Tree Grafting Training

I completed my first real project here last week! I did a big two day tree-grafting training for about 30 people. I had to write a grant to obtain funding for the project, and then I had to organize the lunches and the chairs and the materials. It all ended up being quite simple… but it was highly successful. There were many times that I thought we were going to have problems (lunch on the first day wasn’t ready until about 4pm for example), but as Senegalese people are so laid back, everything worked out smoothly. I had Demba Sidebe, the head of PC training in Senegal, lead the event. He is Senegalese and he studied at Cambridge in the UK, and he is quite possibly the best tree-grafter in all of Senegal. I also had 3 other volunteers come to the training, and each of them brought about 2 or 3 farmers from their respective villages. We also gave each of the participants a small mango tree, and two scions to graft onto that tree.
I hired the women in my family to cook the lunches… and the women were AMAZING. Not only was the food delicious, but they managed to cook in a way that I don’t think American’s can even fathom. It was easily 100 degrees out (possibly 120 in the direct sun), and they stood in the direct sun and cooked food for over 30 people in a large iron pot over a small wood fed fire. There were no tables for them to chop and peel vegetables (they sat on plastic chairs and cut the items into a bowl that was on their lap), there was no cold water to drink, no electric mixers, no sharp knives (the knives are all fairly blunt compared to American standards), no air conditioning either… they had chickens and ducks and sheep and goats running about all around them, they had sand under their feet and some of the women even had babies on their backs as they are doing all of the cooking! These women were amazing… And after the whole process was over, they still manage to smile and shake their booties to music.