The first farewell

My time in Aduamoa is over. It's crazy how quickly the weeks have flown by. After a somewhat bumpy start, I really enjoyed my time here. Some of the other volunteers have grown close to my heart and I will miss one or two of the locals very much.

Last week it was really tiring in the projects. Our nursery had to move because we didn't have enough shade for the seedlings. This meant that over 2,300 seedlings had to be moved and an additional 1,500 bags filled with soil still needed to be planted. The new place for the trees wasn't far, but it was quite a bit uphill. That was a lot of traveling uphill and downhill with a heavy load. My biceps have definitely grown significantly during my time here. Don't even get me started on the blisters and calluses on my hands

Planting is also underway on the farm. To do this, all fields must be plowed and cleared of weeds. That means a lot of work with the machete and long distances to get water. On average I cover around 10 - 12 km every day. So if anyone still thinks they're vacationing here, they should know better by now. But the results we see every day make all the hard work worth it. It is a very satisfying job if you can see the development from sowing to harvest. What is perhaps a little unusual is the fact that significantly more girls do farm work and reforestation and the male volunteers go to school to teach. But with teamwork and female power, every plant has been watered so far.

What I will probably miss most, however, are the morning walks. Since my second day here, I have left every day with a different volunteer, Kevin, at 5:30. Yes, I know it's inhumanly early, but you get used to it very quickly and since work started at 7:00 a.m. we had to leave on time. We always walked the same distance of around 5 km. Sometimes just the two of us, sometimes a few children accompanied us. Whoever was always there were the hundreds of bats. We talked about God and the world or sometimes hardly talked at all. Our reward was the wonderful sunrises. Unfortunately Kevin left last week. I tried to keep the tradition, but it's not the same.

I had a good time in Aduamoa, but it's a good time to say goodbye and move on to the next project. More on that next time.

Warm greetings from the warmth to the cold!

Veronica