Land reclamation & terracing in Togo |
The work is back-breakingly hard.
A hillside littered with rocks and boulders is slowly being transformed into farmland, and villagers work quietly side by side to get it done.
Nadiog, a tiny hamlet of close to 400 people situated close to Bichenga village in Northern Togo is perched on the side of a steep hill-side, its stone-built homes just one illustration of the presence of rough sandstone almost everywhere that you look.
|
 | It is correct to say ‘almost’, for the villagers in Nadiog have spent years clearing the land of stones. The elaborate patchwork of small terraced fields and allotments is testimony to the job that has been done to date.
It rained in Nadiog just a fortnight ago, and already the first green shoots of what will be the next crop of early season millet is beginning to sprout from the earth.
It won’t be enough to support the whole community, but elsewhere they are starting to plant sorghum, and across the valley they will produce maize and groundnuts to meet their need for food.
The 30 strong work detail that is today clearing stones started its work shortly after eight am, and as the midday sun begins to lift the temperatures into the high 30s, they continue uninterrupted – collecting stone and placing it in low stone walls (bunds) up the side of the hill. |
|
Women, often with children lashed to their backs swing sledge-hammers to break up the larger boulders, and all work together to leverage unyielding rock out of the soil.
Kolani Paligadin, a young married woman who does not have children acknowledges the huge amount of work that is involved, but says that villagers have little choice but to continue their efforts to reclaim the hillside.
‘We have already cleared much of the land beside the village, but this hillside will only be useful to goats unless we get rid of the rocks’, she says.
Kolani says that the villagers at Nadiog are also confronted by a further challenge, as people frequently fall ill from drinking the water that is collected from a nearby river.
‘We sometimes go to Bichenga village to get our water but it is far away, and it is hard work carrying a 25 litres gerry can there and back every day’, she says.
Self Help Africa’s local partners TRAX Togo are working with villagers in Nadiog to assist them in their work, and to provide farming advice and support to the local community. |
