Peace Corps moments

The last month was full of “peace corps moments”. Peace Corps moments are little successes, moments of pure joy and fulfillment in the realization that your efforts are making way. The first one was when my little host sister came to me for soap. This sounds silly and insignificant, but she likes to show me what she's learned about hygiene in the process. Since she rough houses all the time and always manages to get cuts and scrapes from playing in the dirt, she’s been coming to me asking for moringa (local medicinal plant) and for my soap so she can wash her scrapes. There's all kinds of funky ways villagers treat wounds, and most all of them are incredibly unsanitary and illogical. Glad to be making progress in that department.

The next moment came when I went around to gather manure and sand for my tree nursery. The children in my village were curious about what I was doing and began taking over the project. I taught them all how to make a nursery and they knocked out 60 sacks in about 20 minutes. I’ve never seen them so excited about something.

Every day they ask me how the trees are doing and offer to water the nursery. I’ll be planting some at the school for the girl’s camp in January and along the main road for shade.

The other Peace Corps moments have been with the local middle age school girls. I painted a chalkboard in my room and almost everyday the girls in and around my compound ask me for a little English tutor session.

Some of the girls sitting on my bedroom floor studying English

Also, the 100 permission slip/invitation forms for the girl’s camp were snatched up really quickly which indicates to me that they seem pretty excited about it. I'm expecting a good turnout. The after school girls club is coming along as well. One of the female teachers, Madame Mallu, is going to help me run the club and hopefully continue running it after I leave. The first meeting is next week! I'll let you know how it goes :)

Happy Holidays!

My gosh, two big holidays have passed and I haven’t even found the time to say Happy Halloween and Happy Thanksgiving! How was it? Did everyone dress up in hilarious costumes and a month later did everyone eat delicious food? I know I did. The Tambacounda region hosts Halloween every year at their regional house. Volunteers from all over Senegal came down for the festivities! Like always, it was fantastic to see everyone, although some were especially unrecognizable in their getups. One of my favorite costumes was my friend CJ who personally sewed her own tutu for her interpretation of Natalie Portman in Black Swain. I dressed up like a life-size carrot for the love of vegetables and vegetarians worldwide.

A week after Halloween came Tabaski, a Muslim holiday where every father must kill a sheep in celebration of the sacrifice of Abraham. All my villagers were dressed in their finest attire and relatives from out of town came in to socialize and feast all day. We ate special onion and potato sauce over rice with chunks of our dear sheep friend.

This is Omar the sheep along side my host sibilings the night before Tabaski.
Omar is unfortunately no longer with us.

My host sister Mawnde and baby Koumba dressed up for the holiday.

The day after Tabaski, I caught a bus into Kolda to help the new agriculture volunteers shop around for fun items for their new huts. In the days that followed, they installed into their permanent villages. I can’t explain how strange it was to now be the person helping the newbies move in. Wasn’t that just me a couple months ago?

When I arrived back to Mampatim, my host brother Malik greeted me with an especially excited look on his face. He took my hand and led me over to the little shed behind my host mother’s room. To my surprise, a tiny little puppy came crawling out and sauntered over to me. Malik looked at me and said  “Ko an wodi rawandu ndu.”This was my new pup!! They must have found him somewhere in the village because he looked pretty mangy and malnourished, but how could I say no? He was so cute!!! I named him Mijo, Mijo Moyyo Balde.

 This was taken a couple days after cleaning him up. He's grown so much since this!

Mijo Moyyo means good thought or good idea. Seemed like a pretty good idea to keep him :) He’s been my pride and joy, trotting alongside me everywhere I go and sleeping next to me on his little blanket at night. I can safely say I’ll be very much attached to him after two years and he’s definitely destined to have a great life if I’m his owner forever JWhat a wonderful early Christmas present!

I came back to the regional house for Thanksgiving. We turned on Christmas music and cooked amazing food, a beautiful collaborative effort which went surprisingly smooth considering we had about 35 people in the house. We managed to make almost every traditional dish, just about as good as being back in America for the real thing. The best part? Nine different pies! Who would have thought? Before feasting, all 35 of us sat in a circle and wrote on notecards all the reasons we're thankful and read eachother's aloud. It was a sweet little moment and a warm reminder that its possible to create family anywhere you go.
I'm returning back to village now with the little mini Christmas tree my parents sent me. I'll be sure to decorate my hut for the holidays this week. This month is a little tough when it comes to missing home for the holidays, but I hope so much you all are enjoying the crisp cold weather, the comfort of holiday cheer and the deliciousness of pumpkin spice lattes. Happy December!