1) Women are the instigators of change in terms of food to be eaten in a household - however, due to the vast restraints on their time just to prepare food for the family, they are unable to walk the 5-15 km into the centre of the village - where traditionally we hold teaching. So, Megan and I are rotating through each of the village areas to teach the women directly!
2) Due to the survey that I did among my villagers in 2014 - there is a need not only to increase their food consumption score - but also a strong need for a more diverse diet!
We have been doing research since the Fall - looking at nutritional food that they can add to their diet - readily available food that they are not yet consuming. We discovered (shout out to team leader Brenda!) that manioc leaves if cooked are highly nutritional. We also found documents on West African plants through which we discovered that squash leaves are very high in Vitamin A ... which is a target vitamin to increase according to the FAO documents.
We also started research on how to build key-hole gardens ... a type of garden construction that uses minimal water - and an effective use of "grey" water. Knowing that vegetables and fruits are very expensive here ... and that many of our villagers have to travel up to 20 kilometres just to buy vegetables ... a kitchen garden that they can sustain will be key (ha - pun intended!) to their successive application of new nutrition ideas.
Part of our journey was to find the vegetable seeds that they will be able to plant. In Niger - this is difficult to say the least. There is no RONA or garden centre ... no yellow pages or google to find stores that sell seeds. A lot of our purchasing needs - we find by word of mouth! My night guard plants a garden - so I asked him where to buy seeds.
That was mistake #1!
From his directions, I thought I understood the rough vicinity of the the seeds. I even explained a few bigger stores downtown close to where I thought he was giving directions ... to which, I received a resounding "Voila!" ... "YES!"
No.
Lesson #1: Ask for directions from someone who drives!
I drove around a few streets .... we asked a few guys on the street if they knew where to find seeds. They didn't speak French. But, we knew that we were close. So, I parked at a store parking lot and we decided to venture forth on foot!
That was mistake #2!!
We gained a few followers who tried to be so very helpful. We asked directions of a few people who could speak French. We got, I am sure, with in a 50 foot radius of the store and there it broke down. None of the store signs - neither pictures nor words - seemed to indicate a store with vegetable seeds.
We resorted again to asking people if they knew where this store was - believing we were close and maybe now could get help. To no avail!! At least they understood we were looking for vegetables - they brought us to a cart of tomatoes, a cart of carrots, a cart of green peppers.
No one seemed to know the word "semence" - the French word for "seed".
I crouched down on the ground, dug in the dirt and explained that we were looking for what we put in the ground which grows into vegetables.
"Voila madame!! You are looking for potatoes!"
sigh.
Yes. Yes I am. We walked towards the potato cart and then left the market!
Lesson #2: Learn the national market language (Djarma) word for "seed"!
I then followed Lesson #1 - and found a friend whose husband had built a garden, her directions were much more explicit.
Megan and I headed out another day and finally found a vegetable seed store!! Not the original one that we were trying to find, but this store also gave directions to the first store for a type of seed they didn't have - and I can tell that we had been close!
At any rate - this vegetable seed store was very easy to find and identify! Even from about a block away, we could see the pictures of vegetables on its awning.
We were quite impressed with the selection of seed!
This young guy was very friendly and helpful! He explained the different varieties of each vegetable - which ones were better suited for heat - thus, for year round planting - and which ones do better only in the cold/dry season. (yes, we have a cold season!)
We bought a packet of each one that we wanted to plant in order to do research on the quantity of seeds per gram - some packages were 5 or 10 grams - but others 25 or 100!
When we were finished ... he gifted us with almost more seed packets than we bought!! We gained flowers that day too - which I plan to plant in my village home yard to bring a bit of colour out there!
A month after we started - we had a successful day!
And for me, it was a bit of a double success:
I can parallel park ... but not without difficulty. Especially now as I live in Niger and rarely have the chance to practice this skill. However, the street on which we found this store was a small side downtown street. The right hand side was packed with vendors and the left side seems to be the location of departure for all the bush taxis (think 70's style van). There was barely enough room for two vehicles to pass, most times only one to drive!
I managed to find a spot - but, it was on the left hand side of the street ... between two bush taxis. One of whom had the back trunk door propped open (it swings up). The opposing line of traffic was stopped - likely by the bush taxi who wanted to pull into the spot once the taxi with its door open was full and vacated the road.
So - what did I do??
I parallel parked backwards (not my best gear, by any stretch of the imagination!) to my left into the spot ... pulling my truck bed in beneath the open trunk door of the taxi!
I was so proud of myself ... and slightly surprised that no one protested! When we got back to the truck - the bush taxi was still not full. The other bush taxi was still waiting patiently for the spot - and as we drove away, I noticed at least another 5-6 vehicles parked in behind waiting just as patiently! Double parking at its best in downtown Niamey!
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