Photos from the week 6/28/2014

I have new baby bunnies! There are only 5, but they all seem to be doing well. 

This week we also had a baby cow born at CEFA. It is not quite at the same cuteness level as the bunnies, but at a few days’ old its attempts to hop and play are pretty funny.  

Since there is no daycare here, often small kids follow their parents to work. Here is a little boy helping his dad move some beans around. 

We have 5 huge drying racks for beans and peanuts on the farm. The beans spend a few days up there before being taken down to make room for more. The dry ones are shelled and put into sacks. 

I was able to get half a sack of Moringa leaves from our moringa plot this week. The very nutritious leaves went to the nutrition center to help feed the malnourished kids.

One of Roy’s bat flowers has been blooming the last few days. Quite the unusual looking flower. 

Photos from the week 6/15/2014

We have many hectors of beans at Somongue and this week they started to be harvested. The seed will be dried and distributed to local farmers. 

This week we also harvested another field of higher yielding manioc. Each sack holds many cuttings that will also be distributed to villagers.  

This viper was eating a toad alongside Danforths’ porch. 

One week ago I was getting about 1 jack fruit a day from my tree. Last week it continued and one day I picked four. This week I got 9 on one day! Here are just 7 of them. All nine of them together weighed over 100 Lbs. The total for this week is 17

One of the nine was a really small one . A fun size jack fruit.  

I have been having fun taming and training this African gray parrot. This week I wrapped him in a towel to trim his wing fathers so he could not try to fly away. Unfortunately a few nights ago my house and yard where invaded by driver ants, and I did not make it in time to save him.

I have lost many hives to driver ants, and this morning they attacked the rabbits and Danforths’ house.

Photos from the week 6/8/2014

Narcisse is a young man from another part of the country where they raise bees in grass hives. It is only a one-time thing as the hive and the bees are destroyed when the honey is harvested. I asked him to make me a few hives, so that I can try to incorporate this kind of technology into my project. Try to find out how to transfer the bees to a real hive rather then kill them.

Saturday five of our local and national government heads came out for a tour of the farm. A few of them are new since the change of government, and seem to be really good guys. 

One of the men working at the farm discovered a bunch of edible caterpillars in a bush. 

Roy has been collecting different kinds of hibiscus and planting them out at Somongue. This week this beautiful orange with a red center bloomed for the first time. 

Photos from the week 6/1/2014 fruit edition

Here are a few of the fruits that came in to season this week around Gamboula and Somongue.

It seems the guavas here have multiple bumper crops a year! They are in season again now. No complaints there.

               

Bunchosia is also called peanut butter and jelly fruit, because it kind of tastes just like that. These small trees look like Christmas trees this time of year, loaded with green, orange, and red ornaments.  

Marang has a somewhat sweet but burnt rubbery smell when it is ripe. You can smell it a fair distance from the tree, so this is your clue to go searching for it. The outside of the fruit is hard and bristly, kind of like a sea urchin, while the inside is like a small jack fruit, but sweeter. 

Canastel, or egg fruit, taste like boiled sweat potato. They go bad very shortly after they fall from the tree, so you have to snatch them up quickly.  

This pretty looking fruit is a water apple. It is not as good as it looks, and is like eating slightly sweet styrofoam. 

Rose apples are small yellow fruit that smell like perfume. I think eating them is like eating perfume too. 

The jack fruit tree outside my house is loaded with fruit. This week I had 8 ripen! These also have a distinctive smell to them which alerts you that one is ripe. When you smell it, you climb up the tree in search of it.

Cumquats don’t really do great here, but this year there are a few. 

And I can’t leave out the ever present banana.