M'piebougoula

Greeetings all,

 

I'm off to visit my permanent site for the first time in about half hour. The name of my village is M'piedougou.  Don't bother trying to research it b/c the internet is unaware of its existance.  It's just a small farming village in the far south of Mali with a population of 700.  There's a slightly bigger town 2 k's down the road called Mena. M'piedougou is part of the Mena commune. That's where I can go to a market and buy some essentials. Finally, the nearest town with a bank is 23 k's away.  That is Kolondieba which is the main town in the Kolondieba Circle... Mali is broken down into 8 regions, each region has X amount of circles, each circle has X amount of communes, and each commune has X amount of villages. So my region is Sikasso,my circle is Kolondieba, my commune is Mena, and my village is M'piedougou. Here's a site and map about the Mena commune: http://travelingluck.com/Africa/Mali/Mali+%28general%29/_2453518_M%C3%A9na.html#local_map  I got to meet my counterpart... (every volunteer works with a counterpart from his/her village)  My counterpart's name is Sitapha Sangare. He's married with 8 kids and is a farmer and a literacy agent.  He does not speak any English and he will be my main point person for all the work I'll be doing over the next 2 years.  Obviously we can't communicate all that well just yet but he seems like a good guy with a genuine interest in improving his village.  I've been told that to begin with I should build a relation with the local women's association in M'piedougou and try to help them start a community garden as well as help them find secondary sources of income. Other environmenta projects that the village wants to work on are bee keeping, fish farming, and starting a Moringa tree nursery.  Moringa trees are incredible nutricious and have a wide range of uses.  Of course, none of that is set in stone and as I get to know my site better over the next coouple months I might end up doing completely different projects, so I'm excited to get started.  Well, that's all for now.  Talk to you soon.

 

 

Peace and Love

 

Rege