Sully and Senegal: December 2008

It's been a month now since I became an official resident of the village of Kekeressi, and while that in and of itself is hard to believe, it's even more difficult to comprehend that Christmas is a mere 5 days away. Without being surrounded by the usual holiday cheer associated with this time of year, it's pretty easy to forget just how close the holidays really are. It's not to say that I won't be celebrating, in fact, I'll be decking the halls in style come the 25th, enjoying the site and, most importantly, the non-cous-cous-related foods of the Senegalese capital of Dakar.
A few friends from my stage and I have got ourselves hotel reservations in the city for a few nights, including Christmas Eve and Day, and plan on making the most of our time away from the village, celebrating the holidays in our own way and taking time to remember where we come from, despite being a world away from home. It looks to be a great trip, with a possible stop-over in St. Louis, a beautiful city to the north of the country, for New Year's, before returning to Kedougou around the 3rd of January. I don't know when I'll have another opportunity to get up as far as St. Louis, so it seems worthwhile to visit as many places as possible on this trip, despite the arduous amounts of traveling it will entail, before returing to the "grind" in the vill.
Speaking of, it's been a pretty productive couple of weeks for me in terms of Agricultural work, as well as some progress language and integration. For me, keeping myself occupied with projects is the best way to start feeling settled and a part of the community, so I've been trying to get my feet wet without getting in too far over my head. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but so far I've been able to start a tree-pepiniere (which unfortunately look to be duds at the moment), a vegetable pepiniere (nursery), and two garden plots. I was able to clear out a large section of field behind my family's compound that they said I could use, and felt validated when, after watching me work for a while, my Senegalese father confirmed that I do, in fact, work like a "man". I also had help digging three compost pits under this huge tree (being the dry season, pit composting in a well-shaded area is the best way to go), and by rotating the compost every couple weeks I should hopefully have some good fertilizer to add to my recently-seeded gardens, si Allah jabbi (if God accepts).
In terms of the integration I mentioned, I got to participate in the most-recent Muslim holiday of Tabaski. I went into the town of Salemata with the men in my family to pray, wearing my ever popular Boubou (the white pajamas). The bike ride itself was pretty comical; my male counterpart, Bambe, is actually somewhat of a religious leader in our village, so we were hussling to get to the mosque on time for him when his bike popped a tire. Tis the season to be giving, so I had him sit on my "port de baggage", the place on the back of the bike where you can strap luggage, and biked the rest of the way, huffing and puffing to get the spiritual leader to the mosque on time. We barely made it, and while I dripped sweat all over my prayer mat, I felt good about it. I was then asked to walk around with a group of men from both my village and Salemata, who all seemed to be religious leaders or persons of authority in some fashion, from compound to compound while we watched each family carry out the traditions of Tabaski: sacrificing a goat(s) by slitting it's throat, and collecting the blood in a hole dug in the ground. If you ever have the chance to be a witness to this great Muslim pastime...pass.
Otherwise, it's been a great few weeks, and please continue to keep me posted on how everyone is doing Stateside. I love reading emails from home, even if I don't get to them til theyre a little stale. The following are some pics of my digs in Kekeressi and some of the work I've started as of now, so I'll let them do the rest of the talking.

Thanks again for all the support, and talk to you soon (si Allah jabbi).

-Samba Diallo