Owe Ñaayaa

Looking back on my recent entries I realized that I havent really made any real update on what is going on in Louly right now.

So the harvests are finishing up now. The millet was tons of itchy fun. Peanuts are tons of all kinds of work but worth it. The beans are pretty much done and now people are waiting on bissap. The sorghum is also getting all cut down now and we have been eating that most nights.

With the kids finished with that I hope that we can actually have some legit afterschool ee club meetings. We had a couple little things, and one of them was actually kinda cool. Mostly we transplanted some mango trees. A mango that sits protected in a big garden had tons of seeds strewn about it that have turned into a tiny forest of little saplings. We moved a bunch into the school garden in plastic sacks that we are watering for a couple weeks to outplant in peoples fields or wherever the kids want them.

The teachers love to string me along but they say they would love to do some environmental lessons with their usual topics. So, maybe that will happen soon, inchallah.

I am trying to get some good stuf going with the college in Sandiara. The English teachers there say they can really use some help, the students get used to their accent and expressions and could use a native speaker. They are as slow to get going as the primary school though and only slightly less frustrating with strikes. At least they are genuinaly interested and communicating.

Something good going on now though- I have been pestering the heads of household a lot recently. The latrine project, yes that project that I am so honored to have gotten funding for from friends and strangers back home that I thank you all so much for, well it is still getting itself started. This is Africa, as they say, eh? Well, so we were waiting for the rainy season to end so we could start building. Then all the men and boys were busy with the millet and peanut harvest. Now that is wañing, err English... work is finishing, so we can start now. And so I have been telling them. We should start now, ndiiki, ndiiki ndiiki, now now, like yesterday would be better. The thing holding us back is that we decided that a family needs to contribute their full amount before they can get a latrine and that we would build them in groups. So now, eight families of the fifty have given the full amount but all but three are pretty scattered around. So we decided to start with those and the mason, my counterpart and I went and marked off where they should dig their pit.

This little activity sparked some good interest and people came up and after some discussion my counterpart and the mason agreed to mark off everyones pit dimentions so they can start digging. The beauty of doing it at the end of the rainy season is that the ground is softer, but its getting dry pretty quick and people would rather do less work in the short term than wait and have more to do. Thats good there, its a kind of planning ahead I think which is not often seen here.

Anyway, so now they are busy going from area to area in the village when they have time, marking off where the pit will be. They are nearly finished now and several people are nearly finished digging too. I will definitly get pictures of the process as it goes so you all can see how amazing this is to them and how much they want this.

So thats the main stuff going down. I am mostly pestering husbands and wives to give the money that remains for them to give. With the harvests being sold off, this is the exact time of year that people actually have money to spare and will more than likely throw it away at tea and sugar if i dont gently nudge them...