Raising bees at Gamboula

Timothy Chapman is an expert bee raiser, and here he is in the garb to prove it.  The box he is holding has a swarm of bees in it.  He set up a mosquito net on his back porch, and crawled under it with the bees.  He opened the box and started gently brushing the bees out of their swarm, using a regular paintbrush, looking for the queen, who apparently is easy to distinguish from the riffraff by her big red abdomen.  He even has a special plastic clip designed to pick up the queen without hurting her - that's what he's holding up to show y'all.   It turned out, though, that this swarm was an "orphan" one, no queen amongst them!   He is constantly on the lookout for swarms of bees, with the hope of getting them into his hives so CEFA can raise bees and honey!

CEFA's fish ponds - from construction to harvest

Find a good, open place with a stream running through, do a lot of planning and digging, guard your ponds from thieves, and wait for harvest time!

Delicious fruit from the orchards

Picking fruit, finding a record sized rollinia, eating it fresh, enjoying Malay apple pies, Yum!  Thank you, Lord, for your abundance!

Old McCEFA had a farm, EIEIO 2

With a carport here and guesthouse there, here some cement there some lumber, everywhere construction...
Roy & Aleta Danforth
Covenant missionaries to the Central African Republic
cell phones: Aleta 011 237 7529 5071 and Roy 011 236 7766 5079
email: roy-aleta.danforth@covchurch.org
for us personally:  http://blogs.covchurch.org/danforth/
for the ag project, CEFA: http://car-cefa.blogspot.com

Old Mc CEFA had a farm, EIEIO

With a building here, a dormitory there, here a house, there a shop, everywhere construction...

Termites and coconut trees

Termites are quite the problem here in the tropical rainforest, not only attacking the wood in our houses, but eating LIVE trees.  There are some trees whose substance is woodier and drier than others, which makes them a great target for these pesky insects who love that taste!  Since coconuts along the coastline thrive in sandy soil,the CEFA team decided that putting sand around the coconut would deter the advance of the hungry termites.  But, as you can see in the photos, the sand was not deterrent enough, so we added salt and a tithonia (local termite repellent plant) solution.   This seems to be working, and is an example of how CEFA works.   CEFA takes the brunt of the loss in experimentation, and passes on the successes to the villager.

ATTENTION ALL CEFA BLOGGERS!

Timothy Chapman arrival in Gamboula (w/50 lb jakfruit)

New Internet System

CEFA's home location, Gamboula station, just got a new and faster internet system! Before, I was frustrated and really could not do the blog because the internet system was either not working or excruciatingly slow. Now, it is working great! In addition, Timothy Chapman just arrived to help CEFA out for the next two years! He's a former DRCongo missionary kid, a UC Davis ag development grad, and a former ECHO intern! What better qualifications could there be? Well, he's a blogger as well, so he can help to keep CEFA's blog updated! Nice!As CEFA has started the new year, it has begun connecting with 10 new villages to establish village co-ops and it has started to prepare gardens for new plantings for 2013. More later.