Photo essay

These pictures are of my life.
1. (dancing woman) A month and a half ago, the bigger town 15K from me celebrated International Women's Day. Part of the festivities included dancing by a couple dance troupes. By dance troupes I mean groups of mothers, all wearing the same fabric, dancing to traditional bariba drumming. It was beautiful, or at least it was for the first hour. By the third hour of drumming, I had a slight headache.

2. (woman walking in a field of onions) The women's garden is currently producing lettuce, peppers, African leafy greens, and as you can see, onions.

3. (Me with three women) This is me with some of the women from the garden. Right now I'm working with them to get a new water pump. Currently everything is watered morning and evening with water drawn from a well and watered by hand. This takes some time. With a new water pump, they would be able to cultivate twice as much land, therefore making twice as much profit, without having to put in twice as much work. For women who are working all day - getting water, cooking, getting firewood, chopping firewood, selling food in the market, taking care of their children, taking care of their neighbor's children, and serving their husbands - finding ways to do things more quickly is important.

4. (me sweeping) This photo explains a couple of important aspects of my life:
a. Now that the windy season is over, I no longer have to do what I'm doing in this picture every two hours, because the wind isn't blowing ungodly amounts of dust into my house. Instead, its now the hot season. And it is HOT. The temperature itself isn't necessarily impressive (95 - 105 F), but the duration is. Its hot from morning to night. In a place with no electricity, it means that there's no escape. No fans, no AC, no cold water, no iced tea, no otter pops, no cold water to shower with. The heat is inescapable. But as I'm learning, it isn't unbearable.
b. When I'm done grading quizzes, tired of reading, and tired of trying to understand Bariba, this is something I might end up doing for fun: taking pictures of myself.