Pigs and Tomatoes

It’s rare that I have a hard time coming up with material for my blog posts. For the most part, life here is filled with experiences that force me to actively think, critique, and offer my take on, which is where this blog comes in. But aside from a few chuckle-worthy moments, the past week or so has been just…typical. One of these moments came just earlier this evening, when I was making my frequent trek up the hill to my bean/beignet mama (see a much earlier post where we teamed up for an evening). Our transaction is well polished at this point; I ask for 100 francs of beans and 50 francs of beignets, and she “dashes” me an extra beignet, a small gift. I smiled, thanked her, and started back down the hill towards home when I became aware of a neighbor that I had never seen before: a full size pig. Of course, she wasn’t alone; a man who I presumed to be her owner accompanied her. But there was no leash or other restraint to be seen, and the pair was just walking past the beignet hut on their way to some unknown destination. The boys that hang out around the beignet hut didn’t even try to restrain their amusement over my surprise; I guess it isn’t every day that you see a giant pig startle the neighborhood American.

           

My daily commute: casual training for the Race of Hope.

Aside from my occasional run-ins with the local fauna (today’s pig encounter wasn’t even the first case this week!), life is solidly back to normal in my part of the world. Lacking any major cultural or social activities to report on (teaser: the Peace Corps social event of the season is coming up this weekend!) I’m going to do something I never do. I’m going to write about work. Other than Ebola, the main inquiries I received about my time in the Peace Corps while back home focused on the professional aspect of Peace Corps service, the supposed reason why we’re all here. And honestly, it wasn’t a question I really wanted to answer. I can’t speak for my fellow PCVs, but my work situation here has always been confusing at best, frustrating at worst. As I’ve come to learn, a PCV’s work projects tend to be primarily self-directed, with exceptions of course. I’ve met some incredible people in the Bamenda region over the past year, but I can admit to struggling when it comes to finding motivated and active work counterparts. Only now am I finally at a point in my service where I feel like I’ve identified people with whom I feel I can have a successful work relationship.

            Augustin approached me a few months ago at one of the Unity Farming meetings at which we were two of the only attendees. He told me he wanted to start commercial-scale tomato production, and asked if I would be able to offer any assistance. Over the next few weeks he told me a little more about his plans, and we met with two agricultural technicians together to discuss logistics. Throughout these meetings I realized how I felt my service could be productive in a city as developed and bustling as Bamenda: by connecting people to resources that are already existing but they were previously aware of. In Augustin’s case, that meant accompanying him to a seed distribution store, going through the seed catalog together, and discussing the merits of hybrid seeds. Honestly, I’ll never be the local expert on seed selection in the humid highland climate of Bamenda, but I can certainly be the link between a farmer and someone who is.

1,500 tomatoes look like many more in the field than they
did in the nursery!

            A week or so later, Augustin invited me to come up to his farm and see his tomato nursery. When I got up to his farm (a beautiful 10 minute motorcycle ride from my house) I was unimpressed. He had two raised trays of baby seedlings, and I doubted that he could possibly have the 1,500+ plants that he was aiming for. But last week I made a return visit, about five weeks after my original one, and was blown away. Two trays of seedlings had turned into a field and a half of closely spaced plants, and they were all meticulously staked and tended to. Augustin invited me to his vegetable group meeting a few days later, and I was impressed yet again. The group (Hidden Treasures Vegetable Farming Group) seems serious so far, and all the members are currently growing tomatoes and other crops. We discussed the necessity of a 2.5 million franc loan (about $5,000), and as far as I understood, the group decided that the timing wasn’t quite right. Next on the agenda is a practical demonstration of natural insecticides, and I’m optimistic that our partnership is headed in the right direction.