So recently I had an epiphany. They don’t come to me very often so I always welcome them when they do. It all started when I got a text from my friend Marta Grabowski. She’s about to celebrate her birthday and was coming through Aleg on the way to Boghe. I was excited because usually, the Cancossa girls go straight through Aleg. It’s not like there’s a lot to see here anyway. Back to the point.

She dropped me a note asking if she could stop by Taiba and teach people how to make sun dried tomatoes. I was like, “you can make sun dried tomatoes here?” She’s like “Of course, silly.” I blame my stupidity on the fact that I come from Minnesota, a state where there’s approximately 100 sunny day’s a year.  So of course, I am like “Bismillah!”

I am so excited.

So I submitted a proposal to GAD. A organization that funds gender development programs and projects. They work closely with the Peace Corps. My friend Marta and I said that we wanted to teach one women’s co-op and one GMC how to dry fruit so they were able to preserve fruits long after the gardening season ends. We’re linking a demonstration on nutrition and seed collecting to encourage healthy dieting and vegetable production.

Peace Corps seemed to approve of my proposal right away. I received a message from my APCD, my boss, saying that I’ll be getting 6,850 Ouguiya, just about $28 dollars.

However, the day after I received another message from my APCD saying that there’s no more GAD funding and I won’t be able to submit any more proposals until September or even January. Which I think is really sad, since in the course of 24 hours I thought of five more projects that all cost under $30 that would really help the woman’s co-ops in my town, the girls at the GMC, and other gardeners. I was like how did we run out of funding in March?

The money came from a program initiated by the Bush Administration to empower women and young girls. It strives to help them learn life lessons: the importance of education, the benefits of speaking a second language, and the simplicity of technology. The Girls Mentoring Center, GMC’s established recently throughout the country receives funding from this development program. They are one of the few Peace Corps programs in Mauritania that receive financial backing. The rest of us are all a little jealous. Yet, they welcome project proposals from other sectors: Health, Ag/Fo, English Ed., Environmental Ed., and SED. So many other volunteers, myself included, receive funding from them.

So, I guess I have to say thank you to President Bush for believing that breakthrough’s in health and education can be met by teaching women and young girls. Since women are the food labors in a country that produces 10% of their fruits and vegetables teaching woman’s co-ops how to preserve food is vital to this countries health and security. People who’re able to purchase fruit’s, vegetables, and meat are considered, “middle class”. What happens to the rest?

When I mentioned this to my mother, she asked me if the fruit would be protected from the flies. I thought this was a really easy problem to solve because here, women use mulafa’s for everything, including fencing. So, the fruit will be protected from the flies. I guess there are a few good things that come from six yards of fabric.

So my project will be tomorrow. Wish me luck. J

Ava

~ by avalambrecht on March 26, 2009.