Ramadan

En jarama! Hono Sumayo?

Ramadan started at the beginning of August, which means my village is now a ghost town due to the lack of energy from their fast. Most of the days are spent lying on bamboo beds underneath various shade structures and mango trees. The first day I arrived back to my village after much too long of time away (IST…Dakar trip…birthday party…) my host family came running at me with hugs of joy and laughter, I’d missed them! It’s somewhat difficult to get any work done or to get people motivated this month, so besides working on the school garden with my counterpart early in the morning, I’ve been enjoying reading books in my favorite tree out by the school yard and taking pictures of random people.

 Here's my host siblings lounging around the compound being awesome.

At night, I usually lay out on the bamboo beds with the others, my old host dad lying in his hammock next to me. The stars are beaming here like a million crystals in a blanket of black. One cool thing about not having electricity, it’s impossible to miss the beauty of the night sky. We wait until it’s time to break the fast with baguettes and coffee, then an elaborate meal follows a couple hours later. 

The first two nights I tagged along with my host sisters to the Mosque in order to get a better idea of their prayer time. They wrapped me in a long skirt, draped a veil over my head and off we went.  I stood alongside my sister and shadowed her as she went through the motions bowing to Allah. It was fantastic! They were silently laughing hysterically at the thought of me praying like them. Secretly I think they appreciated it.

I’ve had some great visitors lately! Cibyl came over twice this week. We completely intended on doing work at my health post, but with the doctor gone, we were unable to access the information we needed. No complaints! We ended up lying on the floor of my hut watching movies on my laptop, snacking on goodies from the boutique and laughing for hours. So glad she’s my neighbor!

My favorite girl in village is Khaditu. She stopped by for a surprise visit hearing I was back in town. We sat in my bed for a while and I could tell she was feeling down.  We talked awhile about her life and the difficulties of it all. She asked me if I had a washing machine in America and I couldn’t help but be honest. I was relieved when she stopped at that. To continue with all the questions of luxuries I have would only make it more clear to her the unfortunate disposition she was born into. She told me about her 17 year old sister who is exceptionally good at English, but is married with two children and is no longer in school. Luckily, Khaditu turned out to be one of the scholarship winners! I told her the great news, that she now has money to stay in school and buy supplies. It lifted her spirits! Hopefully spending the next two years encouraging her and telling her how smart she is will do some good.

So I must tell you about my friend Wallie. Wallie is a brick maker from the Kolda city who also happens to speak some English and about nine other languages. He has nine children and one wife, something that’s quite uncommon here. We had a great conversation a couple days ago about how he believes one wife is the way it should be and how eating only rice for every meal is incredibly unhealthy. This guy gets it! He’s also one of the nicest people in the world, always saying things to me in broken English as I walk by like, “You very kind.” “The people nice to you yes?” “Okay tank you very well.” “I very happy for you here.” Wallie has been a delight to get to know, I’m sad he had to leave to go back to the city. Maybe someday he’ll be back in Mampatim making bricks again.

The school garden is growing beautifully!! We now have tomatoes, okra, hugeeeeeee cucumber plants (taking over all the other innocent small carrot and turnip plants) and last but not least, melons!!!!

Moustapha is an awesome gardener, with a huge plot of land in his own compound covered in all kinds of greens.

A couple days ago, we took my host dad’s donkey cart and ventured off into the woods one day in search of rich manure. Sounds dumb, but it was a really fun adventure. Guess I can now say I’ve ridden on a donkey cart. I’m really grateful I have him helping me. When I get back to village in a couple weeks, God only knows what kinds of delicious organic fruits and veggies we’ll have growing!

This is my last post before coming home to America. My flight leaves on Wednesday morning. I cannot wait to see you all! Love love lovee!

the beginning of 23

The first weekend of August all the volunteers in my group from the Kolda region came into the regional house for my birthday party! It was a pretty chill night, drinking horrible wine and hanging out on the patio outside.

Costa and Alex spent all night in the kitchen cooking up a delicious feast of potato salad and beer battered vegetables on a bed of rice with sweet and spicy sesame seed sauce.

On top of all that, Kelly brough out a coconut cake with cream cheese frosting at midnight. How sweet!! Then Sarah brought glow stick bracelets from who knows where. Everyone put them on and with Costa’s creative streak he had us stand in a line, take a letter each and motion the letters of my name with our arms.

The two days afterward we cleaned and painted the living room and dining room at the house. Its looks beautiful now!  

T'was a fantastic birthday! Thank you all for sending sweet birthday wishes my way!

Trip to Dakar

Hey loves!

Today is my 5^th and last day in Dakar.  A bunch of us came straight to the capital after our IST for a little break before returning to our villages. I’ve ended up staying a few days extra because of appointments with the dentist and the general doctor but now I’m heading back to Kolda for my 23^rd year of life celebration at the regional house! My dear friend Kelly is making a coconut cake. Mmmm! J

We’ve had the loveliest time here in the city! Dakar is substantially westernized with a grocery store, upscale clothing stores, temperature controllable showers, air conditioning and an ice cream shop! We had a couple birthdays to celebrate which gave us excuses to splurge on delicious fancy food. One of the first nights we all went out to an Italian restaurant for our friends birthdays and shared thin crust pizza with caramelized onions and goat cheese. To all of you who know me really well: I have taken a liking to onions now. True story! Turns out when you have limited food options in village, onions begin to taste incredibly satisfying in comparison to watery leaf sauce. However, I still hate mushrooms.

The next day we took a canoe ride from the coast of Dakar to the gorgeous Isle Ngour.

We were slightly worried about the ominous clouds overhead, but as it turned out they only added to the peaceful coastal Ireland effect as the Atlantic waves crashed up on the steep cliffs. I took a “look deep in thought” photo shoot of Ben and Ian on the rocks.

Afterward we walked through the intricate cobble stone pathways lined with vibrant wild plants and flowers draping over the high walls of the local residents. I can’t even describe the quaint splendor of this place.

After strolling around through the maze of trails, we came upon another ocean view clearing, only this time there were restaurants and umbrellas with lounge mats set up along the sand.

My friend Costa hanging out on the beach

We decided to spend the rest of the afternoon there where we swam in the ocean, ate lunch and got hackled by local vendors selling us their goodies. I gave in for the first time since arriving to Senegal and bought some pretty sweet stuff for people back home.

That night we got all dressed up and went out for Marielle and Larocha birthday celebration round two. We ate at this Thai restaurant called Le Jardin Thailandais and it was AMAZING! Seriously maybe the best Thai food I’ve ever had. All of us practically sat in silence at the overwhelming deliciousness as we inhaled our food.

In the morning we made caramel French toast and cheesy eggs for everyone back at the regional house before our second adventure to Goree Island, the home to many slaves departing towards America in the late 1700’s. Unfortunately now it’s much more of a tourist trap, but nonetheless very full of powerful history.

The next time I’ll be back here in Dakar is when I'll be flying home to see you lovely people in America is only 18 days away!!

IST

Hello dearest friends!

The past two weeks all the health and environmental education volunteers from my group had in service training (IST), similar to pre-service training consisting of seminars all day from 8am to 6pm. Booooo. But really, these sessions were much more in depth and helpful, focusing mainly on our specific questions and where to go from here. When returning to Mampatim, the first thing I’ll be doing is surveying people in my village on the prominent problems/needs they have and what they want for their community so I can get a more focused idea on work. On top of that, we learned how to transform our schools into eco friendly learning environments, how to write grants for projects, bed net distribution methods and malaria education. We had sessions on child and maternal health, how to cook nutritional porridge for malnourished children and ways to incorporate moringa into their diets (aka miracle plant that grows like wild fire here and just so happens to be jam packed with vitamins!)

Older volunteers came to teach us about improved technologies they’ve developed using local tools and materials such as a mud stove and an incinerator for trash cleanup. Last but not least, I received all kinds of knowledge on gardening techniques, tree grafting, live fencing, and how to make a tree nursery.  The best parts of the training days were when we actually got up to partake in hands on work instead of listening to the projects on slideshows and lecture forms. For instance, the day we learned about live fencing, we took a field trip to a nearby Mandinka village where we planted a couple hundred trees around their lake area. The locals came out to help, twas a great day!

 Fellow Fulakunda speaking friends Sarah and Alana having a jolly good time getting the tree sacks together

                          My closest neighb at site, Cibyl, planting some trees with a local boy

Afterward a delicious dinner at Massa Massa, we met up with the others at a hoppin' live music joint called Palais des Arts. We danced until 3 am!

In the running for one of the best nights here so far. Great music, great dancing, great food and great company. What more do you need in life?