Water in Africa Project

by Jamie Rhein on

In my post on bucket baths I mentioned the Water in Africa Project by World Wise Schools. For any of you who’ve done adventure travel or have been to remote places, you know what it’s like to have water be an issue. A faucet with clean running water is nirvana.

The Water in Africa Project is the result of a collaborative effort between 90 Peace Corps volunteers, K-12 classroom teachers and Coverdell World Wise School staff members and covers pretty much everything having to do with water in African countries. From what I understand after reading the homepage, the idea of the project came from one person who had enough excitement and vision to generate interest in the folks who could make the project happen. I’m impressed. Collaborative projects thrill me.

The project has lesson plans and resources to keep you reading for hours. If you want to find out about water born illness, water projects, water use, water anything, this is a terrific place to start. The site is one that also keeps being added to as teachers come up with new lessons they’ve created by using the website.

Happy Feet Indonesian Style

by Jamie Rhein on

Maybe it’s due to a throwback from my Peace Corps days, but I love this video. I’m also intrigued by the guy who made it. Happy Dance basically is a bunch of Indonesian kids dancing to jazz music, although, whoever directed and edited this captured the essence of bliss. This is charming with a capital C. According to KentClark3’s profile, he’s 87. I’m not sure if I believe him. I don’t know why, but maybe he is. Another intriguing detail about KentClark3 is that he also posts chapters of his novel on his blog, Jakarta Kid. The novel is a fictitious account of being an expat living in Jakarta. If you look at the photo of the boy in the blog and look at the video, see if the same boy plays the main character.

“Aaron In Africa” Shows Us the Real Togo

by Willy Volk on

When I first landed in Zambia to volunteer with the Peace Corps, my impressions were not at all in line with my expectations. For example, I expected to see lions romping through the bush. Didn’t happen. I expected I’d be celebrated as the Bringer Of All Good Things and Haver of So Many Unbelievably Wise Ideas. Yeah…that wasn’t so spot on, either. I also expected to be very active in the promulgating the so-called third goal of the Peace Corps: talking about your experience and bringing a little of your PC-life back home. I guess I do a measure of that here on Gadling, but nothing like Aaron.

You see, Aaron’s currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo. In addition to his work at the local school, he maintains a blog about his experience, and in this way he’s satisfying the third goal before he even returns home. Of all the third-goaling Aaron does, I particularly enjoyed reading about The Market (and watching the video); learning about the ritual of Greetings; hearing about Clean (?) Underwear; and, of course, learning about eating dog and cat. If you want to know what the “real Togo” is like, this is it. It don’t get no realer, folks.

Not too knock Aaron, but he seems to be living large, with a multi-room, cinderblock house, a sink, a propane stove, and more. That said, imagine trying to forge ahead with a computer center project for this school: