Backlogged from March 30

Since last time, life has been at full speed.

I last wrote on my way up to training in Thies, where I met the new stage. The trainees are AWESOME!!! I am very excited about them becoming volunteers (and some of them my new neighbors!). I was there for about a week helping with PACA (a cultural integration/community-informed workplan development tool) training and then did a tourney to the various villages where the trainees are located to do mudstove building. It was a lot of fun. And I was able to be in Thies with some of my friends from the north (who I never get to see) for our one year in country mark. That was a big deal and it was nice to be together for it, in a city where we could go out and have a nice dinner to celebrate. And, thank you Daniel Prial, I had ice cream everyday in Thies. Excessive, yes. But worth it.

Back from training, I spent a week in the village organizing the rest of the month, setting up meetings and whatnot. I also found the bush path between my village and Amber and Laura’s villages. I spent a night with Amber in her village and biked back the next morning. It was one of the best bike rides I’ve had here. I live in a really beautiful region of the country… which you don’t see as well from the road as you do when you’re biking from village to village. I got to see the fields, rice faros, and gardens of several villages near to me. In a village about 5 km away, there was an amazingly organized village garden that I wanted to come back to see later, so I made note of it on the ride out to stop on the way back. When I did come back through, there was a huge celebration: a double event—wedding and baptism. I stayed for a little to dance and celebrate and met the vice president of the gardening group, who agreed to give me a tour the next week. I was able to go back this past Friday and learned a lot about the village, their garden, their extremely organized garden group, and hopefully I’ll be able to work with them in the future. It was a neat experience.

The day after the wedding/baptism, I booked it out to Mary’s village to help her host a women’s day games event. She got the idea from another volunteer to do a gender Olympics. We had a pound-off (pounding millet), a water-hauling relay race, and a tug-of-war competition. They also talked about making mosquito repellent and had speakers and a dj. It was pretty crazy and they all went nuts when we brought out beignets (aka bonbons, or fried dough balls). But I think they had a good time and enjoyed a fun afternoon of appreciating the work that women do in the village. Local elections were the following day, so there were no cars running and I was forced to stay in her village. We made the best of it by going out to the campement (tourist hotel) in the next village and enjoying a cool Sprite-passionfruit drink while watching hippos in the Gambia river. One of those “Ah! This is why I love Africa!” moments. And now I’ve seen a real live hippo… in the wild!

When I got back to the village I had a crazy week of CCBI (Community-Content Based Instruction) lesson planning and execution, prep and execution of a small tree planting and grafting training session, and I met the principal and English teacher at the nearby middle school. I’ll be working with them on the SeneGAD (Gender and Development) scholarship to help keep girls in school, as well as possibly a girls’ group. Girls in middle school tend to be between 12-17, and deal with all kinds of challenges to continuing education, including underage pregnancy and marriage, and heavy workloads at home that inhibit healthy study habits. We’d like to stress the importance of education and give the girls the opportunity to continue on and to succeed in their goals. It starts with helping them see that they can dream of their own future and do actually have the power to set goals and work towards their achievement. Female empowerment. I am very excited about the possibility of working with a girl’s group. And this town is between me and my new neighbor, Camille, (Holly’s replacement) so we might be able to work together.

For my EE club this week, I had a great plan and beautiful visual aids and was very excited… but only 3 kids showed up. We talked about compost in theory and then went and looked at, watered, and turned the compost pile I built in the school garden. I had a hard time keeping their attention (except when we played hangman while we waited to see if others would show up). So, I was in a pretty bad mood about it. I had put in a lot of effort and was really proud of the lesson that seemed to fall so flat. So I walked back to my hut, bucket, shovel, and visual aids in tow. But wait! Not all was lost! I passed by several compounds (to remind people about the tree stuff, see below) on my way back and of course, everyone asked about my unwieldy load, giving me the opportunity to explain compost theory to at least 20 villagers. That’s right, planned the lesson for 16 kids, only got 3. 3+20=23!!! 23>16. I win! HA HA, Africa! You can’t keep a good guy down!

For the tree stuff, the 19th-20th, I sent two guys from my village to a tree training organized by another Kolda volunteer and attended by villagers from all over Kolda. Then they came back to the village and we organized a smaller info session where they showed other people in the village the practical parts of what they’d learned. It was hosted Saturday morning and went really well… once people showed up. We were meant to start at 9am. At 9.15 I was wondering why I was sitting alone in the schoolyard sifting poop (for fertilizing the nursery substrate). At 10.30, we had enough people to begin. And they really seemed to enjoy the training. One of the guys was sent to the two-day training because he’s very interested and eager and has experience with trainings, so he was able to come back and lead a very informative session. He knew just when to ask questions and just when to take them. It was excellent.

We finished around noon and after lunch I left quickly for Kolda because this weekend was the COS party, where we formally send off the people who are finishing their service. We wore our Hands-attire and ate Finger foods and drank Punch. It was really fun, but bittersweet, because it means that some of my friends are now leaving and starting “real-life” in America. I left Kolda early this morning to make a ridiculous, but worthwhile journey over to Kedougou, where there is a COS party tonight for the COSers in that region. It is my last chance to see them, so while I’m excited to go visit friends, I am keenly aware of the same bittersweetness. It’s good to celebrate their 2 years of successful service and everything they have meant to us, but selfishly, I kind of think everyone should just extend until I COS. Then we all leave at once. Good plan right? I’ll miss them, but they’re all headed on to other exciting opportunities and I’m glad for that too.