Vacation Time:)

I am really happy right now because in less than 48 hours my brother's plane will touch down in Conakry to begin a 3 week visit. I have a lot of things planned for us to do, but no real order they are going to be done in. All i know is that he definitely needs at least a full two days in my tiny village to see what life is like outside of the city. I'm also really happy because last night i recieved a message from a good friend back in jacksonville who i hadnt heard from at ALL since i left 10 months ago. i was so confused why she hadnt been talking to me, but her letter made me feel a lot better. OHHHH and i have to give a BIG thanks to my dad, from whom i recieved TWO packages on this last mail run full of pouch chicken and goldfish and reeces, basically my three foods i miss the most here! I LOVE YOU DAD!!! Work wise things have been really good in the last 2 weeks since ive written. i had 2 visitors right in a row, thanks Jess and Nick! While jess was in my village we hiked out with a friend from my village an hour out into the woods to a field that i helped an old lady clear a couple months ago and plant peanuts. It is now harvest time, so jess and i sat on the ground with the old woman, some of her grandkids and my village friend all day picking the peanuts off the stem. the old lady wouldnt let us leave until she had filled up a huge bag with peanuts for us to take in thanks for our work. it is really neat eating something that you have grown since the beginning! The next day jess and i worked with my reforestation group planting trees for a few hours, but since it is ramadaan here (guinea is a mostly muslim nation) the men were hungry and didnt have that much energy so we didnt do our usual 4 hours of planting. when nick came with the mail run (which is the car jess took to leave my village) we talked a lot about his sector, small business development, and how i could apply it to a couple of my projects here. i met with a man from Faranah (a town north of my village) who wanted to start a business with motorcycle taxis, but didnt know where to begin. i realized what a big factor budgeting is, and how little most people here are taught about basic funds management and saving. my eventual goal with that particular man is to begin a Village Savings and Loan, commonly referred to as VSL's here. im pretty excited about it but it will take a while to get off the ground (as do most things in my line of work here). I also recruited Nick to help me transplant my Moringa seedlings from my tree nursury next to my house, to a space we cleared in front of my village health center. We planted 42 seedlings in a big square, and next rainy season, when they are larger and stronger, i am going to make a live fence out of them, and make beds on the inside where i will plant more moringa to be used like a garden vegetable. I dont remember if ive talked about moringa before in my blog, but it is an amazing tree. the health benefits of eating the leaves and pods are enormous. It is full of protein, vitamin c, calcium, vitamin a etc. you can eat the leaves in an omelette, as a tea, you can dry them and make them into a powder to use as a nutritional suppliment etc. my goal is to have enough on hand to give a bag of leaves or powder to every expecting mother and any underweight and/or malnurished child that comes into the health center. it is such an easy way to really enrich the health of my village and im really excited about it. if you want to know more, google moringa. it is amazing.

soooo, it is really exciting that soon, because my brother is bringing me a new camera and you will finally get more pictures on this blog, so stay tuned haha:)

OHHH i forgot to say THANK YOU soooo much to kristin and matt for the awesome pictures yall sent me in your package. that was great!!! pictures mean so much to me here, so those along with the ones Aunt Marian sent me (THANKS!!!) from the wedding make the walls of my hut a lot more homey. i love yall!!! pics coming soon!!!