Earth Day

For Earth Day, Wednesday April 22, 2009, I decided to be bold. Well, I decided to be busy, and hoped that things would work out in a positive way. Thats kinda like bold, for me, I guess.

Anyway, so I had a three-pronged aproach. Ok, maybe it was a two pronged aproach and involved three things that were in many ways interconected. Well on the actual day we only did two of those things and I did something else unrelated on top of that and later in the week we did the third thing. Well, let me explain:

While my local school and its teachers has been a source of continual frustration with me, I have really wanted to do some good environmental activities with the club that I have there. Dubbed the 'school garden club', one would suppose that we would have a kicking school garden by now. Alas, this is not the case. The would be garden has been repeatedly trampled by herds of cattle and other beasts and the space behind the school thusly remains a hard packed wasteland with no protection from the dying and widly spaced live fence plants. In the past they have attempted to go all out, fix up the live fence as best they could and plant like mad before it all gets eaten. This has led to efficient garden destruction and no one in the village wants to take ownership of such a large and overwhelming mess.

My idea then has been to start small. Rather than going all out for an expensive fence and fancy garden in the midst of waning interest, I decided to just do a school tree nursury. The kids from the club could have a few tree sacks each, water them, plant what they want in them, take care of them, and when the time comes, they can out plant them in their own compounds or out in their family gardens or wherever they want. Eventually this could expand to be a garden, maybe in the fall, the kids could learn improved techniques like composting and as it expands, the teachers will use it for lessons, parents will look into it, the space will become valued and perhaps some will feel ownership towards it, kids will take what they learn out into the world, trees grow and children eat, everybody wins. That maybe pretty and ideal, but either way it could only lie further down the road.

The other big project I forsee is one involving trash management. My original idea for earth day was to do a village trash cleanup, focusing on the area of hazardous waste. Most everyones trash falls into three categories: There is all the organic stuff, the biodegradable food leftovers dirt and junk that folks want out of their houses. This gets thrown into a pile outside of compounds to turn into dirt or blow away in the wind or whatever, no problem. I will get back to that later. The rest is as you would expect, man made junk that does not decompose. Most of this is you usual plastic bags, shoes, plastic bottles, old clothes and fabric, frayed rope and candy wrappers. This stuff builds up slowly, its surprising how seldom a family will throw away something like that, but it builds up none the less, mixed into the piles of organic junk and sand and blows around in the wind and never goes away. Except that they do burn it. Unfortunately there really only seems three options that make any sense for the people in my village and in most of senegal. You can burn it, which is reasonably easy and quick, though a little messy, you can bury it, not very easy and not very feasable to do with any frequency, or you can just ignore it and move on, which is what most of the country does.

I have gone back and forth on what a trash management procedure could look like in my village. I dont like the idea or burying it, that just makes a lot of work that no one wants to do, no one will do after i leave and just leaves the probelm for someone to dig up later. I also do not care for burning it, that is simply poluting the ground and the air and then you have toxic ash blowing everywhere in the wind. But what else can we do. Taking advice from several other PCVs i decided to go halfway. I talked to a gathering of most of the women living near me and tolk them about the problem and we decided that we could dig a pit, maybe a meter deep, and put the trash in that to burn it. It is not the ideal, but i cant think of what is. The women seemed happy enough about it, even applauded me when i was done. I just hope it is used well.

The third type of trash and the most dangerous as I see it is what is left over, the broken glass, the sharp bits of rusty metal things and most of all, the low grade batteries that are widely used enough in my village that they can be found everywhere. There is no good option as what to do with any of these, there is really an amazing amount, even around the primary school where kids play soccer barefoot. I saw this as a top concern.

So at the start of the grand day of the earth, I headed out to the school to talk to the teachers and the students. I had purchased a little trash can and put a sign on it, showing that it was for hazardous stuff. My original idea was that this could be put in front of the school, or maybe i could get several of them around the village so that when any kid, or anyone, sees some glass or batteries or whatever, they can put it in the can. I could emty the can every once in a while and wrap the batteries in paper and bury them somewhere far from wells, gardens or compounds. Immediately after explaining my plan and the beauty of Earth day to the teachers, they informed me, after looking at the trash can as something trivial and quaint, a silly gift from the toubab, that it would be stolen if i left it infront of the school. I was so taken aback i didnt know what to say to that. The principle offered to keep it in his office and put it out on the steps durring school hours, they all thought this was reasonable, he took the can from me, told me they would explain it all to the students and i walked away confused.

Also that day I told a guy across the village i would pick a bunch of seeds with him that morning. I had discovered his crop of moringa trees the weekend before and they were loaded; LOADED with seed pods. I had already gone and picked a bunch, some 400 pods and a bunch more seeds. As each pods has an average of 15 seeds, this was a lot. That morning I went back and got nearly 700 more pods and many mny more seeds. Later that week i made a trip to dakar and dropped off the 10-20 thousand seeds to be given out to other volunteers, so cool.

Anyway, after that long ordeal, it was back to the school to prepare the area for the tree nursury. I also got the dirt and manure to fill sacks with so the afternoon activity could go smoothly. I also changed my mind, took my trash can back and told the principle that we would use it for a trash cleanup later. After lunch It was back to the school again and waiting for my club to show up to set up their tree sacks. While we waited, kids thought what i was doing was funny and seemed to wanna help so i told them about the dangerous trash pick up. This on the one hand, seems a little counter productive to me. You tell young kids what is dangerous, things they should not touch or play with, but then you ask them to go find it and pick it up. Anyway, it worked well. When told what to look for it is like the kids all of the sudden realized how dirty the ground really was. Like they had never seen all the trash before or knew what to make of it. I was amazed, still am amazed how much broken glass there is all around the school and my compound and the kids amaze me by finding and bringing more and more of it.

Then, even theough the club decided to generally snub me again (that can be a whole nother post), we did do a decent job filling the sacks with the children that were around. We picked up trash, made a tree nursury, it was a good earh day. But i was not done for the week.

On saturday, after I was shown and marked off a proper area for it, We started digging the burn pit. I thought it would take a day, but it lasted two and I spent two more aranging it better. Lots of random kids stopped by to help with that, my family, older kids, very young kids, some that threw more dirt back in the hole than got it out. It was fun, it wa very dirty, my hands feel awful and have more blisters than fingers, but i think it might work, if it doesnt collapse. For the same reason that we have to cement line our latrines, the pit may need to be cemented. My village sits on sand, that sand sits on a layer of harder packed sand, over sand that is ever harder packed. No dirt, no clay, sand sand and more sand. We will see i guess.

Anyhow, now I want to do a big neighborhood cleanup with my club, around the school and my compound this saturday morning. We can throw all we can into the hole, so far even the crazy wind we have hasnt blown any of it back out again, and then butn it there. I think that if people see its positive effect, this trash 'management system' of burn pits and separating dangerous stuff can be extended to other neighborhoods and areas in my village. As they sort out burn stuff from dangerous stuff the leftover pile they creat will in effect be a compost pile. This can be extended into thier gardens or fields and as I said we can demo this in the future school garden.

I think there is a lot of potential in this. I am excited as to what will happen either way. Oh my this a long post. There are lots of pictures, I put up some of them on my picture site, check it out.

Note: i have a bunch of back dated blog entries that are half finished that i will get to at some point and post, so look out!

Village Mangoes

The mango trees are growing heavy with fruit in my village this time of year and me and many other volunteers are terribly excited. Soon the markets will be flush with them and mangoes will be eaten seeming without end. My village itself has a fair number of mango trees, a couple near the school, a couple near the kindergarten, maybe more than a dozen scattered arround within walkind distance from my door. The mangoes really started to plump up and look good last month though in my village most are still pretty small. While the small green mangoes are very tart, some are tolerable to be eaten. The children in the village are ALL about them right now. Whenever they have free time they can be found hurling sticks and rocks at the trees, striping them and collecting as many tragically unripe fruits as they can. They then take bites out of all of them, usually finding half of them inedible and throwing them on the ground, and the rest they share. I am not sure about the helath issues with these unripe mangoes but they do cause mouth sores at the least. What i really dont understand is that the village just lets them do it. Those are hundreds of mangos that once mature will be a great source of income and nourishment by all. Money thrown on the ground for cripes sake! That just leads to the fatalist view of the world that id rather not get into right now.

Village Weddings

There was just a wedding in my village. Yesterday actually. It wa not my first wedding. I have been to a handful. Also baptisms and funerals. But I feel I should write a bit about Senegalese weddings. Well, from my outside, naive, ignorant perspective.

I do not like Senegalese weddings. Well, let me rephrase- I do not like wedding when they go on next door to my hut and I would rather be doing other things. But i digress. Weddings are characterized by a few things: like every party or celebration, the day seems to center around lunch, at least that is what many of the women spend the most time on, people arrive and wait for and leave after. This is you usual greesy rice, a few veggies and a chunk or two of meat. A wedding does have other fun things though too, lets see...

At this one, as the wedding was on a sunday, random people started arriving saturday, mostly (as far as i can tell) to get ready for the food making and whatnot. A tent is erected and chairs appear from mysterious sources, and then... my personal favorite (not), the griots arrive. Kids start singing around dinner time. As my neighbor is getting married and a large open space sits between our compounds, a natural place for folks to gather and dance is there, about thriry yards from my hut. A generator cranks on soon there after, promising longer and louder entertainment to come. At an earlier time (before this all begain to bore me), I would be interested in watching the fun. Now... not so much (ok, i am a grinch, sorry). At first the generators power up some lights and the drums get going. The drums are punctuated by dancing and clapping and laughing, general endless merriment. A little before midnight a guitar is plugged into an amplifier and then a microphone is plugged in too. Singing as a high pitched yell is not my personal favorite style, especially when i am trying to sleep. This goes until a little after four in the morning. Then the generator is turned off, i suppose to save gas for the comming day. But the druming continues, the singing and clapping continues until, and this will always amaze me, until a little after seven, well after sunrise.

Needless to say, I do not greet the morning bright eyed and cheery.

Then there comes the folks gathering, sitting, greeting, talking. Folks tend to sit in groups and make tea too. I try to sit with some of the old guys in the village that I know best and ask random questions or get vocab. I usually give a couple dollars into the comunity gift to the family to pay for the wedding. There certainly is not a lack of things to pay for: food and meat, the music, entertainment and griots, the rented tent, rented chairs, rented cooking pots, the bridal makeup and hair, transport, perhaps firewood, other random wedding presents and things too. This money is collected in a variety of different places and forms, some more formally, some with a griot anouncing your name and father and how much you have given and sentiments, some more anonymous. Personally I like to go more on the un-noticed side.

There are also gifts given that have to be shown off. In adition to money, people often give fabric for whatever purpose you want to make with it. Also piles of bowls and buckets, brooms and rice, cookware and even some furnature must be displayed and talked about. People gater in a large circle around the tent while a griot anounces all, drums punctuating and people shouting encouragements.

In the early afternoon the bride arrives (at least this is how it goes in the weddings i have seen here) The groom is generaly unseen for the day. Usually I am told he is away, maybe in some house across the way, maybe off praying. The wedding does not really seem to be about the two people involved. They have very little to do in the way of public ceremony. But then perhaps they are very busy doing something else somewhere else and I just dont knoz it. I do know that they are not together for nearly the entire day as far as i can tell. The bride arrives in a station wagon with a group of other women, people hanging off the back and roof of the car, everyone having the grandest time. People swarm the car, the drummers push themselves throgh the throng, the doors open and everyone gets out, everyone except the bride. Then there is a little dancing, drumming, traditional something that is lost on me until finally the bride gets out too. Now, everyone appears to be having the grandest time except, always, not the bride. She gennerally looks like she is at her own excecution. Eyes do not leave own feet or else are closed, no smile, no talking, not moving more than a shuffle. Its odd when everyone inches away is dancing singing , drumming fast and loud and laughing giddy, the bride looks almost ill to be present. It doesnt help that the makeup and hair make her look like an exagerated drag queen, pale and vibrant at the same time. SHe makes a shuffle around the crowd, doing one of a few slow circuts of the whole gathering. Then eventually she disapears into a room somwhere, perhaps to be seen again, perhaps not. I usually dont.

And then peole go back to sitting down, talking, drinking tea, collecting money. Durring this whole time, well durring the whole day of everything, the genreator has been moved out to the middle of the village and music blares from the large speakers out there, far enough away to allow all but quiet conversation thankfully. Lunch comes near four. Men eat first and then the women and kids. Greesy greesy rice... oh greesy rice. Then the rest of the afternoon is spent lazying about meditatively, generally digesting, drinking more tea, maybe some other warm drink unless somone has saved some ice from the nearest town. I debate how much i should care about going to pull water for a bath and watering my plants- i am not that dirty sitting in one place all day, and my plants can go one afternoon without a ton of water.

And thats the end of that. That would be a wedding from my perspective at least. Folks begin to disperse as the sun sets but the music out in the vilage center continues. My family has no usual organized supper. I eat a bowl of leftover cold rice by myself and then sit up for a while seeing people off. The music only lasts until about nine, or maybe the gas ran out. The drummers go home and I guess the kids are exhauseted or else know they have school tomorrow. Blessedly that night was near its usual quiet, only a few noisy ones singing drumming and dancing out away from my compound. I sleep easily.

How to Get a Good Night's Sleep In Your Hut

Ndiouma Diome's second instalment of village how-to work!

+ First get yourself a hut and maybe a nice little back yard space. This is similar to that other hut, you know, where you killed that mouse, snly you have grown up a bit, and formulated a better, more sustainable plan.

+The situation- As has been pointed out to you on numerous occasions, your hut is a veritable animal kingdom. Flys and mosquitos, or course, but also armies of ants and termites, ochestras of crickets, and all manner of other creepy crawly insects. Wasps take regular tours of your room, one style likes to bore holes into your roof beams, another prefers to make little mud hovels instead, still another just seems to like buzzing arround manaicly, irregardless of who is eating what kind of enjoyable breakfast. They come in through the rather large gap that runs around the circumference of the room, between the top of the wall and the bottom of the thatch. The wasps especially like to come in that way then make a noisy ordeal over trying to go out though the screen doors. And the screens on both doors are in bad shape anyhow. Children have poked at them so much that they are frayed and pulled apart at the edges. And the thatch is falling apart. At least it looks that way on the inside, with bits hanging down and falling off making a continual mess over everything. It even leaked last rainy season. Animals like to burrow through it, even make nests in it.

Through all this time, your hut has seen a fair share of lizards, geckos, frogs, rats, mice, a couple unlikely bats, a few snakes, several confused birds, a good sampling of the insect and arachnid sub-phylums, and even a couple of tragically lost chickens and at least one goat. Oh, and a cat, but its ok, he's cool.

Compounding this breachable-hut issue, is the regular breaching of you backyard. It is to the point where you think you spend more time fixing, repairing, rebuilding your stick fence, then you do interacting with your neighbors. You dread long trips that may last multiple days because of how bad it could be, no, how bad it will be when you get back. It starts small enough - a chicken (stupid chickens) will go on a bug hunting spree and dig out an area around the base of your fence, maybe enough for a chick or two to squeeze under. At night a rat may enlarge this hole or pay no mind to the dirt and just break off the clump of sticks above it. Durring the day, the cat finds this a convinient lizard stalking avenue and widens the hole. Chickens come in and can never, ever, seem to remember how the heck to get back out again. Goats see a well traveled opening and are stuborn enough to push on in through any space bigger than their head (and often smaller). Pretty soon, in the span of one morning, you can go from a tiny chick sized opening to a whole cow in your yard. Ok, maybe it has never come to a cow - thank your lucky stars your family doesnt own any.

And this doesnt even take into account the inconcievable actions of people. Kids see a walled off area as a challenge and a worhwhile game. But they are the least of the problem. Your fence is an old amalgomation of a bunch of pieces of fences and so, rightly it looks a bit rough, a bit haphazard. Your moms see this shambly ensemble as little more than a nice stand of dry organized firewood. They take from it liberally, nearly everyday, as my constant repairs indicate an inexhaustive supply. They also throw stuff up against it, rough firewood, stack things across it, bending and breaking it till it is no better than firewood. That is annoying to say the least.

Things need fixing.

+First things first. in your grand overhall, the first addition is a modest mouse trap. Expecting a bloody messy campaign of ridding the world of rodent terror, you are surprised, more than a little disapointed, and even relieved that not a single creature comes to harm from the trap (your fingers dont count). More than a couple hard candies and shiny bits of trash were carefully excised and added to a tiny hoard somewhere.

+Then you buy a new lenghth of screen. You replace the screens on both the front and back doors to your hut, setting them into place with low quality thumb tacs and clumsy hammering (more finger injuries). Screens also go nicely over the doors and the window, providing needed air flow for when the rest of the hut is more or less sealed up.

+Next is the roof. You go but some very tasteful blue plastic sheeting, borrow a ladder from the church and get to the (surprisingly difficult and exhausting) job of fitting the sheets up between the molting thatch and the wooden beams underneath. This takes a few days but makes everything look much better and it is amazingly more clean in your room. You realize how much airflow was permitted through the thatch and with it greatly blocked off, the plastic oddly flutters in the wind and the hut is just a little stuffier.

+Your next great scheme aims to tackle the huge space between the wall and thatch. First you clean it out. There is a surprising amount of hidden mouse treasures (and mouse poop) up there. Then you affix a couple rings of mouse poison in two popular corners. You have been very reluctant to buying any kind of poison. Poison means dead mice in mysterious locations. Poison means maybe a dead mouse under your bed, or in your dresser. Poison means maybe a dead mouse in your shoe. Maybe somewhere you wouldnt find it till it was smelling or breeding larva or something fun like that. Poison can also mean a poisoned mouse being eaten by something, like the nice cats, and then you have a dead cat. You eventually decided that you would be proactive in investigating anywhere a dead mouse might lurk and go ahead with it. Not the ideal, but youcant always been an ideal you guess.

Now comes the great fun, you have a bunch of old tree nursury sacks in your yard leftover from the previous volunteer. Most have holes in them and are falling apart, but you have been saving this small pile of plastic in the hopes of a project just like this. You pack sand into them, fanagle them as best you can, and shove them in to the space atop the wall, lining them up around the room. This almost looks like a cool interior design choice. Nice. This sack arranging takes a bit longer than you initially thought and you even have to get more sacks from your neighbor (who with a huge garden has a ton of old bags).

+Durring all of this, you go on an extended trip to Dakar, over a week away. As feared, when you get home, your back yard is destroyed. Destroyed. One whole side is more holes than fense, and the rest has been dug under and broken beyond repair. This... upsets you, to say the least. You almost want to go out on another long trip away to calm down, if that wasnt the most illogical thing one could do. Your mango tree you planted a year ago, your mango tree you planted with your dad, your mango tree, sweet little innocent mango tree, has been chewed on my goats beyond all powers of herbal healing. Several other plants and young trees are also eaten. Chickens have scattered your compost everywhere, scattered your pile of manure everywhere, The screen over your virgin attempts at a garden in this unforgiving soil has been trampled, young carrots and onions broken and killed.

The one positive in the whole mess of the afternoon that you come back to is the stack of brand new fence sections your dad bought sitting next to your hut. The next few days you and him work tearing down the old fence chunks (to be set on the firewood pile) and fixing up new posts and making the new fence straight, neat, tight, beautiful.

Rats helped identify a couple weak points of the new assembly. Late night rock throwing and later reinforcing with bundles of prickly sticks have discouraged further incursions. Soon after, the rest of the space in the hut was filled with tree sacks. The refurbishing is complete.

+Now, as the situation stands: over a month of an overhalled hut and backyard borders. The yard is not impregnitable, but the annoying things -rats, chickens, people in search of firewood, has become a much, much more managable issue. The mango died, but you have a large nursury that will replace that one and add a few more trees to the yard too. The garden is in recovery, a handful of carrots and onions fight for thier lives. Your hut is not impenitrable either, but it is worlds better. Much cleaner to start with. As of yet, no mice or other critters have decided to bore their way through the plastic bags into the indoor paradise of milk and honey (well paper and cardboard mostly). You have also cemented most of the cracks and holes in the floor things like to crawl through and live in. There are still crickets, less, but persistent. Ants but that is a given whatever you do. Flys are inevitable but if you keep the doors closed for as much of the day as possible, they turn into a negligable distraction. The only big stuff is geckos and similar lizards that you dont mind cause they eat bugs, leave your stuff alone, and are quiet (usually). You havent seen a mouse in your room. Most amazing to you is how well you sleep. You rarely wake up at all, let alone the hourly wakeups of before. This makes your alarm going off before 6 seem paticularly less sinister. You almost dont even need a mosquito net you room is so nice. But a gecko in your bed doesnt sound like too much full just the same.

+A lot could still go bad. The rainy season is the death of fences. Not just from the wet and mold, but from the wind that should be getting worse pretty soon. Sealing up a hut is nice for peace of mind but may be horrible for the hot season. The hut cannot breathe as well so may keep cool better, or may keep hot better, or both. The sacks could fall apart in a variety of ways. Even the rain and wind may ruin them or cause problems with the plastic roof sheets. Time will tell on this stuff and sooner than later.

Now if you could only aim all this productivity stuff towards actual productive work that helps other people...

Step 824

Think of a better, less presumptuous, less full of myself, more realistic, more reasonable, less stupid blog title. anything is better than that old one, eh?

Fun with Trainees

It starts with confusion. Then it gradually moves on to a sense of purpose. Then you begin to realize that purpose is more or less a group hallucination. Then you see how this is actually for the better and it will, at some point, come to helping people. Then you wonder how you ever thought that. Then, just when you start to think things are looking up, you realize it only ever was confusion, and will probably continue to be more of the same.

Anyway. So the past couple days I have been in Thies helping with the new training group. I was invited to talk on one of the most fun, and most delicious, topics ever- moringa uses and also neem lotion!

Ok, so when I first heard about moringa, here it is called nebedaye, sometimes I hear it called the miracle tree, I was amazed. Then my excitement gradually dulled and i have tried to get it thriving in my back yard and not really thinking much more of it. Then recently my family and neighbors have been all over me for it to make sauces out of and i realized how important this is for me to push and how great it would be if there were moringa in everyones garden and in everyones compound.

Moringa is a tree that i believe origianlly comes from south central Asia. It is pushed in developing countries around the world as a tree to battle malnutrition. The tree is fast growing, germinates easily and doesnt even need much water. While there are numerous uses for the wood, seed pods, seeds, and even flowers, I think the best part are the leaves. The leaves are hugely nutritious and since it is a fast growing tree, not too hard to get at. They have huge amounts of nutrients. More vitamin A than carrots, more c than oranges, more calcium than milk, more potassium than bananas, more iron than spinach and more protein than milk and close to the amount in eggs too.

The leaves can be prepared in sauces, boiled or steamed, or dried and made into powder that can be added to other recipes or juices.

Neem is the other topic we discussed. Neem is a kind of tree that grows readily here in Senegal but it too is from India/south Asia areas. The oil from the tree is a decent insect repellent that can be used on the skin for mosquitoes or in gardening to protect plants. The leaves can be boiled and the leaf water is then mixed with soap and oil to make a simple lotion that people can even sell here if they are so motivated, and so is a great thing for a developing country with high malaria incidence.

Our schedule got mixed around, a lot, and so I ended up doing demos to two big groups of trainees, one on thursday afternoon and one on saturday morning. They both went well but had different vibes and different things going on at each one. My good friend and fellow EE volunteer Jamie was on this tournee with me and we were assisted by the new PC Senegal Health tech trainer Adji.

For the first session we prepared some treats before we left. We gathered ingredients and cooked a sauce all morning that was made from fresh moringa leaves. We also made a juice from the powder that was not too bad. We brought stuff to prepare doughnuts and more juice on site and brought samples of the sauce with us. That day we went to a Seereer compound and had 10 Wolof and 2 Seereer volunteers with us and a beautiful afternoon to have good food and stir lotion.

On Saturday morning we left to present to a group of Pular volunteers off in a different direction away from Thies. There we were a bit more crowded together, but lots of pepole, well kids, from the neighborhood were interested in what we were doing. We didnt have the sauce for them to sample but improved on our juice making and made some good doughnuts again and lotion that everyone seemed to like.

I took a ton of pictures and posted most of them, so check it out!

Latrine Project Needs Funds

Ok, so disregard that post from yesterday. The wheels do turn once everything is the way they like it.

So my project is up online and you all can check it out-

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-117

You get surprisingly little informtion about the project from the PC website, but believe me, it is really a worthy project and will be a great boost the health and happiness in the village. Anyone can donate to the project if they like and encourage your friends who have a little disposable money they arent sure what to do with to look into this too.

This project does come to be a little more costly than I had originally thought it would be, but fifty pit latrines is a big deal to the community.

All I can ask is that you guys check it out. April is totally the season of giving, I think... and donating will totally take you off the hook for not sending any letters or care pakages :)

The Bureaucracy Is Not My Favorite

Howdy folks,

I realize that I have had some of you waiting, and waiting, for my latrine project to materialize from the ether so that you all can generously donate to it. I have been eagerly waiting too. After a short conversation with the country director and making a couple phone calls, it turns out that I needed to re-format the budget into a pre-approved (read: utterly nonsensicle) template before it can be given the final approval. I am not quite sure why this took nearly a month to get back to me, but there it is.

As soon as I find out it is up I will let all yall know!

Also, last week, Jen and Jared came to my village for a night. Jared once again took many more and better pictures than I did. He has them up on his picasa thing but I look as rediculous in his pictures as ever. I dont know why I cant make a decent picture out here...