My Hen Wilma Traore Laid an Egg

I bought a chicken about two weeks ago, because in my town eggs are more expensive compared to other towns, because all the eggs sold are brought in from other towns. I wanted to have local eggs and encourage others to do the same. Unfortunately my new hen has only laid one egg. There are a lot of other chickens in my concession that roam around looking for food, I feed mine three times a day, but she's battling with the others to get the food and I do not think it is enough. Very soon I am going to build a chicken coop dreamhouse, 2nd floor for roosting, sleeping, and egg laying; bottom floor caged off for a private dining room so she doesn't have to compete with the ladies to get her fair share.

Wilma Traore (not her best angle)

The Mango Rains

One pair of glasses broke, lost my prescription sunglasses in Segou during the Music Festival, and I have been using my old glasses from home for the past few months. Until today, I received my new glasses provided by Peace Corps. They're nice considering I picked them out from black & white photos. I didn't get my first choice, which was a pair of purple frames, but maybe thats a good thing.
I have been to two more villages to meet with women's associations that work with shea and I am getting very excited. All the women I have met have been so welcoming and now I have like 5 host families. I visit each town about once a week, unless I have to pass through one village to get to another. The farthest village, so far at least, is about 33km away, but my work counterpart says I still need to visit another a little bit farther away. Hopefully I will get there sometime next week. I always travel with an entourage the first time to make proper introductions with the president of the association and to know the way to get to these villages.
One village has so many roads and paths last time I went I was lost in the "bushes" for like 30 minutes. I took one path and it became too rocky, I knew it wasn't the right path, took another it became too narrow for me to ride my bike, took another and the path ended, took another and I was in someone's front yard, took another, and I was on the outer edge of a crop field, path ended again. I eventually found my way another way than the first and second time that I traveled to this village, but the trip was good, and it gave me a good story to tell once I arrived. I spent most of the day at the shea grinding machine and at my host families for lunch they served me to (malian dish made with powdered millet) with ocra and fish sauce. In the afternoon we sat under a large mango tree near the shea machine, ka ton sigi ke, to have a meeting. All the women of the group meet once a month to pay their dues, which is 100 cfa (20 cents) a month, to put into an account. They were collecting fees from women that had not finished paying for months in 2010, so they could catch up on their records which the president keeps in a small notebook. Everyone speaks in Menianka (?spelling) another language than Bambara, the one I am studying. It is kind of a bummer, but occassionally the women translate for me and speak to me in Bambara, but some will speak to me in Menianka knowing full well I don't understand so I just speak to them in English and they eventually switch to Bambara.
Well after spending the full day in village I took off back to my town to make it back before sunset. On the way I got great news, I am going to Ghana in April for a Global Shea Conference! Cannot wait to see all that can be done with shea and how I can get these women associatons to benefit from my attendance. Plus Accra, Ghana! Also it rained, ok sprinkled on the bike ride back and it was wonderful. It smelled like fresh soil and made me think of my mom. The time we were in a van taxi in Mexico on a dirt road and she said she liked the smell or taste of dirt. Love you mom.