Weather's been ridiculous around here. One day it's winter, the next day it's spring. We've never had snow on the ground for a seven-day streak. Kind of sad. We're supposed to be the Great White North.
Maaaaan, I ain't got nothing interesting to talk about except for Africa. You guys are probably getting sick of it.
I ran out of water purifier partway through the rotation. My Project Leader said we needed to prepare to drink 1-2 litres of water per day, and recommended we bring two kits. Yeah, well, I drank 5-6 liters per day, and a few times worked up to nine. So I ran out, and bought purifier from Sirakorola.
They were official Aquatabs. Each tab purified 20 litres, which was perfect, because we used those 20 litre jugs. A strip of ten tabs cost 100 francs.
To put that into perspective, one Canadian dollar is 400 francs. I got two strips. That means, I purchased 400 litres of water for 50 cents. Didn't even make the water taste bad or anything.
It was so cheap, even the subsistence villagers could afford it. Hell, if you want to buy a soft drink, it's 250 francs. How can Aquatabs possibly be making a profit on this?!
One of the Sirakorola tailors was Italian. Can you imagine that? Being like, "I'm middle-class around here, but if I moved to a subsistence village in Africa and changed my money to the local currency, I'd be rich, and while I can't live on my skill here, it's in-demand over there" and then you actually DO it?! I respect anyone who can make a decision like that. Honestly, the village Malians had a higher quality of life than we Canadians do. They're way happier. But making a decision like that just isn't something that happens very often.
Here's more African children.
This girl's name is Mama. Some Canadians told me tha all mothers are called "mama" and that it's not a name, it's a title. But I really, really think they're wrong, because this girl was definitely named Mama, and she definitely wasn't a mother. She confused me at the beginning, because she'd do the cousinage bit, making fun of my name, but I thought she was in my family. Turns out though, she was just some kid who hung out with us constantly. She was practically a member of the family, so I've included her. Picture quality isn't that great, but I love the fist pose. I don't know who the baby is.
The one on the left is Mariam, and the one on the right is Nyaduku. All the Canadians thought that Nyaduku was "Unreal" in how cute she was. She was a fan-favourite among the Canadians, in the same way that Mariko was. It's true, she was really, really cute. Mariam was more shy, and followed Nyaduku's lead, but then she'd get jealous of her. I never really figured how out how to deal with that. I tried to draw attention to her more, but she was always too scared to play any of the games that the other children wanted to play.
This is Kafrinae. She thought that my hideous straw farmer's hat, with the giant fleural buckle, was beautfiul. Whenever the children were carrying my stuff home (yeah, they would wait for me to finish work, and then want to carry my stuff) she would always want to be the one to wear my hat. To avoid conflict over who got to carry my bag, I would have each child carry one item, to the point that I would bring extra stuff so there was enough for everyone. I'd have one kid wearing one work glove, another kid wearing the other, and usually Kafrinae wearing my hat. She would spin around while wearing it and pretend that she was going to steal it. When I left, I really, really wanted to give her my hat, but the way the gifts were distributed, there was no possible way that I could do that without looking like I was committing MASSIVE favouritism. So I didn't.
This is Salief, the yooungest of the three eldest male children. He looks really sinister in this photo, but he was a really sweet kid. Some people called him Zangei, and some people would tell me to call him Zangei. But some people called him Salief, and tell me to call him Salief. He told me to call him Salief, so that's what I went with. He was a little warrior kid, always shouting battle cries. He'd always want to carry my heaviest item after work.
This is Konima. He's one of the three youngest male children. I don't know if he's younger or older than Nene or Budjuh. Something about him makes me think he'll be athletic. He'll be one of those guys who goes to the soccer field every day.
Maybe Aquatabs makes stuff to sell in first-world companies; the profit from that subsidizes what they sell in Mali and other countries. And they probably write off those sales as charity or whatever, so it lowers their taxes. Otherwise yeah, I'm not sure if it would be possible to make those purifying tablets for less than they sell them for.
ReplyDeleteYeah, somebody else offered that theory, that they're sold as a charity-type thing. Makes sense.
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