Moringa

So there's this group of women who I've begun to work with. A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer has worked with them in the past many times and has been successful. There was no reason to think that working with this group of women would be a problem. I met with them the first time. I told the leader of the group to find a few other women, minimum of a group of 3, if she wanted to start a project with me. She said that she had found some women who wanted to meet with me. When I arrive at her concession there are only 2 other women besides herself. She did meet the requirement of at least 3 but I was really hoping for 5 to 8 women. I said at least 3 no more than 10. I hid my slight dissapointment and began talking to the women. I explained the projects that I had been trained to teach. From these they chose to do Moringa with me.
For those who don't know Moringa is a plant that has protien rich leaves. This helps battle malnutrition. Protien is expensive to come by and it's much easier to cook starch and sauce than it is to add a meat option. Also vitamins and minerals are present in moringa that aren't in the basic foods (tomatos onions and starch... yea that's it). I was really excited to start growing Moringa with my tiny group of women. They had expressed interest in making powder from the leaves and selling it in the market (they came up with this idea all on their own).
So during this first meeting we chose a second day to meet, the next time I wanted them to collect this certain type of plastic bag that was good for starting plants out in. They are everywhere. This is not a difficult task. I found 5 on my 10 minute walk to the market one day. And I wasn't even looking very hard. When the day to meet came around I went to the womens concession (They all live together) and they were ready on time, relatively. But they forgot their bags. Of course. So instead of combining a meeting on nutrition and planting I just had a meeting about planting. We then chose a different day to meet to plant the Moringa. I go back on that day, and I wait. I wait some more. They then tell me they have to pray (Ok not a problem, but every other time I've met with you, you havent' had to do this) I look at my watch I have to get to the market before a certain time to buy fish, the fish vendors don't stay open all day. I can't sit here and wait forever. I explain to the woman if she doesn't get her crap together in 15 minutes I'm leaving. Then she tells me that she sent a child to look for a member of the group. The child comes back and says that the woman is in the market. The other two women look at me and say 'Well we're here, why don't you just teach us.' I explain that they are a group and need to work together. They are also only a group of 3 women who live in the same place. They all chose the time of the meeting, when one out of three women isn't present than I'm not effectively distributing knowledge. I pack up my stuff and basically tell them to pull it together.
The next time I go they make me wait again for 45 minutes after having a discussion about being on time. Then because they changed the time of the meeting to during their nap time so that they would all be there, they're all tired. At one point the leader put her head in my lap and said 'Oh Melissa, I'm so tired.' The meeting itself only took 40 minutes to get the bags together (Only one woman had collected) with dirt and a seed in each. It was still entirely frusterating that it takes so much effort to get ONLY THREE women together to put seeds into plastic bags filled with dirt. Seriously ladies? In the states this would have only taken one, two meetings only 30 minutes long tops. But here...... grr..... The lack of time management skills, and enthusiasm and just an attitude of 'taking it seriously' makes me wonder sometimes how anything gets done in this country.

Cat update: She's preggers all right. Ready to pop any day now.
Intestinal update: Food poisoning and ameobas at the same time. Not fun. But generally on the mend.