Sully and Senegal

Fewer and farther between...

2010-10-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

It's been quite a while since my last update, but I figure now that the day to day stuff of my service seems a little mundane, it's worth waiting until I have a bulk of stuff to write about.

Starting with an update on the well that was under construction at the time I last wrote, it unfortunately remains that way. Though it's near completion, other projects and a general incompetence when it comes to customer service have kept the masons away for the better part of the last few months; though they've been good enough to provide me with plenty of promises to tide me over til it's done. In the meantime, I'll be doing what I can to try and move forward on the rest of this larger-scale community garden, of which this larger-scale well is meant to be a part.

My own agricultural work has been going pretty well, though I find myself a little swamped playing a game of catch-up after having been out of site for a little over a month. My village family was honored to have members of my actual family, Patrick and Molly Hanlon (my cousin and his wife, my cousin "in-law"?), come to visit the village for about 4 days. They were very proud and humbled to have Samba's family travel from a literal and figurative world away just to come see how I've been living for just shy of two years; and how they've lived their whole lives. They were thrilled by the gifts Pat & Molly brought but they were very emphatic about having me translate that their coming was gift enough, and that they would like to speak to them, if only they could. As I said, it was about 4 days with some time fit in to experience a bit of the Bassari culture (another ethnic group in the area) with my friend and fellow PCV Lindsay and her counterpart.

All told, Pat & Molly's visit lasted about 2 weeks, with time in Dakar before heading down to Kedougou and a couple of days before leaving as well. Between the village and their return to Dakar, however, we had the pleasure to travel up to the beach town of Popenguine for a fishing trip with my friend Ankith, the PCV who has been posted their working in eco-tourism for the past 2 years. Unfortunately, due to inclement weather the night before, the captain decided to cancel since, despite beautfiul weather the day of, the previous night's storm would make the water still too choppy farther out. In any case, we still got a beautiful day at the beach and were able to grill out that night; not fish we caught ourselves, as planned, but just as good.

Ankith was generous enough to let us stay with his family an extra night so we would have a place to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Korité, which marks the end of the month-long fasting of Ramadan. I had been wondering what we would do for that, given we'd already be out of my village by that time, but Ankith's host family welcomed us and stuffed us on chicken, fries and salad. Korité is somewhat like Easter in that most people venture to the church (or mosque, in this case) in the morning, then come home for a big mid-day meal; though for them the eating itself is significant since it's being done at a time of day during which they have been allowed to eat for the past month.

We headed back to Dakar after that to get them back in time for their flight and do some last-minute site-seeing, and shopping. Molly has this thing for baskets I'd rather not go into, but in any case, we found some genuine Senegalese woven baskets and mats that are popular here, so she was happy.

I was thrilled and so grateful to have them come visit, if not just to have someone from back home experience my new life here firsthand. I hope they had as much fun as I did, and I, for one, know my family here won't forget them or their generosity for a very long time (probably never). Thanks guys!

I mentioned being away from site for a while, and traveling with Pat & Molly was only the tip of the iceberg. The day I dropped them at the airport was the same day the newest batch of volunteers-in-training were heading to Kedougou for the Volunteer Visit portion of their training, in which they travel to the region, and sometimes even the site, that they will ultimately go to upon swearing-in. It's a good opportunity for them to get a taste of what their next 2 years of service will be like, and I know for me it was a motivation to get through the last of training. Anyway, I'm sure I've talked about it at length in past updates, since this marks the 4th group of trainees that have done this since I've been here. I'm officially old.

Needless to say, I wouldn't be making it down in time from Dakar, so I went back to Popenguine to hang out with Ankith and the trainee who would be his replacement while he showed her the ropes (thanks again, Ankith). Once the visit was done I was meant to be back in Thies to help out at the training center, which I was able to do for one day before the trainees went back to their training villages.

Then I went back to Dakar to travel to Burkina Faso (another West-African country). My first (official) trip out of Senegal in 2 years! I got asked to go along with two other volunteers from my original group who would also be doing third years, but in Agroforestry. It was a conference put on by the Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO; www.echo.net), based out of Florida. It was the first meeting of its kind in West Africa, bringing people from many different countries and organizations of which Peace Corps was just one of many. It was a great learning experience and we were sent with the idea that since we had already done 2 years and would be doing a third, we might be good candidates to disseminate this info to other PCVs. Here's hoping.

After 5 days, we came back to Dakar and I myself headed BACK to Thies to the training center to help out with the famed Counterpart Workshop. It's a chance for host-country nationals chosen as counterparts for PCVs work to come meet their Volunteer prior to their install to talk about plans for their arrival, the first 3 months, etc. They also get sessions on safety and security, helping their PCV learn the language, dealing with misunderstandings, and general awareness of what being a Volunteer means. I mainly acted as translator between Volunteers who were learning the same language as myself and their counterparts, but it felt good to do it.

Once that was over it was back to Dakar with the intention of returning to Kedougou ASAP. Through my multiple trips back and forth I had been working on my 3rd year medical clearance and that was finally complete, but now I had about 10 other Volunteers from my original group of 2 years ago coming into Dakar to do their Close of Service (COS) and, effectively, go home (or leave, in any case). So, given the choice between leaving immediately for Kedougou or waiting a couple extra days until another group of PCVs from the region would be organizing a car to go back, I decided to stay and spend some time with these people who had been my friends for 2 years; and some my closest neighbors. We had a great time reminiscing about our own training and our experiences together. It was certainly tough to say goodbye and even harder to believe it was over in what felt like both a heartbeat and an eternity at once. But our paths will likely cross again; they don't seem the type to settle down anytime soon.

I made it back to the village for a whopping 3 days before heading back into the town of Kedougou to, believe it or not, greet those newly sworn-in Volunteers and help them prepare for their installs (again, for the 4th time). I came back accompanying Lindsay's replacement, whom I think is very excited to be out in mine and Ian's (my second closest neighbor) neck of the woods (aka the boonies). And we're very excited to have her, though it will be strange without Lindsay.

Let's just hope she makes a good third for our Thirsty Thursdays. I'm sure she'll learn.

Thanks!

Til next time,

Steve "Samba" Sullivan

Long Overdue Update...because when are they not

2010-06-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry for taking so long this time around to send an update on the

life and times of Sully in Senegal; the time really gets away from you

when your sweating your way through the days. But thankfully we seem

to be on our way out of the hot dry season and into the hot rainy

season. We've already had quite a few rains, and it's amazing the

difference even just a little moisture can make to the landscape. My

friend who is a fellow volunteer and my closest neighbor described it

pretty well when he said it's like going from a moonscape to a jungle

in a matter of weeks.

With the rains comes the planting, and my 2nd annual distribution of

Samba's corn and assorted crops. I recently got all my seeds that

were issued to me out to my site, and now their in my hut waiting to

be given out to farmers once I come up with plan d'action. I

fortunately got to request things that I wanted this time around,

being all experienced and what not (...?). I also have the seeds that

were returned to me by farmers last year to figure out what to do

with, so I'm thinking of trying to expand out to a neighboring village

or two. Probably just with one or two farmers in each one, since I

don't know those villages very well, and I'd be stretched pretty thin

trying to visit them constantly on top of monitoring the fields in my

own village.

In addition to that, the goings on consists of a lot of work for the

upcoming mosquito net distribution, also for the second year in a row.

However (and you all probably noticed I didn't try to hit you up for

money this time around), the system is a little different since it's

much more on the government's shoulders this year and not Peace Corps.

The national anti-malaria program in Senegal has decided to adopt the

system of distributing nets that we implemented last year, when it was

much more the PCVs baby, and use it to continue towards the updated

goal of universal coverage (and they've provided the nets). Last year

the government did distribute some nets, but they were focusing only

on women and children under 5, so our distribution was beneficial in

ensuring that every sleeping space, regardless of who slept there, was

covered by a net. The government has since, as I said, updated their

goal to mirror our distribution last year in trying to achieve

"universal coverage" (which, incidentally, was the recommendation of

the World Health Organization that distributing long-lasting,

impregnated mosquito nets en masse was the most effective way to

combat malaria).

So while it has been a lot of logistical work on our side, it's been

encouraging to see that with so many national, regional, and

departmental teams involved this time, even if we were to quit right

now, this distribution would still happen without us. My job has been

helping with the visuals (surprise) for the many trainings that are

needed this year to educate local health workers on the best way to

take a census of a family's compound and accurately discover exactly

how many nets that family needs. The dry run of this training was

yesterday, with the first real one being today. I think it's going to

go really well, and I was happy to be able to contribute what I think

will further help these health workers do the best job possible.

That's most of the recent news; however, I do have a continuing well

project which got underway about a month and a half ago thanks to

funds I received from my high school's National Honors Society. They

raised an incredible amount of money putting on a dodgeball tournament

of all things, which I thought was pretty awesome. Some of those

funds are also going to go towards the mosquito net distribution by

helping alleviate the costs of conducting so many trainings of local

health workers and ultimately the transportation costs of getting nets

out to their distribution points. Anyway, the well idea was brought

up at the large village-wide meeting I think I wrote about before,

where we had men, women, and children all separately bring up what

they thought the priorities for improving life in the village should

be. One that they all agreed one was digging a new, modern well

between the two areas of the village which are the farthest apart from

one another. Since then I wrote a grant for the well to be dug, which

was later funded by dodgeball, and digging has been underway for the

last couple weeks. I'm happy to report we recently hit water at 6m

underground (which is ridiculously shallow and I'm very fortunate

since I only budgeted to go no farther than 10m; also because most

people get to 10-20m and haven't hit anything but more rocks). We are

still going to continue down below the water level to the 10m mark, so

that the villagers will never have to worry about that well running

dry. The idea is that since we've only just entered the rainy season,

the water table is going to be at about it's lowest point, so if you

dig to it and then continue beyond by a couple of meters, you can be

sure that even in the thick of the hot dry season, there will be

water.

I'm kind of chronologically all over the place since it's easier to

write about things as I think of them. I did just get back a couple

weeks ago from JazzFest in St. Louis, which is up north of Dakar and

basically extremely far away from Kedougou. It was totally worth the

trip though; myself and three other Gou volunteers went up together

and had a room at a hotel that was by the beach (not particularly nice

but it was by the beach), and our room had a little kitchen area with

a gas stove and mini-fridge, so we were able to cook our own meals

some nights and grill out on the hotel's property. The music was

awesome, though not the music of the actual Fest since I wouldn't know

what that sounded like. The actual event is walled off and expensive

to get into, but every other bar on the island has live music in

celebration of the Fest, so we would just watch those shows for free.

All in all, despite the heavy amounts of travelling, it was a great

getaway and a nice little vacation.

This past week my two closest neighbors, Lindsay and Ian, came out

to my village to paint a world map at the primary school there. Not

much to be said about it besides it was extremely hot and took us 3

days to do it, but PC has like a whole packet on how to complete one

so it turned out really great. It was just that I dont think any of

us expected it to take as long as it did, and my family was surprised

when my guests' stay went from one night with us to three. In any

case, it's done now and looks really nice and the school was

very appreciative since now they have a great new teaching tool

available to them.

Oh, and about 3 months ago, we did a repeat of last year's eye

clinic: same doctors, same deal, I even got to have the same job as

the Pre-Op guy and getting to use what my friend called my "polished

Grandma Pulaar" to help "soothe" patients by explaining everything to

them. It was cool, though, to see a marked difference in how much I

could tell them and to what degree I could answer questions as

compared to the me of last year. They performed something like 94

cataract surgeries again this year which was incredible, but the best

part was that the hospital was performing C-sections at the same time,

so we'd have to give up the OR until they were done; one day my friend

and I asked the head surgeon if we could, you know, watch, and he

actually said yes! We just had to don scrubs and masks and stood in

the corner watching the whole thing. NEVER would have been allowed in

the States, and it was totally gross, but now I can say I've watched a

C-section from beginning to end. They're surprising brutal.

That's about it for now, if you're still reading at this point! As

you may have noticed I switched my email over to a Gmail account

because Comcast doesn't work too reliably for me over here, for

whatever reason, and PC has been doing a lot of info and file-sharing

through Google Docs, so if we have our own accounts it's easier for

us. So I just copied over all my contacts from the old account and

recreated this list; if youre still on it and would rather not be, let

me know, or if you know someone who should be on it, tell them they're

not on it for a reason. Or tell me, and I'll add them.

Thanks again for all the love and support, and I'll make a serious

effort next time to deliver a timely (and shorter) update.

Love,

Steve Sully Sullivan

Still Alive in Senegal

2010-02-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Yep, it's been that long since I last wrote anything. Resolution...?

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great time over the holidays; I know I did. And thanks to everyone who continues to follow these updates, you know, when I actually write them.

I had a really good time over Christmas/New Year's. It was much more low-key than last year's all-out vacation to the north. In fact I just stayed here in the Kedougou regional house, but I certainly wasn't alone. Plenty of other volunteers decided to do just that (after I did, I might add) so we had a pretty big group here. We actually went to church! There's a Catholic church down the road; the congregation's not too big since most people here are Muslim, but just like any other church in the States, everyone turns out for Christmas Eve. It was a pretty cool experience, though there were plenty of similarities, including a lot of kids who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. But at least we went...for most of it.
Christmas morning had more remarkable difference; I doubt many of you woke up with the task of slaughtering a pig waiting for you (don't worry, neither did I; I just filmed it). But after that gruesome task was done, between a couple of the more culinarily inclined volunteers and the rest of us acting as slave labor, we had some delicious pork chili for Christmas dinner. After Christmas Day was done, most people went their separate ways; some back to their own regions, some back to site, some up north for the party in St. Louis I went to last year. I ended up just staying in Kedougou til New Year's since I had some work to do anyway, and fate seemed to want me to stay since every ride I was attempting to take before New Year's fell through. But I eventually made it back...
In time for the first-ever Samba Diallo village-wide meeting...extravanganza? Actually, as much as I'd like to call it that, I just held a meeting commonly referred to as PACA: Participatory Activities for Community Analysis. It's basically a chance for the volunteer to facilitate discussions amongst the villagers to identify what their top priorities are with regards to the needs of the community. It took a lot of planning but in the end it paid off hugely. I had one of the PC staff for Agriculture, Youssepha, come to help do some of the more detailed project planning which came at the end of the 2-day event, and also a handful of other volunteers came to help out for a variety of reasons. Some of them wanted to do the same thing at their sites sometime, and one of my friends came to record stuff for the next PC Kedougou radio show.
I also had a lot of help, and favorably so, from a lot of Senegalese nationals, including the director and teachers of the primary located in my village. I say favorably because ideally PC is should only be there to help facilitate the activities; it's the villagers who provide the input and direct the flow of the subsequent conversations. The most important aspect of these conversations is that they happen first within each separate demographic (i.e. men, women, or children) to allow people to speak freely without worrying about abiding by cultural norms such as the youth having to defer to the elders or women not speaking openly in front of men. Some of these activities included having the three separate groups draw maps of how they saw the village, then mark where they went everyday, or every week, or every month. This helped show what resources were available to the village already and their level of importance to each separate group. We also did daily activity schedules for the rainy and dry seasons for each group, to show when they have more time to be able to plan/implement new projects, but also to further highlight discrepancies in workloads (i.e. women here work a LOT).
It all leads up to a village-wide prioritizing activity where they pick the handful of needs they've all agreed upon and rank them. Once ranked, I called in Youssepha to help make actual project plans, which basically look like itemized budgets, which ultimately show the overall cost of the project, and how much the village would be expected to contribute versus external funds should we attempt to write a grant to get it done. It was overall a big success I think; I got on the women's good side anyway by making sure lunch was provided. If nothing else, I have a lot more opportunities for work ahead of me now (or my replacement does...ha!)
I would have written earlier, however, shortly thereafter, it was time to prepare to leave for Dakar for the 37th annual (and my personal 2nd) West African International Softball Tournament or, how appropriate....WAIST. I actually went to Dakar about 5 days before WAIST actually started because I needed to finally do my mid-service check-up with med (no cavities), and I also had to prepare a presentation with a fellow volunteer. For two days before WAIST was the All-Vol conference: a really awesome opportunity for everyone in Senegal and beyond to get together and share best-practices and experiences. Everyone always takes a lot away from it, and this year I was, as I said, asked to present with another volunteer on the subject of using murals and visual aids for communication within predominantly illiterate communities. But, being that she and I are in different regions of the country, we hadn't met until the day before the conference. It was no big deal, however, as we both brought the pics we wanted to use and whipped up a presentation that we ended up giving 3 times to big audiences and pretty good reviews.
But, then of course, there was the softball. WAIST is invaluable for getting to get away from village life and un-wind with your fellow volunteers by actually making yourself more exhausted then you've probably ever been in your village-life. It's a lot of late nights and long days, but it's always a blast. This year, the TambaGou team were in top form, sticking to our usual strategy of forfeiting at the beginning and then playing for, you guessed it, FUN. I mean, we still "play", there's just a lot more highjinx thrown in than you might find in one of the more serious games. Our theme, a popular choice this season, was P.C. B.C. : or, essentially the Flintstones. Remember that pig slaughtering I mentioned earlier? Yeah, we plan ahead when it comes to costumes. Mine was rumored to be one of the best at WAIST, and you may get to see it, if I ever decide to put them up here....
Now we're back from WAIST, I've taken a day to prepare to get back for the village, which included a lot of errands and washing all my travelling clothes, and now it's getting late. So, again, apologies for the late update, but those usually are the most interesting.

Thanks again, and talk to you soon!

-Steve "Samba" Sullivan

Senegal Parenting 101 and the AIDS Day that never was

2009-12-04T11:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Belated Thanksgiving! Hope everyone's holiday went as well as ours; though for us, "well" meant feeding a group of about 40 people, including the country director and his family and figuring out how to make a turducken. I, however, has the sense to leave the cooking to the pros and just chop or carry something from one room to another every now and then, so I didn't have to do much of any cooking.
I was happy to get back to Kedougou for the holiday, which meant seeing everyone from our region, including the newest volunteers with whom I havent spent much time yet, as well as the neighboring region of Tamba (we're affectionately known as TambaGou whenever we get together). It was also exciting to be back in the regional capital as I had just been at site for about 4.5 weeks (hence the long-awaited update, right?). It was the longest stint I had done in the village thus far without leaving, except to go to the nearest town over for the weekly market. It was a relief to simply be speaking English again and to be around friends; though for my own mini-village-marathon, it wasnt all that difficult. I fortunately had a lot of work to do, what with calculating yields harvested from the farmers I worked with this growing season, outplanting my woodlot of about 100 trees, many now over my head, into rows to be used as fuel/fodder wood, plus I got to teach a few more art lessons at the school (BAD time to not have a camera), as well as help them with an activity for Children's Rights Day, unclear as to whether or not it was celebrated anywhere but my primary school; and by "help them", I mean a teacher asked me to do something for Children's Rights Day.
This became a really interesting opportunity to use the boatloads of art supplies I've received from the States, but also came at a time when I was becoming increasingly frustrated with the parenting techniques of my village family. In general, most parents here use more of a negative reinforcement technique when raising their kids; it was actually part of a session during training as explained to us by one of the Senegalese staff, also a mom. Instead of a, "This is what you did wrong here; dont do it again" approach, its more like a "What, you cant do it this way? This is the right way; are you stupid?" And you can only hear "If you...I'll beat the piss out of you" so many times from the same woman in one day before you at least start wishing they'd mix it up a bit. Verbal abuse is one thing, but at least have some sense of originality.
I dont mean to paint a bleak picture of the parents in my village;' I know the parents in my family love their kids. This is how they were raised and how they were taught was the proper way to raise children. And theres probably something to it since most of the adolescent girls in my village are more self-reliant and capable then people I went to college with. But I do think my family should exercise a certain amount of perspective when dealing with their kids, since they use the same tone/harsh language for serious transgressions, as well as stupid crap. I've started to be more vocal about things I dont like or that make me angry; I think I've earned that right at this point, so we'll see how that works out.
Anyway, with this on my mind, Childrens' Rights Day, which apparently was sponsored by UNICEF as they had sent posters to the school, seemed like a great opportunity to have the kids bring home to their parents what they had learned about their own rights (i.e. the right to be well fed, to be vaccinated, to live in a clean environment, to express themselves) and what they needed from their parents in order to be happy and successful. So, with the whole school, we went over the rights they had learned, and I asked them who could help them achieve each on. Low and behold, "PARENTS" showed up the most number of times, so they all went back to their classrooms and, armed with good old Crayola, picked a couple from the list of rights for which they needed the support of their parents; they wrote/drew whatever they wanted to take home to them as a visual reminder. Doubt it did much to change anything about how parents treat their kids, but they enjoyed the activity anyhow.
After coming in for Thanksgiving and having a great time, I jetted back to my village (luckily got a car) the next day so I'd be there for the Muslim holiday, that Saturday. It was exhausting, but it was good to have made it back and be able to reminisce with them about with them about last year's Tabaski when I had only just got there it seemed. So, I went from turkey and stuffing to the Mosque and goat slaughtering in a matter of a couple days; totally worth it.
I'm back in Gou again, however, because I needed to continue/finish a project I had started when I was here for Thanksgiving. I may have mentioned this before, bu the volunteers here in Gou are trying to work alongside the hospital for an AIDS awareness and campaign in the form of multiple billboards that would be put up in prominent spots all over town. Yours truly got asked to paint said billboards, and once we had a list of possible messages from the hospital, it was on to figuring out just what the hell I was supposed to do. The billboards having long since been made, it was now left to come up with some way of sending these messages visually to the public. Anyway, World AIDS Day was December 1st, and thus I had come right back to Gou to try and finish the billboard for the big unveilling during the town's AIDS activities, as organized by the hospital and one of our city-based health volunteers. Unfortunately, the hospital decided to postpone these AIDS Days activities for a later, non-AIDS Day day because they felt it was too close to Tabaski; they have yet to reschedule. So, I'm here finishing it at my leisure, waiting to see when they might reschedule the event; though I plan to go back to my site tomorrow regardless.
Again, hope everyone had a great holiday; let me know! Hope to talk to you again soon; I should be back through here again in a little over a week on my way to Tamba for the next Ag Summit, and then it's Christmas. A bunch of us are thinking Christmas in Kedougou has a nice ring to it.

Talk to you soon!

Love,

Sully

Year In (almost) Update!

2009-10-21T10:34:00.001-07:00

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

Long Overdue Update...Again

2009-08-28T08:47:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the overdue update, but then again, haven't they all been? When I last wrote, I was on my way back to the village after recuperating a little at our regional house. Once I felt up to it, which was only after about a day and a half, I was able to get myself and the seeds for my farmers transported back to Kekeressi. Afterwards came the challenging task of getting all the seeds out to those whom I had decided to extend to, which proved not to be as hard as I thought. Over the course of a few days, I managed to get corn, sorghum, bean, and rice seed out with the help of my counterparts in the village. Part of the deal with this seed distribution is that, in exchange for getting a kilo or more of an improved variety of the crops their used to farming, the farmers who receive them agree to pay me back doubly. For example, for those who I gave a kilo of corn seed to, they have to give me 2 kilos of seed for me to save at the harvest; if I gave them two kilos of beans, they have to give me 4 kilos at harvest, etc. I had heard putting something in writing to try and hold them more accountable works well, so though most of the villagers are illiterate, I wrote out a very simple sheet that said (in Pulaar) "Samba Diallo gave me..." and then wrote in what I gave them; "I, (their name), will give him..." and then what I expected of them, and we both signed it. They all seemed to understand what they were agreeing to well enough, and if anything they got a kick out of it when I asked them to hold the paper up while I took their picture (they got to keep the paper, so I needed my own proof, right?).
For weeks after the seed distribution, it had been a constant struggle with the weather in order to continue with the program. What I found out in terms of their usual practices is that they wait until it's rained a few times for the soil to moisten and then they begin seeding. It's a slow process which continues gradually over a couple of weeks, so with respect to my seeds, I had to wait for farmers to get around to that part of their fields where they had chosen to plant them. However, troubles began for us when the rains began enough to motivate the farmers to begin seeding, and then they promptly...stopped. The farmers understand the typical weather patterns better than I ever will, and even they were concerned that the rains were extremely late in their consistency. It was sporadic enough for those first few weeks that a few farmers had to actually reseed what I had given them (thankfully they had some leftover) because they had seeded thinking the rains were finally come, then they stopped for 15-20 days, and the crops died short of their germination.
For myself, this was a trying time because it was one base of the whole seed-distribution program that I could do nothing to cover. Seeds were out, instructions given, demonstrations planned, meetings held, etc...and then no rain. What could any of us do? It was also physically challenging as I had been investing a lot of time and energy into a few of my own demonstrations involving a lot of agroforestry work that I wasn't prepared to see wasted because of a lack of rain, so I was obliged to schlep water from the well up and over hills and mountainsides to try and keep them alive. Thankfully, however, the rains have now become sufficient enough that many of the villagers' worries, as well as my own, have been assuaged, the fields look gorgeous, and the seeds which I distributed, as well as the demos myself and my Pilot Farmers have been implementing, are looking really promising. I talked somewhat about the demos we're doing in my last post, but the ones I myself have worked a lot on are the contour-planting demo to try and combat soil erosion (a pic of the A-frame we used to find the contours is on the blog), as well as an alley-cropping demo, where rows of trees are planted intermittently within a field to improve the soil fertility and, hopefully, the crop's yield. Both demos have gone well so far, now that I've gotten everything in the ground and haven't been having to hand water them. I outplanted 50 trees from my tree nursery into one farmers corn field, so they'd have an idea of how the rows will look eventually, and the remaining two rows were direct-seeded into the ground. The PC Director for Agriculture/Agroforestry, Famara Massaly, just recently came out to my site to see all this work, and he seemed to approve.
Other agriculture stuff we've been working on in the village, as exciting as I'm sure it is for you all to read about, have been to demonstrate other ways trees can help benefit a farmer's field. Once such example was a windbreak which I planted along a farmer's corn field; the idea of a windbreak is to slow down the powerful winds that often whip through fields during storms, damaging crops and/or gardens. The trees slow it down, but don't stop it entirely; wind has a way, if it hits a solid wall with nowhere else to go, of simply going up and over it and not really losing any force whatsoever. The trees help diffuse the wind to the point where it can still get through but is nowhere near as powerful by the time it hits the crops. I also tried a demonstration of a firebreak, which was my director's suggestion at his first visit, since I'm in such a rural location where the high grasses come within the village boundaries and ultimately become a danger during the dry season when wildfires run rampant. The benefit of planting a firebreak now, such as with rows of cashew trees which I did, is that these trees typically have large canopies which shade out the ground underneath them, stopping the growth of vegetation; and, in the case of cashew trees, they have medium-sized, thick leaves, that, when they fall, canvas the ground around the parent tree, further preventing anything from growing under them. Thus, if a wildfire approaches the fire break, it finds that there's nothing to fuel it, and ultimately goes out. Obviously, this would take a ton of trees and a decent amount of manpower to do a whole village, so I just did a small section to try and entice others to do it in their own fields; which, really, is the point of doing ANY of these demonstrations.
As exciting as all this Ag work has been over the past couple months, people are probably more anxious to hear about how our mosquito net distribution went (THANK YOU again to everyone who donated), and I'm happy to say it went really well, and was something I was extremely proud to be a part of. It certainly had it's ups and downs; it didn't involve a whole lot of rest and relaxation, but that was probably what made it all the more rewarding. Without detailing the entire 10 days here and including every trip to every tiny village we went to, I can say that in general it involved quite a bit of thinking on one's fit, a lot of biking, and a lot of patience. First of all, as you probably know already, we weren't the ones behind this distribution, but were there in support of those who were: the NGO, NetLife. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, NetLife was started by a former PCV who came back to his village after he had finished his service to try and supply them all with sufficient bed nets, and since then the project, and the NGO, have expanded to try and cover entire Departments in the region of Kedougou. Of course, the PCVs were there to help with transporting as well as translating, and in the end we were able to provide almost full coverage to the entire department of Saraya. Unfortunately, the nets werent quite enough, as it was not uncommon for us to bike into one small village and be told about an even smaller one with about 20 people in the vicinity that we hadn't planned for, but that of course we couldn't refuse. However, we are going to be trying to do a sort of Phase 2 to finish out the rest, so if anyone is still interested in donating, the website is http://www.againstmalaria.com/NetLifePCV2009.
I was happy to get to help out with another aspect of the distribution which was aimed at providing education for villagers on how they can contract malaria, what the symptoms are and what to do if they appear, and how to properly maintain their mosquito nets. It was important to us to not seem like we were another NGO giving out handouts, and one way to do this was to actually have discussions with the villagers in their native languages. While most everyone already knew that mosquitoes posed the biggest threat to contracting the disease, there were other important aspects of prevention we wanted to make sure got across, especially with regards to children under 5 and pregnant women. My part came, surprisingly enough, when I was asked to draw visuals that could be used when giving these presentations, so I ended up making about 4 identical bed sheets (since we were split into teams) with images that could help aid the discussion; including a scene with people in the village doing what they should not be doing, like hanging out outside a dusk when the mosquitoes first come out, people experiencing the symptoms, a mother taking her child to the local health "relais" (a rural health contact), the Poste de Sante, or Dispensaire where they could receive free treatment, and finally someone correctly using their mosquito net. It seemed to really help with the trainings, and I know I had fun using them on the distributions I did. I know there were some great videos taken, some of them with me in them doing these trainings, and once they've been put up and I know where to find them, I'll let you know.

I also just got to have another Ag volunteer, my friend Jordan, out to check out my site for a couple of days, which was exciting since, besides the volunteer who is 5k from me, I haven't had anyone out to see where I live and what I'm doing til now. He also helped me out with a project at the primary school in my village, where I started the art lessons, in conjunction with the school director/staff where we planted 12 flamboyant trees. Flamboyant are, as the name suggests, very beautiful, though that's about all they're good for. However, the director has asked me about doing some beautification stuff at the school, so I included them in my tree nursery a few months ago, and decided they were big enough to plant. So with Jordan's help, and several Senegalese who have a tendency to assume the white guys cant work and did most of the digging for us anyway, we got them all planted and they'll be a nice addition to the school grounds...God-willing.

That's about it for now; sorry for the long update but, like I said, aren't they always?

Thanks again, and talk to you soon!

Love,

Steve "Samba" Sullivan

Villagers helping me sort seeds for extension

Some of the sorted seeds ready to distribute (beans)

One of the farmers I work with holding our contracts I mentioned

Two of my friends hanging up our banner at the 4th of July "5k"; everyone in Kedougou was invited to come run alongside PCVs for prizes and to learn more about what we do

Hanging up signs advertising what PCVs have to offer (zoom in)

At the starting line...

And they're off

The visual aid I made for our training sessions

Matt, our PCV Leader for the region, using the visual aid to educate villagers

We transported a lot of the nets by bike to the smaller villages, like this one shown with a Senegalese man who helped us out for the day

Tournée; A Festival; A Big Thank You, and Happy Father's Day, Dad

2009-06-21T04:10:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone (or, as they say here, I greet you),

Just wanted to send another exciting (hopefully) update on my life here in Senegal. I promise its much less of a downer than the last one.

When I last wrote, I was on my way to being a "tournee" of all the collèges (essentially middle schools) of the Kedougou Region. A group of volunteers, myself included, were going to be travelling to each location with the aim of accomplishing three goals: paint an AIDS awareness mural (that was my team), conduct interviews for the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship (a scholarship created in memory of a former PC Senegal volunteer which provides money for school supplies for the winner), and to invite students to apply for our upcoming summer leadership camp (headed by a group of 3 other volunteers).
As I mentioned, I was recruited to be on the mural team and worked alongside another PCV from the north of Senegal, Colleen, who extended an extra 6 months in order to do educational murals such as this in various regions of the country. She and I worked on the design together, which was simply a guy and a girl holding hands, apparently coming to an agreement to talk about the most crucial ways to prevent HIV/AIDS: abstinence, fidelity, condoms, and testing. The message, in French, was "We respect our community. We talk about AIDS (SIDA in French), and we included the red ribbon, Senegalese flag, and I tried reproducing the PC logo later on. Then we got started on our whirlwind tour. Rather than go through each and every one, in the end, we completed a mural at each of the 11 collèges in our region, as well as interviews and camp stuff. Of course, being Senegal, some schools had to be completed piece-meal, with our only doing a mural that day because the teachers weren't prepared with the girls' info, etc. and it required multiple trips by different people to get everything done. Others went very smoothly, with Colleen and I knocking out the mural while the others did the interviews. We got pretty fast towards the end; using a grid-system was much easier and made the drawing much faster so we could get other people to help us fill in the colors sooner. Our adventures included a lot of biking out to some pretty beautiful areas of the region, getting caught in a storms and spending the night at health posts, taking some nice, and not so nice transportation, and above all interacting with a lot of different students. The best ones were where the discussions already started to take place before we had even finished the painting. At the collège in Salemata, the town closest to my village, a teacher started asking the onlookers (they were usually more willing to watch us than paint themselves) what they saw: A boy and a girl. And what are the dangers of them being together? Diseases. Like what kind of diseases? Like AIDS. What do you know about AIDS?...and they were off. It was a great experience and a great way to see a lot of the region I had yet to visit. Colleen had to leave shortly after completing #10, which I had gone back to the village for, so #11 was completed by myself and a few other volunteers just a couple weeks ago.
In amongst this whole tour of the region, the Bassari Festival happened. Im not sure if Ive mentioned this before, but the Bassari Fest is an initiation ceremony for adolescent males thats steeped in tradition, since the Bassaris around me claim to have been there long before the Pulaars. Theres one of the largest populations of Bassari villages out by Salemata, near my village, and finally having a volunteer in Salemata, my closest neighbor, Lindsey, after about 12 years, made getting to see the initiation a lot easier than in years past. The Bassaris are notorious for not announcing when their particular village is going to be staging its initiation until the last second, which makes it difficult for tourists, especially PCVs, to get out there; last year, in fact, before Lindsey or myself or any PCV was out there, a group of volunteers traveled all the way there on the weekend they had heard the initiation was supposed to take place, and found they were a week early. This year, though, Lindsey had the inside scoop so people new exactly when to be there.
The result was a group of approximately 40 volunteers descending upon the department of Salemata. We had a little soiree at our house, which we took a break from the scholarship tournee for, and the next day had transport arranged to take us all out there. We left our things at the nearest tourist campement, and let the festivities commence. As some of you may know, Muslims dont drink alcohol; Bassaris, however, are NOT Muslim by any means, and the palm wine flowed like, well, wine. The next day was the big event of the entire initiation, the combat. Each of the 45 "pledges", we'll call them, had to go up against a Bassari "brother" in one-on-one combat. However, we had the feeling that over the years, despite the fact that the young men get a sword and a kind of bow-shaped shield, and the brothers are armed with sticks and a handguard, that the fighting had probably been dumbed down a bit once tourism to the event started to take hold, because most of the fights quickly turned to just grappling, and either one of them got thrown down or they called a stalemate...lame. Some of the fights were pretty good though, with kids making good use of their swords and cocky brothers getting taken down.
Now, a few weeks prior, Lindsey and I had gone to a smaller village's initiation, which was much the same order of events as this one. However, Lindsey was told she was not allowed to go to the battleground because it was for men only to watch. The Bassaris, during the festival, wear elaborate masks to hide their faces (check out the pics on my blog), and those come off for the most part during the fights. This "secret" must be kept from the women, so they arent allowed to watch at all. That sucked for Lindsey, but we talked to the coordinator from the village whose initiation this huge group of PCVs was going to attend, many of them women, and asked if they would be prohibited as well. He said maybe not, but it would be up to the village. Well, the village ultimately went the same way as the others, and all the females who came to the ceremony werent allowed to watch. They said they still had a good time though, and were able to watch from the top of a large hill where you could still see what as generally going on.
With the Bassari Fest over and the subsequent mural/scholarship tournee done, Ive been back in my village focusing on slowly getting a new garden going (currently waiting on new fencing to be made), and mainly working with my 5 pilot farmers about what we're going to do with their fields this rainy season. Id been meeting with them individually, since they were the people said to be the better farmers in my village and the one nextdoor, to see if they would be willing to not only receive improved seed varieties from me for their crops, but also to try new techniques that, if they work well, can be taught to other farmers. They're commonly called "demo plots". Theyve all been very receptive to reserving parts of their fields for these demonstrations, and we had a good meeting with everyone together not long ago where they were able to learn the demos each other was doing and get an idea of the bigger picture. Ive been told with all the things I want them to try, Ill be putting a lot on my plate, but I think they can handle it. Some of the demos include (if youre interested in that sort of thing): improved spacing between rows/plants for corn, sorghum, and peanuts; intercropping beans with corn/peanuts; a demo of chemical vs. organic fertilizers, a demo of alleycropping rows of trees into the corn field for fertilizer; planting other trees for fertilizer in various places within fields. One other that Im proud of is one that my village brother and I are doing. He wanted to some of his corn on the side of one of the many large slopes in our village, so we're trying a contour planting demo with him. We constructed whats called an A-frame (see pics) to find the contours along the hill every 5 meters, and we will be planting rows of trees along them to help stop soil erosion.
Most importantly, theyll be helping me distribute the improved seeds to other farmers as well, which is what I came in to Kedougou to pick up. Id be back there with them not, if not for my first case of Senegalitis that floored me all day Thursday with a fever, vomiting, and diahrrea. Its gotten progressively better since then by yesterday I was feeling much better without having had to take any antibiotics which was good. I figured I should pay my dues at some point for having made it this long without getting that sick, and the fact that it only lasted 2 days, well...it could have been much worse.

Last thing, but definitely not the least, is a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone back home for contributing the AMAZING number of art supplies that have been shipped over here slowly but surely over the last couple months (and THANK YOU to Mom for packing them all up). The request went out at my moms work, Spectrum Gymnastics Academy, for any supplies people might like to donate, since I had expressed interest at our primary school to start teaching art classes; a curriculum which they currently dont have. The response was enormous, and the supplies havent even all made it here yet. Needless to say, these kids are going to be set for a while. I completed the first class with the youngest kids about a week ago, and with the help of a couple of the teachers it went over really well. I told them to draw their families and their compounds, with markers and crayons, and did a little demo of what I meant. It was obvious these kids had never been encouraged or given the opportunity to draw before; they seemed to think it was some type of test. But once they realized it was supposed to be fun, they loosened up a bit. Check out the pics on my blog if you get a chance (a handful of the 130 that the teacher I loaned my camera to took over the course of an hour). Hopefully we'll get to do many more of these in the future.

Thats about it for now; I'm heading back to the village tomorrow, healthy and ready to get these seeds in the ground (hopefully); and I wont be coming back again until our huge 4th of July bash, which I'll be sure to tell you all about...or not, depending.

Thanks again for everything!

Happy Fathers Day, Dad. Love and Miss You.

And Happy Fathers Day to all the other Dads.

- Steve "Samba" Sullivan

P.S. I also included a picture of the mural I've been doing off-and-on at our regional house, which will probably be done by our party.

Collège in Dindefelo

Colleen working on the grid for the mural

One of the teachers who helped us with the writing in Fongolimbi

Two Bassari Warriors

Bassaris marching

And again

Me with my A-frame

My village brother working with the A-frame

The school in Kékeressi

The other side of the school

Trying to explain the concept of markers

How most of them started...

How they ended up

The one on the right is my nephew

More finished products

Cracking the whip

Mural of the Ingles Waterfall at the house (in-progress)

Overdue Update...Prepare Yourselves

2009-05-09T04:20:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Sorry it's been a while since the last time I wrote; I cant believe it was the Eye Clinic...pathetic on my part, but all the better since I've got a lot more interesting stuff to write about. So really, I did it for you.
It's been an interesting couple months between the village and everything else PC-related. I officially graduated from freshman to sophomore status (though I hate when people refer to it like that), as we welcomed a new stage of volunteers into our ever-expanding Kedougou family. It was a smaller group than our stage, 3 guys versus the 8 people we had, but theyre great additions to the group and have fit right in. They were installed in their villages a little over a week ago and seem to be doing well so far from what theyve told me.
Unfortunately, with the welcoming of new volunteers comes the departure of the volunteers theyre replacing, and we had to say farewell to two guys from our group; which was tough, but theyre on to bigger and better things, i.e America, and were great friends in the short time I knew them. Best of luck Dan and Willie!
It felt like quite a milestone to officially become not the newest people in country, and made us realize just how much we've learned in our time here, though none of us would have really attested to being wizened old vets just yet (still not). It also has put into perspective just how quickly our time is passing, and how soon we'll be saying goodbye to the next group, and how much that will change things. Though it seems strange to say it when we're only in the month of May, the year mark is quickly approaching and it wont be long before we'll be the ones having to seriously consider what to do when we leave. Crazy.
Anyhow, I did get to go up to Dakar for a while for the Ag Summit, where all the Sustainable Ag volunteers got together for a kind of interim training for the 1st years and discussion time for the second years to impart some of their wisdom, especially regarding things they would have liked to know going into their first rainy season (which is almost upon us); all in all it was a very helpful 2-day session. Plus, I got to hang in Dakar...which is like a vacation in and of itself.
Right after getting back to the summit, everyone from our region got together for a retreat to a local campement in Mako, a beautiful little town just outside of Kedougou, to discuss regional projects and initiatives. It was a really effective meeting, with our doing some serious re-evaluating and re-planning for what we wanted to accomplish as a group on top of our personal PC goals. Plus, we saw hippos in the river, which anyone would agree was clearly the best part.
That weekend I also began a mural at our regional house of a local waterfall that I actually got to go to during our initial Kedougou visit during training. So far it's coming out well, at least everyone here approves, and will hopefully be done by our fourth of July party. I dont have pictures up of it yet but once I do I will post them as soon as possible.
What I DO have pictures of and what I really haven't been able to wait to share with you all is my current gardening situation. I was having some great success with my hot/dry season garden after my cool/dry season garden had been essentially wiped out by grasshoppers in my absence when I was at my In-Service Training. But we pressed on, and developed a hot season garden, making efforts to ward off grasshoppers by protecting young seedlings with netting and doing everything from burning plastic to smoke them out to covering leaves in wood ash to make them less desirable. And, for the most part, it was working.
If you get a chance, I highly recommend checking out my blog for the pics to get the full effect of what I'm about to write. So, I mentioned having great success; in fact, it was awesome. Eggplant and okra were growing amazingly well, as well as tomatoes and some cabbage, but the real prize were my cucumbers. At my last count, I had over fifty that were almost ripe and ready to be picked, and given that they're my favorite vegetable, I was pretty excited. Not to mention my plans to try to make pickles for our 4th of July party.
But, of course, my mistake was getting too satisfied with the results and happy with my success, because that's naturally when these things get taken away. We had a notably windy night at the beginning of this week, and the "rope" that we had used to tie my fencing together snapped in a couple places, exposing a corner of the garden. I used the term "rope" loosely because it's actually strips of bark soaked in water to be maleable and then tied; but, of course, it eventually dries out, gets brittle, and becomes the harbinger of utter chaos.
So, on my walk to the bathroom, I noticed that this one corner of my fencing had fallen down, and that the rest of the fencing was no longer protecting anything. I ran down to catch a cow in the act of entering the garden, but unfortunately for him, his friends had beaten him to it, and like me, he found nothing there. Like I say, check out the pictures, but they left no trace...it was actually quite impressive (I'm not including one of my tree nursery which was also within the confines of the garden, which was also destroyed; approximately 175 trees...hamburger, anyone?)
I didn't exactly know what to do; I was utterly defeated. My family was sympathetic, especially my brother who had been helping with watering in my absence, as well as anything else I asked of him. He was quick to begin cleaning up the area and performing what to be just seemed like mundane acts of maintenance on a thing that no longer needed to be maintained, but I think he felt he needed to do something to improve the situation, even the littlest bit. I was pretty calm about the whole thing, at least on the outside, considering other people have told me if it were them they would have gone on a rampage, which did cross my mind.
Instead we talked about the fact that this "rope" was not sufficient enough when it came to withstanding the winds we're now experiencing, and even turned into a healthy discussion about livestock management (after I had gone the 5k into Salemata and got a couple luke warm beers in me from the local campement, of course; it was Cinqo de Mayo after all). So, we're pushing forward...again, and will hopefully see the same level of improvement in this 3rd "rainy season" garden as we did between the 2nd and the 1st. Live and learn, especially in Africa.
I'm back in Kedougou now, obviously, because I agreed to help out with this next regional initiative we have coming up. The Michelle Sylvester Scholarship was established in memory of a former volunteer who passed away and gives opportunities to young motivated girls at the middle school level to win a monetary prize for school supplies, as well as be exposed to other successful students such as themselves. We're going to be putting on a tournee of all these schools in the region of Kedougou to not only conduct interviews of nominated girls, but also to distribute information about our Summer Leadership Camp that a few volunteers started last year and is being continued this year. The final part, and the part which I'm most involved in, will be the painting of HIV/AIDS prevention and education murals at each of the schools. It's the project of a 3rd year volunteer from the north who is coming down and whom I agreed to help with the design and then ultimately the implementation of these murals. It'll be exhausting, but also a great chance to see a lot more of the region.
So, hope you're enjoying the ups and downs as much as I am; but then again, if it weren't hard, it wouldn't be worth doing, right?

I also want to say thanks to The Brennans, to Uncle Ed and Aunt Maureen, The Simbolis, and of course Mom, SND, and Bobby & Amy for all the great packages I've gotten as of late. Thanks for helping keep me going!

Til next time,

Samba

Overdue Eye Clinic Pic

Women's Group in neighboring village I did a tree nursery
with (their's hasn't been eaten yet as far as I know)

Part of the garden BEFORE (cucumbers and okra)

Beautiful

The Aftermath

The Horror

A Happier Time - filling tree sacs for the nursery

Thanks to The Brennans! Kids love them (I drew on them so they could differentiate)

Eye Clinic Recap

2009-03-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

On jaaraama, y'all,

First off: Thanks Nana! I got a great package full of stuff to keep me going from her, so thanks again! Love You!

Just wanted to send a quick update while Im still in a place with electricity to let you all know how the Eye Clinic went down. I ended up staying for the full 10 days, and while it was exhausting, actually going back to an 8am-6pm or later work day was a little tough, it was an amazing experience nonetheless. The two opthomalogists, with the help of their team of a consulting doctor and OR nurse, as well as that of the PCVs acting as translators (and much more), were able to perform 107 cataract surgeries, many of them performed on patients who were nearly completely blind; and the next day, they could see. It was the most surgeries they said theyve ever performed on one of these missions, and they credited the volunteers with playing a large role in that success.
I personally ended up with a cool job after a couple days, which ended up being why i chose to continue working there and not returning to my village, working solo in the pre-op room. I got to deliver the pre-op instructions to patients in the local language, which was great practice for me, as well as prepare them for their local anesthesia and ultimately their surgery, which included administering a lot of different eye drops, taking blood pressure, stuff like that, then helping them after surgery and making sure they knew to come back and when.
It was a really fulfilling experience, one which many of the veteran volunteers credited as being one of the most interesting things theyd been able to do during their service, and one which, to borrow my friends words, showed what can happen when two different development groups come together and do what they do best. It also showed the value of having people around who spoke both English and the local languages; many things had to be explained to patients, some less reassuring then others. There were several times where it became the volunteers duty to tell a patient there was nothing that could be done to save their vision, giving the doctors orders on behalf of the doctors. Tough parts aside, we were all really pleased with what we were able to accomplish, so much so that the docs intend on returning next year and try to expand the patient-base even further.
In terms of personal work, besides the village, it looks as though Im going to be collaborating with another PCV from up north, who is apparently extending for a third year simply for the sake of producing educational murals at the middle/high schools throughout the country. Ill be working with her to begin a tournee of all these schools in Kedougou with a health-related mural design that we will be working together to complete. Id also like to try to expand on this project during my service to do not one but several murals at each of these same schools that would cover other topics besides health; such as malaria prevention, AIDS, nutrition, etc. You could argue they all have to do with health anyway...but please dont. Im also in charge of beautifying our regional house; which is more like a compound with multiple huts, by muralizing them as well.
Which brings me to another big undertaking that we as a region would like to see succeed, and thats our bed net distribution I mentioned last time. In an effort to reduce the amount of incidents of malaria and malaria related deaths, the PCVs will be delivering enough nets to cover each bed in one of the largest departments in our region. In order to do that, we need not only strong legs to bike out to all these village, but also some financial help as well. For a reminder on the nitty gritty, you can refer to my last email, since i know this ones gone on long already.

Thank you so much to everyone who already donated, and if you would like to still donate, here's the link again: http://www.againstmalaria.com/netlife

Remember, its only approximately $2.50 for one net, so a donation of 5 bucks can help protect two people, probably kids, who would otherwise remain vulnerable.

Thanks so much again for the emails and the support, and talk to you again soon (inshallah)!

Love, Steve "Samba" Sullivan

Update...and a small request...

2009-03-08T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes! It was an interesting time in the village, and a way to spend my bday that I wont soon forget. I didnt do much on my actual birthday, but this Friday I headed to Tamba where we were celebrating all the recent birthdays that had happened in the last few weeks, so I still got to see a lot of my friends, have cake, the whole nine yards.

I'm now back in Kedougou, where tomorrow I'm going to begin helping as a doctor's aid/potential translator for an Eye Clinic being held for locals in the area in need of glasses or affected by cataracts, which PCVs are going to be helping with in a big way.

I'm afraid, however, that I have an alterior motive in writing this time besides giving the usual updates, and that's to ask for YOUR help...in a semi-big way. Below is a blurb about a major project coming up for the Kedougou region (I didnt write to whole thing, so forgive me if it sounds cut and pasted...it is).

As you know, malaria is the biggest public health problem in much of Africa, and the largest killer of children in Senegal. Last year, with the financial support of the non-profits Net Life and Against Malaria, these Volunteers put together a comprehensive program in about 20 villages to provide a malaria prevention education and 100% coverage with insecticide treated bed nets.

The results were amazing: malaria-related sickness dropped by more than half and malaria related deaths after the bed net distribution dropped to zero. In another village where Peace Corps/Senegal Volunteers worked, serious malaria illness cases dropped from 48 the previous year to 6. This year, the Kedougou Volunteers plan to conduct a comprehensive program in the Department of Saraya, an area of 45,000 people with some of the highest incidence of malaria in Africa. They project that our program will save about 20 lives per year over the current state, in which about 40 kids per year die of malaria. They need 16,600 nets, along with what the Senegalese government is doing this year, to cover the whole department.

Right now, they and their partners have raised enough funds for about 10,000 nets. You can do the math, but the gap represents the lives of about 12 children this year. Against Malaria, the British charity we partner with, guarantees that they can get the absolutely lowest price quality nets delivered to Dakar at no cost. Plus, they will match every donation dollar for dollar, so the effective cost of these nets is about $2.50 per net. Every penny that we raise will go to buying the bed nets needed to cover this area.

Here is where you can donate: www.againstmalaria.com/Netlife.

Thanks so much in advance for your consideration, and hope to talk to you all again soon!

Love,

Steve "Samba" Sullivan

P.S. Ill try and post some pics in the next week to make up for the very business-like post.

IST Update

2009-02-07T12:29:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I wanted to update you all on how things have been going during the last month, but I need to be quick because our favorite bar/restaurant in Thies just got WiFi so there's a long line of people waiting to use my friend's laptop. Needless to say, the fact that WiFi even exists says a lot about how much more developed this area of the country is compared to where I've become accustomed to living, and it's interesting to see how much my perception of this city has changed since I first came to it back in September.

It's been an educational few weeks in the village; I only just left about a week and half ago to come to Thies for our In-Service Training; also difficult to believe we've already made it to this point in our service. I learned a lot, linguistically and agriculturally, but most importantly, culturally, as I unfortunately faced my first Senegalese funeral. My counterpart's wife passed away after a long illness, and seeing the mourning of the villagers for their loss was one of the more horrible events I've experienced since coming here. She was a nice lady, who once brought me water when I got home from Thanksgiving, and swept my room for me as well, and though I got to visit her in the dispensaire before she died, I didnt feel like I got nearly enough time to get to know her. Without going much into detail, I did my best to express my solidarity to the family in the most culturally appropriate way, and I think everyone appreciated that at least I was trying. Despite how much I learned from it, it's not something I'd like to experience again anytime soon.
I mentioned learning a lot technically speaking, and a lot of that was thanks to the Director for Agriculture, Massaly, coming out to all the first year agriculture volunteers' sites to see how we were doing. It was an awesome opportunity to ask questions, especially with regards to my garden, which had some veggies taking a turn for the worse for no apparent reason which I was anxious to figure out. He seemed happy though; at least with how my site was working out, and not with the broken window his car suffered after the P.C. driver locked his keys in the car.
So we've been back in Thies for a little over a week now for training, and despite being tiring, it's been really beneficial. I'm staying with my same old host family in Pout that I stayed with for my original training, so it's been great to see them again. The downside, however, is having to get up at the crack of dawn to be picked up and brought to the center each day. I've started taking another language, though, called Wolof (probably the most widely spoken language in the country) and it's been difficult since I was put in a class with other volunteers who, despite having taken French during our first training, have at least been living in Wolof-speaking sites for the last couple months and thus have more experience. I've been holding my own, though, I think, as it's seemed to me over the last 5 days that Wolof is much more straight-forward than the Pulaar I'm used to speaking, so I've been picking it up much faster. I only have to reach the level of "Novice Mid" in order to "pass" this training, so I think I should be all set.
Before I get throttled by other internet-starved volunteers, I should probably cut it short there, since there isn't much more to specifically report. We'll leave at the end of IST for WAIST, which I mentioned at the end of my last post, the "West African International Softball Tournament, which should be an exciting and, hopefully, re-memorable time. I've been assigned a homestay for WAIST with an "ex-pat", the affectionate name given to Americans who work outside the country, with two of my friends, so that's a relief that I'll have a place to stay in Dakar without having to pay an arm and a leg each night.

Wish our region luck!

Love always,

Samba
Me in St. Louis

St. Louis

A boat tour

The beach

Post Holiday Bender Update

2009-01-07T03:35:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Just a short update this time, but I wanted to write and let you know how my holiday adventures panned out. I went to Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, with three of my good friends from my "stage" where we stayed in a hotel for a few nights and basically concentrated on eating...a lot. We did find a lot of great restaurants to dine out in, and the place we found for our Christmas dinner was no exception. We were pleasantly surprised that they were all decorated for the holiday, with lights and a tree and the whole nine yards, and even had a guy playing Christmas carols on the piano...in English! And, of course, the food was amazing...though, then again, when youre used to cous-cous and leaf sauce for most of your meals, anything would have tasted good as long as it was different and not from a communal bowl. All in all, Dakar was a great place to spend the holiday, since a large population of its residents are Christian and it finally felt like the Christmas season walking around the city and seeing store windows all decked out and what not. Having guys walking around trying to hock full size artificial xmas trees helped bring a certain amount of cheer as well.

I then went with one of my friends, after the four of split up, to a place called Sally, which is a highly popular tourist town where a large amount of people from my stage had rented rooms. I only stayed for one night, but still got to visit the beach and, most importantly, see a lot of my old friends...and drink with them again. The next day, one of my friends and I got a sept-place to St. Louis, which is roughly the second biggest city next to Dakar, if I'm not mistaken, and also one of the largest tourist attractions. Another group of my friends had been there since Christmas, and I was going up to crash with them for New Years. It worked out well, as I got to stay for free in the apartment of a very generous 3rd year volunteer who loaned it out for the holidays while he was away visiting America. St. Louis, the old capital of Senegal, is very beautiful, and I got a lot of great pictures that I'll try to post on a day where I have a couple hours to spare to sit in the cyber while they load.

It was also a happening place to celebrate the new year, not only because there was a large conglomeration of Senegalese volunteers there, but roughly 70 volunteers from Mauritania travelled across the border to party there as well. See, unlike Senegal, alcohol is strictly prohibited in Mauritania, so needless to say they were all excited to get their drink on. Meeting them was very cool, though, and now I'll have more people to hang out with at the upcoming West African International Softball Tournament (WAIST).

All in all, despite my travel weariness and noticably lighter wallet, it was an awesome trip, if only for the sole chance to see almost all of the people I swore in with again, as well as the chance to meet a lot more of the volunteers from my country and beyond. Its also exciting to be able to see as much of Senegal as I can as early as I can, and I feel like I've gotten to explore quite a bit in my short time here. Im also actually getting more used to the public transportation system here, if you can call it that, and needless to say, my haggling has much improved as a result.

I probably wont be updating again for a while, as I'm looking at about a month in my village before coming back through Kedougou on my way back to Thies for our In-Service Training, but please feel free to email me and keep me updated on how you all are doing, and I'll look forward to reading them when I get back.

Thanks, and Happy New Year!

-Samba

Do they know it's Christmas time at all...?

2008-12-20T09:17:00.000-08:00

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

My "street"

My family's compound (my hut's on the right)

Inside my hut #1

Inside my hut #2

My backyard, during the "controlled" burning of the tall grasses

My two older brothers and another farmer after they helped me finish our first tree nursery

3 compost pits (right one is full)

My gardens and pepinieres

My bathroom

Hammock I bought for my family

Has it been two weeks?

2008-11-28T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

We last left off with me having been sworn in as an official volunteer, and anxiously awaiting my installation into my village and FINALLY being able to settle in a bit. Well, my install was a little over two weeks ago, and insofar as I'm still here, I think it's going really well!

My village is called Kekeressi, and it's a small village outside of the town of Salemata. Supposedly, I'm the most isolated Volunteer in the country of Senegal, but I have another volunteer only a 5k bike ride away, so at least we have each other. It is pretty secluded though, and it was entertaining to see the P.C. car try to make it through the hillside trail to get to my village. We made it, with all my stuff intact, no less (Alhumduillay - thanks be to God).
It's been an interesting couple of weeks, with me attempting to get to know the village and, of course, try to improve my language skills, though it's almost impossible not to improve, unless I were to not ever leave my hut, because I'm now in a situation where I have to hear, speak, and even think in only the language I'm learning, with only a little help from French with people who speak it a little. Needless to say, immersion is the best way to learn a language fast, hands down, and its definitely the most important thing for us to be doing right now, because as they say, if we cant speak the language, we wont be able to do much of anything.
However, I find myself bored after a while of just studying my books and practicing on my family, and like others have been trying to help out around the compound, going and picking cotton, biking in to the city with my father, beginning a tree nursery, basically trying to impress upon them that I want to be there to work and not be a boarder. It seems to have worked out so far, as they have acknowleged that I like to work and work hard, and have been insistent more than once that I need to rest more. Though, part of that is because a lot of the things I actually find as restful, like reading English books, or writing, or drawing, they still consider working, or studying, so they basically think I just work all the time unless my eyes are closed. This would probably explain the fact that they can simply sit and be content with just being in my hut with me, without expecting me to talk to them, even while I read a book, and we're bonding. I've also been fortunate enough to be placed in this new village where just 5 years ago, Madame Wade, the first lady of Senegal, put forth the funding to have an excellent grade school built, where students have class, eat, and are even given clothes. The piece of land for this school is completely enclosed by a cement wall, with the actual buildings only taking up about half of the space, and the rest just being open field. Ideal for agriculture projects...? I think so.
The director of the School, Demba, actually agreed to be my Pulaar tutor, and we've been meeting 3 times a week for an hour at a time, and I basically ask questions in French about the language, or ask him to speak about a certain topic in Pulaar and I try to write/understand as much as possible of what he says. I recently started showing him pics from America and asking him to describe what he sees in Pulaar, which has been fun and entertaining. He's a great guy and I know will be a great resource for my work over the next couple years, and he's been very excited about my project ideas (a school garden for veggies, large tree nurseries, educational murals), and has even said that a lot of what I want to do mirrors the aspirations that Mme Wade herself has had for the school which haven't been realized yet. So who knows, maybe I'll be working with Senegal's first lady in the years to come.
I biked in to the P.C. Regional House of Kedougou a couple days ago for Thanksgiving, an 85km, 7.5 hour bike ride that I dont hope to repeat anytime soon, but was glad to have done it for the first time and gotten it out of the way. It was definitely a beautiful ride though, despite my getting pretty exhausted and having some kids in one tiny village accidentally yank the break I had strapped to my bike for food onto the ground. It was pretty funny to try and yell at them in Pulaar, to the best of my ability, but it was pretty much along the lines of "Not good! Not good! You stole my bread!" Then I was at a lost; a new language becomes even harder to remember when youre pissed.
So we had our feast last night, and it was nothing short of glorious. We had all of the volunteers from the Kedougou region here, as well as a lot of volunteers from the nearby region of Tamba who came in, including all five of the new Tamba volunteers whom I swore in with, so its been great to see them again. We did in fact have a turkey, our PCV leader, Matt, who is a 3rd year volunteer recently appointed as the coordinator for all of the volunteers in our region, purchased a turkey from the Tamba region about a month ago, and he had since been living and being fattened up at the regional house. Yesterday, however, he gave his life to make sure we had ourselves a traditional American Thanksgiving. His name was Tasty, and needless to say, he lived up to his name in the end. The food was amazing, but in the end, it was the company that really made the night, and had everything been horribly burnt, I dont we would have had less of a good time. I'll be here at least for a couple more days, because tomorrow we have a regional meeting with the Country Director to talk about the regional goals that have been drafted as of late, and our strategic plan to hopefully achieve them. Up til now, the newbies haven't had a role in said plan, but after tomorrow they'll be more clearly defined, and I'm definitely excited to have some clear objectives to work towards...what can I say, I'm still very much an American, even after a whole 2.5 months. Hopefully I'll be back here soon to update you all again (I have to bike to the nearby town of Salemata for pretty much everything, but believe it or not, they dont have Internet). Please dont feel obligated b/c it's insanely expensive, but should you want to send me anything...I put a list up on my blog in an earlier post and my address is there as well. Thanks! (Shameless? I think so).

Talk to you again soon, and thanks again for all the love and support, as usual!

-Steve "Samba" Sullivan

Now it's official

2008-11-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

I guess I should start off by announcing that I am officially no longer a trainee, but a tride and true Volunteer with the United States Peace Corps. Our "swearing in" ceremony was this past Friday (yesterday), and it certainly was an honored event. It was held at the U.S. Embassador's residence, in an beautiful area of Dakar peppered with palatial houses, and Madame Embassador's was certainly no exception. She was so gracious as to allow us to hold the ceremony in her home, including the reception afterwards, and the event had some pretty notable invitees, including the Secretary General of the Republic of Senegal.
And yes, all 40 of us trainees who arrived in Senegal on September 11th were sworn in together. It's apparently quite rare to have a training group to be sworn in in it's entirety, having not one person terminate early. I'm also honored to be a part of this group because not only are we all still HERE, EVERYONE reached the language level required in order to swear in and essentially pass training (they call it Intermediate Low...I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I got Intermediate High). Needless to say, our country director has some pretty high expectations of us.
It was also cool but a little nerve-racking of an event for me because I actually was allowed to give a speech at the swearing in, in front of the Embassador and the all the news cameras...yikes. It wasn't so much a speech as a way for the Peace Corps to show what we had been learning with regards to local languages, and for us to have an opportunity to formally thank everyone in those native languages. They had three people do speeches in three of the major languages spoken here: Mandinka, Pulaar, and Wolof; I was the Pulaar one. I actually got some compliments on it afterwards, at least in terms of my pronunciation, and probably not so much for the content (Hi, my name is....I'm going to...thanks to the teachers...bye). It was a little more involved than that...but not much more.
What was also particularly cool about yesterday was that we were allowed to go to what is commonly referred to as the "American Club" in Dakar, which is basically just a nice resort with a pool and a bar and a volleyball court which allows free-access to Peace Corps Volunteers....and given that we had JUST been sworn in...we didn't waste much time. I felt very European because I forgot my swimsuit and said screw it and just swam in my boxers (sorry Mom), which were still bigger than a lot of the bathing suits there.
After hanging out there for a while, we had to get back to Thies to the center, because we had all been allowed to invite one member of our homestay families, who have done so much for us over the past 8 weeks, for a party with some great food (eaten the American way at tables with plates and not around the communal bowls we've become accustomed to) and an opportunity to honor our family members. My "Dad" came, which I was happy about, and even got up to talk about his experience with me in front of the whole crowd when they asked for volunteers to share them. I also gave him a couple gifts to take home to the family:photos I had developed in Thies of them, and a couple drawings I had done that were of family members.
Then came time to spend some quality time with, who else, each other. It's definitely a testament to not only this new training module that we have been guinea pigs for, but also to the caliber of the relationships we've formed with one another since coming here. We've all been a great support network for one another, especially when we want to vent about what we're going through and we can't do it with family for fear of scaring them or current Volunteers who have already been there, done that, moved on, got the t-shirt. We also have a lot of FUN whenever we're all here, which has also been a big motivation for us to stick together.
So, tomorrow at 6am, I begin the journey to Kedougou. We'll be making the trip over two days, staying one night in the Tamba regional house, and then we begin getting "installed" on Tuesday. Mine is on Thursday with Chris, the country director, so I'll have a couple days at the Regional house to hang out, and probably get me another warthog sandwich...those things were damn good. It promises to be a pretty stressful next week, but I feel ready, especially to finally have a place to begin to call home, where we've been hardpressed to feel settled anywhere during training with going back and forth so much.
Hopefully I'll be able to be back in touch soon after installing when I make it back to Kedougou, but thanks again to everyone for all the love and support. I made it (though you didn't have any doubts...right?)...

Naade go,

Samba Diallo
...formerly Adraman Barry
...always Steve Sullivan

Pics: Watch out Africa, I'm a Volunteer; the majority of our group during Swear-In; the Embassador's "backyard"; our Pout training group; me and my Senegalese "Dad" during training.

A new name and soon to be a new place

2008-10-26T08:13:00.000-07:00

On jaaraama!

　Ｊｕｓｔ　ａ　ｑｕｉｃｋ　ｎｏｔｅ　ａｂｏｕｔ　ｃｏｍｍｕｎｉｃａｔｉｏｎ　ｂｅｆｏｒｅ　Ｉ　ｕｐｄａｔｅ　ｙｏｕ　ｏｎ　ｍｙ　ｌｉｆｅ　ａｎｄ　ｔｉｍｅｓ　ｉｎ　Ｓｅｎｅｇａｌ：　Ｉ　ｈａｖｅ　ａｌｌ　ｍｙ　ｃｏｎｔａｃｔ　ｉｎｆｏ　ｏｎ　ｍｙ　ｂｌｏｇ，　ｉｎｃｌｕｄｉｎｇ　ｍｙ　ｃｅｌｌ　ｎｕｍｂｅｒ，　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｉｓ　ａｓ　ｆｏｌｌｏｗｓ　（ａｇａｉｎ）：

　　　ＰＣＶ　Ｓｔｅｖｅ　Ｓｕｌｌｉｖａｎ
　　　Ｂ．Ｐ．　３７
　　　Ｋｅｄｏｕｇｏｕ，　Ｓｅｎｅｇａｌ
　　　Ｗｅｓｔ　Ａｆｒｉｃａ
　　　Ｃｅｌｌ：　２２１　（ｃｏｕｎｔｒｙ　ｃｏｄｅ）　７７　１８７　８７６０

　Ａｐｐａｒｅｎｔｌｙ　ｃａｌｌｉｎｇ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｔｈｅ　Ｓｔａｔｅｓ　ａｌｓｏ　ｒｅｑｕｉｒｅｓ　ｄｉａｌｉｎｇ　０１１　ｂｅｆｏｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｏｕｎｔｒｙ　ｃｏｄｅ，　ｓｏ　ｉｆ　ｙｏｕ　ｄｏ　ａｔｔｅｍｐｔ　ｔｏ　ｃａｌｌ　ｍｅ　ａｎｄ　ｉｔ　ｄｏｅｓｎ’ｔ　ｗｏｒｋ　ｗｉｔｈ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｔｈｅ　２２１，　ｔｒｙ　ｉｎｓｅｒｔｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　０１１　ｆｉｒｓｔ．

　I wanted to take this opportunity to send a quick update before we head back to our homestay families for the next week, and for the (what?!) last time! It's hard to believe that we've come to the beginning of our 7th week of training here in Senegal, and I'm proud to announce that we are still 40 for 40 in our "stage", without having had ANYONE "early-terminate" (i.e. quit). It's probably not the first time it's ever happened, but it does seem to be a rarity and we feel good about being able to have our entire group who met in Philadelphia a lifetime ago swear-in together on Nov. 7th.
Regarding training since my last update (which I have finally been able to add pictures to my last post about the waterfall, so check them out when you get a chance), things have been going pretty smoothly, with the usual back-and-forth between our homestays in Pout and the training center in Thies. We had a four-day stay in Pout with the usual language training and working on our gardens/field crops, then came back to Thies for a few more sessions and shots, and then the fun began.
This past week a very important event took place at the training center: our "Counterpart Workshop". For every volunteer site, there are two "counterparts", a male and a female typically, who are chosen from the community to act as a type of liason between the volunteer and the rest of the village. While we certainly don't have to work solely with these individuals during our service, and likely we'll end up working with others more often, it's beneficial to already have connections on the day we install in the village so we have people we kind of know to show us around, introduce us to important people, etc.
This workshop was a great experience for the trainees and counterparts alike (many of whom have attended before for past volunteers in their villages) because it gives the counterparts a glimpse into what our lives have been like over the last 6 weeks by explaining the kinds of trainings we have been getting and what they are　ｍａｄｅ　ｔｏ　ｐｒｅｐａｒｅ　ｕｓ　ｆｏｒ．　（Ｉ　ａｐｏｌｏｇｉｚｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｆｏｎｔ　ｂｕｔ　Ｉ　ｄｏｎ’ｔ　ｋｎｏｗ　ｗｈａｔ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｈａｐｐｅｎｅｄ　ａｎｄ　Ｉ　ｃａｎ’ｔ　ｆｉｘ　ｉｔ．）　Ｔｈｅ　ｂｅｓｔ　ｓｅｓｓｉｏｎ　ｗａｓ　ｏｎｅ　ｉｎ　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｈａｄ　ａ　ｇｉｒｌ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｏｕｒ　Ａｇｒｉｃｕｌｔｕｒｅ　ｇｒｏｕｐ　（ｔｈｅｒｅ　ａｒｅ　９　ｏｆ　ｕｓ；　ｅａｃｈ　ｓｅｓｓｉｏｎ　ｗａｓ　ｄｉｖｉｄｅｄ　ｕｐ　ｂｙ　ｗｈａｔ　”ｓｅｃｔｏｒ”　ｙｏｕ’ｌｌ　ｂｅ　ｓｅｒｖｉｎｇ　ｉｎ）　ｔｅａｃｈ　ａ　ｌｅｓｓｏｎ　ｉｎ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ，　ａ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｓｈｅ　ｒａｎｄｏｍｌｙ　ｋｎｏｗｓ　ｈｏｗ　ｔｏ　ｓｐｅａｋ．　　Ａ　ｓｍａｌｌ　ｇｒｏｕｐ　ｏｆ　ｃｏｕｎｔｅｒｐａｒｔｓ　ｗａｓ　ｌｅｄ　ｉｎ　ａ　ｂａｓｉｃ　Ｊａｐａｎｅｓｅ　ｌｅｓｓｏｎ　ｔｏ　ｓｈｏｗ　ｔｈｅｍ　ｈｏｗ　ｈａｒｄ　ｉｔ　ｈａｓ　ｂｅｅｎ　ｔｏ　ｈａｖｅ　ｔｏ　ｌｅａｒｎ　ａｎ　ｅｎｔｉｒｅｌｙ　ｎｅｗ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ　ｉｎ　ｓｕｃｈ　ａ　ｓｈｏｒｔ　ａｍｏｕｎｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｉｍｅ．　　Ｔｈｅｙ　ｗｅｒｅ　ｖｅｒｙ　ｉｍｐｒｅｓｓｅｄ　ｂｙ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｓｅｓｓｉｏｎ，　ｓａｙｉｎｇ　ｔｈａｔ　ａ　ｌｏｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅｍ　ｗｏｕｌｄ　ｔａｋｅ　ｕｐｗａｒｄｓ　ｏｆ　５　ｙｅａｒｓ　ｔｏ　ｌｅａｒｎ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｅｎｔｉｒｅｌｙ　ｎｅｗ　ｌａｎｇｕａｇｅ，　ｗｈｅｎ　ｗｅ　ｈａｖｅ　ｔｏ　ｒｅａｃｈ　ｔｈｅ　”Ｉｎｔｅｒｍｅｄｉａｔｅ　Ｌｏｗ”　ｌｅｖｅｌ　ｂｙ　ｔｈｅ　ｅｎｄ　ｏｆ　８　ｗｅｅｋｓ　（ａｃｔｕａｌｌｙ，　２３　ｏｆ　ｕｓ　ａｌｒｅａｄｙ　ｈａｖｅ，　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｓｅｅｍｓ　ｔｏ　ｂｅ　ｃｏｎｖｉｎｃｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｒａｉｎｉｎｇ　ｓｔａｆｆ　ｔｈａｔ　ｔｈｅｒｅ　ｉｓ　ｓｏｍｅｔｈｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｎｅｗ　ｔｒａｉｎｉｎｇ　ｍｏｄｅｌ　ｉｎ　ｗｈｉｃｈ　ｗｅ　ａｒｅ　ｔｈｅ　”ｇｕｉｎｅａ　ｐｉｇｇｉｅｓ．”
　　Ａｎｙｗａｙ，　ｔｈｅ　ｂｅｓｔ　ｐａｒｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｗｏｒｋｓｈｏｐ　ｈａｄ　ｔｏ　ｈａｖｅ　ｂｅｅｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｆａｃｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ＢＯＴＨ　ｏｆ　ｍｉｎｅ　ａｃｔｕａｌｌｙ　ｃａｍｅ　ｆｒｏｍ　Ｋｅｋｅｒｅｓｓｙ！　　Ｉｔ　ｗａｓｎ’ｔ　ｌｏｏｋｉｎｇ　ｔｏｏ　ｇｏｏｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｄａｙ　ｂｅｆｏｒｅ　ａｎｄ　ｃｕｒｒｅｎｔ　ｖｏｌｕｎｔｅｅｒｓ　ｆｒｏｍ　ｔｈｅ　ｒｅｇｉｏｎ　ｏｆ　Ｋｅｄｏｕｇｏｕ　ｈａｄ　ｔｈｅｉｒ　ｄｏｕｂｔｓ　ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ　ｏｆ　ｈｏｗ　ｌｏｎｇ　ａ　ｊｏｕｒｎｅｙ　ｉｔ　ｗｏｕｌｄ　ｂｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅｍ，　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅ　ｆａｃｔ　ｔｈａｔ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｈａｄ　ｎｅｖｅｒ　ｐｉｃｋｅｄ　ｕｐ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｒａｖｅｌ　ｍｏｎｅｙ　ｔｈａｔ　ｗａｓ　ｂｅｉｎｇ　ｐｒｏｖｉｄｅｄ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｅｍ．　　Ｂｕｔ，　ｓｕｒｅ　ｅｎｏｕｇｈ，　ｂｒｉｇｈｔ　ａｎｄ　ｅａｒｌｙ　ｏｎ　Ｄａｙ　１，　Ｉ　ｍｅｔ　ｂｏｔｈ　ｍｙ　ｍａｌｅ　ａｎｄ　ｆｅｍａｌｅ　ｃｏｕｎｔｅｒｐａｒｔ　（ｗｈｏ　ｈａｄ　ｂｅｇｕｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｒｉｐ　ｔｗｏ　ｄａｙｓ　ｅａｒｌｉｅｒ），　ｗｈｏ　ａｓ　ｉｔ　ｔｕｒｎｓ　ｏｕｔ　ｗｉｌｌ　ａｌｓｏ　ｂｅ　ｍｙ　”ｍｏｍ”　ａｎｄ　”ｄａｄ”　（Ｉ’ｍ　ｐｒｅｔｔｙ　ｓｕｒｅ）．　　
　　Ｔｈｅｙ　ａｌｓｏ　ｅｎｄｏｗｅｄ　ｍｅ　ｗｉｔｈ　ａ（ｎｏｔｈｅｒ）　ｎｅｗ　ｎａｍｅ：　Ｓａｍｂａ　Ｄｉａｌｌｏ，　ｎａｍｅｄ　ａｆｔｅｒ　ｔｈｅ　ｃｈｉｅｆ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅｉｒ　ｖｉｌｌａｇｅ．　　Ｎｏｔ　ｔｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｄｏｎ’ｔ　ｌｉｋｅ　”Ａｄｒａｍａｎ”　ｂｕｔ　Ｓａｍｂａ　ｈａｓ　ａ　ｃｅｒｔａｉｎ　ｒｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｉｔ　ｔｈａｔ　Ｉ　ｌｉｋｅ　ｂｅｔｔｅｒ．
　　Ｉｔ　ｗａｓ　ｓｏ　ｅｎｃｏｕｒａｇｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｓｅｅ　ｈｏｗ　ｍｏｔｉｖａｔｅｄ　ｍｙ　ｃｏｕｎｔｅｒｐａｒｔｓ　ａｒｅ　ｂｙ　ｓｅｅｉｎｇ　ｔｈｅｉｒ　ｄｅｄｉｃａｔｉｏｎ　ｔｏ　ｇｅｔ　ｈｅｒｅ　ｆｏｒ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｉｍｐｏｒｔａｎｔ　ｗｏｒｋｓｈｏｐ，　ｅｓｐｅｃｉａｌｌｙ　ｓｉｎｃｅ　Ｉ’ｍ　ｇｏｉｎｇ　ｔｏ　ｂｅ　ａ　ｎｅｗ　ｓｉｔｅ，　ｔｈａｔ　ｈａｄ　ｂｅｅｎ　ａ　ｃｏｎｃｅｒｎ　ｏｆ　ｍｉｎｅ．　　Ｂｕｔ　ｎｏｗ，　ａｎｄ　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　Ｉ　ｓｐｅａｋ　ｆｏｒ　ａ　ｌｏｔ　ｏｆ　ｔｈｅ　ｔｒａｉｎｅｅｓ，　Ｉ’ｍ　ｊｕｓｔ　ｖｅｒｙ　ａｎｘｉｏｕｓ　ｔｏ　ｓｗｅａｒ－ｉｎ　ａｎｄ　ｓｅｔｔｌｅ－ｉｎ　ｔｏ　ｍｙ　ｎｅｗ　ｓｉｔｅ　ＡＳＡＰ．
　　Ｔｏｄａｙ　ｂｅｇｉｎｓ　ｏｕｒ　ｌａｓｔ　ｈｏｍｅｓｔａｙ　ｐｅｒｉｏｄ，　ａ　ｓｔａｙ　ｏｆ　８　ｄａｙｓ，　ａｎｄ　ｔｈｅｎ　ｗｅ　ｗｏｎ’ｔ　ｓｅｅ　ｏｕｒ　ｈｏｍｅｓｔａｙ　ｆａｍｉｌｉｅｓ　ａｇａｉｎ　ｕｎｔｉｌ　ｔｈｅ　ｓｗｅａｒ－ｉｎ　ｉｎ　Ｄａｋａｒ　ｏｎ　ｔｈｅ　７ｔｈ，　ｉｆ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｃａｎ　ｍａｋｅ　ｉｔ．　　Ｈｏｐｅｆｕｌｌｙ　Ｉ　ｃａｎ　ｃｏｍｅ　ｂａｃｋ　ｔｏ　ｖｉｓｉｔ　ｔｈｅｍ　ｓｏｍｅｔｉｍｅ，　ｗｈｅｎ　Ｉ　ｃａｎ　ｃｏｍｍｕｎｉｃａｔｅ　ｍｏｒｅ　ｔｈｉｎｇｓ　ｔｈａｎ　”Ｙｅｓ，　ｉｔ’ｓ　ｈｏｔ”，　”Ｉ’ｍ　ｆｕｌｌ”，　”Ｉ’ｍ　ｇｏｉｎｇ”，　ａｎｄ　”Ｗｈａｔ　ｔｈｉｓ　ｉｓ？”．
　　
En Ontuma,

Adraman Barry
Samba Diallo
Steve "Sully" Sullivan

Now a proud member of the "Gou-crew"!

2008-10-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

On jaaraama!

I know it hasn't been very long since my last email, but I've been fortunate enough to get to the Internet twice in the past several days, and a lot of amazing stuff has happened that I wanted to report.
Probably the most exciting thing of all is that I just finished my trip to Kedougou, the region of Africa which I will ultimately be living in, where I got to shadow a current volunteer in the region and basically meet a lot of the people I'll be working with for the next two years; plus have one hell of an adventure! Needless to say, despite taking about 12 hours to get their from the training center, Kedougou is one of the most beautiful areas in all of Senegal, and I can now report that it's not just all hype; there's rolling hills, mountains, it's GREEN, and on the way there we needed to brake for monkeys about a dozen times.
It was awesome to actually see the Peace Corps regional house, which is the most rustic in the country being more village-style than house-style, and to finally have a feel for what I'm in for. We've also begun to develop some regional pride among the other volunteers as member of the "Gou-crew", arguably the most rugged and hard-working group of volunteers. It also doesnt hurt that the Country Director is our senior staff advisor and will be working closely with us to meet our goals as a region. It's nice to know that we have so much support amongst each other as volunteers since Kedougou is one of the most collaborative regions, which kind of debunks the myth of living along for 2 years talking only to villagers (though there will be plenty of that). I did get a bit of advice from the CD though to make sure I don't get "too skinny", because I'll be biking a ton and be in really good shape, but getting too thin can lead to illness, and I'm the most isolated site in-country, pretty much. I'm wicked excited!
I mentioned an adventure, and that is in fact what we got, even by current volunteer terms. One day, we went in a group of shadowers and shadowees to the biggest waterfall in the country, which required a 10k bike through the bush! It's so secret and secluded we were the only people there, we swam in and around the falls, hiked to the top, and camped out overnight! I have some amazing pictures which will tell the story of our trip much better once I have an opportunity to upload them.
I'm pretty short on time, so I can't get into detail about how incredible and challenging the last week has been, but hopefully I've painted a decent picture. If not, don't worry, I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again sometime soon.

One more thing; I was able to get my mailing address for the regional house, which will be where to send anything you might want to mail me for the rest of my stay in Senegal. I only have four more weeks of training, and it's not guaranteed that anything mailed in the near future would make it to me in time before swearing in and moving to Kedougou.

My mailing address in Kedougou:

PCV Steve Sullivan
B.P. 37
Kedougou, Senegal
West Africa

There's just one P.O. Box for all the Kedougou volunteers, and someone usually just stops by and grabs the mail for everyone periodically.

Also, many people have graciously offered to send me things, so here is a mini-"Wish List", based on some recommendations from current Volunteers about what's good to have:

Vitamin Supplements, esp. Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Electrolytes, Pro-Biotics
Cereals
Protein, i.e. peanut butter, protein bars, etc.
Granola Bars
Drink mixes, i.e. Gatorade, Kool-Aid, Crystal Light, etc. (the individual packets work best)
Batteries (AA and AAA)
Candy!
Other "American" type snacks

Of course, all these things are mainly "nice to haves", or things to supplement my diet since I won't be getting everything I need in the village, most likely.

Thanks again to everyone for all your love and support!

Naade Goo (another day),

Steve "Adraman" Sullivan

Pics: Handstand pic on watertower in Thiokoy, the falls themselves, roasting "Spam" over an open fire, the guy who had to canoe our bikes across the river, and the picture of me in front of the falls that I couldn't get rotated, so just cock your head to the side.

P.S. "Adraman" is subject to change based on what my ultimate host-family decides to name me.

No wa'ii? (What's up?)

2008-10-02T11:56:00.000-07:00

I'VE CONVERTED TO ISLAM!!

Just kidding, Mom. This picture is actually from yesterday which was the culmination of Ramadan, a festival called Korite, where after going to an outdoor service everyone spends the day, well, eating, where they couldn't before, and going around to the houses of friends and family asking for "forgiveness" - it's all a very cleansing thing, Ramadan.
In any case, it was also the culmination of our longest homestay experience to boot, 10 days, and I'm both proud and a little impressed to say that upon our return to the training center today, all 40 of our original "stage" are still present and accounted for. It really was a great 10 days, though not without it's challenges...as one of my fellow trainees commented, I'm already a pretty seasoned Peace Corps volunteer after only a few weeks, and I fought the urge to tell her that, no, my last name just happens to be Sullivan; I'd be more worried if everything had gone completely without incident.
My return to the homestay started out great, and I continued my record of being in Senegal upwards of three weeks without having any digestive issues. However, Friday night, my bean sandwich I had tried for the first time that afternoon for the "fast-breaking"fought back, and needless to say I was glad I had purchased some buckets a few days prior. My Senegalese parents came to check on me, and I attempted to sleep it off for what was left of the night; however, I wouldn't sleep for very long before a passing monsoon would reveal that my roof contained about 6 or 7 leaks from which there was no escape, and at 7am it became a mad dash to pack everything back up and find a dry spot for it until the rain passed. This is where I will give Peace Corps its due credit, because after I decided to call and let someone know what was going on in my room, it was within the hour that the homestay coordinators were at my door, apologizing profusely.
Unfortunately, it was their decision that I should move out until repairs could be made, and given the Senegalese sense of hospitality, my family must have felt terribly that they had failed me in some way. However, they still remain my family, as I was moved to another house in Pout where one of our trainers is staying, a mansion really, that had an extra room but no Pula Futa speakers, so I live in once house and then go to visit my family for meals and to practice language. Despite this inconvenience, it is more than made up for by the fact that my new house has Western-style toilets (meaning I can sit to poop).
The last few days, however, did pass without incident and were a lot of fun, especially getting to be the Toubab (foreigner) being paraded around by my family in his native Senegalese garb, and even getting to participate in the prayers in the AM. But, now I have an ear infection, which I haven't had since I was approximately 6. Peace Corps is again taking good care of me, and the same afternoon after I reported it, I have drugs on the way.
Today was also monumental in the Peace Corps trainee universe, because we were presented with our sites that we'll be spending the next two years working in! Despite how my description of my site might sound, I really am excited. First off, it's in the Kedougou region of the country, the South-East, which is the Country Director's favorite region and one where he has high expectations for his volunteers (but being the CD's favorites doesn't hurt). Second, I am in a village surrounded by mountains, which houses approximately 200 people, about half the size of my graduating class from high school. It's easily the most isolated site of nearly ALL the sites presented today, but I think I'm up for the challenge and I was honored to get such a distinct assignment...no one's been sent there for over 12 years!
We leave tomorrow for our visits with current Peace Corps volunteers in our regions for a week-long "shadowing" experience, which I'm very excited for since we'll be going to the Kedougou region and I'll be able to see some of what I'm in for.
Thanks to everyone who's been sending me their well-wishes and telling me about how things are going back in the States; I love hearing from you, so keep them coming. If you really are interested in sending me a package (which I got today - THANKS MOM!), I'll post a list of things that would be useful for me to have at site.

Talk to you again soon!

En ontuma,

Steve "Adraman Barry" Sullivan

Pics: my "classroom", and some of my siblings

On jaaraama! Ko "Adraman" innetee mi! (My name is Adraman)

2008-09-19T13:49:00.001-07:00

Things continue to get crazier here in Senegal, in every sense of the word. Long story short, I just got back last night from spending my first 3 days at with my "homestay" family, which was the most awkwardly amazing experience I've probably ever had in my entire life. To give you a little bit of perspective, I went to ONE language training class, which lasted for about an hour and a half, in Puula Futta (I discovered I butchered the spelling in my last email), and the NEXT night, I was watching TV with a family of maybe 2-dozen who spoke nothing BUT Puula Futta. Immersion? I think so...

It was easily the most challenging part of our training so far, but also one of the most rewarding; it was a time that further assured me that this is really happening. It was also a good time to practice not being self-conscious, considering I couldn't communicate much of anything at all to my family, which pretty much laughed at me the whole time. But a big part of the Senegalese culture is to make fun of one another, and I never once felt unwelcome or uncomfortable with them poking fun at me, I would have laughed at me, too. My days were spent going to language classes in Puula Fuuta with the 5 other volunteers who are learning the language and stopping back home with my family for lunch (which I ate in my room because it's Ramadan and everyone else is fasting) and then spending the evening awaiting the 9:30pm dinner after our fast-breaking. The thing I'm most proud of is that my Puula Fuuta classes are taught in French, so I have to use my second language to learn my third...what?

My room is a sauna and pretty much resembles a cell of sorts, but it's better than I ever could have expected. And if I ever get discouraged with my new environment, I can just remember that the city I'm living in is called Pout (pronounced "poot")! My family is extremely respectful of my privacy, and are all very helpful with everything and trying to help me learn the language. Another challenge for us Americans living the Senegalese life is getting used to losing a bit of our independence, because people will always be trying to do things for us. It has it's advantages though; if I ever say "no wuli" (I'm hot), my little brother comes over and fans me...it's an even trade, I taught him the exploding fist pound.

There's way to much to report and way too many things I could talk about, and soon hopefully my emails will be able to be more in depth about a few specific events, rather than trying to relay this barrage of experiences within a few paragraphs. Please don't hesitate to respond to my emails and let me know how things are going; I love to hear from you all, and thanks to those of you who've written me already!

Talk to you soon!

Mido aarde,

Steve "Sully" Sullivan

First post in Senegal

2008-09-14T08:41:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

For those of you who get emails from me, I apologize for my other one being pretty sloppy. I was trying to write it from a pretty rustic internet cafe on a French keyboard, so I felt a little handicapped (and I only paid for a half hour).
Today has been the first day we've been able to escape our training compound and venture out into the city of Thies (pronounced "Chess"). We arrived here on Wednesday morning at about 5:30am in Dakar, and after about a 2 hour bus ride, we were at the "Corps de la Paix" training center. Since then, our days have been filled with interviews to gauge our linguistic and technical experience with the hopes of determining what our best fit site would be. For agriculture volunteers like myself, we were still tested on our French, but will most likely begin learning the indigenous language of our region right away, since we'll have little need for French. However, my French is already improving, and we're even learning some Wolof to get by here in Thies until we get to our homestay sights.
We're going to be guinea pigs, it seems, for a new training method, in which we'll be bouncing back and forth between the training compound (for technical training) and our "homestay" experiences (for language training), which will be based on which language we'll ultimately be speaking at our sites once our 8-week Pre-Service Training is complete. It'll be a complete immersion experience in the hopes that we'll pick up the language even faster than going to classes at the compound.
Needless to say, it's been a pretty out of this world experience with a lot to take in and adjust to, but everyday I get new things to be excited about and feel more comfortable with every new challenge we overcome. Today it was maneuvering through the crazy Thies market (and actually making purchases), while greeting people in their native Wolof to try and seem a little less like tourists. Eating from communal bowls has also been interesting, mainly at lunch, which has it's own set of customs and rules, and of course, the "Turkish style" toilets (we're all gonna have huge quads after this).
I'll be learning to speak Pulafuta, which is namely in the Southeast region of the country, which also happens to be the most mountainous and, likewise, beautiful. Though it'll probably mean some pretty long bike rides for me, being an "Ag." volunteer and all, I think I'll really enjoy to terrain and how it'll likely remind me of NH.
I don't know when I'll have access to Internet again to post, but be assured they'll be much more interesting and less full of info, but here's some pictures to tide you all over!

Much love,

Steve "Sully" Sullivan

P.S. Pics to come at a later time; can't seem to upload them right now.

First post as a Blogger!

2008-09-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

Not much to report at the moment besides the fact that I officially have a blog to record my time in Senegal, Africa with the Peace Corps. I'm in the Business Center here at the Holiday Inn in the historic district of Philadelphia, having just completed my first day of staging orientation. So far it's been a bit of a whirlwind tour, but all in all it's been a very smooth and painless process, and the staff here guiding us have been great.

I hope to be able to post messages and pics here as much as possible, depending on how limited my access to the Internet will be, but thanks again to everyone for their continued support.

Talk to you soon!

Much love,