And we have a fence!

Yes, I even take timed pictures in Mali!


The completed fence with my house at right and the solar panel that charges my car battery so I can cook and read after sun-down

One thing I'm really excited about getting started is my garden. Esayi eyes me with a questioning look whenever I pick up gardening equipment like perhaps I'm holding it for the first time. While it's true I don't know loads about gardening, I've been doing my research and I'm also an eager learner and looking forward to all that Esayi is going to teach me. He came over this past week (well, just walked around my house really, since his house is just behind mine) and we got started building a fence to box in where my garden will be. Esayi did most of the work but let me pretend I was helping by letting me dig a few holes and weave some of the millet stalks. It's definitely going to be a hurdle to convince men that I can do any sort of labor. I get pretty frustrated when anyone tells me I'm not able to do something and my stubborn side comes up so I'm working on that. Fortunately Esayi, though quick to encourage me to rest, is also quick to see that I really want to help when he does manual labor (especially when I barely break a sweat doing it) so it's just a matter of persistence.
Annie wants to plant onions in the garden and I have seeds for watermelons, cucumbers, tomatos, carrots, beans and flowers.

Harvest is slowly coming to a close in my village (and around Mali). This past week saw lots of carts filled with millet being carted in from the fields to store in mud structures like the one seen here.