Returning in late November 2007, almost everything looked in superb order. Babucar .. with and sometimes without the assistance of nature .. had indeed been working well since my last visit.

The Fruit Trees and the Cassava which had benefited from the heavy rains and shot up in height, were looking very healthy. The rainy season had started late at the end of July and although a lot of rain had fallen, it had stopped earlier than normal in the second week of October .. so Babucar was busily watering the trees and flowers, morning and evening, to maintain their growth rate. Luckily Cassava plants are ideally suited to the climate and need no extra watering, evidently growing well in the driest of conditions and able to be left for anything up to 2 years before harvesting.

The only part of the garden to have suffered was the fruit cage, from a combination of natural and man-made disasters. Shortly after planting the seeds in late August, a series of really heavy storms, which resulted in a large area of severe flooding stretching right across from West to East Africa, had washed all the emerging seedlings away. When the rains had had calmed down sufficiently in
mid October, Babucar planted the other half of the seeds with renewed hope of success.

A few days later .. with signs of new seedling growth emerging .. whilst cycling home, he was forced off the road by a careless taxi driver and spent a week at home with a very sore back.

Luckily neither he nor his bicycle were seriously damaged, but when he returned to the garden .. all the new seedlings had dried out and died in the sudden lack of rain and surprisingly strong sunlight.

Somewhat dispirited and with watering scheduled to be on every other day .. Babucar was raising a few tomato plants and carefully nurturing a single extremely scraggly-looking cucumber plant,
which had amazingly survived everything and actually produced a few cucumbers. The rest of the cage, now sporting a nice rusty camouflage colour ( so much for Chinese-made galvanised wiring !! )
was bare .. something would have to be done about this.

At first sight .. nature, with Babucar's assistance .. had been making a big difference.

The Cassava .. now at head height .. was completely hiding the scarecrow !

The evergreen hedge has also grown to remarkable height

A lot of foliage had been added to the fruit trees and the red Bourganvilllas on my neighbour's boundary were flowering well. A bit straggly in their young growth, next year we will layer the branches to make more compact flowering areas.

After some planning and on my second visit, Awa .. who had worked for me for many years when I was living in The Gambia in the 90's .. insisted on inspecting the project and was immediately 'volunteered' to try out the well and water collecting facilities !! "This is too hard", said she !!

The ever-faithful 'Lamin the Taxi' brought us out with his taxi full of supplies .. interior paint for Babucar's house, UPVC electrical conduit pipes for a future experiment, cement for the floor and various items to keep Babucar happy in a style to which he would like to become accustom !

The only area that was not blooming was the fruit cage .. which looked decidedly rusty and barren .. apart from one Cucumber plant and a few new Tomato seedlings in the far corner.