Pics: from the top
1. My garend with my host mom
2.Getting into town after a 115k ride, longest day ever
3.Isle De Madeleine (Island) in Dakar during WAIST
4. Water treatment/vocabulary lesson in MadinaBerola, about 8k from Khossanto
5.Dan (my closest PC neighbor at about 38k) above some underground lava caves near his village
6.Inside the cave
7.Outside the cave...
8.More garden with mom
9.Mural outside Tostan rally in the city of Tamba
10.Kids during the Muslim new years celebration
11. Drame and Ci praying during new yeats
12. New TV and generator in my compound, everyone shows for the Africa Cup
13. Class in MadinaBerola
14.Me on top of the world in every senese at Sierra Nevada in Spain
15.Looking at the Mediteranean from the 2nd highest peak in the mountain range
16. Granada Cathedral
17. Sierra Nevada from the air
18. Kids at Tostan rally in Tamba (I don't know em, I just liked the picture)
Hello Friends,
This has been about the longest I've gone yet between posts, but lets call that a good thing as it means life has been busy. I've just gotten back from my second trip to Dakar in so many months and am feeling both completely exhausted but also refreshed. How is this true you may ask, well I come back having eaten more protein and general nutrients than I tend to see around here as well as having a slew of new work possibilities. At the same time this being the only time that almost every volunteer in country (not to mention those from other countries) are together in Dakar, I've been a little lacking in terms of sleep. This trip was for West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST), an annual event in which PCVs from all over West Africa, along with embassy workers, USAID and other American organizations get together in Dakar for 4 days, and have a massive softball tournament. Great outfits, questionable skill level on the field, American hot dogs, and beer all make for a mighty enjoyable weekend. All of the Senegal PCVs are also put up in American expat homestays for the duration in which we eat delicious food and live in the plush accommodations we miss so much from home. Really a pretty incredible time. This fun filled event was coupled with the all volunteer conference (only Senegal) during which we discussed broad country wide strategies for mostly malaria prevention and reforestation, while also having a number of interesting speakers from USAID discuss various funding options available to us for small projects. Thus some really incredible fun in the sun along with an influx of pretty inspiring possibilities from people who have been working in development a lot longer than I have left me feeling, like I said, exhausted but also inspired.
In other news I had an incredible vacation in Granada, Spain with my Mom, Dad, and Bro just after x-mas. I really couldn't have asked for more in a trip. The combination of down time, cool sightseeing, skiing and hiking, and eating the most delicious food I've every tasted, really put me in a heavenly place. It was also so wonderful to see my family and I can't wait until my brother and his girlfriend Leondra get out here to Senegal at the end of June. As you can see I just couldn't help myself and had to put up some of the sweet Spain pics, sorry.
Upon returning from this most delightful sojourn, things really got started with a bang in Khossanto. The day after I got back I had a meeting with all the teachers in my "district" (communaute rurale) and set up a schedule of classes for which I will spend a week in each of their villages working on incorporating environmental and health and hygiene oriented lesson plans into their curriculum. I believe I touched on this a little before but the idea is that in a given math class say, the teacher will be able to teach the exact same arithmetic lesson but do so in the frame work of deforestation, or treating your water, etc. It takes some real patience and a little creativity but so far I've really been enjoying myself and I finally feel like I'm actually contributing something real and important to my community. I've also started a garden with my host mom and have learned a lot from her and will hopefully be producing a decent amount of food for my family in the near future. The last piece of big news on the village front is a meeting I had with the former PC Senegal director Malcolm Versel during WAIST. After he finished in June he became the Director of Social Programs for MDL the HUGE Australian gold mining operation about 20k from khossanto. While in the very preliminary stages, we are beginning to discuss the possibility of selling vegetables from our Women's garden directly to the company. This would be an utterly win-win situation as they import tons and tons of food stuffs everyday all the way from Dakar and if they could even get a small percentage from my village, surrounding villages and Kedougou, it would not only cut down on their costs, but would theoretically have an incredibly substantial effect on local economy. Like I said this is all very early, but I have my first meeting with him next week and I am feeling guardedly optimistic that this could go through. Its also all a little overwhelming as I've recently been patting myself on the back for getting my local classes going on and now I am about to embark on a much larger scale project with which I have very little experience, but hey, that's what its all about right.
Anyway I'll wrap up, I know I've left out about a million interesting details and anecdotes, but more to come. Ooh, real quick, I've had a new roof put on my hut in preparation for the rainy season (no, its still a long way off....its really hot now). As I was sitting with my host brothers slowly tying straw into long sheets to be wrapped around the bamboo frame on my hut, my oldest brother, Moussa, brought out his boombox and a car battery to power it. They were playing their malinke music and we were jamming working in the hot sun and then I brought out a Stones tape...It was awesome. They cranked up the volume and blasted honkytonk woman across the village as we were sitting there preparing my future roof. I'll call that a fairly cross cultural experience.
Much love to you all, thank you all for your continued correspondence and support, it means more than you could imagine. Best luck in all you endeavors and I'llbe in touch whenever I can be,
willie
This has been about the longest I've gone yet between posts, but lets call that a good thing as it means life has been busy. I've just gotten back from my second trip to Dakar in so many months and am feeling both completely exhausted but also refreshed. How is this true you may ask, well I come back having eaten more protein and general nutrients than I tend to see around here as well as having a slew of new work possibilities. At the same time this being the only time that almost every volunteer in country (not to mention those from other countries) are together in Dakar, I've been a little lacking in terms of sleep. This trip was for West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST), an annual event in which PCVs from all over West Africa, along with embassy workers, USAID and other American organizations get together in Dakar for 4 days, and have a massive softball tournament. Great outfits, questionable skill level on the field, American hot dogs, and beer all make for a mighty enjoyable weekend. All of the Senegal PCVs are also put up in American expat homestays for the duration in which we eat delicious food and live in the plush accommodations we miss so much from home. Really a pretty incredible time. This fun filled event was coupled with the all volunteer conference (only Senegal) during which we discussed broad country wide strategies for mostly malaria prevention and reforestation, while also having a number of interesting speakers from USAID discuss various funding options available to us for small projects. Thus some really incredible fun in the sun along with an influx of pretty inspiring possibilities from people who have been working in development a lot longer than I have left me feeling, like I said, exhausted but also inspired.
In other news I had an incredible vacation in Granada, Spain with my Mom, Dad, and Bro just after x-mas. I really couldn't have asked for more in a trip. The combination of down time, cool sightseeing, skiing and hiking, and eating the most delicious food I've every tasted, really put me in a heavenly place. It was also so wonderful to see my family and I can't wait until my brother and his girlfriend Leondra get out here to Senegal at the end of June. As you can see I just couldn't help myself and had to put up some of the sweet Spain pics, sorry.
Upon returning from this most delightful sojourn, things really got started with a bang in Khossanto. The day after I got back I had a meeting with all the teachers in my "district" (communaute rurale) and set up a schedule of classes for which I will spend a week in each of their villages working on incorporating environmental and health and hygiene oriented lesson plans into their curriculum. I believe I touched on this a little before but the idea is that in a given math class say, the teacher will be able to teach the exact same arithmetic lesson but do so in the frame work of deforestation, or treating your water, etc. It takes some real patience and a little creativity but so far I've really been enjoying myself and I finally feel like I'm actually contributing something real and important to my community. I've also started a garden with my host mom and have learned a lot from her and will hopefully be producing a decent amount of food for my family in the near future. The last piece of big news on the village front is a meeting I had with the former PC Senegal director Malcolm Versel during WAIST. After he finished in June he became the Director of Social Programs for MDL the HUGE Australian gold mining operation about 20k from khossanto. While in the very preliminary stages, we are beginning to discuss the possibility of selling vegetables from our Women's garden directly to the company. This would be an utterly win-win situation as they import tons and tons of food stuffs everyday all the way from Dakar and if they could even get a small percentage from my village, surrounding villages and Kedougou, it would not only cut down on their costs, but would theoretically have an incredibly substantial effect on local economy. Like I said this is all very early, but I have my first meeting with him next week and I am feeling guardedly optimistic that this could go through. Its also all a little overwhelming as I've recently been patting myself on the back for getting my local classes going on and now I am about to embark on a much larger scale project with which I have very little experience, but hey, that's what its all about right.
Anyway I'll wrap up, I know I've left out about a million interesting details and anecdotes, but more to come. Ooh, real quick, I've had a new roof put on my hut in preparation for the rainy season (no, its still a long way off....its really hot now). As I was sitting with my host brothers slowly tying straw into long sheets to be wrapped around the bamboo frame on my hut, my oldest brother, Moussa, brought out his boombox and a car battery to power it. They were playing their malinke music and we were jamming working in the hot sun and then I brought out a Stones tape...It was awesome. They cranked up the volume and blasted honkytonk woman across the village as we were sitting there preparing my future roof. I'll call that a fairly cross cultural experience.
Much love to you all, thank you all for your continued correspondence and support, it means more than you could imagine. Best luck in all you endeavors and I'llbe in touch whenever I can be,
willie
