This mountainside is in one of our target watersheds in Burundi. You can see there are a lot living barriers and planted trees. According to a local leader that we talked to, many years ago, there were local princes who promoted soil conservation and taught people how to install living barriers and plant coffee. They have continued this tradition to this day. This all apparently happened within this leader's lifetime and I am guessing he is about 70. The other interesting thing is that the other side of the valley, ie. where I am standing for this photo does not have nearly as many barriers or trees. The explanation for this did not seem as clear to me. Still, it means there is plenty of room for more planting. It is a long hike down into this valley. Nearly an hour for me to get to the bottom. I was told that I was the first white person (that people know of) to visit that village at the bottom of the valley in this photo. Hard to believe in this day and age, and only the second time in my life that I have been told that. It is not very accessible so I guess it's not out of the question.

A close up flower picture, for those of you that like close up flower pictures.

This was taken at the top of the Nyakazu canyon, which a beautiful spot, and a potential reserve of biodiversity. For all I know, this is some kind of endangered endemic. Maybe an unnamed endangered endemic. Or maybe it is just a common weed. Could be either one really.

Burundi is another one of those places that demands to have its picture taken. This is just what I happened to see over my hotel wall just now.

When we showed up here yesterday to do surveys, it felt a little bit like showing up in the set of an old western movie. One row of houses in the middle of a dusty plain, with a bunch of people, mostly men, sitting or standing in the shadows staring at us and us staring back at them.

Wow! my French is terrible. Two nights ago, I ordered a cheese sandwich for dinner. I got chunks of cheese on a plate and a piece of bread on another plate. Last night I ordered an egg sandwich. I got an omelette. Just an omelette.

Working on survey sample logistics. Figuring out who will be surveyed, who will interview them, and when is probably one of the hardest and most tedious of the evaluation tasks. So critical though to getting good information. If you read any of the analyses postelections and why election predictions were off, improper sampling is often the culprit.

Rutana, Burundi. We started our impact evaluation today. In class training of surveyors in the morning, and field practice surveys in the afternoon. Actually evening by the time we were done. It is cool here this time of year, jacket-worthy. Very comfortable by my view. Entered data from 16 surveys. Only 324 more to go!

It is not often I get to dine with a hippo. But at this restaurant in a small, reedy bay on Lake Tanganyika, hippos quite often show up to get their evening feed. It is very fun to sit at my table and eat fries while the hippo watches the customers from a (reasonable) distance. I'd say this one was probably 20 m from my table. Life delivering the unexpected. Well, somewhat unexpected. I went to this restaurant for this very purpose.