Our million star hotel !

So I was out of touch for a while since we went out into the bush. We took a 5 hour 4x4 drive into the NE (i think) of the country to a place called Bani Bangou. Road was actually not to bad, all things considered. Out there, we went several times to a little mud hut village called Soumat to spend some time checking out the development projects that Samaritans Purse has there. They are building bio-sand water filters and linking it with education. so we went to the village three times, once to see the molds and cement being made for the filter casements, once to look in on the general hygiene education being taught by a local lady, and once to see them cement molds emerge after curing. What great technology to give them, the guft of clean, easy, non breaking down water sources.

The men building the filters


Rows of completed filters


A thirst for life- clean water!!


We also went to a project sponsored by SP as well as Unicef and World Food Programme. It is a nutrition program for malnourished children where they offer hygiene and education, weight and height measurements, a doctors visit and rations of CSB (Corn soy blend) that is highly nutritious for the child. they track them and watch them grow over the months. I hung out there all morning and watched the process and talked with the workers.

The women learning healthy food preperation


A young child being weighed in the Nutrition program


Then at night we slept outside under the stars. Who wants to stay in a 5 star hotel when you can bee under the entire heavens of stars. great views, but a little noisy with all the dog,donkey,goats,calls to prayer and drums going on at all hours of the night.Yes dont worry, we had mosquito netting. Only drawback was they only had electricity for a few hours a day, and thus you never had cold b(or even cool) water, which when its 45 degrees, is a major must in my opinion.

Here is the coordinates of where we were:
Bani bangou main tiny town:
N 15°2'4.85"
E 2°42'13.97"

Tiny village of Soumat
N 14°57'1.73"
E 2°43'1.13"