Hot season in Senegal and how its come with a vengence. Days are hovering around 110-115 and I fear the worst of it is yet to come. I like to think of it as a good opportunity to flush our the poors, release some tension, a kind of continual sauna if you will.
Seriously though, despite the heat life here in the Kedougou region is moving along quickly and actively. Work wise the big news is the recently developed Kedougou regional strategy. In early march we had a regional retreat with Chris Hedrick (our new country director as of september) and a number of APCDs (sort of our sector bosses if that makes any sense). We spent a couple days in the beautiful village of Dindafelo (Chris's PC site when he was a volunteer here twenty some odd years ago, also site of the highest waterfall in Senegal) pretty much working ourselves to the bone developing an overall strategy for development in Kedougou over the next 7-8 years, our role therein, and a specific action plan for the next 6 months. Covering everything from Malaria prevention to HIV/AIDS education, native and fruit tree propogation, various local product transformation for merchandizing purposes, school curriculum develpment, new local market possibilities, and much much more.
This has obviously changed the way many of us are looking at our PC services. First of all not only do we have much more direction with concrete and measurable goals, but we are developing a new stategy of working cross-sectorally (i.e. Health Volunteers, working with Ag volunteers. working with Environmental Ed volunteers,etc. to pursue larger scale projects). Having this stategy worked out is also beginning to provide a lot more opportunities for working with other NGOs and development organizations. Since the beginnings of this plan Kedougou volunteers have already recieved 9000 mosquito nets for distribtuion in a certain area of the region, and the biggest news is that we'll be recieving (almost surely at this point) over 70,000 dollars for a larger scale, region wide HIV/AIDS prevention program.
These are only a couple of the biggest projects that have been born from this stategy, but it has really provided a lot of us with new motivation and the reality of taking on essential projects where needed. It has also provided a more communal responsibiity for our work and thus both support and accountability are much more fothcoming.
I realize this all sounds grand, but how has it affected me and my life in my village. The most interesting thing so far was that we did our first onion sale from my village to the gold mining company nearby in a collaboration with farmers in Kedougou and the Ag volunteer there. This was a super positive step in terms of breaking into this potentially huge market, but has also been very overwhelming as the sustainability of it is very much in question right now (i.e. it worked great, but theres no way it ever would have happened without us facilitating and playing middleman, and it is going to take a lot to get people to the point to take this on themselves). Otherwise we've been getting the plan for our summer camp together and I'm really excited about it. Most of the applications are with the schools as we speak and if all goes well we'll have our funding proposal on the web within a few weeks, thus those of you looking to make a little contribution to what promises to be one of the sweetest summer camps in west africa you'll be able to. Don't worry though, I'll be sure to let everyone know about that once its up.
Have also kept doing classes in my village, we're working on our first tree nursery, things are a little shaky right now with that, but again, I'll let you know how it turns out.
Had a sweet rock climbing trip outside my friend Matt's village for my birthday, a pretty nice way to celebrate I must say.
On the down side two good friends: Braiden and James have both decided to head back stateside for various reasons. In the end I think its making them happy and thus is a great thing for them to do, just a shame for us here to lose some of the homies prematurely.
Coming up I got about another week in Khossanto try to really get these trees rockin (its the organization and water schedule that seems to the most difficult at this point) and then and heading up to Thies for a week to help out with the training of the new volunteers who just arrived in Senegal. I'm definitely looking forward to getting back up there, seeing the training center again and meeting some of the new crew, not to mention eating pizza and crepes and reaping the benefits the big city has to offer.
Sorry this is kinda brief, I promise to fill in some more details in the near (relative term) future, I realize I'm skimming over a lot and leaving a lot out altogether.
Thanks again to all for you support and encouragement. I'd like to send a personal shout out to Mr. Chris Jain, the mountain won this battle but the war goes on, get well soon buddy.
Take care,
willie