Days 3-5: Gardening

Days 3-5: Gardening    

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we’d load up in the bus after breakfast and head to the village, about 1.5 hours away. I always thought about what we may see or experience for that day during our ride. One day we saw a house where the dad wasn’t around, the mom wasn’t really interested in us, but the kids were excited to help plant a garden. Another time we got to meet the village Witch Doctor. I envisioned a Hollywood-type of figure with voodoo dolls and a bone through her nose, only to find a beautiful lady who was probably around my age. After we planted her garden she wrapped me in her arms for a hug and kissed my neck. What an opportunity!

First garden... clay was so hard we had to bring in soil from another area

This cutie took my gloves to help plant the seeds

One of the very steep hills in the village

This home had lots of garbage and bugs... we had to clear out the bamboo to make room for the garden. We ended up having 2 teams work together to make this possible for the families.

Everyone had machetes. I tried and was scared to cut my leg off, so I left it to the natives instead.

They didnt have a lot of land, but wanted a garden. We did our best!

Some of the kids watching as we broke ground, as soon as it was time to plant the seeds they all rushed us to help.

We educated the people about how to care for their gardens. They don’t read for the most part, so it was illustrated and the translators told them what to do. We told them to make sure to keep the dogs and birds out of the gardens… at times when we were leaving the chickens were already in the newly planted gardens and other times you could see the mom already starting to build a fence around it to keep it safe. I am interested to see how many of these gardens survive. 60 gardens in 3 days was a big deal… Only with God was it possible!