Moli-Andro

It was an incredible day. We drove about an hour and a half over the mountains to a village called Moli-Andro. It's a beautiful place where Paskwale, our agroforestry expert, has a piece of land that he farms. We drove off of the main road down a small dirt road and a couple miles in we stopped where there was a path going off the side of the road through some tall grass. We turned down the path and after driving about half a mile we got to a clearing where there was a small garden. Paskwale's land is big, but there is not much cleared and planted in yet – that's where we will come in handy! He had planted some small beds of umbrella trees, guava, and teak. We jumped right in and got our hands and just about everything else filthy from sitting in the dirt and potting, but it was glorious. The soil is so rich and smells so fresh and there is so much activity going on. You can hear birds and bees in the air and there are spiders, ants, millipedes, centipedes, and all matter of insects on the ground. It's just a wonderful place to be. At times we talked and at others we potted silently. At about 2:30 we stopped for lunch. We had our water bottles, packages of biscuits, and finally jackfruit. Jackfruit is giant – probably about 30 pounds each and is pointy on the outside. Inside the fruit is orange and there are pockets of seeds. We picked out the seeds so that we could plant them and ate the fruit, which was sweet like a mango or passionfruit, but also very sticky and dense. It was delicious. It's incredible how you can just plant seeds from the fruits you eat here and they will grow. You never need to buy packets of any kind of seed.

After eating out jackfruits we walked a little way through the grass to a river. The river had warm, clear water that we washed off in. Again, it was incredible. We waded through the sandy water and just played for a little while. After that, we went back to the planting site and dug up some ground where we planted avocado. We didn't even really have to plant them in the ground. We just set them down and covered them with a bit of dirt and Paskwale said that they would grow!

I have also been getting to know the children very well. I've been spending some time talking with the older kids about their schooling and how Sudan is so different from America. They are all very smart and do well in school. They've been teaching me to play their card games, which are confusing, but I'm getting them slowly. The younger children are always making me laugh and I love spending time making bracelets and talking with them. I'm slowly learning their names and can't wait to get to know them better.