Last Presentation= Success

A groggy early morning was rewarded today with a very successful presentation. We arrived in time to organize and set up everything, then welcome people as we came in. Although we may have had a few French mistakes, the forgiveness of the people was overwhelmingly evident by their enthusiastic participation in discussion questions and demonstrations. Their deep, contagious laughter inspired many stories and memories. We learned a lot about their traditional (though not necessarily still practiced) cultural beliefs including:
-sacrificing people who are albino in order to have success in a coming election
-forbidding the burial of people with dwarfism (still practiced somewhat)
-men having special powers if they slept with a woman with a mental disorder
-people can become handicapped if they enter a certain village

It was very informative and animated--and it did not just stop at cultural discussions. At each workshop we have demonstrations and make people pretend to be handicapped in order to try several tasks we have found to be difficult for people in their situation. The entire group laughed and really took to heart what they experienced and saw. In fact, three people volunteered to take the model wood latrine seat to their villages in order to train one of their village artisans how to make them. This first push for action and volunteerism for helping the handicapped is really encouraging. To top it all off, the workshop participants created an action plan that is planned to be implemented throughout this year and next year. This action plan includes educating communities to be more receptive to the needs of people with disabilities, promoting technologies that fill their needs, and including people with disabilities in development committees. The long years of studying and researching are paying off!

To celebrate, we went to Dr. Norman's hotel, the Sleeping Camel, to eat pizza. We bid him a wonderful trip as he left today at 9:00 (our time).

Prayer requests: Sarah's beginning of a cold, the PROPHETE center to allow Dena to do research with them and provide people to continue it, Nate as he misses his wife and baby Lyla who is turning a month old in two days, and Collin as he is experiencing his first time in Africa