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

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

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

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...

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

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

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...?

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