Call Me Michaelangelo

My masterpiece!

Returning to the issue of what my job actually is, this is something I’m still trying to figure out too. Now that I’m a “real” volunteer in theory I can start projects of my own. As I wrote before though, Ramadan isn’t the ideal time to do that and I still have to wait until my “Action Plan” meeting in October before I can begin writing grants or doing large scale projects. That gives me about two more months to finish my baseline survey and hammer out what my action plan will actually be (more on that in a few weeks, inshallah). To occupy my time, and not annoy any grumpy hungry people, I’ve started doing little things around Sare Sara to keep myself busy (and create the illusion – for myself and my village – that I’m not entirely useless).

A popular side project of many volunteers is to mural – yes, large and public paintings to both educate and entertain. Art isn’t exactly my forte, so I wasn’t keen to jump on the muraling bandwagon but after completing my first work of art I’m excited to paint the town red (and yellow, blue, green, orange…). My first mural, a map of Senegal at the nursery school, was a huge hit with my counterpart and the village leadership and I’ve been asked to do a few more, both at the school and the new Centre Polyvalent (more on this building later, it’s a beautiful newly opened training center in Sare Sara that I’m hoping to commandeer for my own projects).

I’ll be continuing to mural my heart out this week with more maps – one of the world and one of the African continent. Both of these are going to be significantly larger/more detailed than my first so wish me luck. Assuming these go well, I’ll move on to murals with an actual health focus in the hope of eliciting behavior change Inception-style. And they thought handwashing was their idea…

In a less covert effort to change behavior, I’m having my first baby weighing next weekend to give me an idea of nutrition problems within the village. Although the women’s group has asked me to address malnutrition, I’m interested to see how big of a problem it really is (the kids mostly look healthy to me, but what do I know). Here’s hoping my mamas actually show up and I can make this a monthly event!