals, a visit to the cheif's house, and dinners at the neighbor Hawa's house. It was a really fun time, spending time with the other girls, working hard on a project with a tangible purpose and endgoal in mind! While we didn't finish the paintings by the third day we brought them farther along and hopefully Kauleen will be able to keep working on them in time to get them done for Fete de Jeunesse, 11 February, which is her goal.

It was really nice to get away for a bit, to see a new post and area, which was beautiful, a pretty little village, and to not think for a bit about my puppy. Also really nice to be with the other girls.
And it was cold there at night and in the mornings!!! Mmmm!

measuring the grid lines

pretty blank canvasses

drawing for the malaria transmission board


sketch for Africa board

Kauleen working on drawing the skeleton

(have to include the photos of our delicious quiche cooked in the dutch oven!)

The Artist Crew: back row--Karin, Jessie, Kauleen; front row--Me, Jasmine, Anitha

painting

The "wash your hands" board in process, maybe my favorite one

We created a beautiful mess of bright colors

RIP Papaya

I came home from Garoua around dusk, and heard that my puppy was just hit by a car. Maybe as little as 30 minutes before I got there. I assume that the kids went in and left the door open, because I kept her inside the walls with the gate closed, as protection. Very frustrating. Very sad. Why twice? I hate cars. I don't think I'll be getting any more puppies.

moringa presentation at Langui

This morning, I went to the refugee camp to talk to the women about the benefits of moringa: nutritionally, for purification of water, medicinally, and how easily it grows. The goal is that by the rainy season enough moringa will be produced by a few of the refugees to plant 4 at each of the houses/plots in the camp. We planned this meeting for this day in December, and I called a few times during the week to verify and make sure the president of the women's bureau was letting all the women know.

I got to the camp running about 3 hours late with the UNHCR crew and was afraid that all the women who had been waiting for the meeting would have already given up and left. However, when I got there, I found that no women had even been called yet, that there were no chairs or benches or tarps set up, or anything. Quite typical, yet frustrating as I wanted to get there, talk and then get back to Garoua to do work in the office. So I got there, and they found three benches and I sat there with five women, thinking "there better be more women coming!" Meanwhile the president went around with a megaphone in the various quartiers. She had told me "Well I informed the women, but a lot said they were busy with this or that." And I thought, oh please don't have brought me out here for five women!!!

Often meetings don't start at a specified time, but after everyone has seen that you are seated there, they start wandering over. This is true in my village too. And means that meetings will often start an hour or more after you are seated there. It'd be great to have a book, but I feel rude reading when there are a few other people there waiting with you, so I just sit and talk.

Finally, after about an hour of women trickling in, there were probably about 90 women. This time, way too many for it to be incredibly effective. Women were standing in the back, behind me, to the sides, unable to hear or see the visuals. I had hoped and specifically asked for only the women of a certain "block" to be called, so that week by week I would talk to the women of each block, same information, but a smaller number of women. But they came from every block, as one hears about something going on and the rest come. However you take what you get and work with it, and one hopes that those who couldn't see or hear well will get a good explanation from their friends who were sitting in closer range. And always better more than less! It's always encouraging to have a few people in the "audience" who maintain eye contact, who nod and say "Yes!" to let you know they are understanding, following and that the information may be relevent to them, and I had one such woman who was my "angel". Actually I'm sure there were many others, but there was one prominant one sitting up front, about 50 maybe, beautiful, Arabic speaker who had such a great air about her, gentle but confident and capable. Throughout the whole presentation to almost everything I said she said "Uhhuh" "mmmh" 'Ah." And it was so nice. The other nice thing was that most of the women already knew the plant, yet didn't know all the benefits, and most all of them want it. The next step is working out details of producing that many trees and distributing them, and making sure they are planted well! There are about 950 households either tents or brick rooms in the camp, so that's a good amount of trees! The good thing about this tree is that it grows very easily, so should be a great tree for teaching some of the refugees in creating and maintaining their own tree nursery. Secondly, because it grows so quickly, people can reap the benefits, harvest the leaves in the first season, so even those who hope to repatriate, to go back to Chad after a few years may still benefit from it, (whereas planting slower growing trees, mangos or thorny species may seem more irrelevent to a refugee camp, although they did plant those communally this year too). Finally, if the tree production works well, and the women start drying the leaves and making a powder from it, there is the possibility of selling the powder to local health centers who then resell it in their pharmacies to breastfeeding mothers or for malnourished children, about 5 cents a packet. I look forward to seeing how this project works out, and hopefully having a good story from it.