As I have mentioned earlier the place where I live is more of an urban center then most Peace Corps placements. So where most volunteers come to town to have a change of pace I go to the village which I am sure seems strange to the other volunteers. So two weeks ago the organizations I work with decided to have me do some work in the village for 1 week. I went to meet with the farmers from that area who are supplying us with milk. To this point we have not done a great job of reaching out to the farmers and understanding the challenges they face. The place I visited is extremely mountainous and very rainy and I was given the responsibility to go on a house by house visit of as many farms as I could visit in the one week. I was to conduct a survey of how the farm is operating and the challenges they are facing. I had a wonderful time away from town just walking in the mountains and visiting some of the farmers. It was also enlightening to see what and where the milk traveled before finally be consumed. Just some interesting things I discovered were that many of the farmers have to walk 50 minutes to bring their milk to the village collection center which is still another 1 hour taxi ride from the town where I live and the milk is sold also because many of the farmers live on mountain ridges they have to walk down hill for 30 minutes to find water then carry it back up the mountain between 500 and 1000 feet. The time away was great but it also made us aware of the many challenges these farmers face. We hope to continue our work with this group and strengthen their capacity to work together to accomplish their goals.
Chad
