Visit of the LAP with Stephanie and Lucile
Together with Stephanie (Swiss) and Lucile (French), we spent 3 days of the past week at the LAP. Stephanie is a manager in a company implementing electrical outlets for electrical cars and Lucile is an agronomy engineer.
This was a great opportunity for them to exchange with the students.
Students and teachers school year 2019-2020
It was very informative and the questions of the students were not what we expected. It went from topics on religion to marriage, passing by questions on washing machines, why electrical cars, fetishes in Europe, ….
They also spent sometime with the girls teaching them how to make bracelets with wool. A big success.
Stephanie and Lucile in front of the 6th year class
Stephanie and Lucile in the middle of the girls making bracelets
“Palabre” at the village of Nefrelaye
The purpose of the visit was to discuss the economical projects in the village: beekeeping, credits, gardening and cashew nut trees.
They are very enthusiastic about the beekeeping project, specially the women and they are asking us for more hives. For the credits , the women were late to finalize their reimbursement, some of the women did not pay back. Fortunately they did during our visit. For the men they are late but for 4 years. With them it is always the same story. The chief took some of the cash given to pay back the loans and the chief is just saying that he does not know anything about it. They agreed to come to our office in 10 days to sort out the situation.
Men and women at the meeting
The gardening project is working well. Each of the 61 women in the project is making up to 75 euro per year in vegetables sale and they keep some for their own kitchen.
The problem is the amount of water available which makes that only half of the planned surface can be exploited. Thanks to a generous donor we will be able to add a water well with downhole pump powered by solar panels to complete the project.
As for the cashew nut trees some of the farmers have 100% success rate from the new planted grafted trees, some have 0%!!! The main difference is the care the farmer puts in planting and maintaining the trees. At a certain point there was along period without rain after the trees were planted. Some farmers watered their trees, others not.
Lucile and Stephanie listening to the discussion and looking at the many children
Nature pictures
Proverbs of the week
Anyone who thinks strongly is scandalous.
Honoré de Balzac
Everything goes wrong when patience is lacking.
Bonne semaine à tous,
Hervé