6am

Here is a woman in Kodawari admiring and explaining a compost pile to her friend. I love giving women knowledge here and then bringing in inexpirenced men who would like it and having the women explain it. Breaks gender roles down a little bit.

Here is a pictur of their garden, its hard to see beds but theyre there trust me you can see the women walking around tending to their gardens they were doing the general watering and weeding when i was there.

Well its 6am, time to get up and go to work, aka 6 months down, thats a forth of my service, it really has flown by.

There is a fine line that we as Peace Corps volunteers walk here its the line of wanting to be treated like a member of society here at the expense of the huge amount of respect we recieve when we do work here. For example when I was doing this last composting workshop when it got to the practice section of the meeting I, like any leader of an activity got right in there and started doing things as explaining them I grabbed a bunch of leaf litter, and then the womens eyes got really wide, no no melissa we can do that for you, as if my hands can get dirty. Anyone who knows me knows that dirt and I get along real well, during college I remember coming home from outdoor lab soaked, muddy, and knowing that my shoes wouldnt smell right for the next week because of the wetlands I had mucked through that afternoon but a big smile on my face thinking, wow I have the coolest labs EVER. This was probably a good indication that I was in the right classes. But to show me respect the women dont like me to do anything. I can accept their respect to a degree, afterall they would feel bad if I pushed the subject too hard. Theyre only showing how much they appreciate my spending time with them. But here theres a problem they treat me like this because Im american, white, have an education, and basically had a lot of opportunties that they didnt, but what I want is to show these women that I am no better or more intelligent than they are just because I went to school and got a degree doesnt mean that their knowledge of west african landscape and culture somehow is less substantial. I try very hard to make them feel that we are the same, they are just as worthy of respect as I am. This is not the only example Im sure other volunteers can relate when I say that I dont like the chair at all. When Im standing in a group, a professional group of people who I know and interact with everyday practically, we are in no sight of a chair and then someone realizes holy crap the white girl needs a chair, and runs inside grabs a chair pulls it back out and puts it in the middle of the circle, dusts it off and offers it to me. I think that this is borderline rude on their part. No Im not above standing, if I get tired Ill go sit but Im not, my white girl legs are strong enough to support my body for the next 10 minutes while you all stand around talking about the weather and the dust and other things that dont matter before you go back to work. Yea the chair is not something I enjoy.