here i walk through a dirt road village up through the hills on myway home from town and it could be any remote hill town almost- sleepy dogs and beaming sunshine on kids waving franticly and women and men hanging out- just as i round a corner there's a group of massai guys ina circle who've started chanting very cool different tones, then one gets in the center and starts jumping straight up into the air, getting good lift while the rest chant- the jump comes down with a loud stompwith one foot on the ground, then retreats and the next gets into thecenter to jump. watched for a while. villagers passing by were mostinterested in the fact of me witnissing the event. old men kept comingup to me and saying- this is massai-land! they are jumping! and othersuch bits of information. Someone invited me to stay and have chips-french fries- which are fried up everywhere, a sure temptation, but i decided after staying a while to move on. The chips sometimes are friedup as an omelet w/egg, mmmm. and what's really tasty if done right is they're accompanied by grilled beef, chicken or goat skewers... Yesterday was interesting also i met with a micro-finance guy- he'dstudied in Ahmedabad and says "if you want education go to India; if youwant money go to the U.S.! Sorry!" That cracked him up. he was so goofy and then so astute all at once. tickled to hear i'd been in ahmedabad in '88 almost thesame time he was studying. He has a successful lending program, one branch working w/HIV widows. Unlike us who offer transportation compensation and/or sodas with our trainings, he charges for his. Says that way they value the training. i of course agree, and it's an ongoing question here whether our farmers are coming for the training or the soda. The 30 high performers we're confident about, though. I was reading a booklet on Bio Intensive Agriculture from the phillipines. It's the same philosophy and techniques going into action in such different parts of the world. In that booklet also they instruct to minimize monetary and material benefits/compensations given along with trainings. Even tools. It seems obvious, but people here are v. attached to handing out sodas and pocket money.