Welcome back to life in Africa, 2009. It’s been pretty busy since I’ve gotten back and I haven’t had time to sit and type a blog entry, or even post one. To catch up on events, Christmas was good and it was really nice to be home and with my family and friends in Texas. I got back to Dakar on Jan 3. and after some traveling and businessy things to do in Dakar, I got back to the village on the 8th, only to set up my rat traps and then spend the night at Laura’s village. The next day I got a new neighbor, Amber. Amber was in Tambacounda region, but moved down to a new site about 12 or 15 km away from me, I believe. Those are bushroad distances and I haven’t navigated the path yet, but I believe that’s about what it works out to. So Laura and I went with Amber to her new site and then I returned home to find the punk rat caught in the traps I’d set. HAHAHA, sucker!

I can finally sleep at night.

I brought back photos of my villagers to give them, so I spent a couple of days making social calls and showing off the pictures to anyone who wanted to see them, often multiple times. I’ve started giving the photos to them now. I thought, this will be great seriche (gifts when you go away) because it’s cheap and easy to get something for every family. It is great, however, I suppose everything can backfire, and now I’m constantly bombarded with “take my picture! take my picture!” Even from adults, who tend to approach it as “Do you know what I’d like? I’d like you to photograph me. You didn’t take my picture to America. Please take it now. Please.” Oh yeah, except there’s no way to say please in pulaar.

I have been having other meetings and things preparing for work that ought to be starting soon, si Allah jabi (If God wills it). Things with the health hut, school is in session, the usual. And the really good news: I HAD MY FIRST EE CLUB MEETING!!!

It was a lot of fun. I got a list of the top students from 4 of the classes and we met to talk about things like “What is the environment? What is natural and what is non-natural? How do we change it and how can it change us?” And then we drew a big picture of the environment. Good times. We started with the name game where you have to do a dance move and say your name and then repeat all the other people’s moves and names. They were a little shy about it, but eventually got into it, especially the boys. I plan to have the next one on Saturday and we’ll take a walk around the village and practice observation skills. Very exciting!

This week I went down to Kedougou to help with a video screening of “Elle Travaille, Elle Vit.” It’s a movie made by SeneGAD, the gender and development group that encourages gender equality and women’s empowerment. The video stresses the importance of education and encourages girls to stay in school. We planned to show it at middle schools in the area. Our leg of the tourney was the first leg, and we ran into major problems getting the equipment to work, so I guess you could say it was unsuccessful. But, we did sort it all out so that the rest of the tourney (about 10 more days/schools) should go well. I think that can count as success.

So, things are going well more or less. I still feel a little like work is slower than Christmas, but I can’t complain too much because things are picking up. I have a list of things I’d like to be working on, seeda seeda. Little by little and step by step, I’ll get stuff done and feel like work is work.