The first part of the training session was the teaching portion - we all gathered under a straw hut for shade and learned about how to construct tree nursery sacs, plant the seeds, and plant the seedlings.
Following the training session began the work portion of the day! We discovered that the manure we pounded the week before was not the correct consistency .... it needs to be the same consistency as the sand!!
Good thing I brought the sifter back with me - and the men got to work sifting the manure to a finer grain:
The clay that I found by the river also needed to be pounded to the same consistency as the sand and manure. So, out came the cement pounders from the time before - and the clay was pounded in the sack to keep it contained:
While the men had three work stations going: with all the manure sifting, sand mixing, and clay pounding ... Megan and I made friends with this little girl in the compound. She stuck to us pretty closely all day - we could call her "velcro" - at one point, she had her arms wrapped around my legs, but I needed to move to another spot. So, I just picked her up at her knees and she hung onto my knees as I walked around to the other working station!!
She doesn't smile much, nor talk - but she is the sweetest little girl. She still comes running every time we arrive in the village, waiting for hugs from us both - which we are happy to give!
Finally - the tree sac mix was ready to begin - all components being prepared - and the men began to mix together the sand and manure.
Shortly the clay and insecticide was added in. Soon, there was in the mix:
- 2 wheel barrows of sand
- 1 wheel barrrow of manure
- 1 shovel of clay
- 1 bottle of insecticide powder
I never imagined how much work it would be to get this all going - two days of work! And then the hard work - mixing in water and turning shovel full after shovel full of the dry mixture until it was moist for the sacs!
Once this was ready - it was time to eat lunch!!
And this "lemonade stand" on wheels happened upon the work day as well:
On the back of his bicycle, he has a styrofoam cooler filled with cold water for sale. He has likely biked in 6 km from the nearest town with electricity on the highway - today, he found many willing purchasers of his product!!
After lunch, it was back to work ... the mulch was ready - and it was time to learn how to fill the nursery sacs ... to tamp down the mulch soil and fill the bags to the top!
Each man received a small market sack of this soil mulch to take back to their village area, along with a bottle of the insecticide, in order to make the soil base for their tree sacs. They were each given also enough tree sacs to suffice the trees for their field size.
The men returned home with their sacks and the knowledge of how to mix the soil base to fill all their sacks. The next meeting is set for 2 weeks later ... enough time for them to prep the tree sacks by watering the soil and weeding out any weeds that start to grow. At the next meeting, we will review the process for planting each of the two types of trees!
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