Life on Planet Earth...

... because I haven't figured out how to get to Vulcan yet.

Yup, you guessed it. I've been spending time obsessing about Star Trek, primarily because I can't even watch the trailers out here - the connection's too slow. So, instead, I drive myself insane with J.J. Abrams' edit of WIRED, which is AMAZING. I love it. Plus, I get to try to explain puzzles to my villagers. I think they get it; they may just smile and nod and write it off as another example of Malika being a bit nuts. Still, gotta love hidden puzzles!

Life in the village continues...

IT'S PLANTING TIME!!! We planted once, and that was fun. I'm trying to promote an agroforestry approach, using acacias from SIM. Unfortunately, despite the fact that we're now well into rainy season, we haven't had enough rain and our first planting died. This is, obviously, not a good thing, as it's already hunger season, meaning food is scarce/expensive, and that replanted seed we can't eat. Also, the delayed planting means a delayed harvest. Not good.

MURALS: Well, finished two now, the anti-conjunctivitis one first and lately a nutrition mural (yes, I realize that step 1 is getting enough to eat, but I want them to start thinking that tuwo (millet/sorghum grain mush) isn't enough from a vitamin/mineral/protein standpoint. So I now have a care-bear baby on my wall.

THE PUMP: Well, there's been some progress on the organizational side - Barkatou and I went to a (horrendously boring repetitious) World Vision training on how a pump committee should be organized. I need to add the caveat that to us it was boring, for the villagers it was a good thing. Being raised as a Western person, you're inculcated with a sense of how business should be run - roles of committee members aren't things that take days to delineate, they just 'are'. **sigh** So, while each member of each committee from each village stood up and explained, almost verbatim, the duties of their particular role, we played dots after listening to it the first time 'round. Still, it's encouraging that they've gotten them organized. Of course, I still have a big blue plastic borehole and no pump...

GARDENING: I, too, have had to replant. I don't know what's going on, but suspect ants, caterpillars, and bunnies! (j/k. Zara will get it if she reads this, the rest of you go watch Buffy) are undermining my attempts to secure a pretty green garden. Drat them all. The moringas are doing very well, though. I regularly enjoy bush florentine crepes - just sautee the leaves with onions, garlic, and add some laughing cow. I also add bouillon to the crepe batter because I've lived here too long.

WOMEN'S GROUP: Well, now that Sa'a, my women's leader, is now the leader of a group of groups in different villages, she's rarely there, and possible thoughts of teaching bread baking and mango jamming but there's still hope to get it done before I leave. Also, they now say they want a new grinding machine; apparently the 2 we already have are not enough and they want to start making peanut butter and other goodies. Fair enough, and yay, really, but this is something that should have been brought up ages ago, so I could maybe get it done before I left, NOT during the beginning of rainy season when no one has money and no one can build anything because it's rainy and they're all out in the fields anyhow... Poor timing, but I'm working the numbers up for the next vol if they choose to do it. Or, who knows, if the job situation doesn't look any better by the time September rolls around, maybe I'll stay and do it. Could be fun :)

Hadjia House: The gutters are up, the water flows into the barrel, all is right with the world. Just in time for Ghanima to have her kittens (she looks like a balloon, any day now).

Life is good. We ARE Cylons. Star Trek needs to be on DVD now. That is all.