I've been really, really busy in village, which is a good thing. I think, honestly, that it's the only thing that keeps me sane. If I had time to sit and think, I would start to wax sentimental and dwell on all the things I'm missing here - friends, family, good food, skiing, cool weather, interesting conversations, etc. You get the basic idea. Fortunately, I LOVE my work. I am absolutely fascinated by all the different uses for trees, and the myriad advantages that trees bring to the people and the surrounding environment. It's also very fulfilling to think that the trees I plant, and the changes they make to the local environment and the benefit to the villagers will be around for hundreds of years (assuming no bush fires kill them, that is)... I don't know how well I've described my work on the blog, so I'll give you a basic summary here. I'm officially an AgroForestry volunteer, which essentially involves incorporating trees and bushes into agriculture and animal husbandry practices to make the whole process more sustainable and provide better crop yields with minimal damage to the surrounding environment. Sorry, that was quite the unintended mouthful. Basically I work with farmers to plant trees in their fields and in the village to protect the soil from erosion, provide essential nutrients to the soil, to help alleviate malnourishment, and to generate income for what would otherwise be subsistence farmers.
My projects are extremely varied, and provide a good mix of good old-fashioned, gettin' your hands-dirty manual labor, advisory roles, education of the local people, and working with bigger NGOs. I've been incredibly fortunate to have such an abundance of work at my site. It seems the vast majority of volunteers struggle with finding projects to work on. Whether my good fortune is a function of my location or simply my burning desire to work as hard as possible, is yet unknown. I get real pleasure just gazing over my massive garden, and watching the plants and trees grow and thrive, despite all the challenges they face. To be honest, the West African Sahel (the semi-desert area of Africa south of the Sahara) is a hell of place to be practicing any sort of intensive agricultural practices. The soil is completely degraded (it's little more than sand), the area receives about 3 months of rain, the pests are voracious and impossible to kill with organic practices, and things are only getting worse with increasing deforestation and overpopulation pressures.
I've been really, really busy in village, which is a good thing. I think, honestly, that it's the only thing that keeps me sane. If I had time to sit and think, I would start to wax sentimental and dwell on all the things I'm missing here - friends, family, good food, skiing, cool weather, interesting conversations, etc. You get the basic idea. Fortunately, I LOVE my work. I am absolutely fascinated by all the different uses for trees, and the myriad advantages that trees bring to the people and the surrounding environment. It's also very fulfilling to think that the trees I plant, and the changes they make to the local environment and the benefit to the villagers will be around for hundreds of years (assuming no bush fires kill them, that is)... I don't know how well I've described my work on the blog, so I'll give you a basic summary here. I'm officially an AgroForestry volunteer, which essentially involves incorporating trees and bushes into agriculture and animal husbandry practices to make the whole process more sustainable and provide better crop yields with minimal damage to the surrounding environment. Sorry, that was quite the unintended mouthful. Basically I work with farmers to plant trees in their fields and in the village to protect the soil from erosion, provide essential nutrients to the soil, to help alleviate malnourishment, and to generate income for what would otherwise be subsistence farmers. 
My projects are extremely varied, and provide a good mix of good old-fashioned, gettin' your hands-dirty manual labor, advisory roles, education of the local people, and working with bigger NGOs. I've been incredibly fortunate to have such an abundance of work at my site. It seems the vast majority of volunteers struggle with finding projects to work on. Whether my good fortune is a function of my location or simply my burning desire to work as hard as possible, is yet unknown. I get real pleasure just gazing over my massive garden, and watching the plants and trees grow and thrive, despite all the challenges they face. To be honest, the West African Sahel (the semi-desert area of Africa south of the Sahara) is a hell of place to be practicing any sort of intensive agricultural practices. The soil is completely degraded (it's little more than sand), the area receives about 3 months of rain, the pests are voracious and impossible to kill with organic practices, and things are only getting worse with increasing deforestation and overpopulation pressures.
No comments:
Post a Comment