World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 - (Page 29)

“I would like to buy a bed for me and my children. We would like to pay the school bills with no problem. I would like to eat three meals a day.” going rates],” Shey says. “They have a culture of sharing.” Projects like this one, although tiny compared to the scope of the problems, provide a small way forward. They begin the process of healing the land and provide a livelihood to the people who depend on it. The goals Femmes Ambitieuses identified for the project are practical and straightforward: to begin raising animals; to secure a year-round water source for their village; to start a dressmaking workshop for income; to purchase a grinding mill for their community; to help restore the soil through agroforestry; and to build a meeting hall for the group to use, instead of the large tree under which they currently gather. Individually, participants’ goals are more immediate and more modest. Some seem reluctant to speak about the future at all, looking down in silence when asked about their plans. When asked about her hopes for the project, Mme. Mederbeh shows a visitor her sleeping platform, constructed out of sticks, with a blanket stuffed with cotton for a mattress. “After working with Heifer for some years, I hope I can change this bed,” she says. As you can see, my house is made of mud Two other members of the project, Kaimey and Kokoltam Seinei, a married couple in their early 30s with five children, live in a compound near Mme. Mederbeh. They farm a small piece of land they inherited from his father, as well as one they bought outright. Their crop yields this year are as poor as Mme. Mederbeh’s: one and one-half bags of millet, as compared to eight bags last year. Kaimey Seinei, her husband and their ﬁ ve children will receive several sheep as part of a new Heifer project. Like Mme. Mederbeh, the Seineis have a small herd of sheep and two goats to sell for income in emergencies. Kokoltam Seinei, wearing a forestgreen suit jacket and pants with no shirt, collects the high branches of the vederbia trees for fodder, using a long stick with a wire hook on the end. During a break from his chores, he takes out a traditional instrument called the gandjaval—an L-shaped guitar with four strings—and plays a tune while the women in the courtyard sing. After some time, the Seineis begin to speak more openly about their hopes for the project. Before farming fulltime, Kokoltam Seinei had a business selling small items at market , which he had to abandon because the crops have been so poor. He hopes to save enough money to buy a motorbike and a table to begin his business again. Also, he is a builder by trade, and he wants to make a more permanent home for his family. “As you can see, my house is made of mud,” he says to a visitor. “I would like to build it out of proper materials.” “I would like to have money to go to the grinding mill—we spend so much energy grinding flour here,” says Kaimey Seinei. “Also, we eat only millet, and we have no way of flavoring our food. I would like to buy rice and maize.” She catches up a handful of her traditional, floor-length dress. “This dress you see me wearing is the only one I have,” she says. More than that, she adds, it is made of imported fabric (not the local handcrafted fabric of which Cameroonians are justly proud). She says this with mock exasperation, knowing it is a relatively trivial complaint, but the other women in the courtyard laugh and nod sympathetically. After a moment, Kaimey Seinei grows serious. “I would like to buy a bed for me and my children,” she says. “We would like to pay the school bills with no problem. I would like to eat three meals a day.” September/October 2008 | WORLD ARK www.heifer.org 29 http://www.heifer.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008 Contents Letters For the Record The Good Life Asked and Answered Digging Up the Past Not a Drop to Drink Facing the Ogres of Progress Mixed Media Heifer Bulletin Heifer Spirit World Ark Market Calendar First Person

World Ark Magazine - September/October 2008

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