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...