2pm

My loyal readers, I'm on the downward slope of my time here. You may ask what have I been doing in the last two hours of my Peace Corps day. The answer, not a whole lot. I've been having to travel quite a bit and that doesn't lend itself to making a whole lot of head way on projects. But I did visit my morgina ladies and the morgina seems to be coming along quite nicely. Each woman in the group has a plant and they are growing their own moringa in their own concessions. They also have started moringa in their tree nursery with the hopes of selling the seedlings for profit. Good for them! These are also the same women who approached me about funding a motorized pump.
I'm not sure if I've told this story but it's on-going, so to those who haven't really been keeping up with it, here it is. And for those who know, a re-cap:

I went to the head of a womens group and asked about a new project she said that she wanted to start doing morgina. So I get her set up. Then she asks me if I would want to fund a project for their group. I've done morgina and mud stoves with her before and I wouldn't mind funding a project with her as she has shown me that she sees more than just dollar signs when she sees my face. She wants a motorized water pump that goes from an open water sources (think large puddle) to her tree nursery. I tell her I'll think about it. I decide that a pump is actually within my spectrum of Peace Corps, but that a hand pump would be sustainable and that a motorized pump she would have to buy gas for. I then find out from another source that she already has a motorized pump, that's broken. She wants to fix this other pump. Now this motorized pump idea has reached a new level of unsustainability. She had one and it broke and now she doesn't want to spend her money to fix it but would rather just ask the development organization for a new one. This also raises questions, how did the pump break? Why haven't you fixed it? Why can't you continue to do what you've been doing while this pump has been broken for years and save your money to buy a new one or fix the old one? If you can't save the money for this motorized pump will you be able to afford the gas for a new one? If the new one breaks will you be able to fix it? This was adding up to be something that I couldn't in my right mind support. I thought a simple hand pump would be better. I was also willing to give them a workshop on how it works and how to fix it cheeply if it breaks. This would be something that they could afford within their price range and it would be easier to fix AND they wouldn't have to put gas into every time they wanted to use it, all they would have to do is find a kid to pump it. So I go to this woman and explain why I feel this project isn't something that my organization can fund. Peace Corps promotes sustainable development and this is clearly unsustainable. She tells me to speak to my supervisor, just to make sure. Ok fine, I tell her. I speak to my supervisor and he agrees this just isn't good. I sugguest a hand pump to the woman and she shoots me down. So now where we are in this story, she doesn't want a hand pump, she still wants a motorized pump and will probably find another organization to pay for it. She's a smart lady, she'll find someone who wants to give away money to make her life a little easier for a little while.