THANK YOU a thousand times over to those who donated to my clinic renovations! We finally raised all the money and in a few weeks when it gets to my account, we will start the work. My community is going to be ecstatic!
On another work related note, I recently had a health dance in the community. The women have a traditional dance here called the tora-tora. For a couple months now, I've been trying to plan a day to have the tora-tora and have my women's group teach the other women about nutrition and safe drinking water. We had to delay a few times, but finally had the event. I'd say about 200 women and girls came out to dance and we stopped about an hour in to teach them about nutrition. It was a bit chaotic, but the women from the group split up and each talked to a small group of women, using the nutrition handout I made for them as a guide to teach about nutrition. They also talked about the importance of drinking the borehole water over the dam water. Before the event, the women made me promise to dance, so I agreed of course. I dance the tora-tora for about 10 minutes and then they made me stop because I "must be tired". At the end though, they had a session where everyone got in a circle and one person at a time would go in to dance. They made me dance there too, and everyone loved it. Then I made my counterpart dance too (he never dances) and they loved it again. It was a very successful event and I hope to do it again sometime.
Other than that, I've added a fridge to my collection of electronics. I now have ice cold water at my house everyday :). If I put the plastic bottle against the back of the fridge it will even freeze! And, my vegetables last much longer and the lovely things sent from home that are supposed to be refrigerated, like maple syrup and mayonnaise packets, now won't spoil.
Lastly, I've been told to put an updated list of requests for things in packages, so here goes:
pasta sides
freeze dried meals
canned chicken
bacon
cheese packets
parmesan cheese
seasoning packets (like chili seasoning and those things)
maple syrup
cookies
chocolate
candy
Things not to send:
mayonnaise packets (they're good, but I have plenty)
canned chicken or tuna salad (plain chicken and tuna are great, but the canned salads aren't so great)
As always, I miss everyone at home and hope you are all doing well. Thanks again for donating to my clinic project and for all the packages I've received.
