Community Entry

This week was our community entry, we started off by going to Sahakpalulgu, which is Chance and Sheila’s community. The women were friendly and welcomed us into their community. We then went to Naprisi, which is Lewis and Bismark’s community, the women were dancing and laughing so it seems like a nice community to be in which is good. After that it was Kukuo, this is Molly and Hamdia’s community, the women only spoke a little and just mainly agreed with what was said. 

Next was Jana, Nasiha and Natty’s community, their Chief seemed pretty cool but the women did not speak much. After was Manguli, this is Dan and Selorm’s community, the group of women seemed to be very small we were not sure if that was because of the lack of people turning up or if it was just a small group. 

Finally, was mine and Ridwan’s community, save the best till last, Balshei. The women were so friendly and seemed very enthusiastic to get started, they told us that they were happy to see me and Ridwan as excited to get started as we are. The Chief was cool as well and seemed very eager for us to look at their rice production and see how we can help, so he sent us through to look, I got a few photos and a video which will really help us later on to refer back to. The community is very beautiful as well it’s just full of greenery and these amazing views! We got a pretty cool group
photo in the grass. All in all, the women seemed really friendly and welcoming and eager to get started with the new cohort.

Emily and Ridwan with the women of Balshei

On the Tuesday night it was meant to be a “Fire Festival” so Lewis, Natty and I went to meet everyone at the office to watch from a safe distance, but then it absolutely poured down with rain, it was thunder and lightning and storming for so long. Luckily when we got to the office the caretaker was sat in our office and invited us in so we went in there to hide from the rain. 

Finally, the rain stopped so we pelted home before it started again. In the end the fire festival did go on but just at like 11pm and we were all flat out by then so missed it completely. Massive let down.

Overall, this week has actually been pretty good and went by really fast which is a change from last week. Looking forward to next week and doing the training with our communities and getting to know them some more.