It's been so long...

The internet has been down in Kandi, and soooo slow in Parakou that it's made a blog post impossible!

Well, not much new news from us, David's hand is healing, work is picking up for me, Ryan's heading down to Porto-Novo for another in service training, and it hasn't rained since October.

It's been hard to find fruits and vegetables in village lately since we're heading into the hottest part of the year. Even the onions and tomatos aren't looking so hot (when they're there...) and besides those, there's nothing else by way of vegetables...It's mango season though and we're enjoying grafted mangoes when we get the chance. These are the kind that you get back in the States. The ungrafted ones taste good, but are really stringy and not very fun to eat. The grafted though...mmmm... they are soft and smooth and warm and creamy, it's pretty much like eating mango custard.

Anyway, so I came up to Kandi, and just 30km up the road, they have eggs, cabbage, carrots, potatos, waggasi (a cheese sort of like tofu consistency) and toffee! I stocked up at the market and will be heading back to village tomorrow to eat my bounty.

Other than eating, and thinking of eating, we had a fun visit from Elliot last week, and Ivy came up for a visit too . Hopefully she'll post some of the pictures we took around village for all to see. Peuhl farmers y'all. I made their day by saying "Hello!" in Peuhl, this was just the wedge in the door we needed for an impromptu photo shoot. Ivy and some Peuhl men. Peuhl man and cow. Ivy, Peuhl man and cow. Sweet!

I started the care group in a nearby village on Wednesday and I think it was a good start. 7 out of 10 moms were there for the first meeting. They each have 14 moms to check in with, so 154 moms are getting health information in their very own homes! We're going back in two weeks to do our first health lesson about complimentary foods for when you start weaning your child.

On an unrelated, but interesting note, when we arrived we stopped by the "Care center" (which is a small building with a pharmacy and 2 beds to care for sick people run by someone appointed by the head of our health center) and visited a Bariba teenager who had been stabbed with a machete by a Peuhl teenager. While we were there, the head of the village went to the Peuhl encampment and retrieved the Pehul teen on his moto. They brought him back to the village and then loaded the hurt teen up into a truck and drove them the 7k back to my village to turn him over to the Gendarm (police). When I asked the health worker what had transpired, he said the Peuhl teen was on drugs. I asked, "Which drugs?" and he said, "From Nigeria!" Well! Of course, right?!

So thanks for reading! I wish we could update more regularly, but it's just not possible, and with power and internet cuts up in Kandi because of the hot season. More soon!