Not to brag...

But I have been notified that I saved an African village.

No, I'm not kidding. I wrote an article about a Peace Corps volunteer who was trying to raise money to buy millet to feed the people of Bani Bangou, Niger, and he estimates the money raised from the article covered about 8 months, give or take, of millet. And the Peace Corps dude basically gave me the credit, which I guess I deserve some. After all, it was pretty moving if I do say so myself, although really I just set up the situation and picked out the telling details. It's his story...

The village was starving to death after a drought killed off most of the crops and dried up the seasonal river and a plague of locusts (literally) took the rest. Little kids were dying when he left (according to starvation expert dad (visit him at www.heifer.org) that's typical; lots of places the family eats out of one pot and those who can't compete for the food are malnourished. Of course, the less food there is the harsher that competition is) which is pretty typical. Since the first shipment in November, everyone has become healthier and Peace Corps guy is going to get some NGO's involved.

So, to recap, that's 500 people, eight months worth of food. One small, totally inside the section story in a paper with a circulation that probably barely scrapes out 12K readers. It really says a lot more about the readers than my writing, I would guess. Good for the resume, better for the soul.

But what the hey. If it weren't for me, there's no guarantee that the money would have been raised if the story hadn't been done right. I saved a village in Niger.

What have you done lately?