This month one of my main focuses has been solidifying a group of women interested in working together to have a source of income. There are ten very dedicated women now making shampoo weekly. In the last month they have made and sold over 250 bottles of shampoo! They have made aloe and chamomile shampoos and just this last week tried out basil/lemon. We are selling individual bottles as well as half-dozen and dozens to stores locally. The expenses are pretty minor so each woman takes home about 4 dollars a week for about 2 hours of work: a pretty good chunk of change around here. The best part is seeing them motivated and excited about the work. Plus, seeing as I'm an environmental education volunteer, we are using recycled bottles that we disinfect very well, which means that we are also helping clean up the area and creating some awareness - wherever the women go they are always on the lookout for bottles. On Wednesday some of the women and I visited another community to see a fish project they have going and between the few of us we collected some 30-odd bottles.
One of the neat things about Peace Corps is that yes, I am teaching people here new ideas and trying to animate them to do things, but I am also learning as well. I have been doing a lot of business planning in regards to this shampoo project and learning how to teach others about finances and keeping track of things. I was handling all of the money, the purchasing, the distribution, and what not, and slowly I am handing it over to the council of three in the group. The president will soon be running our weekly meetings, the treasurer is learning about costs and earnings, and the secretary is keeping track of how many bottles each woman is selling and local businesses that we have sold to and need to check in on in a few weeks. It is neat to see the transitions.
In other projects, I have not encountered such a fantastic attitude. Recently it has come to our attention that a need in the community is a meeting space. We currently have a casa comunal (communal house), but it has no electricity or running water, no chairs, and leaks when it rains (every day). In other words, it isn't functioning. And now that I have a regular youth group, two regular women's groups, and an eco-club, we really need a space aside from the church to hold meetings. Plus, I like to encourage neutrality and separation of church activities and other activities, and that is hard to encourage when we only have the church to use for meetings. And there are at least three other groups in the community that could take advantage of a space as well. In meeting with the town council to discuss this issue (I made us meet in the current communal house in the evening and told the members to bring a flashlight and an umbrella), I essentially got a "no" from the president. It seems that it is too much work for him to consider and that he's going to just end up spending a lot from his own pocket. Everyone keeps telling me that he was a bad choice for the president and that he's not going to get anything done, but no one else wanted to do it. So with some help from Nubia I think we're going to start talking with the mayor and see if there is any way to get started and then go back to the council president to tell him, "Hey look, we started it. Now can you help us?" I'll keep you updated.
There is plenty more going on around here - I am quite busy - there just isn't enough space to talk about it all. Plus, some of it is pretty boring. Also, I've posted a few pictures on Facebook. If you're on Facebook, check them out.
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