My First Project

While our main focus in training village is to learn the language, we have to make a garden bed for our families. The project is more for our practice but it gives the family vegetables, if they choose to continue watering.

Most Fulas do not garden especially in the dry season because it involves extra work such as watering. My family's garden was covered chest high in weeds with a small pepper section. My host brother told me my mother threw seeds but did not weed. He said Fulas are lazy and do not want to garden since they are known as cattle herders. Mandinkas and Wolofs (other tribes) generally have good gardens.

My host brothers helped me cut the weeds and dig the bed but the fence was a problem. Two sides of the garden had gaps between the posts. The dry season has started and the animals (goats, sheep and cattle) are turned loose. Thus I cut coos stalks (similar to corn stalks) to fill the holes. I had my host brother help me to involve him so that the family would hopefully view the project not as a "Toubab" (white people) project , but theirs instead. If they feel ownership, they hopefully will continue watering the garden. I need to use this strategy with all projects because many projects fail when the projects are viewed as a "toubab" project, and the volunteer leaves.