In Burkina, the shade of a tree is the preferred place for get-togethers. Trees are the witnesses to discussions in which decisions are made and problems solved, and weddings, communions, baptisms and funerals are organized. And of course, where the best naps are taken.
The shadow of a FAR’s 2013 plantation
Rimkieta needs trees, for those get-togethers and naps, but much more importantly for their many natural benefits. The rains in Rimkieta are torrential and flood everything in only a few minutes. Only a week ago, a storm left four people dead and more than 2,000 families homeless (the water swept the adobe houses away). The trees’ foliage catches the water and softens its fall, and their roots absorb it, thereby decreasing the number of puddles where mosquitoes breed, with the consequent effect on malaria.
Every year, with the arrival of the rains in spring-summer, we plant a new batch of trees. We just finished a recount of all the trees we have planted since we started the project in 2008. Of those 7,100, 4,234 remain alive… (the first 50 trees some 8 years ago were cut down for the firewood the people need to cook; 2009’s terrible floods wiped out that and the previous years’ plantings…; and despite the barriers we have erected, animals have eaten the rest of those that have not survived… Heartbreaking, as we don’t only plant the tree, but rather we water it a few times a week and fertilize it when needed for two years… A lot of work to make an acacia give 4 or 5 meters’ diameter of shade, three or four years later.
But neither floods nor animals can best us, so this year we have stepped up again with 600 more trees, with a new protection of plastered adobe bricks. We have a commitment from the same neighbors who, having once cut the trees for firewood, now ask us to plant on their street. This change is already a big victory.
New protection of plastered adobe bricks (adobe)
There is never a lack of complications to getting anything – as simple as it may seem – done in this wonderful country. The adobe protection is turning out to be a real challenge. The brick supplier who doesn’t meet the 1,000 per day that we agreed we needed; the driver of the shipment who leaves us stranded without warning to go work the fields; finding another driver and coming to terms for the same price we had negotiated with the first proves impossible, which sends us well past the original budget…; but the price of cement foes down – who knows why – and it evens out…God bends us but doesn’t break us!
When we plant a tree we do it taking Rimkieta’s environment in mind – its streets, its families, who will see it grow in front of their houses, and in all the decisions the tree will shelter. Each tree planted is a tree that purifies the air that lends oxygen, which cools the streets. I’ve even read that it has been shown that neighborhoods with vegetation are more peaceful than those without…So there’s no doubt that it’s worth it to keep planting trees, despite the obstacles along the way!