My week in Highlights and Pictures

Here's my schedule and some photos from the past week!

Saturday--Fete de Travail, and one of the days I have done the most "work"

6 am Morning meeting at my house with the committee members of the "community woodlot" planted at the school last year: planning which species to replace, how many, choosing a date to start digging holes, all logistics.

two pastors stop by, have tea, and ask if i can speak later in the day to a group of women having a conference on development, on the importance of women in development, environmentally

My best friend in village, Rebecca goes to the hospital and has her 7th baby, I run after her, but after the 12 minute walk, by the time I get there, she's already delivered, a baby girl. Sad, really sad I missed it! Amazed she didn't have it on the road.

After staying with her an hour, and outlining my talk, run back to the church and speak to the 60 women there, a delightful hour.

Rush back home to get ready to go to Garoua, to visit a site for one of the Embassy self help funded projects (a schoolroom for an Mbororo school) with two representatives of the Embassy and the host NGO CELDIE who submitted the project. This little trip was really fun, especially to see "my terrain" through the eyes of two Embassy workers who live in Yaounde, one of whom had never been north.

Return back to village at dusk.

Sunday--

Hanging out at the house, cleaning house

working in my pepiniere, filling pots, preparing and planting seeds

Mbororo girls come over to "accept their papaya trees" that I told them to come by and get

Monday
Market day in Ngong
ordered tanned hides, to sew into a costume
met up with my Mbororo pepinieriestes and chief, to choose a day for the big nursery celebration

Tuesday
morning 6 am (aka 7:30 am) meeting to choose committee for apiculture group that is hoping to get started in Mafa Kilda

can't remember what i did in the afternoon...which probably means hanging out at the house, preparing classes, working on my pepiniere

Wednesday
sunrise walk between the mountains to visit Israel, look at their pepiniere: it's doing remarkably well! enjoyed the scenery of the morning, and this stage of landscape life, on the brink between dry season and wet season, tottering into greenness

dry river bed with "Dr Seuss" trees around it; they look like that because the cow herders climb them and cut them for forage for their cows at the bottom.

A young Mbororo boy, cutting a Shea Butter tree for his cows.

Visit with the family of one of the nursery men in Israel, who had a baby when my sister visited in February (baby Adamou with older sisters Raihanna and Hawa)

Thursday
Rain, beautiful rain, for 4 hours, until 10:30!

(here come the rain clouds approx 6:15)

(the newly formed lake in my concession, approx. 8:30 am)

Went to the school to try to teach the first geography/ecology course to the elementary school kids, but the teachers didn't come because of the rain (more on that later!)

Went to the health center, and started painting for a mural that shows women in various stages of planting harvesting and using moringa, to show the benefit of the plant. Don't have photos of that yet, but will soon!

1 hour personal landscape painting session at Bokle on the way to Garoua

Friday

morning out to Langui refugee camp: taught Trees for the Future Agroforestry class on Live Fencing today (last week was windbreaks and next week is alley cropping). Checked up on the refugee tree nursery which looks great. They will start outplanting the 4000 moringa plants (4 at each household) this week.

(a few nursery workers and Jean Paul Yaoule (head nursery man) in front of their rows of moringa plants at Langui refugee camp)