Photos and blog post

Here are a couple of photos from the second naming ceremony, up country in Swarakunda. The first is me failing at pounding the rice to make findi and the second is one of Binta's relatives holding baby Jeneba. This last picture is my favorite tree in this country, a Red Silk Cotton.
Work has been great and continues to be. Last week we did some more water quality testing at various sites to check if oysters should like those areas. Friday night I took a sunset cruise with Kathryn and some Department of Parks and Wildlife people to look for manatees. The trip was wildly successful because we saw one! West African Manatees are endangered and really difficult to see so everybody on the boat was pretty much jumping up and down with excitement to have seen one on our short trip. We also saw a crocodile. Which was cool, but a little unnerving given how close it was to the beach where we waded in the water to get in the boat. I hear the West African Crocodiles are "gentler" than the East African ones, but I'm skeptical. The boat ride was wonderful. I go out on the boats all the time, but more often than not my entire body is tensed up for most of the ride trying to prevent the little canoes from dumping us into the (apparently croc infested) water. It doesn't help that the oyster women think this is hilarious so sometimes joke by rocking the boat. Friday's boat ride was on a big boat with a motor and everything. The sun was going down, the wind was blowing, and the only task I had to do was to keep my eyes out for manatees. It was pretty wonderful.
Also, I've been getting a lot of questions about what exactly I'm doing here. Here is a link that will hopefully clear a few things up: http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/ I wrote a post for a food security blog based in West Africa about the project I'm working on here. Check out the post called Turning the Catch of the Day into Improved Livelihoods for the Whole Community published on July 12.