Still here

Wow.

Yes i'm still here; didnt forget about the blog.

So ill try to do a quick update in an attempt to avoid overwhelming you the reader and me the writer. I am having a fun Christmas up in Natatingou, my work station. Most of the volunteers spent christmas at Grand Popo beach resort on the border of Benin and Togo, but a handful of the northern volunteers stayed up north to have a quainter, less crowded christmas, save money on travel, and go on safari at Penjari (on the border of burkina faso, where the city of Nati is the jumping-off point for the park). So that's where i'll be for new years.

Last week was our IST (in service training) back down in Porto Novo, forcing us to return than the intensely unpopular city we spent 2 months of our training, amongst the Goun people (pronounced GOON, appropriately enough, totally lacking any respect for anyone with white skin). Despite dreading my return to this city, i actually had a great time. I think this was mostly due to the fact that i was in a hotel room with fellow volunteers, most of whom we havent seen since the end of training, with air conditioning and TV, speaking english. We also got a per-diem of almost twice our normal pay, despite getting 2 free 3-course meals a day at the hotels restaurant. Our days were spent suffering through training classes, reminiscent of our training last summer, but the evenings, rather than awkward culture clashes at our host families' houses, were spent eating out at nice restaurants and having dance parties on the roof of our hotel. IST also marked the end of our First Three Months at Post, where we were only allowed to leave our post/city for a max of 2 days per month. Now we are free, real volunteers who can travel throughout the country, or any country for that matter. We're all pretty excited about that.

The main point of IST was to give presentations about our respective villages to our bosses and each other, since our First Three Months were supposed to be an integration period solely for learning about our village, and isolating any potential projects that we could carry out for the next year and a half. IST was also for learning about the various forms of funding available to us for our projects.

My ideas for projects for my community are:

Moringa Plantation -
Moringa is a tree indigenous to northern india, that easily grows in tropical climates, and pulls considerable amount of nutrients into their leaves. Apparently, gram for gram, moringa leaf powder has 17 times the calcium of milk, half the vitamin c of an orange, 10 times the vitamin a of carrots, 15 times the potassium of bananas, 20 times the iron of spinach, and 9 times the protein of yogurt, just to name a few. (moringanews.org). Given the malnutrition rates of my area (about 46% of kids less than 5), and the horrible horrible diet of boiled maize gruel and oil/pepper sauce for most meals, Moringa could be a really great tool to get kids to grow up right. My plan incorporates starting a plantation of 500 trees once the dry season is over, and finding funding to build a shack to dry and process the moringa leaves on-site. i would then stock health centers and pharmacies with packets of the powder, and inform the health workers of how moringa will help with various conditions they see on a daily basis. I would also issue them to mothers who come to my health center for nutritional recuperation (my role at the health center). Eventually, as people become more familiar with it in my area, i would collaborate with people who work at the village markets and phase myself out of the entire process, creating jobs and a consistent source of this new food group for the people in the Donga.

Radio Show-
Considering my area is very under-developed, decentralized, and uneducated, I think it is a perfect place to have a radio show. Most people don't have electricity, and there are not many recreational activities, so the majority of people have battery powered FM radios that enable them to listen to music or pick up some news in french, all while staying in the comfort of their home/village. Many of the radio shows that are played are in french, and several in local languages, but none of which offer health advice/sensibilizations to its listeners. My plan is to find funding for air-time on a weekly basis, and broadcast health advice pertaining to what I've recently seen at the health center. I would intertwine american hip-hop so that it would be fun to listen to and not just preach-y, but would ideally have two different shows, one aimed at mothers (usually the most uneducated) for advice about how to take care of their baby (turns out its very much not intuitive, and even the basics are tough for them to wrap their heads around). The other target demographic would be the later teens and adult males who tend to have the most power for change in their homes and in their communities. The show would be broadcast out of Djougou, and would be for the entire Donga region, which would be about a million people. It would require a monthly trip to the Djougou radio station to pre-record the following month's shows. To make sure people are listening, i would at first host various Majors of health centers, and various village chiefs, one or two at a time. When they return to their respective villages, they'll probably make sure everyone is hearing them on the radio. Once they know about the show, they'll probably continue tuning in, since a lot of the airtime is unused, and they pretty much will listen to anything being broadcast. I would also use the radio show to plug my moringa plantation.


So that's what i have for now in terms of projects. i would also continue going to the health center for nutritional recuperation consultations and follow-ups, as well as random stuff like painting world maps on the side of schools (if you show kids a map of benin, they say its a map of africa. if you tell them it is benin, the ones that do know it's benin dont even know where they are on their own country's map).

So that'll be it for now. Stay tuned for updates on funding for my projects. Should be pretty exciting if it can get them going within the next couple months or so. (see facebook for pictures, its slow i only have time to upload on one website)