Moving On

I moped around my house for a couple weeks after the theft, thinking very anti-Mali thoughts and basically just being miserable. I did this until I realised that I was worrying my neigbors and taking out my frustrations on people that had absolutely nothing to do with the problem. So I got out of that routine; it wasn't really working for me. The village was giving me at least 40 benedictions a day for my peace of mind. They didn't know what to do with me. Although I did get a lot of reading in. Since then, I've had a refreshing streak of activity which has helped to clear out my head. Thanksgiving was well-spent, and after that I attended my Close-of-Service conference where I got to start planning for life after Peace Corps. And as my last email made clear, I am not prepared to deal with that just yet, so I will hang out in Mali for a few more months putting that off.

Work has been great. I held a low water usage tree planting class in village, and I planted a food bank of Moringa trees at the school in the next village. Moringas are great - you should check them out at www.treesforlife.org or www.moringatrees.org . The plan is to intensively plant this tree in a small area near the school. When the saplings reach about a meter, you cut them way back, and then periodically trim them to harvest the leaves. The leaves are highly nutritious and can be added to the students' school lunches (no brown bags here, village women cook huge vats of to or rice that all of the students eat). At this point the students need to pay for the sauce ingredients (the rice or millet is donated), so if the school raises the plants to include in the sauce, it is one less expense for the students. I donated the seeds, and the students work for free, so it is a low-cost way to improve their nutrition. Hopefully it goes well. I've already been approached by a teacher in another village who would like me to do the same thing at his school, and the trees haven't even sprouted yet.

And for those of you that think I might have used your donated funds to add an addition on to my mud hut - no fear. The completion of the wells is due to begin after the new year. We just needed to wait for all of the rainwater from a few months ago to crawl back into the deep recesses of the earth before we could start digging again. And since I live in the almost desert, it didn't really take very long for that to happen, sadly. I am ready to begin. My village has been very patient, but they are tired, and they want water. So please say prayers to all of the Gods that you care to that this work goes smoothly. Because the sooner this work gets done, the sooner I come home.

My mom is flying in for her second annual Malian invasion tonight, and she will be just in time for a birth control/AIDS class I am holding for the women's association. I don't think that she will need to speak the language to understand how funny it will be to see my village women try to put a condom on a wooden penis. I can't wait. Merry Christmas Mom!