Hi everyone,
We have been in
Mandiana for about five months now and are starting to get into some really
neat projects. We spent the first three
months meeting people and integrating and spending a lot of time, energy and
money (relatively) on painting, commissioning furniture and learning
french.
We have an amazing
family. Our dad works for the department
of education, our mom #1 is a tailor and our mom #2 is a housewife. We have three brothers, a sister/aunt and a
cousin also living in the house next to ours.
We have become really close with our middle brother, Abdoulaye, and our
sister (really our mom #1’s younger sister), Hawa. They have helped us out a lot and we give
them a half hour of private English lessons on most nights.
I just wanted to
update everyone one the projects that we are currently working on.
Marisa:
1)
I made a
Moringa tree nursery with a bunch of kids from my neighborhood (see
video). We talked about the importance
of planting trees and the benefits of Moringa while we did it. Moringa is a tree with a very high
nutritional value. It’s packed with tons of vitamins and minerals.
2)
I am
giving handwashing sensibilizations to kids in the village and at primary
schools. For this project I worked with
another education volunteer and our friend and translator (french to malinke),
Adama. We start with a skit where we
show someone getting sick from not washing their hands before they eat, then I
give some information, including a very thorough handwashing demonstration and
use visual aids. Afterwards we test
their comprehension by asking some questions and sing a song, in French and
Malinke, about handwashing. The kids
have all been very enthusiastic and it has been a really encouraging
project. I think some of the teachers
have also been getting some good ideas about different ways to teach. Now when I walk down the street a lot of kids
start singing the song to me, both in French or Malinke. In case you were wondering, here it is.
English French Malinke
Wash
your hands, Wash your hands Laves
tes mains, Laves tes mains A ye bolo la
ko, A ye bolo la ko
With soap, with soap Avec du savon,
Avec du savon A ni safina, A ni
safina
If you don’t do it, If you don’t do it Si tu ne fais pas ca, si tu ne fais pas
ca Ni i mo ke, Ni i mo ke
You
will get sick, you will get sick Tu tomberas malade, tu tomberas malade I di jankaro, I di jankaro
3)
I have
been working with the health center, the Croix Rouge and a well respected women
in the village (with eight kids) to give women breastfeeding sensibilizations.
The four main points of the sensibilization are 1) Begin breastfeeding
immediately after giving birth since the first milk the mother produces has
anti-bodies and vitamins to protect the baby; 2) Only give breast milk to the
baby for the first six months (not even water) to prevent diahrea and other
infections; 3) After six months continue breastfeeding but introduce other
foods, little by little into the babies diet; 4) While the mother is
breastfeeding her nutritional needs are augmented. She should try to eat more
than usual and drink lots of pump water.At the health center we are
incorporating the sensibilization into the prenatal and post par tum
consultations and it has been going very well.
Most of my work on this sensibilization has been with the Croix Rouge
(Red Cross). We have been meeting with
women from different neighborhoods every Monday and Friday to give the
sensibilization and ask and answer questions.
The women have been very engaged and have asked a lot of good questions
and showed a lot of interest in working with me further to try and improve the
nutrition of their community. We are
even talking about starting a Moringa Pepiniere for their neighborhoods to use.
4)
As you can
see in the photos, Mike and I have participated in the five day, nationwide
vaccination campaign against polio. We
went from door to door giving the polio vaccination to kids under five. It was a great way to meet a lot of people
and some very motivated community volunteers as well.
Mike: I will try and do it justice since he is not here right now and I
do not know all the ins and outs
1)
He has
been going to the office of ASF
regularly, a organization of volunteers that give out loans to groupments who
need funds. He is learning their procedures and any problems or successes they
are having so that he can help them improve where they need to. One problem they are having is that people
are not paying back their loans and so they don’t have funds to give out new
ones.
2)
He has met
with a shea butter producing groupment.
They pick the fruits, let them decompose, clean the seeds, boil them and
put them out to dry. That is all of the
process that he has seen so far but is going back to see the next part of the
process soon. He is working with them to see if he can’t help them make there
operations more efficient. One idea he
has it to start a small savings and loans with them. They are interested in
purchasing a machine that will make them more efficient and they could use the
funds to buy it possibly.
3)
He has
also been working with a cashew tree plantation/groupment. He is learning their processes and visiting
other plantations for comparisons and ideas to help. Right now they are harvesting and selling the
seeds unprocessed and Mike is trying to find out if it is cost effective for
them to process and transport the nuts themselves. There might even be an opportunity for
export. I will leave it at that since I
don’t really know that much about this project.
4)
Right now
Mike is at a meeting in the Capital with Kafodec, the organization that he was
set up to work with and the organization that provides our house. He has not really had much of an opportunity
to work with them so far but hopefully some good opportunities will come out of
this meeting.
That’s about all for
now, other than we have two lovely additions to our family, Kelen and Fila (see
photos).
Love you all,
Marisa and Mike
