Garden of Botou

It's been awhile since I last posted and for that I apologize. For anyone worried that I was lost in Europe, working too hard, or coming home, you are sadly wrong on all accounts. I am grateful to have gone on vacation (it was much overdue) but I couldn't wait to come home. I am not working too hard but rather just enough as you shall see. And I am not coming home. About ten more months are left in this tour of service and I couldn't be more rejuvenated.

Vacation was great! I didn't speak a word of any language except English and the basic Spanish I had to pick up like "dos cervezas por favor." I wandered around the Portuguese coastline taking in warm winds and cool waters. I ate good pork and drank delicious beer and wanted most of the time to be back in Botou.

Before I left, I had given vegetable seeds to my school director who has been taking charge of the garden. I told them to seed them in lines in a nursery and that I would be back in January around the time that we should transplant. None of the making of the beds had been done and I wasn't convinced they would be nor would the seeds be in the ground when I got back.

I was wary to visit the garden when I got back. In fact I waited a day and a half. But low and behold there was greenery inside! The nursery was beautiful; full of lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and eggplant, and the beds to transplant had been traced out. Apparently the director had told Bouna to have all the dads of the school kids come out that Saturday to dig the beds. And so they did. Saturday I spent the morning watching men whack some of the most difficult ground I've seen. I had done my share of pick-axing this space earlier so it was their turn. We have 10 rows and 20 beds and slowly slowly they were dug, amended and dug again by some of the teachers. One in particular has been a garden superstar and his level, symmetrical beds make for quite a nice space to look at. Slowly slowly the kids and teachers began transplanting the vegetables and things were looking terrific. Then I had a visit from one of my bosses, he visited the garden and gave the teachers a pep talk about the uses of the garden, the benefits of Moringa, etc. they were jazzed and in fact, that afternoon the women of Botou decided to come to the garden and see for themselves what all the hubbub was about. Turns out they had some (correct) opinions on the spacing of tomatoes and eggplant. They also had ways to improve the garden beds which I welcomed and watched from the periphery thinking "this is what sustainable development is supposed to look like." Then these women, who I have worked with on a few other things decided that all the women would come out Sunday afternoon to help transplant. And so they did. It has been amazing to see the community effort in this space. It isn't perfect. But I have heard so many stories of other PCVs with school gardens where the PCV does most of the work and once they leave, it no longer is a working garden because no one takes the initiative to keep the work up. I decided to approach the Botou school garden differently. I trained the director and the teachers a bit adding on to what they already knew on spacing, amendments, etc. and then I backed off. So far off that I left the continent. I figured if they were determined to actually have a garden they would seed and water. If they weren't, I would have just installed an expensive fence for no particular reason. Luckily the former occurred, and full speed ahead the garden is thriving all thanks to the hard work of Botou and not as a result of all the work I did. This is what sustainable development is. This is what it can be. Yes I bought the fencing, but the teachers are keen on planting thorny species to build a live fence to live on after the chain link disintegrates. The community is motivated and helping to pay the robinet water bill. And soon the vegetables will be in the kids lunches helping to increase nutrition in their diets. It's great to be a volunteer in Botou these days.