Not bad for government work...

I was told by someone who reads my blog, "I have a suggestion, less text more photos." So, here are some pictures and descriptions of the work I have been doing over the last 2 and a half years.

The Tongo School Project

The Tongo School focuses on sustainable design and environmentally friendly building techniques. Cement is the main building material used in most Malian schools. Because cement is not produced in Mali, it must be shipped in from Cote d'Ivoire by truck, which makes cement a very expensive component of the budget. By using a technique called compressed earth bricks, the amount of cement utilized in the Tongo School project is less than 25% of the average school. We have also incorporated an innovative rainwater harvesting system into the design, which during the rainy season, will be able to collect as much as 4200 gallons of water to be used for garden irrigation during the dry/hot season. This project has taken over two years to get funded but is finally underway and should be completed by the time we leave Mali. We have partnered with an NGO called BuildOn to help with fundraising and overall supervision of the project.

The Cinzana School Garden Project Part 1

The Cinzana School Garden project was my attempt to incorporate every sector of Peace Corps in one project. I acquired a piece of land, put up a fence, cleaned and repaired a well, rebuilt a pump, and purchased seeds and gardening materials. (That took me over a year) The children are responsible for every aspect of the garden from planting and harvesting, to selling the produce at the local market. It will allow them to learn new agricultural techniques as well as standard business techniques and mathematics. My hope is that the health of the students will also be improved by making fruits and vegetables available all year round.

The Cinzana School Garden Project Part 2

Pumps are a blessing and a curse. They make the act of getting water from a well much easier, but they break very often and are expensive to repair. Many good wells sit unused because the pumps can't be fixed by the village. The problem is that they require routine maintenance and care that aren't provided on a local level. If a pump is used properly it could last for many many years. However, the people of Mali are not gentle people and when they grab a well handle they start slamming that thing up and down like it stole something from them. I truly believe they think the harder they pump the faster the water will come out. So, inevitably the pumps break and they return to the wells with their ropes and pulleys.

The Cinzana School Maps Project

Maps are the default projects of volunteers.

Cinzana Water Sanitation Project - Wash Station 1

This is a wash area in the middle of my village. The women of Cinzana like to gather several times a day and wash dishes while they gossip about the village. Before this wash area the water would collect in puddles in the street and breed mosquitoes and other diseases. The wash area now drains into an underground pit that lets the water soak back into the soil.

This is my homologue(work partner) Adama trying to prove to me that he's still a young man. Behind him, you see the young men digging the area that will become the soak pit where the water run-off will soak back into the soil.