Scouts!

Last weekend at the demonstration farm we were joined by a "patrol" of Senegalese eclaireurs - boy and girl scouts!  Here in Senegal there is actually no distinction made between boy and girl scouts, they are all simply referred to as scouts or eclaireurs and both girls and boys participate in the same group.  This troop had traveled from the other end of Dakar to camp out, sing songs, and learn about sustainable agriculture.  Although I made it all the way to webelos, I never did make it out of cub scouts into the much more honorable world of boy scouts.  I'm pretty sure though that scouts in the US do not have the same awesome repertoire of camp songs as this troop.  Most of them were in Wolof so I have no idea what they were about, but for every activity it seemed they had a song to passionately belt out.


Here's the group singing a number beneath the Senegelese and scouting flags.

 Their second day at the center the Scouts got to work on the farm. Here they are clearing out an area of weeds to prepare the soil for planting.  If you look closely, you can see one of the scouts on the right holding the ilere tool I talked about in the last post.

Below are two hard working scouts double digging the soil.  Preparing the soil to a depth of 2 feet aerates the soil and gives roots lots of room to access water and nutrients.

The troop ended up planting out two beds of Okra.  Clemson Spineless, Burgundy Red, and Cajun Jewel were the varieties we had started as seedlings for them.  The work really goes fast when you have such a large group all working together.

Here Fatou (in the gray t-shirt) is giving the scouts instructions on watering in their newly planted okra seedlings.  Together, Lamine and Fatou run the Fankanta demonstration farm in addition to co-ordinating the other aspects of the Oasis Grow Biointensive Association.  On the left hand side of the picture you can see that some neighbors were interested to see the team planting out their okra and came by to watch.

And here is the proud patrol of Senegalese scouts posing in front of their handiwork.  Lamine is actually the commissaire général of scouting in Senegal, in other words, the top scout in the entire country.  He has been able to introduce sustainable, low input farming to a lot of youth this way.  For most of their stay the scouts were on their own under the leadership of the camp cheif, the tall scout in the middle.  I have to say I was rather impressed by how self sufficient they were when it came to making their own fire, cooking, and carrying on with their camp activities.

Thanks for the help eclaireurs du Senegal!