Louly

My group was made up of the coolest members that was possible.  Deneb, Alphonse, Aissatou, Cisco, and David.  Our first stop was the ecovillage of Louly.  We left in a station wagon packed with people and a lot of stuff.  We drove 2 hours only stopping to buy bread and Laughing cow cheese.  The drive wasn't bad.  There was so many things to see, from people, to animals, to trees, and even the villages.  We arrived sometime in the afternoon and got out of the car to many chickens and goats just roaming around.  There were a lot of huts around and children running around without clothing.  They stared but seemed too scared to approach me and Deneb.  We met Doudou who is the president of the village.  he welcomed us and helped us get settled into our new rooms.  

 We learned that there are actually 5 loulys and so the village we went to was really called Louly Ngogom.  It  is a small village of a population of 629 hard working and social people.  The people depend heavily on each other and on selling things that they buy, or that they grow through the rainy season to live day to day.  There are about 13 wells dug around the village, to make water readily accessible to them and a water pump was installed to make watering the many gardens easier.  This village is also blessed with many Baobab trees that bear a lot of fruit to sell and eat, which is nothing but a profit for them. 

This Village has been given loans from SEM since 2004 and they are always paid back and successful.  These villagers are also always grateful for the help and happy when representatives return.  There was a large number of people that came to the meetings we held.  Alphonse explained everything in Serere which is their native language and they were really happy.  For some of the villagers it was the first time that they truly understood why these students where in their village.  

Because these people were so used to getting these loans they pretty much already knew what they wanted.  One man was trying to talk the villagers into solar panals, but they were too expensive for the amount of electricity he wanted to run on them.  By the end of the day they decided on three potential loans, peanut seeds, buying and selling of small animals, and buying and selling of grains and seeds.    Since this isn’t our village it was important to let the villagers decide which two loan they wanted, and help them in that right direction.

After a night thinking about the loans, the villagers decided to pick the small business, and give the loan to a group of women, and animal rearing, which was going to a group of men.  They picked these two because the rainy season is not coming for some time, with no guarantees of plentiful crop to sell and pay back the loan.  Instead they hope that they will be able to earn enough profit to pay back the loan and buy the seeds for the growing season.  

With all the projects done and the paper work filled out me and Deneb went exploring while the others lounged around.  We didn't have to walk long or far to find this huge  baobab tree.  Of course we took a lot of pictures with it but we were just amazed by the size and how little you feel standing next to it.  We then wandered a bit further to find another tree that had a huge hole in it.  

When we came back to the village there were people with tom toms and a huge circle made by benches and chairs.  there were already children dancing in the middle.  As the sun went down the older women shooed the younger kids to their seats and danced.  They also made all of us dance which i have to admit was a little embarrassing because i cannot compare to how graceful they can dance around.  All too soon the music stopped because it was getting late.  We ate a quick dinner and then had to go to bed because we had to get up early to leave Louly and catch the ferry to Mbam.  I am going to miss Louly it was so much fun