Moringa Forest

Life is plodding along here for us.  I'm always amazed by how fast time flies here.  Our market day is on every 6th day, so it makes are weeks appear shorter than usual.  We're staying busy and having a grand ol' time with things.

 Earlier in June, JB, 8 students, and I planted 300 moringa seeds (cool tree look it up) into water sachets.  Out of those 300, we have about 120 alive and kicking, well not literally kicking since they're trees.  Many died due to weeds, non-viable seeds, lack of sunlight from the growth of their neighbors, and probably because JB and I have never planted so many seeds before.  We've been keeping our little seedlings in our garden to protect them from goats, but they've been getting pretty big, so transplanting them has become necessary.  This week we worked with the agriculture students at our school to dig a bunch of holes and to build a fence around an area at our school.  So we can create a moringa forest!!  So far so good.  All trees were finally planted this morning after a week's worth of preparation.  Hopefully our 120 trees survive!  Pictures will be coming soon, since I know you're all dying to look at this massive forest of trees that we've created.

Teaching is in full swing now and school is totally up and running.  Which means there's no more sleeping in till 7 for us.  Students are up and sweeping early in the morning, teachers are turning on loud radios to jam to as they brush their teeth, and the goats, sheep, chickens, guinea fowls, and monkeys are, as always, awake by sunrise.  I've reviewed my final exam from last term with my classes and was both shocked and depressed.  Some classes knew the answers as we were reviewing the test, and yet left the majority of the questions on the test blank when they took it.  The other classes just gave me blank stares as if I didn't spend months before teaching them something.  They has already stopped thinking about it.  I guess that's the same in the US, I know I immediately stopped thinking about a subject once the test was over for a few classes.  So I can't hold these students to be any different.

I had a 5 little kids come running up to me today as I was walking from class.  They were all wearing the uniforms for the near by kindergarten and primary school.  I've taught them all about "high-5's", so they all wanted one.  The littlest girl gave the hardest slap, it was pretty funny.  And then they wanted me to look at their homework grades because they were so proud of them.  It was awesome.  It made my day.