World Bank

Started training in two villages in OCT, Seronga and Beetsha. I headed to Beetsha ith TaTa, Shylock, and Jing. It was interesting. I wrapped up and meet the chief, who spoke no English. Then we meet a large group from World Bank that are working in the area as well. They were getting ready to hold a community meeting so we attended as well. The whole point of this meeting was for the world bank to let pople know that they are working at ways to combat elephants. The two proposed ideas seem a bit farfetched if you ask us but hey they are the supposed experts. First they want people to start to grow chili's in order to make chili bombs which they will light at night to keep the animals away. This seems like a cool idea until you realize the inverstment it will take to make chili production work. Then add to that the idea of asking people to grind chili's into powder and mix it with dung and petrol. Oh yeah, then light it on fire. Hmmm.....seems a bit wrong. Secondly, they want to train German Shepards to guard the crops at night. Yeah. Really. You should see the condition of most dogs here, there is not one change that this will work.

Anyways, several of us made good contacts for the future. Shylock says that he will angle for a job in the future with them. Even if we think there program is rubbish we still want to work with them or get money from them. LOL.

During the translator training in the village school let out, and all of the students were starting intently. That seems to happen here a lot. White folks stick out like a sore thumb. It has made surveys a bit hard. In our last village we did not have enough women volunteers to help, so Jessica nad i worked with two men. Everywhere we went people would say comments, and while I never asked exactly what we being said it was pretty obvious. Hanging out with a white girl huh. Snicker. Snicker. No need to have that translated. It fits in to the universal language of mockery.