6/7/14
Today was wow! The rain stopped and the area where the four new Batwa groups live is spectacularly beautiful.
They are in the beginning stages of the project, as we have only been working with them since January, as opposed to two years with the other groups. The theme of the day seemed to be the explanation of the symbol I have tattooed on my arm, which is a symbol from Ghana that means, “Help me and let me help you”. It is a perfect analogy of the work we are doing here.
We have begun building new houses and many people have leveled the ground in preparation for their new home. These groups have an enormous amount of land for cultivating and have begun to plant crops with seeds provided by Pilot Light, although they are not close to having planted all of the available land yet.
There are several VSLA groups, which are just getting started and learning the ropes, although one group is the rockstar of all groups and has saved almost ten times more than the other groups. However, in this same group, the adults look much cleaner and more well kept than other groups, but their children are not clean and are clearly malnourished. The Bishop discussed the idea of priorities with them and gave advice on how to deal with this problem. Malnutrition is an issue in places even where there is a lot of food when protein is not present in the diet. Beans are practically the only form of protein affordable to the extremely poor here. One group told us that their money box was stolen from the house of a widow where it was being kept. We advised them to store it in the future at the home of a member that has a new home, which is more secure.
We have been working on sanitation issues with them, including requiring them to put up drying racks for their kitchen utensils outside and building both latrines and kitchen outside of the main house.
In the first group we met today, the children are healthier than those in all of the other groups and this is primarily because that village has a school that is sponsored by our partner, AICM, which provides a nutritional porridge for them and also because the village is more grassy and not full of dust like many of them.
Tonight, we are enjoying an enormous, beautiful wedding at the hotel while we catch up on work and eat dinner.
