Email #9 "Happy New Year!!! Bonne Annee!!!"
Hello all! I hope the new year is starting off well for all of you. Things are a bit crazy for me here, as I'm sitting in for my regional boss who's in the states for the holidays. All it really means is overlooking the regional house, paying bills, paying the guardiens and the cleaning lady and making sure there's toilet paper and all that good stuff. But then there are the little things that just happen in Africa. One of our courtyard sheep is sick. Another was tied up near an outdoor spicket, and by accident his rope caught around the faucet part and tore it out of the wall. Water everywhere. it's not like you just call the emergency water company hotline.

On top of my fun new chores, I'm waiting for funding for a latrine project that hasn't come through because in the project plan, we don't state how we will monitor the finished latrines to prove that people are using them and keeping them clean to prove this to be a sustainable project. Come on, now. These people don't want to shit in the bushes on the side of the road anymore, or arrange a time when they can go use one of the ten existing latrines in the village. They want their own. They will use the latrines because, if there is nothing else for certain about thier lives, they WILL shit every day until they die. It amazes me that I should be able to do so much in two years, but just can't seem to get anything done, and it all feels like a big conspiracy to keep the African down. But that's just my two cents.

Christmas and New Year's went off without too many hitches. Small, simple gatherings of friends, so it was nice, but all of you were missed. I'm overwhelmed with the idea that I've been here for a few weeks short of a year and that it's gone so quickly.... and that it will continue to go quickly. We have a new group of volunteers coming in late January, and I will be helping out for three weeks of their three month training. Then my parents are coming for two weeks. Then a whole group of volunteers is leaving, fifteen of the coolest people. And once the latrine money comes in, things will be insane. Wow.

I have to go now, I've been here forever already.

I'd like to hear from all of you, and I'll be at this email address until the 11th of January. Please just put my name in the subject line!

Happy New Year. Good wishes, good blessings, good will be with you all!

Love, Erin