At the Garu
May 16th, Day 13 - where i left off last entry, recall, i was just about to have a croissant and mango and omelet, for breakfast at this hotel. I recalled this hotel having good food last year and was looking forward to it.
Well they apparently have a new cook, or rather no one now with even rudimentary cooking skills on duty in the morning. The "croissant" was dense and flavorless and essentially inedible. The "omelet" was a fried egg, which just by itself and thoroughly fried (if it was still a bit runny maybe i could have dipped the "croissant" in it), i didn't find it at all satisfying either. _I_ could have made a better breakfast which is saying A LOT. Seriously how can you be unable to make an omelet or serve an egg in a remotely appetizing manner??
Anyway as i ate my mango i idly asked Bara if he had learned English in university. He said no. Bara, born in Timbuktu, always admiring trees and herbs and commenting on their medicinal values, has another layer i hadn't expected. He loved classic rock and roll (well it was contemporary at the time). His eyes lit up as he told me how he loved the Who, the BeeGees, the Beatles, and would hunt for the more expensive (Billboard?) albums that came with printed lyrics so he could learn them, and that's how he got started in English.
This morning it took awhile to get started as we had to collect people from here and there, some of whom were operating on Africa Time. Then we drove half an hour or so out of town (this was all on paved roads so we covered 20km), to the location where we had field training last year.
Sometimes i feel like I'm the last to know some seemingly important things about our planned program. Until we started driving that way i had assumed we'd be doing the training in the building in town here where we did it last year, but no we'd go straight to the field site. Would we just be doing field work? Who knows!
We met up at a cleared patch of gravel by the side of the road. I'd noticed a few of these throughout the country. A cleared place beside the road, of nice even gravel. Bounded by a stone curb. Usually shaded, with trees coming up in the middle of it, they almost reminded me of sacred groves.
So i asked, through Bara, about these things. I was told they're called garu, they're like meeting spots beside the road, where people commonly might be waiting. Kind of like bus stops even without busses i guess, but much more pleasant. The guy explaining mentioned that often a plastic kettle of water is left there for anyone who happens along.
There was a small group gathered there in addition to the few people we brought with us. Maybe a dozen people total. As mentioned the other day I'm not much for padding out what I'm saying with fluff, and on this occasion i began by saying to Bara "tell them I'm glad to be here etcetera etcetera, what obstacles are they encountering in implementing last year's recommendations?" And like a champion he spun that out into an appropriately lengthed greeting.
They brought an empty beehive over and i was alarmed to find it had completely incorrect topbars on it. Had last year's training had no effect at all??
Anyway we occupied a few hours in a kind of unstructured discussion of various points. Bara has by now taken on board a great deal of the training and could explain things well himself sometimes with minimal intervention from me. And was innovative in explaining things such as drawing the bee space dimensions right onto one of the two-large topbars.
I missed my PowerPoint visual aids a bit but it was very pleasant sitting in a circle under the trees with a nice breeze and an actual hive for a visual aid, plus the original drawings I'd made for some of the slides.
Eventually, after three we went to look at where the hives are. But not to open them yet because we anticipate having a harvest but didn't have the buckets to collect in today.
Walking out there we passed a newly built little shelter. I asked what that was and it was explained they're building some "tourism infrastructure"
"Tourism for what?"
After some lengthy back and forth with Bara: "there is a place by the water a bit of a distance from there where there's a memorial to one of their ancestors, but it's a bit far." This soundsss to me like exactly the kind of walk in the forest I've been wanting to do, but there's not time 😭😭😭😭😭
At the area of the hives i was gratified to find some changes at least. Last year they had something like 110 beehives practically on top of eachother but they've followed my recommendation to spread them out.
Then we returned to Dalaba. At this point it was after 5 and i hadn't eaten all day (i had barely made any progress on that breakfast) but fortunately i have a stash of clif bars for just this kind of occasion.
Then Bara Bailo and i sat in the hotel's lovely front open air dining area, Bara and i working on our laptops, Bailo seemingly continuously making tea (it can be a long process here of pouring it from container to container).
Some girls came by selling "bitter kola" nuts, which are apparently a thing.
And we went and saw the sunset from the old colonial hotel with the view.
And had dinner with at the house of the president of the women's federation we're working with here. The end.
Tomorrow we plan to mainly be doing beekeeping.
Well they apparently have a new cook, or rather no one now with even rudimentary cooking skills on duty in the morning. The "croissant" was dense and flavorless and essentially inedible. The "omelet" was a fried egg, which just by itself and thoroughly fried (if it was still a bit runny maybe i could have dipped the "croissant" in it), i didn't find it at all satisfying either. _I_ could have made a better breakfast which is saying A LOT. Seriously how can you be unable to make an omelet or serve an egg in a remotely appetizing manner??
Anyway as i ate my mango i idly asked Bara if he had learned English in university. He said no. Bara, born in Timbuktu, always admiring trees and herbs and commenting on their medicinal values, has another layer i hadn't expected. He loved classic rock and roll (well it was contemporary at the time). His eyes lit up as he told me how he loved the Who, the BeeGees, the Beatles, and would hunt for the more expensive (Billboard?) albums that came with printed lyrics so he could learn them, and that's how he got started in English.
This morning it took awhile to get started as we had to collect people from here and there, some of whom were operating on Africa Time. Then we drove half an hour or so out of town (this was all on paved roads so we covered 20km), to the location where we had field training last year.
Sometimes i feel like I'm the last to know some seemingly important things about our planned program. Until we started driving that way i had assumed we'd be doing the training in the building in town here where we did it last year, but no we'd go straight to the field site. Would we just be doing field work? Who knows!
We met up at a cleared patch of gravel by the side of the road. I'd noticed a few of these throughout the country. A cleared place beside the road, of nice even gravel. Bounded by a stone curb. Usually shaded, with trees coming up in the middle of it, they almost reminded me of sacred groves.
So i asked, through Bara, about these things. I was told they're called garu, they're like meeting spots beside the road, where people commonly might be waiting. Kind of like bus stops even without busses i guess, but much more pleasant. The guy explaining mentioned that often a plastic kettle of water is left there for anyone who happens along.
There was a small group gathered there in addition to the few people we brought with us. Maybe a dozen people total. As mentioned the other day I'm not much for padding out what I'm saying with fluff, and on this occasion i began by saying to Bara "tell them I'm glad to be here etcetera etcetera, what obstacles are they encountering in implementing last year's recommendations?" And like a champion he spun that out into an appropriately lengthed greeting.
They brought an empty beehive over and i was alarmed to find it had completely incorrect topbars on it. Had last year's training had no effect at all??
Anyway we occupied a few hours in a kind of unstructured discussion of various points. Bara has by now taken on board a great deal of the training and could explain things well himself sometimes with minimal intervention from me. And was innovative in explaining things such as drawing the bee space dimensions right onto one of the two-large topbars.
I missed my PowerPoint visual aids a bit but it was very pleasant sitting in a circle under the trees with a nice breeze and an actual hive for a visual aid, plus the original drawings I'd made for some of the slides.
Eventually, after three we went to look at where the hives are. But not to open them yet because we anticipate having a harvest but didn't have the buckets to collect in today.
Walking out there we passed a newly built little shelter. I asked what that was and it was explained they're building some "tourism infrastructure"
"Tourism for what?"
After some lengthy back and forth with Bara: "there is a place by the water a bit of a distance from there where there's a memorial to one of their ancestors, but it's a bit far." This soundsss to me like exactly the kind of walk in the forest I've been wanting to do, but there's not time 😭😭😭😭😭
At the area of the hives i was gratified to find some changes at least. Last year they had something like 110 beehives practically on top of eachother but they've followed my recommendation to spread them out.
Then we returned to Dalaba. At this point it was after 5 and i hadn't eaten all day (i had barely made any progress on that breakfast) but fortunately i have a stash of clif bars for just this kind of occasion.
Then Bara Bailo and i sat in the hotel's lovely front open air dining area, Bara and i working on our laptops, Bailo seemingly continuously making tea (it can be a long process here of pouring it from container to container).
Some girls came by selling "bitter kola" nuts, which are apparently a thing.
And we went and saw the sunset from the old colonial hotel with the view.
And had dinner with at the house of the president of the women's federation we're working with here. The end.
Tomorrow we plan to mainly be doing beekeeping.