Its now Sunday, June 03, 2007

Boura is still wonderful. We were commenting today how much it looks like home: the red soil, the water of the barrage (a dam that holds in a lake, and is used to irrigate rice fields here, as well as other crops), the green green green everywheres, the wind, and the decent temperatures the past two days (as in, down to 26 at night, which is pleasant).

We had been told about goats before we came, but not about donkeys. Donkeys are everywhere. AND (this is important)… Who needs a watch when you have a donkey? Yes, its true (kind of, at least). Story has it that donkeys will brey (or whatever the word for donkey noises is) every hour, on the hour. (Donkey noises need another story, namely that it sounds like the rustiest and squeakiest gate you’ve ever heard being pulled open and shut repeatedly… almost a terrible noise, except that we find it hilarious). And its almost true: we’ve been listening, and every time we hear them, we check the time. Our donkey isn’t so accurate, but it will reliably be either 10 minutes to the hour, or 10 minutes after, which is kind of impressive.

We have yet to get a single mosquito bite: we were promised some a few nights ago, and did put on bug spray, but there were none around, and we haven’t put on any since. We are insisting that we be taken some place with mosquitos soon, as we are starting to a) think everyone is lying about the existance of them, and b) worry that there being no mosquitos can’t be good news considering a food chain relies pretty heavily on them.

The past few days in Boura have been spent doing random things around the BoH area here. We’ve fed and washed babies at the orphanage, helped with planting in the garden a bit, wandered on my own and gawked at the beautifulness of it, played in the ‘sprinkler’ that results when the water pump is turned on to water the garden, and just generally chatted with folks, which is really fun. Friday we sat in on a grade one class at the school run by BoH here, which was interesting. I had forgot how we must have learned to read, it was neat to see that again. That afternoon we talked with Pascaline and Jonas and Joshua (who work for BoH and have been our main contact people so far) trying to further work out what they are actually looking for in terms of our project work here. Though its taken some time, we think we’ve got it mostly worked out: we’ve got two main projects. The first is to look at schools in the province, and figure out if BoH can do anything (beyond what it already is) to help with schooling here. Right now, they are sponsoring some students to go to school, are running a private school (with very minimal fees, as compared to public school fees), and are also supporting schools in helping provide lunches for kids and with school supplies. The second is a little less clear, and involves working with NGO’s, and seems to be so that BoH can understand what they are doing and how they might work together. It seems like interesting work, and we’re both looking forward to it a lot!