Rain on a tin roof makes a very loud noise

Rainy season is finally here again, just as the mangos have started to dwindle. Everything grows so fast here--I went down to Cotonou for a week-long workshop and when I came back all the previously brown and dying shrubs had somehow been replaced by thriving, green, knee-high vegetation! It was like the whole landscape changed overnight, like it took a really great (non-bucket) shower.

This has also meant a return to the fields for many villagers (some never really left off). Now instead of the gangs of men lounging around playing board games all day I seem them starting off into the "bush" early in the morning--wearing their worn work clothes and broad-rimmed straw hats, carrying machetes and hoes. For the women, who never stop working (and certainly do not play board games), this just means a new task to shoulder along with all the rest.


Lately I've been trying to start up what are called "Care Groups." This means selecting a group of Leader Mothers (about ten) and holding monthly meetings with them about certain topics like malaria, sanitation, or malnutrition. Then the Leader Mothers go out into the village to relay the same message to other mothers and report back at the next meeting. Our first real meeting was a few days ago, the women had a blast even though it hadn't gone exactly as I'd planned. I had wanted them to draw a community map to sort of envisage for themselves their village. They wanted to actually go house to house and talk about malaria (a topic we had discussed in a previous meeting [we, including me, sang a song for them in Lokpa!]). We went house to house. There were a few problems but, like I said, the women absolutely loved it. And as long as they do I have no problem at all with changing my plans around.