Peace(corp)ing out: My Garden

This is a way over due post.

Months ago I started working on a garden and am now just posting about it.

One day while I was sitting around in my compound I happened to mention casually to Barkeysu (oldest house girl) that Mary had built a garden at her site. About 30 minutes later I hear her digging around in front of our compound. I come out to see that she's clearing a space to make a garden! Takes me by complete surprise.

I decided then that if she was that gung-ho about making a garden I was going to help her. This turned out to be a super more involved project then I thought it would be. For starters everything is made from local materials which means me wandering around in the bush cutting down branches that I can use for my fence. I'm probably one of the biggest tree lovers out there so no bashing me for doing what I had to do.

Machete in hand I'm wandering the dry river beds (since this was back sometime in April or May and still in the dry season) cutting and hauling the branches back and forth. This is a long and laborious process. Walk around in the hot sun about 30 minutes away from village, spend 2 hours cutting and fighting trees, spend another 20 minutes gathering all the branches, then tie and place bundle on head and walk back. I spend a total of about 3 or 4 days doing this.

With the branches collected I need to dig holes to place them down into. Then I put 3 sticks horizontally so that I can weave the branches through it. However with all the branches I have it's still not enough and I need to go and collect local grass (a woody type of grass) to fill the spaces in between the branches. More weaving, more sweating.

For the door I weaved together about 20 branches separate from the rest of the fence. I found making a door without hinges was difficult. It's jimmy-rigged but somehow still functional. For a while I would just move the whole door aside and put it back but the door is really heavy so I've tied one side of the door to the fence and placed a big rock in the same corner. Then I just pull the untied side and squeeze in.

And there you have it. My first garden.
So I'm growing tomatoes, onions, and cabbage. In a classic Diana fashion I confused my cabbage and onions seeds so there are way too many cabbages growing together and fighting for space. Hafizu (smallest house boy) snuck in corn while I was away and Adam-bla (second smallest house boy) planted a mango sapling in the middle of the garden. I spit some water melon seeds into my garden and apparently 3 of them started to grow. That is everything that is contained in my too small garden.

I think in the next week or two everything will be ready to eat! You're all invited.

Door to my garden.

Side wall of the garden

Front of the garden

My villagers sometimes come to ask why my garden is so small and I tell them it's because it's just to supplement to what I normally eat. It's a concept they aren't use to since their farms are large enough to provide for their families for a year.

I also had a girl in my village ask me if I had a garden in America and I told her I did not. She was really interested as to why I would try one here then. The concept that I would try something new was shocking to her.

Small differences between different worlds.