dreaming of the north

8/9/2002:
last night i dreamt of the North. that i joined the Sahel Agroforestry stage up there. i spoke to both the agro APCD and the CD about getting it all worked out. not my [education] APCD, though. i was gonna let him down easy.

the whole thing started when the agro APCD got 5 PCTs less than he expected. so i volunteered, of course... what a martyr! courtney and julie [both argo PCVs who've spent time in west africa], as well. i ended up being posted in Maroua [the Far North], in the city proper. as an agroforester!

anyway... i fell a little short of dreaming of the sun and sand. of the athan [call to prayer] floating on the desert wind. of hot tea and floor mats. of boubous and mud huts with grass roofs. Lord!... 2 years and i'm still dreaming of another place.

eric's farm

 
5/1/2002:
May Day. Labour Day. 13 days to my birthday. a few days since i've written... all is well. teaching practice. classes. weekend excursions. 1st and 2nd year are opening up... well, actually, i'm opening up.

last Sunday Maggie, Paul and i went out to Lake Wum with the students. talked about eutrophication. good trip. big turnout. probably due in part to the award given to Chia Robert the Friday before, 5000 cfa. and also b/c our last trip was successful. this week we go to Lake Ilum.

today, Maggie and i went out to Mbong Eric's farmstead. 16 hectares: with live fencing, alley cropping, improved pasture, apiculture, fruit / medicinal / timber trees, etc. the works when it comes to agroforestry practices!

nice place, good guy. so easy to be around. intelligent yet uncomplicated. hard-working yet practical. family man... brothers, sisters, kids. living off the land. always in the process of improving.

unfortunately, my bike chain chakara [broke or busted in pidgin] up the hill to eric's place. my fault b/c the gears and chain are so dusty/dirty. we ate fufu at his place. loaf and 1/2. with cowpea [leaf] njamma-njamma. good stuff. fufu is better early in the day.

int'l arbor day

Cordia
Maesopsis
Gliricidia

4/26/2002: International Arbor Day
...talked to and planted seeds at the GTTC, GHS and GTHS EE Clubs. funny how the less you plan the more you seem to accomplish. suppose it has to do with keeping your expectations low. not necessarily a good thing, but you do get pleasant surprises that way.

this was all yesterday. right now, we’re in a Guarantee bus going to Bamenda. Maggie, Abigail and me. Abigail got in the day before yesterday. she’s from PC Gabon. been around the ring road. anywho... gotta go. write later.

talking trees

4/23/2002:
teaching practice all month. out early. busy all day. at schools. practicing schools. my school. at meetings. EE stuff w/Maggie. lesson note marking. work in the evening. all this and, yet, somehow not too gratified of a feeling at the end of the day. tired, yes... gratified, not so much.

tomorrow Maggie and i will start visiting the schools to plant more seeds and talk trees:

• GTHS & GTTC [Govt Technical High School and Govt Teacher Training College] tomorrow...
• GBSS & GHS [Govt Bilingual Secondary School and Govt High School] the next
• and the nursery school, too... MAYBE.

i'm gonna talk importance of trees, in general. Maggie will do agroforestry:

in the field

4/21/2002:
good day today. excursion in the morning. maggie, me and 1/2 a dozen students trekked out to a water catchment area on the hills behind my house. 2 catchments, to be exact. one on each side of the hill.

great view. light climb. a little wet on the ground. no rain. really very informative. a few grumbles b/c of the terrain. but i believe everyone learn something. even me. a lot. all in all, a success. got a drink at Flo's place afterward.

next week, Lake Wum insha'Allah! we'll talk lakes, run-off, eutrophication, etc. maggie really did a good job today... she's great with people out in the field. we make a good team! we talked about doing tree stuff next week with the different EE Clubs. more seeds. quick presentation on trees; uses of and agroforestry.

other potential excursions include other catchments (like Ukpwa's), Lake Ilum, Menchum Falls, Mbong Eric's farm, etc. insha'Allah this keeps going well.

Ukpwa

9/29/2001:
Ukpwa. 9km from Wum, up past GBSS [Govt. Bilingual Secondary School]. 1000cfa moto-taxi ride. very scenic route. again, open grassland... well, in this case just “opening” out into distant hills and valleys. i say just opening because there are trees planted along the road. farms and houses, as well. but that’s all left behind after a short while and it stars to open up into pasture land.

we stopped along the road a couple of times to greet people from the village; folks traveling to Bamenda and some elders waiting for the DO [Divisional Officer or Prefet]. he was supposed to come out and see “native” farmers encroaching on pasture land but he never showed.

the village is relatively new and modern... as modern as a rural village can be, i suppose. there’s been much in the way of development work done out there. the people are survivors of the Lake Nyos disaster so they were resettled in Ukpwa (and a number of other villages) about 13 years ago.

i imagine they got international funding for relief efforts... Mu’aath says the government put up minimal infrastructure and "chopped" the rest. they got 66 houses, cement and zinc roofs but all unfinished. a primary school. water catchment and local water system... rain sourced, of course. grinding mills and land. much land. cattle too, i guess.

they’ve also had much in the way of NGO development work. with international groups like Heifer and HELVETAS, and other local organizations. Mu’aath showed me the fields and pastures. i saw examples of animal traction. bee keeping. grass for preventing soil erosion. grass for cattle feeding. live fencing. leguminous plants. flowering plants. for fields and bees, respectively. live stock enclosures. specifically ones for vaccination. it was all very interesting. i hope all the outside input really helps.

we drank fresh milk. boiled, of course. ate fufu corn and ndjamma-ndjamma. prayed dhuhr there... in a mud-brick mosque. as the issue of farmer-grazer conflict came up (on account of the DO’s visit) i asked a little about that. Mu’aath knows his stuff in terms of the issues and actors in the local scene here.

anyhow... an enlightening visit all around. and i really enjoyed myself! i love that open grassland. i guess its the open space. the big sky... grassy green or sandy desert, they’re different but also the same. i envy the agro-forester who gets to go out into the bush like that regularly. i’m sure there’s much hard work and frustration involved. but it’s beautiful out there.

imperfect perfect

8/20/2001:
sitting here on the couch in the staff house... chez diarou and jean. kinda been a slow day. will probably be a slow week, as well. did some # crunching today with grades. a little again tomorrow. our APCD should be here. the CD the next day. then Summer School graduation, then Dschang... for our swearing in ceremony.

so i've been daydreaming of going up North and/or becoming an agroforestry volunteer... but i think i’ll be staying in Wum for the next 2 years. agroforestry can be a secondary project. especially when i find out who'll be posted close to Wum from the agroforestry program. maybe we can team up? Kim, one of our PCV trainers, thought that would be the best way to get my plant fix.

the North will have to wait... maybe a visit will suffice? maybe it’ll get me thinking about all this again? never really thought much of the comment at the time, but something my peace corps recruiter back home said comes up often... “don’t try to make this perfect,” it’ll come out that way if you roll with it and make the best of it along the way. more or less.

the botany of desire

8/16/2001:
a fruit, a flower, bud and a spud... i’m wrapping up this book The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan. great reading, Pollan’s style and the content. 4 sections. 4 plants. 4 human desires. the relationships b/w plants and people. specifically, how we use them and they, in turn, use us. the apple and sweetness. the tulip and beauty. marijuana and intoxication. the potato and control.

each section has been intriguing and thought-provoking in so many ways. his mix of science (natural and social), folklore and history. very interesting. all the more b/c i’ve experienced all 4 desires myself and found satisfaction in the plants associated with them. never realizing how much the plants were using me as much as i was using them.

the apple and bud are things of the past now. both forbidden fruit, if you will... one i’ll go back to (apples, of course), one i won’t. flowers i still see here. and they still enchant me. mama sent me a page out of a nursery catalogue from home. she said she remembers me when she sees flowers. all the flowers in the pages she sent were, of course, tulips... coincidence? there are no tulips here, but flowers and beauty nonetheless.

then, potatoes... it is potato season here. potatoes, potatoes and more pommes de terre (literally, apples of the earth!). just finished a meal of potatoes... coincidence? i read about potatoes. agriculture. control. everyday i pass fields of potatoes. watch farmers planting them. people harvest them. and i eat them. i want to get into that chain as a grower myself.

reading about all these plants (especially potatoes and organic farming) so makes me want to get out into the field. no doubt i will. but i want it everyday. i want to work with plants as much as people. here and back home. to teach and grow... me, people and plants.

longing for plants

7/1/2001:

Dacryodes edulis – the prune
Canarium schweinfurthii - the tree by Ecole Publique
Cola acuminata – the kola nut

a few eclectic thoughts to jot down. the above scientific names belong to 3 trees native to the region. so many other ornamental and fruit trees i'm seeing here aren't native. the 3 trees above are the prune, a close relative, and the Kola nut. all with fruits that are edible or useful in some way. a local high school teacher here in babadjou – trained as an agronomist – helped me identify the scientific names.

today i took a walk with Mira, her friend Josiane and little Isma down the hill towards Josaine’s place and beyond. we walked along a stream (little waterfalls and all) and through much “bush”... palms, vines, trees, etc. Mira picked a few flowers and gave them to me. she said something about Kelly (the volunteer who stayed with the family before me) also liking flowers. i would’ve been content just taking pictures of them... now they’re in a bottle on my desk, in my room. sans problem, it was sweet of her.

anyhow... all this coupled with a short talk with Chris (an agroforestry PCV) this week have me longing for plants. i miss them. i feel like there’ll come a time when i’ll have to make this choice b/w education and plants... teaching and trees. if i can’t combine the two, that is. in all three cases (education, plants or both), where will i go?

Chris worked in ecuador for 3 years before coming here. he actually replaced John Clark (an old botany TA of mine from undergrad) out on the reserve where John collected plants for 2 years (and got a few named after him). all as peace corps volunteers. so the talk with Chris also got me thinking, for better or for worse, about how much i miss working with plants...

here’s an impossibility: i want to transfer to a place like Ecuador and live/work on a reserve like John! i’ll look into more possible ways of gratifying such botanical desires before too long, like working plants into my primary or secondary projects. for example, collaborating with an agroforestry PCV on a secondary project... yes!

anywho... final thought is that i found one of my last TO DO lists from back in the US. interesting looking at what i wanted to do/buy before i left... and what i didn’t. i miss home. have many letters i want to write home... to family and friends. but i’m going to yoga class with Kay now. hope it doesn’t rain. peace.