July Pictures

Here are some July pictures from the village!

Puddles in the front yard forming during a rain storm 

Water has come back to the river next to the women's gardens

Fields of jabare (a root vegetable) covered with leaves

Some Jatropha cuttings I planted in between the existing trees bordering my host dad's field

My host mom Nyuma burnt down this dead tree because it was in the middle of her jabare fields. She cut it up and hauled it back to the house for firewood

A woman named Janke Traore who planted lots of cashews in the pepiniere carrying some back to her house to outplant 

Peanut roasting setup

Rice field next to the road near my village. Farmers will spray with herbicide to kill all the green currently visible

Moringa intensive bed in the community pepiniere. We have eaten the leaves for two meals so far. If you look closely in the front row of trees you can see some that were cut about 4 inches above the ground. Moringa grows back very quickly when cut in this manner; if no goats get to it, this bed will be a continuous source of leaves.

A bridge under construction on the bush path to the luumo for when the river floods. There was not enough water in the river on this day to have to use the bridge, but it is coming

My host mom and her friend planting jabare

My sad compost pile that has not decomposed much since I made it in December. I stopped watering it a long time ago, but I am hoping the rains will help it decompose during the next two months

The bush near my host mom's garden. It's so green!

Pull-up bar version 4. I replaced the near post with a straighter tree. Also notice the corn, bean, and peanuts I planted in my garden bed

A sprouting peanut! I plucked this out of my garden bed when I thinned my peanut plants

The only diseased cashew in the pepiniere. Luckily it did not spread

A growing peanut that is having a hard time cracking its own shell 

A farmer in my village plowing his field

The village cows are coming to drink a traditional medicine that the people in my village made for them at the start of the planting season. The medicine has been mixed into the muddy water in front of the woman on the left and the cows are being herded toward the water. The medicine is a mixture of roots and trees from the bush and salt, pounded together

The cows drinking their medicine from the small pool

The first non-government building being built in my village (the only two buildings that are not huts are the school and the magasin where farmers store their rice before selling it)

I planted some thorny trees outside the pepiniere for live fencing. They are about 1-2 feet tall

Sweat on my are after meditating (not fanning myself) for 20 minutes in my hut one afternoon. This picture does not accurately capture how hot it was in my hut

A storm is coming

My host mom Nyuma stripping the leaves from a baobob tree.  The leaves will be dried, pounded, and added to peanut sauce

My toxoma killed a large lizard on his way back from the rice fields one day. We ate it for dinner

The bridge across one of rivers on the way to my luumo is now open

My host family weeds the corn field. I planted some of my host dad's cashew trees in this field, but they are hard to see from this view

The old men of the village sitting under shade structures at a wedding

A cool tree I saw in the bush while exploring a new path