Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Year In (almost) Update!

Hey everyone,

Im glad to finally have a chance to write another long awaited update; however this extra time I have is thanks to the fact that the twice a week car that goes out to the town nearest my village has randomly decided to change its schedule from Thurs/Mon to Sat/Mon; meaning Ive got two more days stuck out here away from site unless I can find some other mode of transport out there. This also means that if they keep this new schedule, that leaves two days between trips which would force me to either come in and leave again almost immediately, or stick around for almost a week each visit. The joys of Senegalese public transport.
In other more uplifting news though, work projects have been going very well and Ive been pretty excited about some of the successes weve been having, both personally within my village and through our regional work as a whole. Its also an exciting time because we are welcoming yet another new group of volunteers who are actually being installed into their villages over the course of this week. Its been interesting to get to watch the whole install experience from the perspective of one who has been here a year; especially since it never feels like you know enough to be considered as knowledgable as someone who has finished half their service. Though it is comforting to know that those people who were a year ahead of me, who seemed so experienced, their language and tech skills so very intimidating, also felt like they were in no place to teach anyone new. The general rule seems to be that, in the end, you know a lot more than you think you do.
I also had the opportunity to host one of our new volunteers at my site about a month ago during the program where trainees get to visit the region theyll be ultimately going to and stay with a volunteer who speaks the same language they are learning and ideally also work in their same sector. It was a real chance to see my village from a fresh perspective, but also use that perspective to reflect on my last year here and find out if I really was in a position to prepare a brand new volunteer for; well, anything. It seemed like KC, the girl whom I hosted, got a lot out of her visit, however short, which I was happy to hear. I also was able to pass on my Pulaar bible I had been adding to pretty much since my training and during the subsequent months at site to try and help her get through her last few weeks of language class. She passed her test in the end, and Im comfortable with taking full credit for her success.
But despite all these exciting new introductions, and somber goodbyes to our friends being replaced and moving on with their lives, work goes on; most notably the Youth Summer Camp I had written you all about a couple months ago. Long story short, it went fantastically well in my opinion; of course there were some hangups and quick thinking that needed to go on to keep things running smoothly, but the kids all seemed to have a blast and really took away a lot from the experience; as did all us counselors. We had an awesome ratio of counselors to the 38 campers we had of almost 2:1, since on top of the PCVs who helped out, we had about 10 additional Senegalese counterparts working with us. In the 7 days we were there, the kids got to go to sessions about food security, sexual health, economics, agroforestry, malaria prevention, and more; not to mention getting to participate in awesome challenge courses set up in the woods, learn to play dodgeball and other camp games, and have a Career Day where successful Senegalese male and female entrepreneurs came in and basically used their stories to inspire the youth to stay in school and pursure their own futures; not allow themselves to be pigeonholed, especially the girls, into a life chosen for them by tradition. Not to mention the fact that we held the camp in the town of Dindefelo, which is a tourism hotspot here in Kedougou thanks to its amazingly beautiful waterfall only a short hike away; so of course a trip to the falls was included in our agenda. Also, I was able to use some of the art supplies that had been shipped to me from the US to conduct 4 art sessions which went really well; especially since, regardless of the content of the lessons, the campers were just excited to use materials theyd hardly had a chance to use up to this point in their lives (and a bunch of them said it was their favorite activity...just saying...) I was also involved with the food security sessions which we were able to enhance by having them make visual aids thanks to those same supplies. So thanks again!
This has also been a very exciting time for me personally thanks to the continued selfless efforts of friends and family back home, particularly my mom and stepdad and my former art teacher Elaine Farmer, to organize not one but two showings of my artwork I left behind to try and raise money for this camp. Its been so gratifying to hear how excited people are about the shows and about helping out one of their own, not to mention how much press this project and PC in general have gotten out of it; and equally gratifying to be able to contribute about $700 towards my fellow volunteers project. Truly, thank you so very much again.
Unfortunately the only downside to my recent trip to Dindefelo was that I lost my digital camera with the pictures Ive taken since arriving here on it. I know it wasnt stolen, because it was lost when it fell out of the vehicle we were taking out to the camp without my knowledge. We had to take some cramped safari esque cars on a less than ideal road and I had been seated on a bench facing the opposite direction in which we were travelling. I had had my camera to take some pics of the kids I was facing as we travelled out there; and it was securely in my lap when we went down a pretty steep embankment to cross a river, then had to lurch up the other side. It was only afterward that I noticed my camera was gone and no where to be found within the car; but what I did find was about a 6inch gap of space between the bench I was on and the wall of the car: a space which opened onto nothing besides the machinery that connected the passenger car with the drivers car; and Sullivan law would dictate that, however unlikely the chances, if my camera could find its way through that narrow opening down to the ground, or more likely the river, below, it most certainly would...and did. Im still hoping that maybe it wasnt washed away in the river and that perhaps someone in the village we passed through has it and may give it to one of the volunteers in passing who lives out that way, which has been known to happen with lost items in the past; but considering when I got on my bike and immediately backtracked to said village after arriving at the camp and searched/asked around for about an hour and got nothing, the chances are probably slim. Its not the end of the world though; I did lose a lot of photos but the best of the best tended to find themselves posted online anyway.
Ill leave you with one more experience I had recently which besides being trying was a pretty good closing to my first year here. After the camp a group of about 8 of us decided to head out to the very same waterfall I got to go to during my training a year ago while I was on my own PCV site visit like the one I described earlier. Last year when I went, the 10k bike ride, which included fording a river and one of the crappiest bush paths known to man, was the most I had ever biked in my life and was extremely challenging. But I was surprised to see how much difference a year can make, because even though this trip wasnt without its challenges, I felt well equipped to deal with them and help lead some of the other visiting volunteers who had never done such a trip before. Besides the long bike ride out there in the first place, our 23 hour journey from Kedougou to the falls, thats right, 23 HOURS, included plenty of exhaustion and dehydration for those unaccustomed to biking, thus we stopped a lot, fording the same river with bikes over our heads, finding ourselves not at the falls by the time it got dark and myself negotiating with a Pulaar family in a passing village to spend the night with them, then getting up early the next morning to make short work of the rest of the trip only to have my friends chain break and having that be the first time Ive ever fixed one in the bush and only finally arriving at the falls at about 11am, having left at about NOON the PREVIOUS day. The waterfall is so beautiful though that it makes any amount of hardship worth it just to get there and I was happy to go.
So, like I said, you really do know more thank you think.

Thanks so much again, especially Bernie and Jo Brennan for their package I recently got, and to everyone for your continued support!

Talk to you again soon (if I dont die on the road...Pulaar saying...).

Love,

Steve Sullivan

No comments: