Did you know I was an Agroforester?

This month has been my big month for agroforestry. I’ve finally succumbed to the idea that this stuff might actually be worthwhile (though it wasn’t such a willing yield) and have gone throughout the kingdom of Bafut waving the flag of Plenty Fine Stick Dem—or Lots of Good Trees—so that all will remember that Kelsey Cornelius was once here as the seed-bearing Father-EXMASS-like Sister-from-another-mister. I planted 10 nurseries with farmers from all over, riding on rickety Chinese motorcycles with moto drivers determined that I reach safely (I drank a glass of whiskey with one driver before returning from a site, and another smelled like cow meat that had been sitting in the sun and another had a bike that held together by bungee cords). I gave several talks almost completely using my broken pidgin English. I mentioned that instructional sessions will be held on MUMITAA, the local Sunday, and I was greeted with a barrage of laughter and whooping (Auntie Rose! WAAAY! Ha. You de talk Bafut? WAAAY! Wonders!).

Agroforestry does work, its true. It is a vast discipline… though I believe its fertilizing qualities are the bushy green superstar of the field. But it doesn’t walka as well as pig poo walkas, though it might smell better (but doesn’t taste better… that’s the winner for me). And not as well as fertilizer works in the short-term, though it might be cheaper. The real advantage of agroforestry is that it doesn’t cost me anything to do, except time and my unwavering, agroforestry tool-kit thumping advising. There is a fairly large labor component, however (for the farmers, if we want to call the program sustainable)… and if trees have to be nursed first, the time factor can be daunting for a people who live for today. Furthermore, after you reap your fertilizer, you might get a bundle of firewood… but you wont get 50,000 francs and your childs school-fees paid for because you sold your pork. AND its not like you get to sell your massive cassava under an “ORGANIC-TREE POOP GROWN” label and mark-up the price tag 400%.

So, yea… it’s a good program. Or it’s better than nothing. Or it’s cheaper than the other thing. So, okay fine… I admit I don’t buy it. I don’t buy agroforestry as the best thing for the people of the NW and those in Bafut. I want the UN to give my farmers a few million dollars so that they can be trained in enormous numbers of people on livestock and fertilizer production and crop rotation. I want it to be in loan form with ultra low interest so that farmers can pay back and the money can be recirculated. And they will be the biggest exporters of salami in the world and no one will have to worry about the soil (who wouldn’t buy African salami? Mango salami! Pineapple salami! Kola salami!).

But who am I to say? Who am I to know what people need? I have walked away from every nursery planting with something in my hand or in my belly. I received 3 pineapples, 8 mangoes, 1 liter of palm wine, 1 liter of red wine, a beer, a piece of bushmeat, fufu corn and njama njama and 1 fried dough ball upon completion of various nurseries. People are ridiculously grateful for my 30-minute nursery construction assistance, 50 cents worth of seeds and 10-20 minutes of instruction. And I’m planting trees, so I can’t be in the red (unless I were planting eucalyptus, which soaks up all the water in the ground and keeps my toilet from flushing). But its like… somehow I feel I’m in the lifeboat, paddling towards humans lolling around in the icy water (or shark infested… however you like) and I stop to get… a roast beef sandwich with horsey sauce and a jamocha shake (at the fan boat Arby's) and continue paddling on with one hand, drinking my shake.

So, when it comes down to the nitty gritty, it seems that Arby's is everything that is wrong with development.

And in other news, there is a monkey named Tom at the Savanna Botanic Gardens in Bafut. He eats chicken heads and would very much like to sit on your head and hold your ears with his crazy little monkey hands. I know showing teeth is a sign of aggression, but I just can't help but smile.