Food delivered to Teyiss

I received an email from Darey along with some pictures from when the NGO RAIN delivered food to his village, Teyiss.

This year has been tough for the people of Niger. Not only has there been famine for the people, but their animals have been dying from starvation. Animals mean everything to Wodaabe people - they spend their lives caring for their herds of cattle, which are then passed down to the next generation. This year Darey's family lost 1/3 of their herd.



The remaining animals aren't doing so hot, either but Darey says they are slowly recovering now that the rains have come.


The bad thing about rainy season is that mosquitoes multiply and people contract malaria. This is especially dangerous for kids, and the problem is compounded when the kids are malnourished.


The people of RAIN have started meeting with the people of Teyiss to see what their needs are and to figure out how to start working with them.


They also brought them 12 sacks of millet and 8 bottles of vegetable oil. Wow! (Darey's the guy in the orange with the gray turban)


Click here to donate some money to RAIN and continue helping the people of Niger.

Farm fun

Today's been a long day. I did a lot of things:

My mom and I went to her friend's house, a guy who keeps a really nice little farm, even on our poor, sandy Grayling soil.



I got to pet his friendly chicken...


And we played with his nice little dog, Princess.


He cut us some collard greens...


Dug up red potatoes...


And gave us some corn. We had a great time!


Tonight my mom, our friend Cathy and I processed the collard greens. It took forever. We washed, sliced, blanched and packaged them into freezer bags.


Also today we visited my friends Patrick and Abbey's house to pick up some sourdough bread starter. Patrick made his own starter using the wild yeast found on blueberries. Right now we have some dough made and it's hanging out in the fridge until tomorrow morning, when we'll bake it.

I helped Cathy scrape paint off her garage today, as well. And we repaired the Boy Scout tent poles (replaced the worn-out elastic that holds the poles together).

So yeah, it was a great, busy day. I love long weekend days because that makes the weekend seem longer.