Apparently the most interesting things happen on the road to the village...

Road between villages, cotton field to the right.

The second round of GIC meetings went well, probably better than the first. These meetings are for me to get to know the community groups, their farming activities, group goals, and also for them to get to know me and hopefully start building some sort of working relationship. All of the groups I met grow some type of cash crop (corn, peanuts, millet, rice, cotton) as their main farming activity, but during the second week I met a few groups that have planted vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and would like to try new crops (ex: soy). Meeting groups that have already experimented with different farming activities and diversified what they grow is really great because it shows that they are willing to work and take risks which will be necessary if they are interested in integrating any A/F techniques or species into their farms. Communication with the farmers is still kind of a struggle since most of them do not speak French. I had someone help me with translation during all the meetings, but it can still be frustrating because I’m only getting a summary of what has been said, but no worries... it’ll take some time and Fulfuldé practice, but it will come.

            Yesterday I went to visit the same Project ESA II demo plot in WindéPinchoumba that I biked to a couple weeks ago. It was a really successful visit—I got to see all their test plots where they grow cash crops in a traditional way (monocropping, plowing, fertilizer application, field burning) as compared to their plots where they integrate A/F techniques and species (no plowing, fallow, nitrogen-fixing plants, intercropping, crop rotation). It was great to hear that they have been very successful in their test area and that many farmers in their area have been improving their farms with these integrations… now it’s just a matter of getting the word farther down the road to the villages in Voko!

            On the moto ride home from WindéPinchoumba, we drove past a wildfire that had spread from a field someone was burning. It sucks seeing so much of the land being burned on a regular basis, especially when things like this happen, where it gets picked up by the wind and burns huge areas.

            Oh, I almost forgot… I saw a lioness! I wish I could post a picture, but I was jammed into a little bush taxi with six other people and my bag was in the back. We were driving out to the village and the lioness was just walking down the road (away from us) and then turned off into the bush. My first thought when I saw her: “huh, that’s not a dog.”