Akim is Over

Sorry for the lack of posts. Internet has been unbelievably shotty ever since rainy season started. This, combined with the fact that I have to rely on the parish priest's desktop to get to the www makes my ability to communicate to the outside world quite difficult.

There has been an uproar of response sent my way from my last post, which I greatly appreciate. Most of the response has been positive, some negative, but the best were ones which challenged me to give examples of how to solve the problem that I have outlined. I have done some research and come up with a couple of different organizations who seem to be doing foreign aid in the correct way; through the goal of eradicating the need for the aid itself. www.Kiva.org, and www.appropriateprojects.com are two extremely good examples, and I will continue to post any other company's that I've seen doing good things around where I live.

As far as site goes: It's all happening! I am stuck trying to figure out what to write about exactly, because it's been so long since my last post substantive about happenings here in Ngora. We set up a weather station at my favorite primary school, continued communication to America with my 4th grade class, I've started teaching the teachers geography (they didn't like that the students were starting to know more than them, so now I'm backing off and teaching the teachers and letting them tell it to their kids), The tree seeds donated by trees4thefuture have been potted and the water well has been dug, fenced, and started to be used for construction (in the meantime, we are trying to appeal to the district for a borehole, checking the water, and trying to put in place a solid water committee to look after the well's maintenance). I am starting to build boomerangs out of scrap wood for kids here, in a continued effort on learning of geography (where is Australia? What is Australia?) and also a way for them to more easily hunt down the mangoes that are ripening on the trees. The biggest project right now is the Hammock business that has been started up; put your name on the list now, and you could be the first person state-side to own your very own, locally designed, high quality, unbreakable rip-stop hammock. All funds are going towards the continued education of the members of the group. More to come on this.

I was able to keep fairly updated on the NCAA tournament, although looking back I'm not sure why I made the effort. I heard that the final was possibly the ugliest national championship game in televised history, so it makes me feel a bit better that I wasn't able to see it. UNC made it further than Dook did, and lost only when they faced the best freshman money could buy...so I'll take that and look forward to next year's domination (granted that Barnes does in fact decide to stick around).

Thank you all for the packages that keep coming in. There was one in particular, which consisted of a pound of velveeta cheese, two thick crusted pizza crusts, tomato sauce...I could go on...which was not only beneficial to me, but to the entire parish.

Until next time,
Opolot