Patches

Our clothes, like our time in Peace Corps, are winding down to the bare threads. Instead of buyng new clothes that will get destroyed in the pila (stone washing basin) just like the rest, we are just patching and waiting until we get back to buy new togs. Luckily, our neighbors have a ton of women in the house, which means a ton of cortes in the house, which means a ton of corte scraps… which make really pretty patches.

Remember our budy Anne? She got on her hometown news this week for a really cool side projects she’s doing in her site: getting them an ambulance. You can check out the video of her news clip here-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cKtlc9YZbc

One of our other Peace Corps buddies, Charlotte, is in town visiting us. She’s working on a latrine project in her town, which is gutsy since she is a Municipal Development program, but their training does not include how to build infrastructure. She saw the need in her town, applied for the grant, and then her mason bailed on her. So we’re going through the materials list and I wrote her a spreadsheet to calculate costs. Sometime in a few weeks, I will be going to her site to teach a construction class. We don’t need no darn masons!

Today we’re going to go hiking up the other side of the moutain, in part to see the pretty scenery, in part to visit a really remote family that doesn’t have electricity or running water. They want to participate in a project we’ll be starting soon, and I forgot a number when I measured their house several months back.

Here she is, eating Ambassadorial Brownies with Emily.