Meeting. Projects.

So today there was a big meeting between the Chef du Village and all the Chefs du Famille at the dugutigi’s house. It was to discuss what projects they want me to undertake in the light of the fish farm being very difficult and facing the problem of water.

So they decided they want to have a pump at the school and also a latrine. I think these are great projects. I think we’ll do the latrine first because it is a lot easier and cheaper. The pump is going to be hard. Expensive. Haoua said she sent me past budgets/proposals for these types of projects so I will have a jumping off point.

They want to get started working on it like right away, like next week, and I had to explain that if I have to find money for it, getting the money is going to take a little bit of time. Especially for the pump, because it will be so expensive I will have to do a PCPP project for it and that usually takes like 4 months to get enough donations. Then another month or two to actually get the money. THEN we can dig the pump. Le sigh.

But the latrine I think we can start pretty quickly. I mean, they can at least dig the hole, even if we have to wait a bit to get the money to buy the concrete and whatnot.

They haven’t entirely given up the idea of the fish farm, though. So…we’ll see what happens with that. Drissa also said there are a bunch of wells that are broken, and we can definitely do something about that so I’m going to push to get started on that maybe while we are waiting for the money to come in for the pump.

Hey, look, I might actually get some projects done!! Fancy that.

I’m headed back to Bamako tomorrow to look over the aforementioned project proposals and also to meet with Chris about a potential Water & Sanitation video he has the idea to shoot. And I’m totally going to make nachos. Or SOMETHING I can put sour cream on. I haven’t had sour cream in ages.

I also cleared my February vacation plans with my homologue and my supervisor, and Haoua, so that’s ready to roll. Have I mentioned these plans before? I’m going to the Segou Music Festival aka “Le Festival Sur le Niger” Feb 3-7 and then hanging out for a day or two before it’s time to head to Senegal for WAIST. Then we are going to stay a few extra days in Senegal and do some touristy stuff before coming back and hitting Amy’s wedding. So I will finally start using some of my accrued vacation days. Haven’t even used one yet and I’m almost 14 months in.

Huzzah!