America Day!

I had the brilliant idea to fulfill my Peace Corps Goal of sharing American Culture by having a few hours dedicated to our food music and sports. My friends came from far and away to help me. We baked cookies of many sorts, banana bread, and cornbread. I also gave a lot of candy that my family sent me. I mean I didn't really need all of it for myself though it was a tough choice lol! They went a little crazy as they always do. They even fought over the foods they didn't like just because they were crazed and wanted something free. Lauren and I had enough for everyone but I think a lot of people didn't get any because they were shoving and yelling and stealing from each other. It made me mad in the end and I yelled at them for being impatient and pushy and gave the rest to my family.

My fellow PCVs Andrew and Kourtney made a music display showing that some of our roots in music came from Africa and that we have a lot of singers of African origin. He also talked about Bob Marley and the Beatles. We had a portable speaker blasting the good tunes the whole time.

Finally Amy and Albert played sports with the kids. They had football, baseball, Frisbee, and a basketball which we didn't really use. Some of the kids were really good! I let them keep the Frisbees and gave away squirt guns. I had them do a race for the last one and one very happy little girl got there first. I'm glad she didn't get hurt, like I said when free things are involved they go crazy. It was a lot of fun! Thanks to all the other PCVs who helped me out!

Master Farmer Fails

Peace corps puts large dollar sums into a program under the title of the Master Farmer Program. This project has had its' success and failures, or so I hear. Unfortunately I am only familiar with the shortcoming of this project and the lack of administratively applied consequences. The ideal master farmer would have a field which PC would support by building fencing, buying seeds, pesticides, and giving technical training. They are expected to share their knowledge with the community and improve agriculture overall in the area. I know one such farmer who is very motivated and seems to understand the importance and benefits of the program. The farmer who was chosen for me to work with does not like to work or get dirty. Those are very close to her exact words.They all have a protocol to follow in order to keep the farms the same and compare them to make success and failure more obvious. She chooses to ignore nearly all of these rules and utilize the grant money for her own gain without making demos. For example we put in a vegetable nursery for her to transplant, and a live fence was started with various tree types. We trained her on the subjects and she has decided to sell the nursery instead of doing the demo work. She also burnt our live fence. Peace Corps will not fire her now bc they have invested too much so it falls on my shoulders to deal with a lazy insubordinate, well you know me and what I'd call her.I have no choice but to 1) do her work for her 2) go there every day and be a dictator, I don't have the time fo that , or 3) join her in her laziness go three days a week and if she doesnt work well at least I'll get a good lunch.

On top are the peppers she refuses to transplant below are the trees she burned. Great work :(

Girls Camp

Every year the volunteers in my region host a camp for girls who show ambition, intelligence, and motivation to progress in the world in a way that their gender may have previously inhibited them. I only stayed two of the five days but, I could tell the girls were getting a lot out of it. 6 teachers also attended. We had sessions ranging from education on topics such as environment, health, and gender, as well as leadership sessions. Fun sessions included sports and my specialty spa night. There were about 35-40 girls and they all now know how to apply a facial exfoliator made from locally obtainable items. We also did some glamor and nail painting. Each girl got to keep her eyeliner and lip gloss.

The camp had a few problems. Mainly the emperor scorpions and horse spiders. Also it became very tiring to volunteers who stayed multiple days. Some are there all week. Trying to cook for all of them was a challenge. We wanted to introduce American  foods but also didn't want them to starve. Just as much as I don't like some of their foods they don't like all of ours. No one can resist mac and cheese though.

For one day we took a boat ride. The camp was in the delta wetlands. We saw the second larget mangrove forest in the world. The girls learned about the wildlife there and the danger that it is in. We brought in a speaker who had specific knowledge  on the area to educate them. Then we took a little break on an island and went for a swim. That is something many of these girls have never done before and will  have little opportunity to do again, UNLESS they took away all the knowledge we tried to instill in them.

I also helped in sessions to help the girls describe their environment and what kinds of nature and man made things are around them. This was fun to see all the things they drew. The last thing I did before leaving was mainly for girls who live in the city. We taught them to use trash as containers to grow plants in. There is trash everywhere he it just gets scooped into piled and burned or left where it falls. So we taught them to make use of it and grow some veggies or herbs at the same time. We used mint as an herb and water bottles for containers. They were really into it and they all got to keep their bottle.

I hope that each of these girls understands more about the world they live in now. I especially hope that they can use this knowledge to succeed beyond their highest expectations. Thank you to everyone who sent care packages and donated for the camp to run. Mom thank you for the marshmallows they LOVED smores :)