Women's Garden Committee and Pépinières

Mama, my 'jatigi muso' (host-mother) and now the 'muso nakɔ ɲɛmɔgɔ' (women's garden committee president), handing out tomato seedlings to village women in the garden.

When I first decided to assist the women in obtaining a selection of garden seeds from the Peace Corps Mali Food Security program to try for the year, I did not foresee it becoming a major, long-range project. But since that time, the need to teach the women how to manage an effective pépinière (nursery) to grow most of the types of seeds obtained and the need to better organize the women to allow them to develop projects for themselves into the future the became apparent.

On March 9th, we held a meeting with the village women's committee (which consists of all of the women) about setting up a 'muso nakɔ jɛkulu' (Women's Garden Committee) and about pépinière preperation using seeds I had procured. During this time, the ten women were selected for the committee, which provided representation from all of the regions of the village. Women from each village also volunteered to people the pépinières to grow the seedlings to later be distributed amongst all of the women. They also decided during this meeting to collect monthly dues from each of the 150 women with a plot in the garden, which will be used to establish a ‘kesu,’ or savings fund, for use in garden maintenance/ improvement/ seed procurement in the future.

Mama instructing women on how to prepare the planting bed and broadcast the seeds.

On March 12th, I spent the day in the garden with the newly formed committee assisting and educating the women on how to prepare a pépinière, and I assisted Mama, my host-mother and the president of the Women's Garden Committee, in seed distribution to the volunteers. The seeds distributed were tomato, lettuce, carrot, cabbage, eggplant, hot pepper, and papaya.

Village women building the 'gwa' (shelter) over their pépinière. The 'gwa' is meant to shield the soil from the sun, retaining moisture in the soil prior to seed germination. Once the seeds germinate, the 'gwa' is removed to allow the plants to receive sunlight.

Village women preparing the planting beds for their pépinière.

The committee has held several of their own meetings since it’s establishment, as well as a couple of additional meetings with all the women of the village to discuss the particulars of the establishment of the 'kɛsu' (there was a lot of distrust for whatever reason, women talking about the committee members ‘eating’ the money. So safeguards had to be put in place), to distribute okra garden seeds that do not require pépinières, and after about 3.5 weeks after much of the pépinière seeds had germinated, to announce the first round of distribution of the seedlings.

Tomato seedlings 3.5 weeks past germination in one of the pépinières.

During the late afternoon on Thursday, April 14th, I headed into the garden with the committee members, where we distributed tomato and carrot seedlings, which were the first to germinated and look strong and healthy, to all of the women. The day was an exciting one for the women, who enthusiastically, if somewhat aggressively, came out to accept the plants.

Jenibu, a member of the 'muso nakɔ jɛkulu,' distributing carrot seedlings to village women.

When the women followed my instruction using the advice I had received in Bamako, the pépinières generally turned out well, although lizards did ravage the a couple of the plots following germination. Some pépinières, however, were not properly watered and cared for, and predictably provided pour results.

Since it’s formation, we have since tried to hold bi-weekly Women's Garden Committee meetings, but attendance and tardiness have been major issues. It has been incredibly difficult to ensure attendance, during both committee and village-wide women's meetings, and when they do attend, it is very late.

This past Wednesday during an overall women’s meeting scheduled to discuss collection of the monthly dues and the how the ‘kesu’ should be setup. After waiting for two hours, only fifteen women showed up, including only three from the committee. The women told me that we cannot hold the meeting today because of a wedding. I asked them ‘do you want to work together, because this happens every meeting - do you think the next time will be any different?’ They responded that we can work together, and decided to walk over to the wedding and call the women there over.

There are many difficulties which have contributed to this problem. In Mali, women do not wear watches, and they spend most of their day working in their individual concessions. We have also been affected from the unfortunate circumstances surrounding my host mother’s family in a nearby village. Over the past couple of months, her father and two uncles have passed away, and the funerals have happened to fall twice on our meeting times, which pulled several of the women away.

But despite the extenuating circumstances, I still do not see the commitment I am looking for, particularly from my committee members, to come on-time to all meetings, and to particularly set an example for the other women by coming to the village-wide meetings, which were called by them for their purposes, early. They are very motivated to take a role in helping improve their community, but it has proven especially difficult to instill a sense of responsibility and punctuality in them.

The committee members are also often reluctant to run meetings with the entire community of women, and unfortunately many of the meetings result in a lot of yelling and seeming hostility. But this seems to occur even when a consensus is being reached. And when I ask a spectator to such an argument why they are fighting, I inevitably get a response such as this: 'she is just giving information.' More and more, it appears that this aggressive style may simply be a cultural attribute.

It has therefore proven to be difficult to move the women forward in terms of effective organization, but I feel that we are slowly moving in the right direction. On Wednesday, the women will be gathering to pool together all of the money collected from the first month of dues, and Aissetta, who’s husband has been teaching her to read and write, has recorded the names of all the women in a notebook.

Despite the difficulties, working on this project has provided me with a strong outlet to reach out to the women of my village, and I feel that it has afforded me a stronger position of standing in the community from which to build upon during future projects.