From a Garden to the Moon

Wow, so much has happened in the past month! I have not one, but FOUR projects I'm currently working on!! Absolute craziness! Here's a brief synopsis of the projects:

1) Starting a community garden with my village's women's association - this involves applying for Peace Corps funding for a metal fence, cemented well, and seeds. A brief note on the funding - I'm applying for funding through the Small Project Assistance (SPA) program. It provides funding to small Peace Corps projects through a partnership with the US Agency for International Development (US AID). Since the community garden is a food security issue - it helps the people in my village have access to healthy food year-round - my project is incredibly likely to be funded, as PC and US AID are targeting food security, specifically in Mali. The women's association is SO excited about this - every day I get questions and reminders that there needs to be a fence. We can't have cows eating our veggies!

2) Helping the women's association of Planete Verte develop income generating activities (IGAs). My homologue, Adama, came back from IST very excited about making natural insect repellant and soap with the women's association. We've been doing some test runs, and after she finishes up the budget and project plan, we're going to apply for SPA funding for the start-up costs of producing the cream and soap on a larger scale. The women will use the funds to help their families as they see fit - food, education, etc. Pics are up on facebook of our formations on how to make the insect repellant (called neem cream).

3) Creating a facebook page for Planete Verte to let more tourists know of our tree-planting project. Watch for us on facebook soon, I'll be sending friend invites to most of you!

4) I'm doing a joint project with PCVs in Konna, Fatoma, and Sevare. We are doing a "Bring Work to Our Daughters Day" - a twist on "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day." We are bringing professional women from Konna, Fatoma, Sassolo, and Sevare to Konna for a one-day formation. They will speak to a group of girls from each of those villages, talking a bit about the importance of education, how they came to work outside the home (it's REALLY hard to do in Mali. I know it's hard in America, but imagine having 8 kids and no labor-saving appliances), how they balance family and work, how their husbands feel about their work, etc. I'm really excited to hear what they have to say. After lunch, the girls and women will break into small groups, where the girls will be paired with a mentor from their respective villages. Two weeks after the event, the PCVs will facilitate meetings between the mentors and the girls in each village. Tentative date is March 14 (don't worry Sam, I won't forget your birthday haha), so super excited.

So right now I am very busy trying to get everything put together. Things move very slowly in Mali, but I'm trying to write the grant applications and figure out the funding issues in a somewhat timely manner. We'll see how it all goes down.

And now for a slightly humorous story - Last night I was watching TV with my host family (it runs off a car battery). There is one channel in Mali, so we were watching an American science documentary from the 1990s dubbed in French. No one in my host family speaks French, so it fell to me to translate it into Fufulde. Guess what it was about? The international space station and the moon landing. Now I've studied Fufulde for six months, so that alone made it difficult - but words for things like space, gravity, satellites, and astronauts don't exist in the language! Not to mention that many Malians are unaware that space as Americans know it exists, or that people have walked on the moon. Every once in a while it still shocks me that things Americans learn in first grade - the solar system, the moon landing - are unknown by adults here. Through no fault of their own, they just haven't had access to that information. Anyway, the convo between me and my host mom, Kumbari, is pretty hilarious, mostly because of my horrible Fufulde:

Kumbari: (sees space shuttle blasting off, followed by it going into orbit) What's that?
Me: Oookay. American people in airplane go to moon. The live there 2 days. They come back to America.
Kumbari: (pause) What?? In an airplane?
Me: Yes. On moon, they study moon and stars.
Kumbari: They study? They leave like that (TV is showing blast-off again)? But you came to Mali in an airplane!
Me: Yes, I did. Airplane moon and airplane Africa, not the same. Airplane moon is very big and needs a lot of fire and oil. Airplane Africa is small.
Kumbari: (Looks very relieved that I didn't have to wear an astronaut outfit to come to Africa) Ohhh. I understand. Crazy Americans, they go to the moon. (TV shows Mars rover thing) What's that?
Me: A machine. Like a computer. Machine goes to moon, no people. Machine studies. Machine writes. Machine comes back to America. American people look at machine. Now, they now moon and study moon. You understand?
Kumbari: (incredibly shocked) I understand, but a machine can read and write?? I want an American machine like that? (she is illiterate)
Me: I want a machine to speak Fulfulde! (cue canned sitcom laughter) *side note: in Mali, the corniest jokes are absolutely hilarious. People in my village will be repeating that line for the next 3 months at least.

Kumbari then explained what I said to her kids, who all just started laughing, totally convinced I had made it up. If you think about it, it is kind of crazy that we can go to the moon. Incredible. I just wish there were words in Fulfulde for stuff like that so I could more logically explain what it is. Later they showed astronauts floating in space. Kumbari's going to be talking about that for weeks - "Americans float!"