pics from top:

My sister Mariama

My brother Lasana eating a mango

Leigh and Myself on Ngor Island

Charley Leondra Leigh and Me checking out the delta

Hello friends,

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying a summer full of sun, relaxation, and little stress. That both is and is not the case for yours truly here in Khossanto. The rainy season has come fully if on the late side this year meaning that people are out in force in their fields planting everything from peanuts to rice to corn to various other staples. As far as what that means for my life, I have been doing my best to help my family mainly in the area of peanut planting and a little in the rice fields, but have also been trying to convince my beloved village to add on a little extra work to its busy days in the form of outplanting the tree nursery that we all began over 2 months ago. This has been a little difficult as you might imagine and my efforts have resulted in varrying levels of success. However as many of the older school age children are back from taking their high school exams and we have an "in house" tree planting date scheduled for this week I am opptimistic that we'll be successful.

As far as trees go we are trying to plant cashew and mango trees mostly scattered throughout people's home compounds along with a variety named Morenga (sp?) or Nebedia, a tree whose leaves people use to make sauce for corn or millet couscous. We also have Jatropha a variety of tree good for making live fencing for fields or compounds, and also whose seeds' oil can be used to produce bio fule. There is a possiility that the nearby goldmining company will start buying this after it finishes work on its new powerplant in seveal years. However this is not the primary reason for planting, really we'regoing for quality live fencing that won't get eaten or destroyed. The last variety we have is called Luciena, one which is good for planting in either fields or gardens as it is a nitrogen fixing tree and thus improves the soil around it.

So this is my biggest project these days although I did want to mention another that I do hope many of you take a strong interest in. This is the Leadership Camp we are oranizing for a region wide range of middle school students happening in september. While I believe I have mentioned this project before to many of you let me refresh your memories. We have already done an application process for the 11 middle schools in the region and are in the process of selecting students for the camp. The camp will have several integrated parts; leadership and team building, enironmental conseration, and entrepenurial skills development. It will work like this: We begin the camp with a series of team building activities and leadership challenges drawing the students together and having them solve problems as a group. We will then do a series of sessions on tree nursery creation and outplanting techniques, the neem tree being the specific variety we will propegate. We will then show the students how to make soap from neem leaves, create a quantity of soap qnd take it to the weekly market the last dayof camp and sell it. As the camp will occur right before the beginning of the school year, once we take all the student back to town we will take the money earned and pay for each of their years school fees. Thus it will be a very comprehennsive start to finish project on how to maintain and even regrow the natural enironment while also using it for small business development. Personally I think its a pretty wonderful plan for students. The catch is we are trying to raise money for food, lodging, and materials and for these purposes we have written a proposal through the Peace Corps and have a website through which donations to the summer camp are possible. The site is
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-100

I realize many of you reading this may not have the means to make any kind of major contribution but really anything you give would help. Also passing this information on to others you might know who would take interest in this project would be incredily appreciated.

Thanks so much for reading and checking out the site, this really is something I believe in strongly and with the right means I think we could change the lives of a lot of students.

In other news, my brother Charley and his girlfriend Leondra took off a couple weeks ago after a three week whirlwind tour of Senegal. from the SineSaloum delta to Khossanto the foot of Guinea Platau, I think I ran them a little ragged, but we had a pretty incredile time. Joined for a large portion by my girlfriend Leigh and good friend Dan, we saw some of the most beautiful parts of the country and I think its a trip they won't soon forget. Thanks to them also for being the first to come out and see me, and thus have an idea about what my life is really like here.

I'm dragging on a little, but thanks for sticking with it. Apologies about the pictures as usual, managed to get some up there but it doesn't look the others want to make it. Sometime soon inshallah

Thanks again to you all for all your love and support, it really keeps me going.

All the best for a wonderful end of the summer and please in touch.