Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner - one in every pot?

We were quite pleased to see the progress of a new project in Senegal

In the pursuit of helping develop resources for our friends in the Keur Soce area of Senegal, West Africa, we like to bring new things to the table. 

This year we have already started several new building projects.  We are delighted with the growth in many areas.  Specifically, a new Health Post is well underway in Sama Toucouleur, and according to our surveys, this health post will eventually serve a population of up to 4,000 people!

This is along with full slate of projects such as new wells, new major market gardens, school construction, a training center, latrines, sports facilities, and nutrition systems.

Chicken for Everyone ...

One of the outstanding programs on this trip was to see the success of our Chicken and Poultry program.  This was a further step in helping the local citizens improve their financial condition and emerge from poverty.  

We have a staff member, Massamba, who carried out the plan and was able to procure 570 chicks.  We also arranged for proper chicken coops to be built for nine groups of (mostly) ladies who can raise the chickens in their neighborhoods.  This enables them to keep an eye on things, as opposed to having chickens unattended at the gardens.

Imagine our surprise to see how truly successful this project has worked out in a short time (maybe "surprise" is not the right word, but many projects take a lot of time - and adjustments - to come to fruition!). 

The chicken coops are in full operation and there are hundreds of healthy fat chickens being sold to the locals.  This is a big step because previously they had to go out of town to buy chickens to eat.  The nearest place to buy a plump live chicken to eat used to be 30 kilometers away. 

And the ladies are really enthusiastic about this program.  It is opening their eyes to what can be achieved with a little help, hard work, and determination.   And it is very rewarding for us at Andando to see the advance in quality-of-life and living conditions.

Along with selling produce and fruit from the market gardens, these local ladies and families are beginning to see some real income from their efforts.  We hope to see this development process continue.

It wouldn't be a proper blog post without some humor

So we were returning from the remote villages to the big city of Dakar and wanted to bring along a couple of these plump chickens and a large basket of produce from the gardens.  The produce was easy, they have an abundance of fresh vegetables.

But how do we get two plump chickens all the way to Dakar, which is a five or six hour drive through the 100 degree scorching sun?   There was no way we could freeze them on short notice, so we decided to bring them alive.  

This provided a dilemma - how to transport them.  There was a suggestion made that we tie their legs together and strap them to the side of the pick up truck.  HA HA HA!  

Wait, they were not laughing ... Seriously?  Drive along with chickens hanging off the side?  That would be a real hillbilly experience, zooming down the road with feathers flying and chickens flopping.  At first I thought it was a joke!  But they actually talked strategy on how to do this.  

No, the chickens would die for sure in the heat, and they would pound against the truck, and what if we stop for lunch, someone might steal them ... we actually had a conversation about this.  

Common sense prevailed and we found a large cardboard box and poked a bunch of holes in it and brought them all the way to Dakar and they lived through it - only to wind up as dinner tonight!