May Day!

Well after celebrating May Day (which apparently is an international holiday celebrated everywhere but America), it is now officially May, which means Malaria Month is over.  So what have I been doing to keep my mind off all those delicious mangoes I'm allergic to?

- teaching my university English classes about malaria and the parasite's life cycle.  Imagine trying to explain red blood cells to low level English speakers.  Luckily I had a biology major in my class who assured everyone that our blood is in fact made up of billions of tiny cells.  It was also great to see how many of my university students were already really knowledgable and passionate about malaria's impact on their community.

- painting a malaria mural at a local health center with my site mates.  Considering our complete lack of talent, it came out pretty good.

I only covered three of my five shirts with paint while doing this, so it was a success?

- having a public information stand to celebrate World Malaria Day.  We set up an info booth right outside the university with posters and music and invited people to come talk to us about malaria in their community.  An interesting mix of people came, from young girls on their way home from school who giggled and gave us flowers to put in our hair to health workers who wanted to give their 2-cents on the distribution campaign.  We even got a visit from Population Services International, who is funding the distribution campaign.

But just because it's May does not malaria is done.  In fact, since the rainy season has just begun, the disease is just gearing up for its onslaught again.  The bed net distribution campaign that I talked about in another blog post has gotten pushed back to later in May, so there are still a lot of 'sensibilizations' (basically public trainings and mass PSA type events) and preparation work to do for that.  

Some activities I have coming up in the future are:

- the start of the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) course at the national agricultural school, funded by the Small Project Assistance fund, that Conde and I will be leading.  We will be teaching over 40 students and professors in a several month-long course in this new method of rice cultivation, working with them to create a demonstration plot that compares SRI with current cultivation practices.  Other PCVs have done this and seen over a 70% increase in yields! 

- a second year of cashew reforestation with Green Hand Action.  We will be working in collaboration with my Master Farmer to plant another 5 hectares of cashew and train some of the local cashew planter associations.  Both my Master Farmer and GHA members just attended a cashew training we hosted in Kankan, so they have lots of information to share.

- planning for Faso Demen's seed bank.  I'm currently in the process of applying for a grant to start a seed bank with my gardening groupement, Faso Demen.  This will provide them with cheaper seeds at more appropriate times of the year and encourage them to save their own seed.  Seed conservation is great because it means they don't have to buy new seed each year and, by choosing seed from the best plants each year, the bank's stock of seed will gradually become more and more adapted to our climate. This project involves a lot of trust between the groupement members as they will be sharing seeds with each other, so takes a lot of planning and politicking on my and Conde's part.

Faso Demen's fancy new logo

Now I'm off to go continue waiting and praying for the rains to come.  When its over 110 each day, every little gray cloud in the sky gives you hope.

Listening to Weezy and praying fo' drizzle