Hello everyone!
Yesterday (Tuesday) and today (Wednesday) we have been
jumping right in to technical training. For EA volunteers this has meant
starting a vegetable garden at Songhai and helping out a little with the
compost piles in between lectures. I’ve got to say, it has me pretty excited.
As I told Amber on Tuesday, when I woke up in the morning, I was thinking to
myself, “Man, two years is a long time,” and then we had a lecture on food
security and how 37% of infants are under nourished, and I was like, “I will stay forever!” I was
definitely over reacting there, but it was so good to be reminded of real
problems that we can help with. After class I have been digging into the new
literature we have been given, and I have lots of little ideas for projects I
could do in Founougo. Everything from utilizing shower water for fruit trees,
to possibly creating living fences that would help keep the goats out and be
less work to maintain. It’s exciting.
I have also been thinking about a lot of application for
back home. It’s hard not to apply what you are learning to the context you are
most familiar with. I am curious how interested you guys would be in some of
those ideas. I’ve been thinking a lot about the cool ways that people have
found to cope with limited resources here. In the States we have so many
resources that are over abundant, and that can make them easy to over use and
abuse. I can think of several exercises to take a fresh look at things we take
for granted in the States. Let me know if you are interested in hearing about
some of those ideas.
I will continue to try to keep this blog primarily
informative. I don’t want to use it as a soap box to spread my opinions and
agenda. Sometimes giving my explicit opinion is part of informing you about my
life, and I know that my opinion naturally is going to color all of what I
write to some degree. Still I want you to know I want this blog to be somewhere
you can swing by to learn about my life as a peace corps volunteer in West
Africa. Not much more, not much less.
I hope you are enjoying the journey so far. I have to say
that I am. Thanks for reading!
With love,
Lauren
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