Oh Yeah, There's the Work Factor

Thank goodness rainy season has come to an end. Now, I can start some big projects. As mentioned before, during rainy season everyone is cultivating so my village literally turns into a ghost town so it is kind of hard to hold community sensibilizations. That, and the fact that the rain makes satellite villages inaccessible (flooding). Lots of times planned sensibilizations have had to be postponed; however, there have been times where we sucked it up and made the muddy trek en brousse to the satellite village. During the months of July and part of August I thought I was going to die of boredom. I never thought that was ever possible but after this rainy season there is a good possibility that death by boredom is plausible. I was lucky to avoid this fate but I sure did come close. I asked my Ganga, my unofficially counterpart, what the previous volunteer did work-wise during the rainy season. He replied that she did not do any work. I tell him I refuse to believe she did not work during the three months of rainy season. He chuckles and tells me she did small causeries at the CSPS (clinic) on a variety of different of topic. “Great! That is what I am going to do then.” During rainy season you cannot really catch people at the market or even at their houses but you sure can catch them at the clinic or the maternity (before baby weighings or pre-natal consultations). So since the month of July I have been conducted weekly sensibilizations. Every month we will change the topic. So during July we talked about malnutrition, during August we talked about good weaning practices, and during September we talked about the importance of good hygiene and diarrhea. I have also held weekly sensibilizations on good pre-natal care. I also met with my women’s soap making group. Apparently, they are selling the soap at cost so they are not making any profit. I have tried to explain to them that in order to make a profit they need to sell the soap at a price higher than the at cost price but about 90% of them do not seem to understand this. They do not want to raise the price because they think no one would buy their soap and a price increase would make people go to their competitors. Oy. I have tried telling them they are selling the soap pretty much for free but they still want to make it…lol. I have also done a few HIV/AIDS sensibilizations and we are just starting a family planning campaign in a few days. Lastly, I am in the process of writing a grant for a moringa garden for a women’s group in a Yorko, a satellite village. So far the grant is 9 pages single spaced and I’ve spent the last two days slaving away to complete it. However, I did run across a lot of problems in writing it. Before coming to Ouaga to write the grant, I told Ganga he needed to find out not only all of the materials needed to construct the wells and the garden but also their prices. Luckily, when I came to Ouaga I talked to another volunteer about the garden. He had constructed a Moringa garden in his village. When he looked at my list, he started to laugh and told me it was like I was trying to build a car but only had tires. Lovely. So I think I have figured all of the materials needed and their prices; however, instead of the garden being $2,800 it is now $4,300. Ughh.