Farm Day 2

         This morning started when the roosters crowed. I quickly redressed in clothing from yesterday and headed out for round two. Francoise’ third farm consists of 200ha upon which workers plant 5-10ha per year in cassava. This farm is much nearer to water, not to irrigate the plants but to provide drinking water for the workers. Here they burn the grass every year for eight for eight years before rotating the crops back. She is having some troubles with the fields because the planting was done poorly. As they have no means of herbicide and it would be impossible to weed. The workers must be careful to cut the roots of the weeds when tilling the soil. Some of these plots displayed grass competing with the cassava. What I still fail to understand is all the burning. Everything is burned during every dry season. Surely there must be some alternative to (what seems to me) this waste of nutrients. Also, the cassava is planted on the far side of the farm from the stream. I finally came to understand that that particular plot could be planted with a tractor as the land had been cleared of trees and shrubs. Land closer to the stream must be cleared of trees before planting with the rented tractor.

Next, we visited her 10 cows. I think they are more of an experiment than means of profit. There is a tiny corral where the guy who follows them around all day, keeps them at night. There are no fences and it is his job to keep the cows out of the cassava. I would say the savannah landscape here is not particularly beautiful, but that would hardly be fair as they are halfway through the dry season and most has recently been burned.

I noticed these strange patches of Eucalyptus trees growing on the plateau. These are planted by locals and bought by members of the European union as carbon credits or planted by the European cooperation’s.

             Then we began the long, sandy road back to Kinshasa. The journey is always made interesting by the assortment of vehicles stopped on or along the road in various stages of disrepair. I spent a particular amount of the journey debating politics with Jean-Pierre. Of course, I know very little of African politics and could do little more than agree that the U.S. should keep its hands out of African governments. I am however convinced that Congo is neither ready for democracy nor capitalism at this time. At this point, I was just excited to be having some conversation in English! We stopped at a market for them to buy more of the smelly fish and cassava bread for dinner. They were kind enough to buy me a pizza and we all safely made it back to Clement’s parent’s house. Again, I am exhausted but much too in need of a bath to sleep yet. 

Cassava Invaded by Grass

Cow Herd

Cattle Corral

Burned Field