Getting It Done in Barkedji

Sometimes when I talk about Barkedji, I feel like one of those proud parents who won't shut up about how amazing little Susie is. But, really, it's an awesome village. Look at these pictures of the new school garden and tell me they don't make you smile:







Apart from working with the teachers and director of the elementary school to write the grant that financed the garden, I really haven't done much to make this project happen. The teachers and students are there, planting and watering, every single day after school. They've already sold almost 20,000 CFA ($40) worth of lettuce! Yes, that's a lot here.

I was also really happy to hear that some villagers recently worked with USAID to start a health insurance program in the village. Two hundred families have already signed up at a cost of 2,000 CFA ($4). The program pays half of all medical bills at the Health Post in Barkedji or the hospital in Linguere. The man running the program said that now they want to encourage preventive health, and are looking for small financing to do a series of health talks.

The environmental club is also going well. It's pretty much to the point where it can function without me. Even though I'm in Linguere for our regional mosquito net distribution, the club organized a clean up of the site of the weekly market this morning. Look at these cute, eager environmental club kids and the lovely mudstove they recently built!:



There are enough smart, educated, motivated people in Barkedji that sometimes I allow myself to believe that if I come back in 5 or 10 years, things actually will be better. That despite the encroaching desert and the 90 meter water table and the lack of resources and the remoteness, life might still get a little easier. Maybe that's naive, but still, in my year in Barkedji I've seen enough small successes to give me hope. I look at people like my counterpart, Baba Sine, the quiet leader of the garden project who every day does everything he possibly can to make the school cleaner and more functional, or my host sister, Diama, who in the last 6 months has started a very successful juice business despite an unbelievable amount of housework, and I can't help but hope.