School's Almost Back in Session!

School will finally start in two weeks! I can't wait to get back into the classroom to teach! This year I'll have the same classes as last year with an additional math class, which means lots of time spent grading, but almost all of my lessons are already planned. This year will also hopefully include growing Moringa trees with my students and doing an AIDS/HIV (theater?) activity at the school.

There's been a lot of talk about the Moringa tree in the Burkina volunteer community. It's really just, in a word, fantastic. Although it can sometimes be difficult to grow due to pests (termites, crickets, etc.) and water issues, the highly nutritious leaves can be eaten raw or in sauces, you can purify water (not fully-this is still something I'm researching) with the seeds, and you can even make soap out of certain plant parts. My biology students will each attempt to grow one during our botany unit, and do observations on the growth of the plant. Hopefully this will help them understand germination and plant development and nutrition. Then we'll plant the trees at my school and around the village (at least at the new CREN they're building-a malnutrition center). We will also do a lesson in class about the uses of Moringa and how to properly take care of it. Although pests are a problem (especially the termites) you can easily make a natural insecticide by boiling the leaves of another commonly found tree (neem) and then spritzing the water on the Moringa. I'll also talk about how to grow the tree for seeds or for leaves. Villagers tend to enjoy learning about Moringa because most of them spend much of their time farming for their livelihoods anyway, so they are aware of some agricultural techniques (though much is being done to introduce others on the part of development/government agencies).

This week I am on vacation. That's right. VA-CA-TION! I was going to go to Benin and Togo with a group of volunteers but had to go to Senegal to see the doctor (don't worry, I'm fine and won't be med-sep'ed or anything like that). So I'm going to check out Cassandra's village and then go down to the Bobo area for a few days. Even after this week I won't have even used half of my vacation days, and once school starts I'll have little opportunity to do so. Maybe I'll even find one of those tropical drinks with the umbrella floating in it...