Bonjour!

I am trying to remember the French I learned in college and haven't spoken since (10 years) as I'm in francophone West Africa, which is mostly former French colonies.  Last week I was in Mali, and this week I am in Senegal.  I've been traveling through the Millennium Villages, which is the project Tyson loaned me to work on with Millennium Promise (a United Nations Development Program agency founded by Dr. Jeffrey Sachs).  I made the comment to a friend that I love Africa because you come here and take everything that you believe is standard and shake it up well like the hokie pokie, and then all that you have left is "what it's all about".  Needs and wants are so easily confused in the Western world, but here, where people are struggling to survive, it's clear what needs really are when you don't have food, water, medicine, health care and hope.

I received a marriage proposal to be the 4th wife of a Malian man.  I realize how blessed I am because I have options that allow me to say no to that request.  Many women here, however, do not have that luxury because they have never been to school a day in their life, so they have no income-generating skills and no ability to be independent.  They are reliant upon a man, regardless of how he treats them.  There are blessings in our lives that we don't recognize because we consider them standard, but comparatively speaking, these are the greatest gifts in our lives:  having a free education, clean drinking water, electricity, enough food to eat, having trash collectors come every week to our homes…

I'm here helping these villagers develop viable business enterprises so that they can generate an income.  I'm helping them evaluate the possibilities of poultry, fishing, animal feed production, dairy milk production, livestock, rice, gum arabic, aloe gum, onions, mangoes and jetropha (biodiesel) businesses.

I'm just going to go on record saying that the Sahara Desert is the most miserably hot pit of despair I've ever seen.  I don't think I'll ever get all the sand out of my shoes, and if I ever experience 105 degrees at 4 a.m. again I'll cry.  And why the heck don't they have air conditioning????   I realize they can't afford it, but that's a crime against humanity.  That kind of heat is oppressive and wrenching.

Other interesting facts:  camels run fast when they think the car is going to hit them, but goats, cows and donkeys don't move fast regardless of who is coming down the road about to hit them.  Zebu meat with baobab and hibiscus is oddly very delicious, although 14 days ago I didn't know what any of that was.  Cholera still exists.  There are more flies in Senegal than there are people and trees put together (I'm guessing, but I'm fairly certain that is an understatement).  West Africans believe me when I tell them my sunburn is because I'm allergic to flies.  Sour Patch Kids candy keeps remarkably well even in gazillion-degree weather (never leave home without candy).  The different outlets here need the exact right adapter, or else they make sparks, blowing up your hair dryer and really messing up your pacemaker.

I'm attaching some pictures so you can see a bit of my current trip.  I'm about to lose internet connection, which I have had only rarely on this trip.  I have been having withdrawals from my very serious addiction to connectivity with email and cell phone services completely unavailable to me here.  It's teaching me how to actually have conversations with people, since I can't be on email. 

Let me know if you have questions.  I'll answer when I can get internet connections again.

Be good to the world.

Jenise

------------------------
Jenise Huffman
Tyson Foods, Inc.