Hi there everyone,
So now the sheep has been eaten, reports written, goodbyes said and all of a sudden I find myself sitting in my parents living room a little confused, a little overwhelmed, and wondering where exactly the last two years have gone. It's a pretty surreal feeling being back home, at times I'll find myself going through my old routines like I never left and then I'll snap out of it all of a sudden and realize how weird it is to be microwaving leftovers or watching movies on you tube. That being said those things both are super sweet as are burritos, skiing, and couches. I don't want to sound overly dramatic or oppressed by our world and culture, but I'm definitely realizing that it might take a little longer to adjust than I originally anticipated.
As for the last three months in Senegal, it was a whirlwind, emotional at times, a little stressful, but tons of fun and a pretty good way to go out if I don't say so myself. Finishing up projects, or at least getting them into a state to be picked up by my replacement, took a decent amount of time and effort. Due to goats getting into the nursery, the womens' garden got off to a bit of a late start but was in full swing and not far from the first harvest when I left. We also have a "guarantee" from one of the nearby mining companies to buy any and all of the vegetables the women are willing to sell. This is a pretty major development from last year when the company would ask for specific amounts and we were also dealing almost exclusively in onions. So it will be really interesting to see how this relationship continues to develop and will also hopefully be one of the primary projects my replacement works on early in his service.
Other than vegetable production, some of the other volunteers from Kedougou and myself did a tour of villages throughout the region to promote both summer camp and girls scholarship applications for the coming year. We also showed a documentary made by previous peace corps volunteers which followed the lives of four Senegalese professional women as they told their life stories. It was designed with the intention of showing school age girls the range of possibility open to them and to motivate them to stay in school. The documentary is called 'Elle Travail, Elle Vie" and at least parts of it may be available online if anyones interested in checking it out. We had some pretty great discussions with a number of different student groups and along with the camp and scholarship presentations it turned out to be a pretty eye openning and inspiring tour both for the students and us as pcvs.
I did also manage to take a sweet little trip to Guinea with Leigh and our good friend Dan. It took us two full days to bike and hike across the border, about an 80k trek altogether from Kedougou, and climbing about 4,000ft over some pretty challenging terrain. Once we got to Maliville (yeah weird name seeing as its in Guinea) we took public transit around a lot of the northern part of the country, meeting up with and staying with Guinea pcvs along the way. It was a pretty unbelievable place, similar to Senegal in many ways, but also much greener, more mountainous, and with a culture dominated by Pulaars and Malinkes, vs. the Wolof dominated senegal, the general feeling and character were more mellow and less aggressive. Managing to get a few great days of hiking in the "grand canon of Guinea" before making our way back, it was a pretty active and wonderful trip. I was also so glad to finally get to the country on whose border I'd been living and into whose mountains Id been looking for almost two years.
I also spent much of my final months just hanging out with folks in Khossanto. I drank a lot of tea, took a lot of pictures, and tried to soak it all up one last time. We had some pretty good times. My last night in the village we had a huge party in my family's compound, i bought and killed a sheep, and we danced the night away. Then my boss came in the peace corps car the next morning and I was out.
Not sure I was ready to jump right back into life in the city I headed straight to truckee upon my arrival for a few days of skiing and mountain air. It wasn't a bad way to come home. And now I'm back in the city, reconnecting with some buddies, and getting ready for the next adventure here. Leigh will be coming out to San Francisco in a little more than a week, and after spending a little time around here we're gonna start making our way up to Alaska. We've got a job working with the park service for the summer and then we'll see where we go from there.
So there it is. I can't really explain the mix of emotions it is for me to be back here, but all in all I gotta say I'm feeling pretty good. I really want to thank you all for your love and support over the last two years. I honestly wouldn't have made it through without it. Like I said I'll be back and forth between the city and the sierras for the next few weeks and as I haven't gotten around to getting a cell phone yet give a call at my parents house at 415 242 1999 or up in Truckee at 530 550 8067 anytime.
Thanks again to everyone and much love
willie

Hello Friends,
Many apologies once again for my completely failed attempts with my blog specifically and communications in general over the last few months. I have feeble excuses but won't bore you with them so lets get on to some of the fall/winter highlights.
The biggest project of my fall and one of the most time consuming and yet uplifting and inspiring experiences of my service was the lleadership camp I organized and ran along with several other PCVs in early October. We spent 7 days in the Village of Dindafello, a beautiful site just at the base of the Guinea plateau and only a few kilometers from the border. With about 20 kids, 4 Senegalese counselors and a number of enthusiastic Peace Corps volunteers the camp was an enormous success. As a number of you know from emails and previous blogs on top of a variety of sports and initiative games the kids completed a project designed both to teach them conservation techniques along with entrepreneurial skills; essentially learning that your reforestation efforts can also be a source of income and provide helpful health services. They began by learning to both create and outplant a tree nursery, they then proceeded to take leaves of the same species of tree (neem) make mosquito detering lotion and then, after learning some basic marketing practices, they sold the lotion in the weekly market. It really was amazing how incredibly excited the kids were with each step of the process, and wonderful that they were able to actually leave with modest profits and the knowledge to recreate this process in their home villages. Plans are already in the works to expand both the length of the camp and to increase the number of students for next year. Honestly it was just completely awesome, and a wonderful balance of technical skills teaching, leadership and team building, and just good camp fun. If you're at all familiar with Aim High, NAL, Mountain Camp II you would have seen aspects of all of them firmly integrated into our first year of camp. For those of you who helped us out by making donations to our Peace Corps Partnership fund I can't thank you enough. At risk of sounding too cheesey this really meant the world the the kids who participated and I really believe it had and continues to have a dramatic impact on their lives.
Anyway so that took up a lot of my August and most of my september and early october planning, programming, buying materials, working through applications, etc.
The second half of october I spent in the beautiful island nation of Cape Verde with my girlfriend Leigh, and despite being robbed at gun point in the capital early in our trip, it was one of greatest vacations ever. The place is unbelievably beautiful, sheer mountains rising right out of the ocean, covered in moss and vines, fairly Jurassic Parkesque, the perfect break. We ate delicious seafood, hiked all over the place, drank lots of Ponche (grogue, the national drink essentially sugar cane alcohol, super foul, but when cut with honey and sometimes tamarind delicious). It was a great trip.
Flew back to shouts of "Obama!" in every city and town in senegal. People here are mighty excited about our new president. November we welcomed a new set of PCVs to the kedougou region, teachers trickled back into Khossanto and we barely had time to get classes going before Tabaski. The holiday was wonderful, full of eating sheep and oil mostly, colorful clothing and good cheer. Shortly thereafter I came to Dakar to spend a few days with Leigh and her mom who was visiting out here and then to meet my folks who just today, after 1 cancelled flight should be on their way to madrid and back home.
So the Adams' did Senegal in fine form, traversing the country twice, spending some good time in khossanto and checking out a few other spots both in Kedougou and Dakar. It was so great to see my parents, and to have them see and experience a little bit of what my life is like here. I think they had a total blast and also are leaving a little exhausted, the traveling here especially wears on you.
So now I'm heading back to khossanto in the next couple days and honestly won't have more than three months to finish things up and head back across the ocean.. a surreal thought for me to say the least. As of now I should be showing up in SF sometime mid-late april but its a little up in the air, I'll keep you all posted. Great times overall and I'm looking forward to finishing up here in style.
Thanks again to you all for all you love and support and I really will try to be in touch soon,
much love
willie