What do you think of, when you think of fall? Perhaps cooler temperatures, fall colors, harvest festivals, or a cup of warm cider. Here in the Pacific Northwest where our US Office is located, it also means the beginning of about 6-7 months of cold, cloudy, rainy days. For our partner communities in Senegal however, the harvest is on, but their short, 2-3 month rainy season has just come to an end. Let’s take a tour through some photos from rural Senegal and see what a few of our 13 partner villages have been up to these last couple months!
After successful well rehabilitations in Mboss, Dahra, and Santhie over the past few months, Ouarkhokh was our next partner community to begin the process in September. CREATE! field technicians met with village chiefs and leaders who helped the community mobilize to rehabilitate their well so that they no longer need to rely on costly water from the commercial water system. Once completed, the well will utilize a solar powered pump to bring water up to their 5,000 liter reservoir and gravity fed irrigation system that distributes water to basins throughout the garden.
Who likes eggplant? The women of the Back Samba Dior garden cooperative certainly do, and it’s a good thing, because last month they harvested a whopping 1,268 kg (over 2,700 lbs!) of eggplant from their garden! Considering they just partnered with CREATE! last December and are still developing their garden site, this is an exciting development for the community.
Watermelons in Walo were plentiful last month! The garden cooperative was happy that the crop did well this year, and will sell their surplus on the market and invest the savings in their VSLA group.
The village of Mboss partnered with CREATE! just this past spring, and community members are in the early stages of establishing their programs. With their newly rehabilitated well and a solar-powered pump, they’ve been taking great care to keep their renewable energy systems in working order to provide water to their community and garden crops.
The garden cooperative in the village of Gagnick Mack is now harvesting the last of their rainy season crops, including eggplant, peppers, turnips, tomatoes, jaxatu, and okra. Above, women weigh their harvest of jaxatu, also known as African Eggplant, a particularly nutritious and economically viable vegetable. In Senegal, women commonly cook jaxatu into soups and rice dishes.
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