And I Plant Trees

The mission of the Peace Corps is incredibly varied and occasionally has you do things you know absolutely nothing about. For example, I’m a health volunteer so I have to work with the health “high five” (HIV- in the peace corps abbreviation language (and yes I do recognize the incredible irony in that abbreviation)). The “high five” are (in no particular order): nutrition, hygiene, HIV/AIDS, family planning, and malaria. I do know a fair amount about each of these- so it’s really not a huge deal. But, since I’m a Peace Corps volunteer in Burkina Faso it means that I also have to work with the other high five (why both programs chose 5 things with varying degrees of overlap is a mystery to me- and then called them both the high five is a complete mystery to me): HIV/AIDS, reforestation, youth development, malaria, and hygiene. The HIV/AIDS, malaria, and hygiene components are really no big deal because they’re with the health components. However, I have absolutely no idea about trees. I’ve never planted trees, I’ve never planted trees in Africa- although I did read an article in The New Yorker that basically said when planting trees in Africa, don’t use the same techniques that you used in the US (maybe I’m paraphrasing a bit- but that was the general gist of the article).

Keep in mind, I’m not sure I have it nearly as tough as DABA (the once business/agriculture program turned, completely environmentally based in a span of less than 6 months). Or, maybe I’m completely wrong and the system works amazingly well for them).

So, that’s what I spent the last few days doing- learning, and then- planting trees. Trees are incredibly important to life in Burkina Faso; they’re used for houses, food, medication, jobs, music. And, if you take trees without replanting them- it’s like you’re a parasite (I can actually say that all in moore, which is why it sounds a little awkward in English- my moore tutor made me right an essay on it). Also, the Sahel is apparently creeping further and further into Burkina Faso and that isn’t good. However, tree planting comes with a lot of potential troubles because if you water them too much, they die. If you don’t water them enough, they die. If they get too much sun, they die. If they don’t get enough sun, they die. If an animal eats them, they die. If a child cuts it down, they die. Sensing a pattern yet?

I brought the president of the COGES (in charge of the management of the CSPS- money, cleaning, etc), who is a farmer, and also triples as my moore tutor. I figured that he’d probably know people who could help us afterwards and he’d also have time to help me out (in short, I followed what I wrote in a previous blog post about choosing a good counterpart). At first, he said, “Absolutely, I’ll go because you asked me to go and that’s good enough for me.” Alright, fine. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right? But, after that all he talked about was trees, how important he thought they were and how awesome it was going to be. Once he started doing this all I thought was… sweet.

Our travel to Yako (where my buddy Abe lives and the location of the workshop) was filled with some oops moments which, is a first for me- travel from my site has always been pretty smooth. But because we were traveling the day after Easter, every bus coming through my site happened to be full. So we waited at the station for a solid 3 hours before a little tiny car popped up and we hopped in. During the 70ish kilometers between my site and Ouaga we broke down no less than 5 times and finally when we broke down in the outskirts of Ouaga the driver just gave up and decided he needed a beer, and maybe some Gin too. 

Needless to say (because riding with a driver who has been drinking is just asking for trouble), I asked for our bikes to be taken off the roof and we biked the rest of the way to the bus station.

Once we reached the TSR station, the change was magical. I walked up to the counter, got two tickets for the next bus and we boarded it- and went off to Yako. I guess the moral of the story is- don’t ride in shady looking cars for distances greater than 30 kilometers, especially when you might catch a bus.

With the actual tree tour we learned where and how to collect seeds, the best time to plant, and how to best get seeds to germinate. We mixed dirt, compost, and sand to create the best mixture that would allow the tree to grow. Not the hardest thing in the world, but definitely useful to know when you know nothing about planting trees.

What we actually did not spend a lot of time talking about was mobilizing resources, and how to find resources within a community- and this would have been one of the more useful aspects of the tour. Seeds, fencing, people who want to create a garden don’t grow on trees (alright seeds do, but the rest of those things do not). 

First and foremost- seeds do grow on trees but the quality of those is not assured and it’s better to buy from a forestry agent- but those cost money. The person running the program said that if you want a better chance of success you should buy the seeds- but a government official doesn’t seem like he’d have any problems getting seeds from someone else who works in the same department of the government.

Second, fencing is super expensive. There is less expensive fencing but apparently- it’s not very effective. And, if you don’t have any type of fencing then it’s an invitation for animals and children to destroy your hard work. So where does the money come from to get fencing? If someone gives it to you, then that doesn’t help if other people want to replicate your tree garden. 

Third, the whole point of the Peace Corps is to have other people do it and to be somewhat of a facilitator. So, if I go and plant 1,000 trees by myself, it doesn’t do a whole lot of good. So, how do you find people who are interested? Who do you talk to? And, on top of that, where does the land come from to make the garden? The counterpart might know people but how do you broach the subject?

While there are a lot of questions- the information about how to physically plant the trees was incredibly useful- and I’m glad I had the opportunity to go. When I get back to my site I’m going to try and find a way to start up on this tree planting task- and see wherever it takes me.

This leaves youth development…