seasons ... dry and rainy. We are entering the
rainy season and it will be my first here in the
village.
It is the time to begin to think of planting and
as you can see in the photo above ... there are
a few saplings growing. These are trees called
moringa. The leaves have nutritional content
of vitamin A and C, protein, calcium and
potassium. A good supplement to add to
the sauces that are a staple at meal time.
The problem is there aren't many of those
trees in the village so the plan is to pass out
a few seeds to each compound. If 10% actually
become full grown trees, I'll be satisfied.
The trees in the picture are actually a test. I
received moringa seeds and passed a bunch
out but in the best sense of project disaster ...
none of them sprouted. Oops, one of those
things I should have tested before. So, this
time I went to a nearby village and pulled the
seed pods off the tree myself. Now, 100%
germination and a lesson re-learned.
We've been busy trying to get as many
sensibilizations done before school ends
in a few weeks from now. We had another
35 girls come to the maternity to speak to
the mid-wives about sex education and
it was an open session for any of their
questions. It went well and the underlying
goal is to help prevent teenage pregnancy.
I also spoke with the boys and hopefully
the message got through. I tried to emphasize
respecting the girl's right to sucessfully ask
a boy to use a condom. That was one of the
remarks the girls made in their session. It
was like we girls want the boys to use a condom
but the boys don't want to.
Again, hopefully the message got through.
Started working in another school and there
we had sessions on malaria prevention, HIV
and cleaning out cuts to prevent infections.
The oldest class seemed too young for the
HIV talk. I asked the director about 6 times ...
are you sure they're not too young? He said
it's ok so talk we had.
It was funny when I took out the wooden penis
I made (see last blog post). It was the kids
first time with even seeing a condom and it
was a session full of laughs and kids ducking
under their desks.
After we had the condom situated on the
wooden penis the director started walking
down the rows of desks with it in his hand
and a condom on top.
The kids were just screaming and ducking
under the desks and it was funny as heck.
I just love seeing these things I've never
seen or experienced before. Despite the
laughing and ducking they have their first
step in sex education taken. Has to start
somewhere and sometime.
In the Peace Corps there is just about always
something you've never seen before like
kids ducking under their desks during a
condom demonstration, it's great stuff.
We also had a young French lady from the
Basque region of France arrive and give an
9 hour workshop for the theatre group. It was
in three intense sessions and she worked
theatre in Lyon France. She is now working
theatre here in Ougadougou and will be
going to England as she has a new job
beginning in theatre there also.
She was sensational and it's crazy to think
that we had a professional here with our
theatre group. I just call it luck but it works.
That's been about it since the last blog post.
It's been a good stretch.
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