Journal, June 7, 2008

I did work today! It felt like work, anyway, which was lovely since I hardly feel like I've done anything since I got here . . . I guess that's not true. I've spent a lot of time talking with people about things I could do as projectsm etc., but I just feel like all I've done is talk so far- ideas come and go, rejected because people don't seem interested or motivated or I don't feel interested or motivated or qualified . . .

In any case, today I felt like we did some important work. The ladies' organization here in Ferme seems like it's been floundering for various reasons since the last volunteer left- they were supposed to get a grant from the World Bank to do chicken-raising and expand on their gardening and that didn't go through, they're missing money that the members were supposed to pay as dues but are late with or haven't paid for whatever reason, the wells in the garden are of course still apt to go dry in the hot season (though they didn't this year) so the women can't count on doing gardening during the entire year. Etc., etc. In addition to all of this, I feel sometimes as if they lack initiative, or maybe just are't used to doing certain things themselves. I feel sometimes like we don't have meetings unless I call them, and I know that Dao has expressed exasperation before that the ladies are slow to organiwe if he doesn't do it for them.

Example: the bilan. The ladies were supposed to meet in early January to renew the board of people who handle various organizational tasks - president, secretary, etc. in addition to this meeting, they were supposed to write their bilan, a document summarizing how much money they made the previous year and what activities they carried out. For months now, Dao has been complaining about how they haven't done this, they haven't done that, and to top it off, they still haven't written that bilan. Instead, Abu was working on it. Very slowly, I might add.

There are some perfectly logical reasons why things are in this state - Abu has always done this job for them, so they're not used to doing it, and until a few years ago, they probably couldn't have done it, because they don't have the literacy skills.

So at our last peeting a month or two ago, before I went to Ghana, I suggested that we get together and take a look at what Abu had put together and have him explain the process so next year they can do it themselves. We finally had that meeting today - me, Safiyatou (my Bambara teacher and the ladies' literacy coach), Asha (the president of the ladies organization), and Abu sat down and went over numbers and papers for three hours. We started off looking at the group's financial records, and it became obvious that we were going to need the ladies to start writing those themselves, in Bambara. Abu has always written everything himself, in French because that's what he's used to, so at the moment if the ladies wanted to write the bilan themselves with no help it actually wouldn't be possible, since they don't understand French.

After discussing this, we started to look over the part of the bilan that was the summary of what activities the ladies had done in 2007. I suggested that we translate some of it into Bambara so the ladies could look at it later when they were writing the bilan for 2008. Somehow this turned into 1-2 hours of translating the entire document (which is actually not finished in the first place). It was kind of a tedious process, but it was really great to see the ladies sit and listen to Abu and then put their writing skills to a practical use. And to feel like I had spurred this. It would make me really happy if they could do this kind of thing by themselves after I left.

I'm still not quite sure what my contribution to Ferme will have been by the time I leave. I have some ideas for smaller things we could do the next few months - organize composting in the garden, work on the live fence that the previous volunteer started, maybe try out some new kinds of natural pesticide, try out this innovation that a fellow PCV is promoting of using urine as fertilizer. Finish dying the cloth that we started a month ago and work on selling it.

In addition to this, i think I'm going to do a funded project down the road with another women's organization that is working on their own garden project but are missing funding for fencing. They're pretty active and already used to running things themselves, so I feel good about trying to get funding for them. They also do literacy classes, and I've been attending those on and off for the past three months or so.

So I am actually feeling pretty positive lately. There's still the day to day boredom of beoing in village, but I've been working on 1) Accepting that as the way things are in the middle of nowhere in Africa and 2) Keeping myself busy with a lot of crocheting. I've also been going for short jogs in the morning with my very energetic dog Towo. Trying to keep the endorphins up.

Quick Update

So here's a super-quick update.

Am in Koutiala right now for a quick overnight before going back to site. I've been away from site a fair amount lately. After April In Service Training, I spent two weeks at site and then went to Ghana for two weeks with fellow PCVs Beth, Phil, Rachel, Nicole, and Ben. I've uploaded some of those pictures onto facebook at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022132&l=64f5b&id=10301328

Also, see some extra pictures from Mali at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2021762&l=fd393&id=10301328

Things are going well at site, though I'm still getting settled in after being away for so long. Hopefully will be getting some projects in order soon. Update on that later . . .