What am I doing in Africa? Well, technically I am supposed to be helping the promotion of small business development in the town that I am living in, Natitingou. I was assigned to work with the Artisan Association of Natitingou in helping the find solutions to their everyday problems, also for the first three months that I was in country I was trained to offer classes in accounting, book keeping, marketing, and business analysis, in other words I am supposed to be a business consultant to artisans and small business owners of my town. But really they just ask me for money, since I am coming from the States and I have nice things they automatically think that I am rich and have money to give away. So I started finding my own projects. Now I am working with an NGO that helps poor kids go to school and buy school books and materials. Africa is a poor place but these people are so poor that their school is made of mud and cow shit bricks that are falling apart, school has no electricity, no bathrooms, no water, dark and dirty. These kids cannot afford the 4 dollars needed to buy school books for the entire school year. So what we do is that we pay for their books and they pay us back throughout the school year in monthly installments of about .50 cents. Than the money we collect will be used for school books and material next year, still some families find it hard to put in .50 cents a months, so far with the help of my parents and out of my own miserable wage we are able to send some kids to school and buy them books,. It also feels like your making a difference in this fucked up world and that is a priceless feeling.

My second project here is working for the handicap association of my town. By far these are the most ambitious and the smartest people that I have worked with since I arrived in Africa. For the last three years the president of the handicap association has been working on starting a little company and factory that will produce clean drinking water and flavored water. At first I was hesitant to work with them because I thought that they wanted money like everybody else, but they made it clear that they wanted my advice and ideas. After about three months I saw that these people were serious and this project has great potential. We started thinking of ways to set up this business, Peace Corps paid for us to go halfway to another part of the country to see a similar project. Within a couple of weeks we had a clear idea and we were on our way. We found an old abandoned cargo container that was flipped, so we set up a concrete base, got a tractor trailer to turn it over and place it on the base, cleaned it out, then we customized the container by cutting out window and doors. This saved us money since it was much cheaper than building a whole new building.

We have cleaned up the inside and installed a freezer, as of today we are employing on handicap person, who sales ice, cold water, flavored water. MORE TO COME...

Other projects include teaching English to the artisans of my town and forming an English and Spanish club with the local high school. Some Peace Corps friends and I also work with the local orphanage, for Christmas we bought them a big fat pig, rice, vegetables, clothing, my mom sent a bunch of small gifts for the children and we spent the 26 of December playing with the orphans. We are also working on getting a doctor to come and see the kids, because these poor children suffer from simple aiglments that can be cured. It is really heart breaking to see these poor inocent kids who have been abondaned by their families due to AIDS, abusive husbands or just do not have the means of feeding another mouth.