Fencing

Traditional fencing is made of thorny brush that is gathered and piled in a row. It can be effective, but needs a lot of rebuilding.

The fencing that we got from a previous volunteer's village has a new future: instead of going up around our gum arabic plantation, we're going to use it for the school gardens and community tree nursery. I talked about it with the school director and the Tree Guys, as I think of them, and we decided more people would benefit by using the fencing this way. We still haven't put it up, but it'll happen. Probably soon!

Measuring for a new fence

Gardening

As I mentioned before, the intrusion of animals is a major deterrent to gardening. Goats, sheep, cattle, and donkeys have free range during most of the day, and it only takes one to break from the herd and destroy a whole plot in the space of a minute. This year chickens have been the main problem; a few came through and wiped out all of the newly sprouted crops that five other women had planted in an adjacent area to ours. Those women didn't replant. Traditional methods of keeping animals out are either covering plots with big thorny branches, or weaving fence out of grasses, sticks, and thorns. We did both of those; after seeding, we used a nasty tangle of thorns, and once things started growing we built a grass fence around the perimeter of our plots. We haven't had any problems except some unknown something who keeps nibbling my collard babies.

I've had two village meetings with the landowners around the pond to see how we could afford purchasing metal fencing to enclose garden areas. Everyone is in unanimous agreement that many, many more people would garden if there were some insurance that their plots would be safe, and there is continued interest in investing in a more permanent solution than thorny branches. The challenge is that not only is metal fencing (chain link) prohibitively expensive here, but also that there is not yet a communally owned piece of land that could be enclosed. As it is, we would be fencing in certain individuals' land, and not others', which gets political and a bit messy. To clarify- the women are gardening on land owned by a man named Adamou, who lets them use his land for free during cold season. Fencing this part of his land would be awesome for gardeners, but is problematic for the other 12 landowners who would also like to fence in their plots and garden. So...there's some work to be done. Moussa suggested that I push to get a landowner to sell his or her land to the village, so it'd belong to everyone and no one, and could then be fenced in without rubbing anyone the wrong way.

In the meantime, the six of us will keep up our morning and afternoon trips to the garden, to water our growing veggies and get away from the bustle of the village for awhile.

Habi watering greens

Habi and Balki at their lettuce plots , inside of El Hadji Shaibu's land

Cold season gardening in Niger

Millet

The growing season (May-August) is completely devoted to growing the staple crop of millet and there is zero time for anything else. But during the cold season (Dec-March) some folks try to grow veggies. "Cold" is a relative term. This week it was 111° F (43.8°C) in the shade.

I was thinking I should write up a little something for you about vegetable gardening, which is going on right now. Well, in case you're interested:

From December through March, when the temperatures are a little lower and there's not any farming to be done, many villagers plant vegetable gardens around the edges of seasonal ponds. By this time of year the ponds are dried up, but usually there are shallow wells nearby that have enough water to work with. In my village it's mostly women who do 'cold season vegetable gardening' ('noman rani', in Hausa), although there are several men who are using this time to transplant mangos, neem trees, and henna. In past years I hear that there were at least 30 women who gardened, but that number has dwindled to five because of frustrations with crops being ruined by errant grazers (and chickens). This year, it's Osuma, Narba, Hassana, Karima, and...me.

Most women plant the same things: tomatoes, hot peppers, cabbage, lettuce, and carrots. And, while they will take some of their wares home with them to eat, the majority of vegetables are grown with the intention to sell them either at the larger market in Illela or here in town. A nearby village, which has a great area fenced in for the gardeners, is already producing a ton of lettuce; on any given day I'll run into a young girl selling it out of a giant plastic bag on her head. It's cheap- 50 CFA (10 cents) for about 2 heads.

I planted a bunch of collards, zucchinis, and cucumbers. The collards and zucchinis weren't familiar to my fellow gardeners, but they've had cucumbers before. It'll be cool if everything makes it, although I'm skeptical about the collards' heartiness in such hot weather. I'll let you know how it goes.

We are washing lettuce in the hostel in Konni, and it is verrry dirty. Ate it anyway.

That's it for now...but more about gardening later.

Millet, moringa, neem, baobab, veggie starts

Baobab seedling

8/7/08
For several weeks now--months, even--I've been prepping areas around my hut for gardens. It's really gratifying to see what was just solid, heat-baked clay and sand be transformed into something that more closely resembles soil! After chopping at the slate-like plots with every tool available (village-made hoe/ax and big sticks), I mixed in manure that my neighbors gave me. They watched with great amusement as I shoveled their goats', cows', sheep's, and donkeys' poop into my big "I Love Africa" bucket. Since then I have been adding water and millet chaff. And now: I have four garden beds! With plantable soil! Well wait, "plantable soil" does not make sense , but you get it, right? And in the meantime, the tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and collards that I seeded are close to ready for planting.

I should clarify what I wrote about my neighbors: while at first they were just amused about my garden project, they quickly saw I was earnest about it and helped me collect and carry everything home! Ibrahim asks about it every day, and my women neighbors Lahadi, Abu, and A'i are ever-curious. This morning I was hacking away at a new bed when Karima, an influential village lady who sells odds and ends and goro (kola nut) from her home, and Aoma'u came by with Narba. Narba was so funny. She led them all around my concession, showing off all of the work I've done: my two meager rows of millet (now almost as tall as me!), the moringa, neem, and baobab trees, the beds I've dug, and the little veggie starts. I was dripping with sweat and covered in sand and goat poop, and even goat fur, but I stood there proudly as Narba clucked away.

Mature baobab tree
Photo by Brett

Growing things

06/08/08
Morning time. Let's see. What might you want to hear about? There's so much more to say now that I am back in my village. Yesterday I spent the morning chopping up the hard sand and clay in my concession to start some garden beds. I bought a kwassa at the Konni market: a hoe-like tool that can handle this solid, cement-like surface. Ibrahim came over--my village counterpart, the wonderful old guy who explains proverbs, and traps rats. He was delighted and amused by my work. He brought over a couple of buckets of manure from his home, which we used to mulch the moringa trees I outplanted. And--this is exciting--he also supported my idea to plant some millet in my concession as well. I have so much space, and it is fun to fill it with growing things. So we planted 2 short rows of millet, and now that I know how they do it, I might plant some more. Cool, man. Didn't plan on doing millet, but once I realized I had plenty of room, why not? Plus, now when folks tease me about not having a field, I will have a way to save face.