The future is our country

The Spaniard that lives in our village, Luis, had members of his NGO called ‘The future is our country’ come down for a visit.  It was great to meet them and talk about the work they’re planning on doing in our village.  We’re starting to work together, although we’re not sure what it will shape up to be.  They have something we, as Peace Corps do not, money, a car, and actual resources.  However, we have something they do not, we can (kind of), speak mandinka and have an elementary understanding of our village and the people in it.

I did get the chance to suit up and go bee keeping in our village with Luis and two Gambians. Ben couldn’t come because the extra suit they had was too small for him. But I am still the height of an average man here in Gambia, as well as in Texas, so the suit fit me just fine.  We went to 3 hives and got half a huge trash can full of honey! I got to take some fresh honey in the comb home with me too.  Bee keeping in village was a bit different than at training; It was quite intense out in the African bush, and slightly an adrenaline rush.  Seeing the extremely full hives, extracting the honey, and then processing it ourselves was really cool.  And the honey tastes amazing, which makes it all worth it!  The wax we saved for baiting our future hive, and I am also going to teach the women how to make soap with it that they can sell.

Processing the honey

Our honey that we processed ourselves

Our honey is on the left; standard bush honey is on the right.