Our new friend, Teresa

Ruthie*- Monday has been probably the most fun day yet. Nate and I got to go into the village together and meet with the craft lady, Theresa. I met her on Saturday and learned that her sewing machine had been broken for months- maybe even close to a year. I told her that I would take a look at it and try and help her fix it. When Monday came I realized that I have no idea how to fix so Nate came with me. We met her at her shop (an old barn/shed) but her sewing machine was at her house, so she took us there. On our way to our house I was asking her about her family. She told us that she was kind of a widow. She had been married for 5 years when a war or something broke out. Her husband ended up fighting in the war and going down to Tanzania, but he never returned. She has no idea what happened to him- it was like he vanished. He may have been killed or found another wife along the way. She was then left with 2 children to raise by herself- she never remarried. She had a boy and a girl. The boy ended up passing away when he was a teenage from liver problems. Her daughter Linda is still alive and lives with her today. Linda has a little boy. Teresa is a very happy grandmother. She is such an amazing lady. Anyway, after looking at her machine from the 1940s we both realized we couldn’t fix it. But since we were there failing to fix it another man stopped by and fixed it! Even though we didn’t fix it ourselves she was grateful because we helped make it happen. I think she was also grateful that we cared enough to try. It was a good day Btw- On the way home we found the most amazing tree!
Nate* -This morning we dissected fingerlings (teenager fish) to find out how efficient the sex reversal process was. A sample of about a hundred fish are taken and preserved a month prior. We cut the fishes bellies open, pulled out their guts, and put their gonads on slides. The sexes of each sample fish is recorded in a notebook. There are mostly male (around 95%) with the remainder either female or intersex (both). The sex is found by looking for the presence of eggs within the gonads under a microscope. After this we drove around with Bryan looking for parts and manure for our biodigester. After lunch we dug a ditch for the biodigester with the help of a backhoe. After lunch I tagged along with Ruthie as she mentioned above. We spent the remainder of the day after this writing up curriculum on the computers.