Its been a while YAAFO! (Sorry)

Greetings everyone! I am sorry for the lack of updates over the past 3 months and I promise to try and do better for the rest of my service.

However first of all I must express a sincere and grateful thank you to all the people who donated money to my well project. A few months ago when I was first writing the grant for our garden the biggest obstacle was keeping the overall price of the project low enough so that the community would be able to meet the community contribution requirements- 25% of the total cost, at least 10% in cash, the rest could be met with in-kind contributions like labor and transport. It doesn't sound like much but to a village whose population hovers around 150, with only 13 actual households it turned to be a much bigger concern. So after trimming the garden size and materials to the lowest we could reasonably accept we still had the problem that the village could not come up with the cash. The only thing left we could remove was the well and a garden without a water source is a sorry excuse for a garden.

Then the NGO equivalent of a shining white knight appeared in the form of Appropriate Projects, an initiative of Water Charity. This wonderful offshoot of Water Charity is focused on water sanitation and availability, works with PCVs all over the world, funds projects that are 500 dollars or less and best of all they cut through the red tape and prefund the project with the terms that the project is ready to begin and can be completed in a month. It was if the Fates of Developing Countries felt our despair with the unreliable and frequently late funding problems and gave us a break (and actually Appropriate Projects is directed by a RPCV of Bolivia who proves that you're always a PCV at heart by fixing a problem faced by volunteers all over the world!)

After getting approval from Appropriaten Projects, I removed the well from the garden grant and we could thankfully meet the community contribution requirements which meant I could submit the garden grant. We began construction on the well at the end of February. The village men came out to the area and measured out the land and then the masons (who gaves the BEST deal for the labor-seriously like took a significant reduction in payment, one that no one else would have ever taken) outlined the well area. I bought a pick axe for the masons as a symbol of my gratitude and so afterwords each man in the village took a turn breaking the earth with the pick axe and saying a blessing over the well to make it clean and successful. By the end one man commented that it is the most blessed well in the whole village and that water from this well will taste better than any other well. By the second day the masons hit water and a few of the boys jumped into the well to take the first celeboratory sips and proclaimed it to be the better than any of the other wells.

To the people who donated to the well project you not only gave my village another source of clean water but you also enabled us to to apply and receieve a grant for our garden which will help the village develop food security and increase nutrition. In the single act of giving you have had a multifaceted effect on the lives of Medina Abdoul. A jaraama (Thank you.)

For people interested in helping more PCVs please go to http://www.appropriateprojects.org/ It is a great organization that is truly making a difference for volunteers and their communites. You can also see other projects in Senegal (as Senegal currently has the most projects being funded-GO PC SENEGAL!)

In terms of the garden project I received the funds and have purchased all the materials. The village has prepared the land and the goal is to have the project complete by the end of March, si Allah Jaabi (if God wills it). I'm really excited to get it done and start garden trainings for the rains.
We also picked a new place to the tree pepineres in the village. Mainly not in my backyard since that means we have to carry water through my house and our well is the most used well in the area and it is prone to getting a little dry toward the end of dry season. The village All-Star Demba offered up his small gardening space next to his much less used well. He put up the fencing and even filled the first 300 tree sacs. This is a man who would suceed in America. He works so hard, the village respects him (they even wanted him to be Chief but he politely declined insisting on giving the Chief's son a chance to prove himself first), and NGOs trust him. One NGO gave him a real bee hives and a very torn, but real bee suit. The hives are in working order now, I even got stung for walking too close to the hive (did you know bee stings can itch because I didn't) and Demba gave me a sample of his first honey batch. The only thing that worries me is he says he has so many friends and family he never, in good conscience, sell his honey because he could never charge a friend. He much rather give to everyone than have anyone pay. Still working on how we can compromise on that sweet but economically unhelpful stand point.

I am also doing the site set up for a new volunteer in the arrondissment center, about 15KM down the road. It will be an Environmental Education volunteer and if I may say, their site is going to be baller. Like amazing. Great family and motivated schools. Can't ask for much more than that!

This new volunteer will arrive in a week or two and after they get here I will officially be a 'senior' and be entering the home stretch of my service, the last 6-7 months I will be a volunteer. Its strange to think that I have been in Africa for the past year and half. In many ways I am so used to everything here that thought a different routine in America is kind of alien, maybe even a little scary. Probably more scary because when I get back I have to actually get my plans for future in order. After making the choice to come here I didn't think any things else would be as challenging.

I hope everything is well in America! I greet everyone!