Projects

On Wednesday I did my first project requiring grant money. It required bringing 350 fruit tree seedlings to the village to be sold (we bought for the US equivalent of 50 cents each, and sold for 5 cents each so that everyone could afford them). I went in the morning with my village's Agricultural Extension Officer to pick up the trees, and upon returning to the village, found that a thief had been caught. All I could think was "Oh no, I left 200,000 shillings (about $150) in my house for the project because I didn't want to travel with it, and now it's been stolen." But it turned out he had just stolen some chickens and a small radio. The thief was not from my village; he was from a village about 5k away. They were taking him to the village office to deal with him (yell at, beat, psychologically harass, and negotiate a punishment). Incidentally the village office was where the tree project, which consisted of a short seminar on seedling outplanting and care as well as the selling of the trees, was to take place. This was both good and bad. It meant that there were a lot of people at the office, but they were mostly distracted, and had not really come with the intent of buying trees. They all decided to take a small break from the thief and sit and listen to the Agricultural Extension Officer give his spiel right outside the office, while the thief was locked up inside with the windows open. People were showing up to look in the window at him while the lesson was going on. All in all, the project went well, and despite everyone telling me how few trees we had bought, it turned out to be the exactly perfect number. Now we will see how many of the seedlings survive!

My other main project right now is a seminar to teach the leaders of the AIDS Committee in my village about AIDS and how to teach about it. It is going pretty well, though a couple of the people have to walk from about an hour away to get to my house where we are holding the seminar, and sometimes communication is difficult.

I am going to get a cat next week which should help because my house is overrun (that is not an understatement) with rats. They don't even mind when I'm around anymore, they just look at me and continue chewing whatever random thing they might get their teeth on (toothbrushes, toothpaste containers, my phone, potatoes, plastic bottles, iron supplements, etc.).

It's good to be busy, but it means I have had very little time to work on my farm, so it is looking very neglected!