Everyday life.

We have this little dog that comes to visit us. I have affectionately named it flea. You can take a guess at why. So this little dog comes to visit us on a regular basis and yes quite often she sneaks inside. I have no idea why! We have been staying busy meeting all of the right people lately, in the hopes that something great will come out of it. Right now we are just happy to be received well. I think great things will happen it's just that it seems that not a lot is happening right now. I think we are having a tremendous impact on our community because we take these long walks (4-5 miles) out through town, which means hilly dirt paths dispersed between barely standing houses. The reception that we receive is incredible. People literally run out of their houses to say hello or at least get a glimpse of the Lakoa (Englishman or white person). It is our understanding that most people have seen a Lakoa. We get that but, what is unique is that we are walking past there house which is most often a tiny shack in the middle of the African desert and to go one step further we are genuinely happy to see them and greet them happily. Whether or not this means anything, you be the judge, but the smiles on the faces that I see are priceless.

My assignment consists of working at a Pre-school inorder to build up the administration to better serve the needs of those children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS... It is a long story and I am still figuring it out my self. I have a pretty good idea of what I am doing here. It is just a matter of sorting out the most important ideas. Literally there are a hundred of ideas running through my head everyday. Some of the best are support groups for youth (already started), community movie nights, the use of drama clubs to influence teen behavior, buisness plan workshops, mens softball club, male circumcision education, and talks about drug and alcohol abuse. All of these have some way of reducing or preventing the transmission of HIV/AIDs. It wouldn't seem like it but any of these simple ideas are quite large steps for this community and would take a considerable amount of community support to even get started. I certainly have my work cut out for me. Lindsey will have to talk about what she is doing, but I can tell you that she is looking into a big brothers big sisters program for Mmadinare. For right now we are happy to be intigrating into the community and I think our presence alone is helping to change the minds of some of the people here in Mmadinare.

The garden was planted this weekend! Tomatoes, eggplant, chili pepper, green beans, broccoli, and beets. We also put down a few flower beds in front of the house for wildflowers. Right know all I can think about is keeping the neigbors chickens out long enough for things to sprout up. I find myself dreaming about it in the early morning and then at the first sound of baby chicks I am up and out of bed like a flash to check out the window and make sure those damn chicks aren't eating all of my seeds.

I hope you like the pictures. Mark