Fruit Tree Grafting Workshop

This week was the culmination of the last nine months of work.  Tuesday and Wednesday I had my fruit tree grafting workshop. This workshop was funded through a food security small grant from USAID that I applied for back in April.  The goal of the project was construct a fruit tree nursery and hold a two day workshop.  My plan was to bring community member to the fruit tree nursery for two days of training on starting a fruit tree nursery and best practices along with all aspects of fruit tree grafting.  Each participant received pruning shears, grafting knife, 50 polypots to start their own fruit tree nursery and a certificate of completion.  Participants learned and practiced multiple grafting techniques for different fruit trees, each participant grafted four mangos, five citrus and one avocado that they took home after the training.  All of the improved varieties of citrus and mango are varieties that Peace Corps The Gambia feel should be promoted for income generation and could be beneficial if they were more abundant throughout The Gambia.  The mango variety we grafted was Kent the citrus varieties were Nova, Clementine, Washington Navel, Valencia, Japanese and Tangerine.

The sign on the gate

Day 1



Avocados on the left and Cleopatra Mandarins on the right

Mangos

The only person I caught sleeping the entire two days

Grafting practice

 I spent the previous week making final preparations and talking to all the participants.  I made it very clear to each participant that each day the training would go from 9am sharp to 4pm.  This was one of my biggest concerns because Gambians don’t know what watches are and have no respect for time.  It’s not that they are always 10 or 15 minutes late, sometimes you can call a meeting and they won’t show up until the next day and then complain because you didn’t feed them or they will sit in the back and sleep. 

My host father grafting

With this project I could only budget for around 25-30 people.  We sat down and talked about who would be interested and should participate.  I based this off of people I have helped with fruit trees or have large fruit tree orchards already.  Some of the people I have grafted for or shown them how to graft. 

A child among men

My village is large and word travels very fast, especially when the only white kid is doing something.  I can go eat lunch at any other compound in the village and when I get home my host mother knows where I ate, what I ate and who was there.  So as you can image within hours people were coming to me asking me if I had written them on my list to participate in the workshop.  It was unfortunate that not everyone could participate.  It started to feel like 5^th grade all over, when you only tell 10 of the 30 kids in your class that they are invited to your birthday party.  The week leading up to the training I was nervous that people would show up that I hadn’t talk to and it would be awkward to tell them to leave or that they could stay but not get anything. 

Jenaba the shopkeeper

I had my program assistant Bah2 and another man, Gibi come and lead the two days of training.  Bah2 and I came up with the idea of a grafting training the beginning of this year.  After the training we both were very excited at the level of excitement that the participants showed during the two days of training. 

Everyone with their certificates

My host mother a few of her friends cooked our meals for the two days and it was delicious food. 

 

The cooks

Lunch being prepared

 Overall I think the two days of training was a success, many of the villagers I have seen and talked with were very appreciative for the training and learned something from it.  Ultimately I am happy with the results and in a perfect world the trees that are still in the nursery would be used for rootstock and grafting trainings in the future or sold as a source of income.  Having a source of improved varieties of citrus in the area will be a great resource for surrounding communities.   

Yaya and I

Just like any development work things change especially once the person involve leaves.  It’s the “sustainability,” issue that I worry about.  Yes, I have family and counterparts that have bought into the idea and helped me along the way.  They have all agreed to continue the tree nursery after I leave, but who really knows what will happen.  Everything I have done throughout my entire PC experience has been with low expectations as not to be disappointed.  Every time I do something I am impressed and excited at the results because it exceeds my expectations.  This could be a personal flaw of fear of failure or not wanting to disappoint myself but I think it’s more of a way to stay happy living in a developing nation…

The first picture with my host father ever, I told him not to get too excited

 

Diet Mike can still eat

Mail Run

I just got back from mail run.  Mail run is where two PCV’s go all over the country delivering letters, packages and anything else that needs to be delivered to them.  This can be a box of food someone bought in the city and is sending to their site because it’s too large and heavy to take it themselves or even bikes, mattresses or buckets.  I went with Abby, we had signed up for this adventure over a year and a half ago.  

Day 1

Big Sam the driver

Day 1 Packed full

On the ferry

Rush hour traffic

water crossing

Sitting in the back





switching cars

Day 3

On day three our 4wd went out in our car and we only had 4^th gear.  The next day another driver brought us another car and so we took that one and continued on and he took the broken one back to the office.

We were lucky because the weather was nice the whole time.  We got a little rain here and there on us but it was perfect.  We got to see a lot of volunteer’s sites and made a lot people happy by bringing them unexpected packages and letters from home.

I had fun and I am tired from sitting in a car for 5 days but it was well worth it.

Almost done

The Fruit tree grafting garden is 90% fenced!  Yesterday my host brother and I finished up the fencing around the gate.  He had installed the gate a couple weeks ago when I was away.   All we have to finish is about 15 meters on the East side of the garden. 



PaKonte putting the fence up



The Gate



Part of the fence

We will then clear the area and bring the trees in from another village.   I am hoping to have the two day grafting class the first week in September. 

Doing Work

I have been spending my time working in the rice fields.  Some days I go and help my family and other days when they don’t go to the rice fields I just take my hand hoe and go.  You can always find someone there to help.  Sometimes I just go and sit and watch them work and play with the children or see what kind of food they have I can eat. I would have taken more pictures but my battery died.



Weeding

 

Sharing Culture



Trekking

I just returned from my first quarterly food security trek.  I am tired of sitting in a car that isn’t made for tall people, crappy pothole filled roads, and drinking water out of 300ml water bags. But, this is Africa and I try not to complain outload. It only takes a few seconds after I complain internally and I realize it’s not that bad and it could be a lot worse. 

We went to about ten volunteer’s sites and looked at their food security projects.  They were in all array of completion.  Some had not even started others where finished and we got to see how happy and excited their community members were. 

Most of the projects are agriculture based, such as gardens, seed banks or demonstration plots. Here are some pictures.  Many of them could look the same but they aren’t and many of them are just pictures of where the garden will be when the project is finished.

Fetching water

The women coming to see us

The women that garden here

It was myself, my program manager and samaka or “Sam” the driver.  We got three flat tires on the trip with the last one happening at 6 o’clock last night in the rain right in front of the transit house where he was dropping me off.  I took some pictures of the first one.  Surprisingly he might have a future in NASCAR if he works on his form and speed a little.

Sam





Sam in action

The trip was a success, we learned a lot about the project and how we will do things differently next time.  It was also great to see some of the projects that are complete and are successful thus far.  To see for example a group of women come running into a garden as soon as we pull up because they are so excited to finally have a place they can garden will put a smile on your face. 

Back to The Gambian paradise

It's been a while but I am back in The Gambia.  I have been back here for about 3 weeks.  My journey back from the states was interesting I flew into Logos, Nigeria.  Which I think everybody should do once in their life.  As I was leaving that glorious nation they call Nigeria a couple women decided to get in a fight as we were taxi onto the runway and take off.  Part of me was not surprised as this is Africa.  We did make it successfully to The Gambia two hours late.  I was greeted at the airport with no luggage as someone forgot to pull it off the plane and it continued onto Dakar, Senegal.  I wouldn’t get my bags back for two weeks.  I was greeted at the airport by my two brothers and father.  They all said how much they missed me and gave me big hugs.  As we got in to my village bush taxi and push started it and exited the airport I noticed about 20 young men standing in the middle of the road and start walking towards the bush taxi.  I was somewhat sleep deprived so I didn’t realize it until they started yelling my name but it was all the soccer players and my friends from my village.  I was completely surprised and was at a loss of words when I saw all of them.  Deep down it made me feel good to know that many people wanted to come and pick me up from the airport.

Right before I left the states I was somewhat anxious, because I knew as soon as I got back to The Gambia I would have a lot to do and be very busy.  The opposite side of that is, the busier you are the less you think about your family and the emotions that come with that. 

Small boys trying to get in my house

Salif



Being dirty is being happy

I had about 2-3 days to be in village and get over the culture shock of being back and trying to knock the rust off of my local language skills.  After those couple days I went to work on the preparations for about 30 Peace Corps Volunteers from 10 other West African countries to come for a week long Food Security Conference. 

Me presenting

Field Trip

The conference went well, it was great to see what other volunteers experiences are like and how the countries vary. 





After that was finished I hustled back to my village and started working on a project I have been planning for about 8 months.  I want to build a tree nursery and have villagers come and be trained in correct fruit tree growing practices and proper grafting techniques.  While I was in America the funding came through and so now I had to hustle and go purchase the fence posts and fencing and start the work.

Mixing cement

The last week my brother and I have dug about half the posts and got them cemented into the ground and purchased the chain link fence.  I had an unexpected infection in a finger and had to come to the dr for the past couple days then I leave Monday for a week long trek around the country checking on other volunteers food security projects.

Fence posts





More fence posts

As a side note a fellow volunteer has come up with a website about the bitter tomato.  I was co author of the haiku, take a look at the website. 

My sisters eating lunch