School Garden

We started the school garden today with a living fence. I plowed with an ox.

Then we planted trees. Over 300. We planted Jatropha. Next we will fix the pump. There is talk of enclosing the whole school grounds now to feed the school. I hope it works!!

The big bad wolf peed in Ania's pants today.

My Pfarm

Well, it's not really a pfarm but a garden. And Sanga is like a pfarm. And I have a chicken.

One of the things I was most excited to do here was have a garden. And here it is. We started it when the rains came with black-eyed peas. I wanted to do beans so they could fix nitrogen in the soil. Then when they are 10-50% to flower I'll do a double dig and plant tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, etc...

I have started the double dig here. It's a lot of work. First you add a one inch layer of compost. Then, dig 12" deep and loosen the soil another 12 inches down. Here, 12 inches down you hit rock. So we did 12 and will try again after this first round of crops.

We also are doing peanuts.

I have a tomato. They grew in my compost pit on accident. I throw old water from the "kitchen sink" (read: bucket). The seeds then germinated and I got tomatoes!

Termites are a big problem here. My fence posts have been up for about six months and are already completely rotten and need to be replaced. So I decided to plant moringa trees instead. First you soak the seeds for 24 hours.

Then, you plant them one inch deep.

Then they grow. :) They are supposed to grow very quickly. Hopefully I'll have an update soon.

My chicken had chicks. All of those are not hers. She was chosen to be the mother out of all the chickens. I'm not sure how she (and me) got so lucky. But there she is! Isn't she a good mom?

On a sad note, my dog died. But the next day Mouta and Boukari found a puppy. So that was good. Isn't she cute?

Mouta likes her. Her name is TuPa. I wanted to call her Sugar. I guess they didn't like it. I also suggested Wheelbarrow because they can't say it and make fun of me when I can't say things in Nooni.

Bukari really thought it would be fun to take a photo with the turkey. I was scared. But he just grabbed it.

She is already tangling with the rooster.

Alina's dance recital

First ballet (Alina is in the black leotard)

Then tap

She then proceeded to take 48 pictures from the time her recital ended until we got to the car. They were good, but unfortunately I don't have time to post those right now.