What is Zach up to?

Another reason that I conspicuously contented right now is that my work has been enjoyable. I cannot say that it is going well, because I know by now to wait for it to be finished before making such a bold claim, but I will say that all possibilities seem open. Here are some things that will keep me overly busy:

-         Environmental clubs, one for each school with 20 students doing interactive science lessons and gardening will be starting in a week

-         Financing school gardens, Peace Corps does not give us a budget; instead they set up a system for us to ask our family and friends for help. I’ll tell you more about that when the time comes.

-         Financing and painting world maps, some Mauritanians think America is the country south of Senegal, although I bet some Americans think Mauritania is on Mars. At any rate, I am going to use the block painting technique to paint accurate maps of the world and Mauritania onto the walls in my schools.

-         Selling trees, my tree nursery project has succeeded so far, but if I do not sell the trees it will all be for nothing. I just need to find a woman in the market to sell them for my friends who grew them, inshallah.

-         Tree planting, separate of my other project I want to start a massive tree planting campaign around town. I was initially against this idea when I came to site because I was sure that it was bound for failure, but I think if it is supervised by the neighborhood chiefs and is the right price I think it could work. I also want to use it as an incentive to get more people to have experience with tree nurseries.

-         Fiddling with biogas, I will probably tinker with this until I leave and even after then I will still be thinking about it.

-         Trying to grow a copy of the Eden that is Cubalil, a small town/mango forest 9km from here. I could swear the place is in Burkina Faso not Mauritania.

-         English lessons, I am still promising people I will start doing them and still have not started.

-         Building one of these: http://www.dirtsurfer.com/en/products_int.asp?cat=1&subcat=3&id=1

-         Building a pool table

-         Continuing to learn guitar

-         Finding more things to put in a freezer and eat.

To name a few things.