A Tree in the Desert: Tuesday February 2nd--clearing the Mbororo pepiniere

In the morning, I went to Israel, the village behind the mountain to meet up with the Mbororo's there. We went to look at their pepiniere site and clean it up. Its a short 10-15 minute walk from the village, and I went with the chief, and two of the future nuserymen, armed with rakes and machetes. Trhough the next hour, we were joined by other men, a few younger guys, one older grandfather! and then three guys on motos who showed up to watch but didn't actually work. The chief took off his big gandora (which he donned again for the photo) and was right in there, chopping and sweating with the rest. When we got there, as I didn't have my machete, I kind of stood around and watched as the men chopped down thorny branches to put along the perimeter of the site to keep animals from entering. They raked up underbrush, cleared small shrubs, and left bigger trees for shade. We went over a detailed timeline of the work needed to be done in the pepiniere month by month, in which I drew pictures instead of writing words. I can't really explain how exciting it was to me, this morning, working on this site with the men. What I can compare it to is the same emotion, and excitement, of an empty house, or an empty garden, an open and empty or brushy space no different from all the brush around it, with the anticipation of turning it into something beautiful, something productive (not that wild spaces aren't productive for sure), but a type of Eden. I love having spaces and imagining what they can be turned into, either farms or houses or gardens, or rooms. And in the course of a few hours, this brushy thorny space was transformed into a beautiful little clearing. Next will be holes dug for a well (standing water is right nearby all year long) and compost pits. Then pots will be brought, soil mixed, seeds planted and it will be a nursery.

The water is seen right behind Jawro Issa (chief) and that will be the location of the well

Ramani (background) and Ahmadou Jawdi (foreground) two of the future nurseryment. The plant with the fruit is a wild Zizyphus micronata, non-edible but great for using in live fencing as branches grow very dense. The location is great and seeds can be gathered from it for producing others to fill in the dead fence (thorns) to make a live fence around the nursery.