I'm spending some time in Bamako right now, to help out with the planning of the training of the new volunteers that are coming in July, then I will be going to play in a soccer match between the Mali and Mauritania volunteers in Mauritania - a nice trip sponsored by the Peace Corps as a part of the plan as the Deputy Director comes to Mali for a visit.While being in Bamako and having a lot of free time on my hands, I thought I would take a little time to update the Blog. I don't have too much to say right now, and I only have a few new pictures to share, but I should be able to update it more often now.
In terms of news of Mali, all I can say is that things are still moving along very slowly, but moving nonetheless. Here are the updates:
- Radio Station / Resource Center : The antenna has finally arrived and there have not been any problems with money recently. The library was movied into the meeting room (4m. x 6m.) and has been very popular with the kids (since the last location was hot and dirty). The thing that the community is waiting for is for the consultant to show up with the equipment and complete the installation. Then - as I have told the radio group from the beginning - the real work starts.
- Adult Literacy Program : The class with women I originally started is still going strong and we are in the process of expanding the program to include more of the many intersted men and women in Tene. We have been given the old (hot and dirty) library building to use as a classroom to use as the Literacy Center, I just hope it isn't as disagreeable to adults as it was for the kids. We hope to have about 60 students in the program and 2 or 3 teachers.
- Tree Nursery : The training of the workers took place at the end of March and was successful up to this point. They are reaching the end of their "trial planting procedure" and are hopefully going to be prepared to sell some seedlings by the middle of the rainy season.
All in all, I have been happy with the results of these projects, but they just take much longer than expected. In the meantime, I have still been reading and writing, trying to catch up on current events with my two-month-old Newsweeks. I just got back from a vacation in Greece, which I will talk about in more detail soon (hopefully with pictures).
