Week 3:
Learning the Ropes

June 9, 2019

This week was also divided by a holiday on Wednesday. However, as far as reforestation’s schedule goes, it was a more or less regular week. Monday we prepare the budget for the week, counting out the money for single mothers club (SMC), weekly contracts (WC), daily payments for moving compost and seedlings, collecting seeds, and digging holes. Tuesday we help move seedlings in preparation for the Wednesday planting events.

Wednesday we planted trees with the other volunteers and KAFS employees as a volunteer planting day (because it was a holiday no one got paid, so it was volunteer planting).  Thursday was a small nursery check, so we only paid the weekly contracts, took down requests, deliveries, supplies, and took seedling counts.  Friday we celebrated World Environment Day with 5 planting events!!!

That was a lot of data entry….  After each planting event, a GPS location and species is recorded for every tree planted, and it is the job of the reforestation volunteers to enter that data into the computer so that we can send the information to the Omaha Zoo in the biweekly reports.  After all that data entry, I had dreams about entering tree names into the computer.

Bonary Mena….Bonary Mena….Voandelika….Acacia….Bonary Mena….Enga….

Since each pioneer planting event will plant 3,000 trees, this week alone, we planted about 24,000 trees!  That is a lot of trees! (and a lot of data entry!).

Thursday was a nursery check day. We went to all the nurseries along the road and stopped at a new nursery that is not quite up and running yet. This nursery sits at the base of Tsitula, a beautiful and formidable-looking mountain.

Dr. Edward Lewis arrived at KAFS on Tuesday. It was really cool to meet him.  He told us about the growth of KAFS and the impact it has had on local communities.  He also talked about some of the things he hopes to accomplish here.  It is all so inspiring and has made me value this experience even more.

Angela and Andy, the two volunteers from the previous cohort who trained us, departed yesterday.  It was sad to see them go. They helped us so much in getting started. I hope we do them proud and don’t mess up! They are both also just really cool people that I wish I had the chance to get to know better.  They will be missed!  Now it is time to see if we can swim without our life vests, so to speak!