I've been here for a bit longer than a week now and am starting to not feel so hot. In Brazzaville, the capital, I have a apartment that is pretty comfortable within walking distance of the office.
The view from my apartment window. Its raining in this picture. It has rained twice since I've been here. Both times it just poured for three hours. I've seen more rain here in one week as I've seen in 4 years in teh SLV.
I made one trip to the new farm site in Lekana. Its a 6 hour drive from Brazzaville. I'll have a second house up there to live. On the way there we drove by just miles and miles as far as you can see on both sides of the road flat land with a few trees and 6 ft tall grass lands. The soil here and on the farm is about 20 inches a deep black loam soil with so much organic matter you can just smell it. I'm sending off some soil samples to really know. There ae just a few small plots of manioc here and there, mostly around the occasional villages. Its probably like what the early settlers found in the grassland of Iowa when they first arrived. the agricultural potential is hug. If you have enough rain for 6 ft grass you cave enough rain for 6 ft corn.
Grasslands around Ngo.
At the Lekana farm site there are tow tractors trying to disk and plow in this 6 ft grass to plant the 90 Ha of (220 acres) of potatoes to be planted. It will take a few passes and the US potato seed is starting to arrive at the port in Pointe Noire.
In the capital there is french, Lebanese and Chinese food. There a lot of Chinese here as well as other African countries building roads and other infrastructure. The US is missing out on this work. In Lekana the food was more typical. Meals were some Bushmeat which is something they hunt in the wild (sometimes its best not to know), some local boiled greens and lots of Manioc. A root crop easy to grow - you plant a stick and wait. Manioc is very starchy and gooey texture I'll need some getting used to. We brought some extra canned food along.
First campo meal
Lekana is in the Plateaux region - a high falt area 800 meter up (2,600 ft) so its a lot cooler than Brazzaville on the Congo river. The evening are cool which will be goo for the potatoes. There is no rivers or water there. Everyone has these big underground cisterns to catch rainwater. Not sure what they do in the dry season. The villages are pretty rural. House either mud brick or raffia. People mostly dressed in rags. A lot of room for improvement.
Raffia house
Local school
My French is a battle. Some Spanish words are similar, but most are too different. My Quiche keeps popping into my head when I'm searching for words.
Local Market
I'm heading off now to visit the two southern farms and then meet the first tow custom cleared containers of US potato seed. Probably start planting potatoes early March for the 2nd rainy season in April/May. The soils are plenty wet now for a start.
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