Jul 6
Happy 2nd Birthday, KJ!
William was away on KJ’s actual birthday so we celebrated when he returned two weeks later. We invited several of her and Trey’s Ghanaians friends over for some play time and cake.
Our friend Baby made a delicious chocolate & vanilla layer cake. The trampoline and new slide on the treehouse were a big hit with the kids.
Apr 20
Zambulugu is a village about 3 miles east of us. The church congregation is always predominantly women and children and they love to sing. They’ll spend more than half the service in song and dance!
Apr 6
Bird Watching
After attending church in the village of Namangu#2, the pastor took us over to his house to show the kids his pigeons. I was prepared for the number of birds that he had! An entire side of his courtyard was full of rooms for the birds and there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them. KJ loves birds but was a bit apprehensive about the sheer number of them.
Mar 21
Dry Season Gardening
It seems a bit counterintuitive, but some of our best, locally-grown veggies only show up at market in the dry season. You’d think they’d be abundant in the rainy season but too much sporadic rain during and a multitude of pests make gardening difficult. Farmers are also more focused on ploughing, sowing, and weeding their main staple crops of corn, millet, beans, and groundnuts.
In the dry season, those with access to plots by the creek can maintain healthy vegetable gardens if they are willing to do the hard work of irrigating the crops. And it’s hard work! Very few of the gardeners can afford a water pump (or the fuel to run it) so they manually carry 10-gallon jugs of water up and down from the creek. Humidity stays below 10% most of the dry season while temperatures can hit 110F so the plants need a lot of water.
Just south of Nalerigu is the predominantly Bissa village of Nagboo that is known for its dry season gardens. Most of its produce ends up at the Nalerigu market for sale. These gardeners produce cabbage, lettuce, eggplant, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, hibiscus, and amaranth greens.
I recently biked down to Nagboo with just a DJI Mavic drone and an iPhone and took some photos and video of the gardens. The gardeners were very gracious and happy to show off the fruit of their hard work.
