Hello Everyone,
It’s been a busy week here in Founougo. To begin with, I set
a personal record of enjoying a bought of food poisoning for at least 6 days
straight. That was discouraging to say the least, especially since I had a
meeting that I was actually really excited about on Tuesday, and on Monday I
wanted nothing more than to lay around in a building with running water and ice
chips. Fortunately, through a combination of prayer and Oral Rehydration Salts,
I woke up on Tuesday ready to take on the day.
That was a good thing, because Tuesday was arguably my most
‘real work’ filled day so far. My homologue, or counterpart, Baron and I ran a
meeting for the people of Founougo about the possibility of a latrine project
here. We even had a friend of mine from church translate everything into
Bariba.
While the meeting was a success, we did sort of take the
long way around. I really wanted to ask some of the ‘needs assessment’
open-ended questions that the Peace Corps had advocated, even though I knew
open-ended questions can be a struggle here. I tried to ask the group to list
characteristics of a successful project based on previous projects in Founougo.
After rephrasing several times, people were able to give examples of projects
that have happened here, like building the Health Center and adding classrooms
at the secondary school. However, when pushed to come up with characteristics
of success, we were really at a stand still. Finally one guy raised his hand
and basically said ‘people come in and build stuff, and then they leave. We
know they do it, but we don’t really know what they do, or why it works.’
Wow. What a statement. I will explain that I think it needs
to be taking with a grain of salt, but even if it’s partially true, that is a
weighty statement. In that moment I thought briefly about all the aid that may
have come into Founougo in the last 60 years, and what had the people sitting
before me learned from it? Apparently nothing. It made me hope that I never
hand out materials without also teaching something that’s going to help people
even after the material is used up.
That being said, later in the meeting we were coming up with
next steps, and there was this universal agreement of ‘Oh, well now we need to
form a planning committee’. So maybe it’s the style of question that is the
biggest challenge. I hope to figure it out better with time.
So sure enough a planning committee was formed. My
supervisor from Banikoara even visited to say a couple words at the meeting.
That turned out to be a huge help. He has apparently done a number of projects
with Peace Corps Volunteers before, so he is familiar with the process.
Later the same day I also taught my first environmental
guest lecture in a 6th grade class. That turned out to be really
fun. The students were very attentive, and as luck would have it, my lesson hit
a nice middle ground of some familiar things and some new things. Despite my
fears of speaking French in front of, say 100, 6th graders, I
suspected that I would really enjoy getting to know some of the kids. That
turned out to be very true. Whenever a student took extra care to write the
answer as neatly as they could, or their hand shot up in the air with a
confident gleam in their eye, I couldn’t help but smile. I wish I could do more
for those kids, to meet their enthusiasm with every opportunity for success in
life. Anyway, I am glad I get to work with them a little bit for the time
being.
Alright after all that do-goody work news, something more
literally fuzzy. I got a kitten! His name is Jack and I am afraid to say, after
only two days, I am in love. He is chatty and inquisitive and takes long naps
in the afternoon and purrs like a little racecar. I am still working on getting
him to like phad thai, but there is still time to refine his tastes. He is still
small, and young to the world. Hopefully pictures will at least hit facebook
before the end of the month.
Ok, That’s the update for this week. Thanks for reading!
With love,
Lauren
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