My Project is on the Web!

I've been checking Peace Corps' Web site every day, and I FINALLY saw my accounting project on it! I'm trying to raise $258 to hold a three-day accounting training for Association YIRIWASO, a women's tailoring school here in Segou.

YIRIWASO was founded in 1998 by Massey Cissoko, a woman tailor. Massey is an inspiration: she is a middle-aged single mother who is handicapped from polio. She can barely walk, but she has gone to school and trained herself in business and fashion, and now she runs this tailoring association. She is very smart, very dynamic, and very motivated. YIRIWASO takes in teenage girls and provides them with three years of "schooling." They learn how to dye fabric, make clothes, crochet, and embroider. She also works with local NGOs to give them three months of literacy training (most of the girls in this association didn't have much schooling, and therefore can't read or speak French).

I'm hoping to help Massey take her association to the next step, and provide these girls with the financial knowledge needed to become businesswomen (rather than just tailors). I've been working with Massey and Mama Traore (a trainer with Peace Corps) to plan this training. As Mama told me yesterday, these women are all entrepreneurs, but they do not yet think of themselves as such. He will try to convince them in three days that they are business entrepreneurs -- not just tailors -- and that learning and practicing good business/financial management is key to being successful. We hope to fill these girls with confidence that will help them become self-sufficient in the future.

(Mama meeting with Massey to discuss the training)

If you are interested in contributing to this project, please click on this link: https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=688-208& After the training, I plan to visit YIRIWASO weekly to help them practice accounting and make sure they fully understand it. I feel that this will help the project become more sustainable. We want to do this training ASAP, so I can maximise my follow-up time with the association. My goal is to work with the women every week for the next year, so that by the time I leave, Massey will be able to teach the new students accounting herself, as well as practice bookkeeping and savings for her association.

How Africa's Changed Me

Hi all! Well, I'm still working away over here. Thanks to all who replied to my e-mail about the women's tailoring school project -- I got the proposal completed and submitted it to our headquarters. I'll let you all know as soon as the project is up on the Peace Corps' Web site.

Well, I don't have much to write, but I thought I'd give you a glimpse of how being in Africa has changed me. And I'm not talking about epiphanies or revelations, but more unexpected changes and experiences that have occurred.

1) I now eat potatoes. LOTS and LOTS of 'em. I never thought I'd see the day that I'd wake up and say, "man, I could really go for some potatoes." (Although I still can't do mashed potatoes...I tried at Thanksgiving and it wasn't happening.)

2) Continuing with the food category, I also eat alfredo sauce. I admit I've tried fish heads, tongue and intestines, but I have not enjoyed those experiences!

3) Being proposed to by Malians is a daily occurence over here. However, the other day I received a marriage proposal.....from the wife! She asked me to become her husband's second wife. (She's one of the women I teach English to twice per week -- I've never even met her husband.)

4) I now consider plastic flip flops the perfect athletic shoe. I wear them hiking, biking...everywhere. I haven't worn close-toed shoes in over a year (save WAIST).

5) I am embarrassed to admit that I have become addicted to Desperate Housewives. I never even had the desire to watch five minutes of that show back in the States, but now I've seen every episode of the first two seasons. We're so addicted to it that my friend Danielle is getting Season 3 mailed over.

Well, I'm sure there are many more things I could add to the list, but as of now I'm out of ideas and time. I'll add to the list another time.