Travels with Tavish

During the end of November and the start of December, a few of us volunteers in Kedougou embarked on a couple trips around the region to do cashew trainings. These three trainings were follow-up for the cashew trainings we conducted in June. With the growing season over, we wanted to gather everyone who planted cashews this year or has existing cashew trees to form a growers' association (or group) in each of the three locations.  The goals of the growers' associations are to make sure people who have cashews know one another so that they can ask questions of one another, get seeds from each other, and eventually (about 5 years in the future when trees start to produce a lot of nuts) sell cashews together. Currently there are no major cashew producers in Kedougou, but a lot of people are starting to plant the trees. The climate in most parts of Kedougou is great for cashew production, so the region has the potential to generate lots of economic activity with cashew sales ...

Here are some more greetings and some useful phrases in Diakhanke. If you missed Part 1 of this blog post in November, go back and check that out. I wrote about the importance of greetings and included a few audio files with that post. There are also a couple pronunciation tips in Part 1 of this post. Unfortunately I do not have audio files for these greetings and phrases. If you want the Excel file where I made these tables, let me know and I can email it to you.

Here is Part 2 of my October book reviews (only two months late). The Fellowship of the Ring : I'm not sure why I put off reading  The Lord of the Rings  so long when I thoroughly enjoyed the movies. Although the action is at times slow, the story was never boring. Tolkein fills the pages with fascinating descriptions of the various lands in Middle Earth and their histories, giving the reader just enough back-story to be curious but never enough to quell the mystery of the historied land. For example, what is a barrow-wight? Where did Tom Bombadil come from and why was he excluded from the movie? What are the details of the dwarves' and elves' long-standing hatred of one another? What surprised me most about  The Fellowship  is that the hobbits don't even reach Rivendell until halfway through the book; it is a while longer still before the council of Elrond is over and the party begins their quest in earnest. It has been a while since I have seen the movi...

Here are some pictures from November: A visit to the area 12km from my village where most people farm their rice. Many residents have built huts near the fields and live here for 3-4 months of the year during plowing, planting, and harvesting times The grassy flat area in the distance is rice  A giant tree in the bush  The view from the top of the hill near the rice fields People from my village cutting rice in their fields My host mom's garden near the river. She transplanted everything from her garden near the forage in village to her sandy garden area next to the river. The river will have enough water to garden until around April My host mom's garden with the river in the background Baobob trees fruiting in my village My other host mom's garden (her friend is pictured) My host mom watering her onions  A cashew tree that my work partner planted. It has been chewed up by animals a little bit (he has not protected i...