November 21, 2010
I’m learning that the concept of a
Saturday-Sunday weekend doesn’t really exist here, at least outside of big
cities. It’s true that church is
on Sundays and that school is only held Monday – Friday, but other than that
life continues as normal on the two days that are so distinctly separate from
the rest of the week for us.
Case in point, today I was in
Pehunco for day two of a pomme de terre formation. Right, ok, what’s a formation and what are pommes de terre??
A formation would probably best be translated by…seminar, I guess, and pommes
de terre are potatoes. I was in
Pehunco this past Friday and met briefly with my supervisor to just kind of
check in, and he happened to mention that there was a multi-day formation on
potato growing starting the next day and that if ça m’interesse I could come. It was almost too much for me to handle
– a legit, organized, environment related activity that my supervisor (and, it
turns out, the pres. from Tonri and her husband) was participating in. So duh, I said yeah. Potatoes are pretty new to Pehunco –
you can find them in big cities in Benin (and by that I mean Cotonou, Parakou,
Nati, and Malanville) but they aren’t really eaten a whole lot. It turns out my supervisor, Djafarou,
was pretty influential in starting potato farming in this area. Yesterday was the theoretical part of
the formation, and, incidentally a lesson on the theory of time in Benin. I was told the session would be
starting between 8 and 9 am on Saturday (already there was some
ambiguity). I show up around 8:30
and one other person is there…we hang around and eventually another guy shows
up and says oh the presenter came in from Cotonou really late last night so we
won’t be starting until 10 am. I
hung around, read, talked to the guys there,…waited. Long story short we started around 11:30. But once it started it was really
cool! The presenter/guy running it
is indeed from Cotonou (aka legit and educated) and works for an agricultural
research department of the government.
He gave a powerpoint presentation on the basics of potatoes, how they
came to Benin, potential problems and how to avoid them, and what you need to
consider before growing them. With
an “hour” (he said be back in an hour, everyone was back in two) lunch break,
we finished at 5, an actual full day.
I was pumped.
Today was the first “pratique”
session, where the participants (mostly farmers themselves) practiced the
techniques we were taught yesterday.
We met in a village named Bokossi which is about 3 k from Pehunco. Again, we were supposed to start at 8
am. I, naively, showed up at
8:30. We started around 9:30. The session was at this guy’s field
that he had already cleared, plowed, and created rows in. We reworked some of the rows as an
example for him to follow – he hadn’t loosened the soil deep enough and the
rows weren’t raised enough. Quick
note on “we”. Most of today I was
standing around watching (but to be fair so was everybody else). The first time I picked up a hoe (made
of a piece of metal driven into a wooden handle, they are the ubiquitous wonder
tool used for everything here) one of the women let me hold it for a good 10 or
11 seconds, laughed, and reached to take it from me. Suffice it to say from that point on I was determined to
prove that although I am a Batoure (the north’s word for yovo) I can indeed
actually do work. The next time I
saw an abandoned hoe I grabbed it and started hacking at the earth as hard as I
could – they let me hold it for longer this time, but everyone started saying
things like ha look the batoure’s working! (this is based on interpretation of
body language and hearing the word batoure in Bariba converstations). Not making fun of me per se, just
like…what is she doing?! White people don’t…do that. It was getting kinda hot, the energy (well mine at least)
was lacking a little, and the presenter guy started talking about food. We were kinda in the middle of nowhere,
but someone was sent to go find the 15 or so of us food. In the mean time someone knocked down a
somewhat ripe papaya and divvied up chunks, and bananas showed up too. Food, provided by the family of the guy
whose field it was, arrived and someone brought me a plate of two big chunks of
boiled yam and really good salty, oily, spicy, red sauce with onions. Don’t think sweet potatoes – yams here
are white and really starchy. I
don’t know if it was the being hungry/hard work phenomenon (like what makes
PB&J ridiculously good when you’re hiking), but lunch was awesome. I ate sitting down in the middle of
banana trees because everyone freaks out if I’m in the sun for too long and
tells me to go sit in the shade (I’m white, remember).
Next was irrigation – we dug channels
in the field first, then hooked up the guy’s moto pompe that pumped water into
the field. The presenter had
people take turns moving dirt and opening channels to adjust the flow of the
water and explained the importance of knowing which way downhill is. We finished around 3 – I was pretty
sunburned by then, had reinforced the blisters I got helping plant onions in
Tonri last week, and really wanted….hydration. So I got a beer with Dave. Sunday complete.
Also, Happy Thanksgiving! We had real turkey (killed, plucked, and cooked by another volunteer), mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and five pies. Right now I'm trying really hard to get hungry again so I can eat more. It's tough.
 |
| Group shot - Tonri's pres is to my right in yellow |
 |
| How to water potatoes |
