we care for our village, we plant trees!

using USAID grant money, i organized a tree nursery day for the school children. the kids from both the french and koranic schools came to learn how to make and manage a tree nursery.

the kids learned how to mix soil and fill tree sacks properly. then we seeded our trees and then had a talk about personal responsibility for the trees and for our village. i made a connection between planting trees and taking care of the village. after we put our trees in the school nursery we then had snacks -- juice, bananas, and beignets (fried dough).

jc and shelley came a day early to help (i couldn't have done it without them) and wallace and peter came from dakar to see the day's events. chris also came and acted as photographer.

it was lots of fun and the kids were cute and well behaved. lots of men came and helped out during the training. the women had stayed up to 1:30am the night before to make beignets for the kids. wallace bought bananas for the kids. i got to blow a whistle like a p.e. teacher. we now have 200 trees -- 100 papayas and 100 nebadies -- in a "kid's pepiniere." very proud of my kids and admittingly, myself. this is probably one of my proudest moments in peace corps.

pictures tell the story better...

me and the kids from french school and koranic school

jc helping mbaye signan and talla ka sift soil

kids mixing soil

shelley helping kids fill sacks

seeding

some kids and their filled sacks

emmanual -- the french teacher -- helping the kids "sign" the mural

the mural says "we care for our village, we plant trees"

the future

the rest of the pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/angelicakang/WeTakeCareOfOurVillageWePlantTrees#