Two weeks ago I received a call on a Tuesday from the Regional Coordinator of the main USAID-funded Environment project here in Fianarantsoa province. He tells me, “Kristen, I’m so glad that you are going to the reboisement tomorrow morning. Everyone else is completely swamped or not even around. You will be representing ERI (the environment project), SanteNet (a USAID health project and my host agency), the Alliance (the coordinating body of all USAID-funded projects in our province), and the Wealthy North in general.” Meanwhile, I’ve just finished a conversation with our secretary asking her if she can go instead of me as I don’t really have time (our Regional Coordinator was in the capital). I respond, “Yup, I’ll be there.” The irony that someone from the health project was representing all of the environment projects wasn’t lost on either of us. Our secretary was willing to go (though she doesn’t usually represent our office at such official functions), but had encouraged my attendance instead, as apparently the head of the province himself (equivalent to a state Governor in the USA) had brought the invitation by the week before (it seems that no one from our office went last year, so the pressure was on). After committing to go, I start to look forward to wearing sneakers and a t-shirt (a SanteNet one, of course, to advertise our presence) to work, getting out into a rural site for the morning, and getting dirt on my hands, and planting some trees (which I hadn’t done since finishing up my Peace Corps service in Niger in 1998). It turns out that ERI was able to dig up a staff member to go along after all (Vony, who is great fun), and our water/sanitation guy (Jonathan, a former PCV in the area) decided to join us as well. As we were leaving, Jonathan asked one of the office gardeners for an angady (local hoe used primarily for rice cultivation), to dig the holes to plant the trees. At this point I realized how distant my tree planting, Peace Corp days are, for Vony tells us that we don’t need an andady; all of holes for the trees will already be dug by the time we (‘official’ people) arrive. She was right – when we (along with about 1,000 other office types) finally got to the rural site, all the holes were ready (dug by soldiers earlier that morning). School children carried the trees from the nursery to the reforestation site and laid them next to the holes, and all we had to do was stand and listen to big whig speeches (granted, not easy on a 30+ degree slope) and then plop our tree into its hole, fill in the soil around it, and pat it down. After seeing the hundreds of other people who left their desks to “plant” a tree, I wondered if the Governor would really have noticed if we hadn’t showed up. Turns out, at the ‘cocktail’ (soda, fried cakes, cookies) after the ceremony, just as Vony, Jonathan, and I were making our exit, I was accosted by the mayor of the commune (county) where the reboisement was taking place. As he and I chatted, who should appear but the Governor himself. He sees the camera around my neck and requests a photo of the four of us, and expressed his pleasure at seeing USAID’s presence. Whew, it’s official: we were there. I hope some of the 1200 trees planted make it, and that the other reforestation events in 2007 throughout the province are as successful.
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