Mud Stoves

More mud stoves were made today with another group of women in a different part of town. How much of the session they really all took in was another story but hey its cool. At the womans house who I was working at they decided it was time to get out this noisy as hell contraption to take the dried kernals off of the corn. Which not only made it impossible to hear my already hard to understand french, due to an american accent, but also a lot of corn dust was being blown towards my group of women, we were about 4 feet away from where the men in the concession where using this machine. So it was loud and snowing corn debris. So heres the story, at around 9am I arrive and I had invited my french tutor, a friend of mine, to watch as its kind of a fun process, she was also there at exactly 9am. The woman whose house it is says to me lets start There arent any other women present, so I ask Where are your friends, shes says oh theyre late, but since you have other things to do we should start. And here is where my expirence working in Benin comes into play, I had actually blocked out the entire day for this project that in the states would have only taken about 3 hours to complete. So I explain this to the woman that I want at least 4 other women present to learn how to do this that was the deal and Im willing to wait for them to show up. So we wait at around 10am we get started, this is typical and I was expecting it. I mix the mud with the women and make their stove and explain while shouting over the kernal remover. There is a picture of me on my friends camera that shows me and the women mixing the mud with our feet, Im sure some of you are thinking, Melissa mixing mud with her bare feet, yea sounds about right. I make the stove and then they ask me some questions. Before it was decided that as payment, PCVs arent allowed to recieve money for the things we do, and I would feel absolutely terrible asking these women for money. So I said to them, as payment I would like to eat yam pilea with the women who I taught how to make the stove. Spending quality time with the women who I just helped. They all laughed at this and asked me what I really wanted, and were surprised when I was serious yes I really did want lunch. This is the equivilant of someone teaching you a technique that allows you to leave work 4 to 5 hours early and them asking in return for sandwich at the local deli. I stayed for lunch, and they wanted to make sure that they understood what I had told them so after lunch they made another mud stove right next to the one that was made that morning, its cool now the woman who lives there has two mud stoves, and they did a really good job. I was proud of them, yay improvment!!! Everytime I come to the completion of a project Im reminded that the time that Im spending here is worth while.