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Monday, September 30, 2013

Photos from the week 9/29/2013

The wild tulip tree in my yard has been blooming over the last few weeks and is covered in beautiful bright red flowers.

Last Sunday at the inauguration of a local pastor, two girls from the youth club brought him a woven palm branch covered with flowers to welcome him.

Some bugs (weevils in particular) look like they belong in a star wars movie.

Alexander holding up a large piece of honeycomb that we just pulled out of a wild hive. Too bad it is not honey season.
One of my hives was being attacked by driver ants – insects that have the numbers and strength to completely wipe out a hive in a matter of minutes. I quickly ran home and got some baking flour, which I sprinkled around the hive. The ants outside the hive refused to cross the white flour, while the ones inside the circle where trapped. The bees are still there today, so they must not have lost too many.
Roy speaking to the seminar students, most of whom were woman, about the importance of good soil. About 25 people attended the seminar.

Saturday there was a seminar hosted by CEFA. Everyone who participated got to go into the plant nursery and choose a plant to take home. In this photo, Roy is explaining what plants are available to an eager bunch of attendees. 

This week I walked under a guava tree, and as I was looking for fruit, I saw this snake.


Sunday, September 22, 2013

Photos from the week

                                             
These field orchids are always nice to discover out in the bush. This particular bunch was quite large.


Roy and John laying out the boundaries of a 100m x 100m neem tree field.


Five young rabbits arrived from Yaoundé this week to join our rabbit project. The original two turned out to both be males. Oops!


Alexander holding a newly captured queen bee we caught while raiding a wild hive. Her and her colony are now in one of our hives. 


The 14 young turkeys that are part of our turkey project are starting to look like big turkeys now instead of chicks. 



While riding my bike out to the farm I found this large vine snake on the road. 


While I was talking with the nurse in charge of the nutrition center at the hospital, Dr. Tim came around to see a few of the malnourished kids. The nutrition garden I'm helping to restart will help feed some of the more extreme cases.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Who can do this job?

As a missionary in a remote part of Africa, I can’t always call the local plumber, electrician, or internet expert to come over and help me fix something. As many missionaries know, often when something needs to get done, someone is either volunteered or volunteers to do it in order for life to continue to function. You do the task, and if you don't know how to do it you have to learn.



Some people are really good at their jobs, like the local tailor down the street who is making my bee suits. He has a lot of sewing experience in general so he was up to the challenge of using an unfamiliar design, but struggled with the project because he did not have the final product in mind. It has taken many trips down to his little shop to show him photos with detailed explanations to move forward with this project..  

Many projects have never been done here, or are done so rarely that there are no specialists or even people familiar with the procedures. As a result, those of us who are the most familiar with the project have to do the work. Since coming to CAR I have learned about and helped with electrical work, plumbing, management, and now a little about setting up a computer network and internet systems!

During last year Gamboula got a satellite dish for internet. There was a missionary here who knew all about the process and did a fantastic job dealing with all the technical craziness that is involved in it. Since the evacuation in March, he and his family have been in the States. Therefore another missionary named Josh had to come finish setting up the system and train myself and a few others how to keep it up and running.

As a younger American, I can maneuver around technology a little. Learning how to set up servers, troubleshoot problems in the network, and set up relay systems all in a short period of time was quite challenging. Time will tell how well the three of us taking the classes learned the material.


My last project was to go out to the relay antenna/tree, climb up it, and do some last minute tweaks on the system. So I found myself hanging from a harness 40 feet above the brush doing something I don’t really know how to do. My agricultural work at the farm was on hold, and I was playing IT guy. I am learning a lot here, and wonder what the next thing I will be learning is!

Sunday, September 8, 2013

CEFA has its first Seminar


      Yesterday CEFA had its first seminar!  Over the past few years gardens have been planted, fish ponds dug, and buildings erected, but the research and training center has not had any official training on the grounds.  There are finally buildings, experiments, and gardens, so the staff thought it was time to start having seminars and teaching.
This first one was more of an introduction to what CEFA is and what on the property. Seventeen important leaders in the community were invited to come out for the morning. Roy and the director spoke about CEFA: its history and its commitment to agricultural research and application within the Central African context. 



They shared some fruit samples and then we all piled in to two trucks, taking a tour of the farm. Many from the CEFA work force also came to hear Roy, and go on the tour.


We stopped to look at work taking place in gardens,the fish ponds, and vegetable gardens.




After the tour we drove back to the Garden of Eden, and all the people who attended got to pick out a tree from the nursery to take home.