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| My home, entirely obscured by the neighbor's cornfield. Everything to the left of the visible pillar is my house, and everything to the right is a vacant dwelling. |
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| The view from my porch of the neighbors' homes. They cook outside near the tree. |
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| The outhouses, which are a good walk from my house. The silver door is mine and the red door is the neighbors'. |
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| My bathroom/kitchen. I bathe in the shower area on the right out of the bucket (bottom right). I currently also cook in this room until I can find a better solution. |
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| My living room. I use the yellow/orange water jugs (formerly cooking oil jugs) near the door to fetch water and as chairs or as a table. |
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| My bedroom |
A place all your own, that's nice! Do people sit on the floor or use something to sit on like a box, bucket, or log?
ReplyDeleteWhat type of corn does your neighbor grow? What other foods do the people grow for their own use? Can we send you seeds to plant?
Is the "courtyard" a place where you meet and talk with neighbors? Have you been introduced to them already?
When's your first day of work at the clinic?
Enough with the questions! Welcome to Sonsoro!! May your time there bear much fruit for the Beninese and you.
A lot of people sit on stools or chairs or benches. But anything you can sit on will work: an upside-down bowl, a water jug, a ledge, etc.
DeleteMy neighbor's corn, like all corn here (as far as I know), is destined for people. It's a lot tougher than the sweet corn I'm used to. Most corn is ground into corn flour and then used to make Beninese dishes like pate (sort of a thick corn porridge).
Otherwise, people grow beans, yams, cassava, etc. Generally they grow more than they can eat themselves and then sell the rest at the market or out of their homes.
I have started a compost pile to use on a garden of my own. I'm also interested in some sort of community garden, but I'm still looking for an enthusiastic local partner to help with that. Any seeds are very much welcome!
I have been working at the clinic since I got here in mid-September, but we're still working on defining my role. Apparently, that process can often take months.
Alex
Alex , your blog is interesting and educational too. Keep it up.
ReplyDeleteYou seem ready and willing to do anything that will be helpful for these people, but they seem slow to use you. What is the hesitation? Do they not see the needs? Is there a stigma in asking for help? Are you still too much an outsider? Is trust built so slowly? Gardening would be helpful for you so you could perhaps grow some greener vegetables and have more variety in your diet. You could even grow those precious tomatoes. Water is probably an issue at some times of the year. I assume it is hot enough to dry things like tomatoes or are insects a problem.
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley
I think part of the challenge is that Peace Corps is rather different from other foreign aid programs. Most others come and just give things: money, infrastructure, mosquito nets, medicine, food, etc. Peace Corps likes to focus on "capacity building": training locals to be in a position to help themselves once the volunteer is gone. This is inherently education-focused. So part of the issue is that my community isn't necessarily used to this approach and doesn't know what to make of it or how to use me.
ReplyDeleteCapacity building requires developing relationships with key players, and that takes time. Normally, the staff at my health center should be ready-made partners and able to work with me relatively early on, but that has been impossible lately because we have been short-staffed and two of our four staff members were just replaced. Hopefully things will fall into place with time.
I am certainly interested in growing a garden and having more vegetables available. Water is indeed an issue. The rainy season is at its end and the next six months will be dry as a bone. There are supposed to be severe water shortages in March in particular. Anything grown in the next six months would have to be watered very intentionally.
I did experiment a few weeks ago with drying tomatoes. Unfortunately, I didn't start early enough in the day, so they weren't dry by nightfall and they molded overnight. I plan to try again soon. I have some mosquito netting I can drape over the tomatoes during drying to keep the insects out.
Alex
Would rain barrels be helpful in the rainy season so you could collect water for the dry season? It must be humid if the tomatoes mold that quickly. David has dried grapes for raisins in the hot dry summer in Arizona with good luck, but it took several days and I don't think there was a mold problem because of the low humidity.
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley
I already collect rainwater and use it for laundry, bathing, and dishwashing. I have a large cistern in front of my house (you may be able to see it in the photo), but the water evaporates quickly and does not last long. I do collect water in tubs when it rains (sometimes I'll even go out at 1 am to collect rain), but all of my rainwater is almost gone already. Hopefully, I'll be more organized for water collection during the next rainy season (next year!).
ReplyDeleteI think I need a really hot day and need to start early if I want my tomatoes to dry. Unfortunately, the tomatoes I buy here aren't always in good shape even when I first purchase them. I'll give tomato drying another chance when I can.
Alex
The first time I dried tomatoes at a low temperature in my oven I thought they were dry enough, but then later they molded. So the second time I tried I put the dried tomatoes in olive oil and they didn't mold. Using tomatoes, like Romas, that don't have so much juice and are meatier I think work best. They are drier to begin with and you have more useable tomato left.
ReplyDeleteWhat will you do for water in the dry season? There is now life without water.
Jean Ralley
The only tomatoes available in my village are big chunky tomatoes, so I don't have a lot of choice there. I do have olive oil that I bought in Cotonou, so I can try that approach. Ultimately, however, I'd like to master drying tomatoes without olive oil so that the approach is reproducible for others in my village. That said, I have seen dried tomatoes at the market, so they must be doing it somehow.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, tomatoes are supposed to become rare soon and the prices will escalate, but I won't be able to try this again for another month! That may be too late.
My plan for the dry season is to store lots of water in advance and to use the strict minimum necessary. I have a six gallon water storage container already, but I don't think that will last long.
I looked for seeds here to send you, but they are no longer in the stores. With the coming winter we're thinking about snow shovels instead, apparently. I'll continue to look.
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley