100 weeks to go

25 September 2008

This morning, my landlord took pictures of me sweeping the compound. I guess it was particularly novel? It just made me feel slightly awkward. Not in a voyeuristic way – just like “oh look! a yovo doing African stuff!”
I went to the atelier this morning and helped do little tasks for a complet being made. It’s always more fun when Da E goes away; the apprentices are a lot more playful. Today when she went to the marché, I showed the apprentices pictures of my family. The apprentices really enjoyed the photos and particularly took a shine to my sister B; they said she needs to come meet them.
After repos I went to meet with the local Pastor about his groupement. He had just come back from seeing the Chef du Village about a bit of land he’d bought that someone else had started to use. We had a good talk – he wants me to encourage the women of the church to get organized to create a groupement to support each other.
I told him about PACA and that I’d like to approach them and ask them what they want and need, rather than simply telling them what to do. I’m going to do a little introduction on Sunday afternoon and arrange with those present to gather again (hopefully with more people) to start doing a few PACA exercises and get the women to start chatting and opening up to me.
The pastor told me that in his perception, money is scarce here between January and June, water is scarce October to March. He demonstrated this theory by pulling out the books on donations received by the church throughout the year.

After I saw the pastor, I sat down with the sister of my landlord. She expressed interest in my moringa seedling. We discussed a few different plants and herbs that are good for you. Tasi is very interested in growing mushrooms, so I told her I’d see what I can do about getting an NRM volunteer to do a session here on it. Then I asked if I could start a compost pile near my house, she was very willing.

I made a paper chain (like a Christmas countdown one) With one hundred links – to show how many weeks left in my service. I couldn’t find regular glue, so I used superglue to put them together. I made the strips out of scrap paper that I put various designs on. I’m excited to interact with it :) By which I mean ripping it apart! A nice visual of progress :)