Day 71: Beginning our project

After waking up, we ate a small breakfast and went off to a meeting taking place nearby. The meeting was for all of the staff and students to talk about how our time here would be managed. We then broke into our smaller groups to talk about how exactly we would use the time to complete our project (installing a drip irrigation system.) Kristin, Ronald, and I met with three of the villagers to discuss these matters. Together, we set up a schedule that began with improving the soil, installing the system, and finally, planting crops.

After the meeting, we hung around, ate lunch, and rested. At around four, Kristin and I walked out to the community garden to watch (and aid) a few of the villagers burn the growth and brush in the space that they wanted to use for the community garden. Basically, the community garden had previously only had an area of about 150 m² and we burned enough brush to create a garden over 3 times that size. Anyway, it was quite a display (and pretty damn hot as well.) When the tall grass ignited, there would be an exodus of flies, wasps, and all sorts of other bugs that had been living there. Really hot.

After watching the fields burn for a while, we walked back to the village, and then we were invited to go get some fresh watermelon from the fields. Kristin, Allison, and I walked with three of the villagers quite a ways out and found some ripe watermelons to eat. We just squatted there and ate fresh-picked watermelons. Note: in the past week, I’ve had So much (really good) watermelon, it’s hard to imagine.

We returned to our houses in time for dinner, and spent the rest of the night watching some Ali G. and sleeping.