Aerial photographs and miscellany…

So for the last few days I’ve had 3G wireless internet at my house courtesy of my work. No joke, I don’t have running water, and my electricity is around 75% at best, but I do have high-speed internet access. Anyway, while wasting time on the internet, I found that Google Earth has relatively good aerial photography of Bangangte and surrounding regions. Unfortunately, my house missed the cutoff by about 1/2km for high-res photos, but the experimental farm of APADER just made the cut. Here it is… (click for enlargement)

  Between the thumbtacks that say tree nursery and experimental fields, you’ll see the horizontal rows of trees. Those are our contour bunds. They are bands of trees and earth that follow exactly 0 degree slope around the hill. These prevent surface runoff and erosion, as well as promoting water infiltraton. We plant them with nitrogen-fixing species of trees, and then prune the trees severely (so they don’t compete with crops) during the growing season, and turn the leaves in as fertilizer. Acacia angustissima and Calliandra calothyrsus have other uses in beekeeping. The puffier trees to the right of the nursery are some mango and avocado trees. The eucalyptus plantation is about twenty years old, and was planted by the father of APADER’s founder. We have an alternative lumber wood culture right next to it, manly Grevillia robusta. 

Here is downtown Bangangte, the big town about 8k from my village.The biweekly market is the one I photographed in a previous blog post, from the top of the triangle. Chez Pierre is the bar that trainees would hang out at afterhours.

Finally, I would like to share this wonderful graphic I came across. Props to whomever made it. I’m happy to report that the only confirmed chip on my board so far is the middle one, but I’m going to take some de-worming medication this week just in case. (many Cameroonians do so three or four times a year.)