Until now I have blogged about some general topics to give something of an overview of the culture here. I think from this point on I will just be writing about things that happen to me. The last week was spent visiting current volunteers at their sites. I visited another sustainable agriculture volunteer and got to see the work he did. His site is in Nganda. We also took a trip to the village which will be my permanent site. My village is named Ndioudiene. In his site he has electric from 5pm to 7am. My village does not have electricity. We both have a robinet, I’m not sure if that’s spelled right. It’s a water spicket in the yard so we don’t have to pull water from the well. His site is pretty close to mine I could bike there in less than 2 hours. The boutiques in Nganda have processed packaged cheese, cookies, phone credit, and assorted toiletries. In Ndioudiene there is a little less variety so I will have to stock up a 2 or 3 week supply whenever I go to the city, also a few hours biking, or to Ben’s site.
There are cars and busses that pass our sites on the main road. I could take a car or bus between 6 and 8am and take one home later in the day. They only leave in the morning so it does restrict my schedule. They pack them as full as they can and people even ride on the roof of the busses. Ben told me a story about a bus with some holes in the roof, sheep on the top, and the sheep started to pee. The pee was dripping through the holes in the bus and he was moving around trying to avoid it. Busses also stop frequently to drop off and pick up passengers. Cars usually are more direct and less problematic. Although whatever type of transportation you take it is a possibility it will break down. The roads are either just dirt/sand with potholes and muddy areas. There are a few major highways which resemble American roads but even these are sometimes pretty rough riding. People often drive on the wrong side of the road to avoid large holes.
I have an idea now of the work I will be doing and have met one of my counterparts. A counterpart is a native who lives at my site and will help me if I’m having trouble communicating. My counterpart is also my dad and the chief. He has a nice piece of ground set aside in the compound which I can do my work in, and the previous volunteer left a chicken coup. She also left some beads to make jewelry. I will have those things to work on when I get to site as well as continuing to practice my language skills. I am really happy about this because I’m ready to start doing something training is really boring and restricting.
While visiting Ben I got to do some technical stuff and saw some cool things. I transplanted a banana tree, turned compost, and looked at a lot of Ben’s fields and gardens where he has extended seed. One evening while at his familys’ compound I went outside to photograph a rainbow but ended up taking pictures of a goat instead. This is because the goat was eating their clothes off the line and it was hilarious!
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