Our fence has been an on-going project for a few weeks and is finished at last . . . .for the time being anyway. The Eastern side of our fence is going to be moved out another 25 feet or so in the coming weeks but for now we are enjoying the completed one.
A fence is really a “Westerner” thing. Here in Africa, things are more fluid and more communal. Just because a tree is on your land, doesn’t mean that you are the only one that is allowed to pick the fruit from it. Anyone can walk up to the tree and take what fruit they want because culturally it’s communal. That goes for anything growing. All those hours spent planting, weeding and watering for those tomatoes- they are free for the picking if not fenced in.
So for the sake of not loosing our minds, privacy and produce we wanted a fence. A fence also allows us to have chickens, eventually add a dog to our homestead and a cat, and it will also be a safe place for the kids to play without having to be supervised the whole time. It’s very much a Western-culture thing but we are not Congolese. Bringing multiple cultures together is just that; taking pieces of each culture and integrating them into a mesh of both. The fence is just one piece of our American culture that we are incorporating.
The fence brings peace, security, happiness, and privacy. Our little Oasis. My husband Dave was able to finish the gates this last Thursday so since then, it’s been complete. So here are photos of the fence from start to current* finish. More pics to come once it does get moved out though, no worries.
So now that our fence is complete, at least for the moment, we have let the two chickens we currently have run free around the yard and they are loving it. It also makes it possible to begin working on the other projects we have been wanting to get started, but that’s in an upcoming post.
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