The perfect time for a break

Today is finally friday... in general, days of the week here do not matter. Monday is the same as Wednesday is the same as Saturday; however, I have been waiting for today for awhile. I am going in Kaolack today meeting up with friends. We have our next training session in Thies starting tomorrow. I will be taking another language test and then having two full weeks of ag trainging. I will also be learning Wolof...hopefully i will be able to get adecent grasp on the logistics of the language so i can continue learning on my own after the training is finished. Im excited to get back to Thies and see all of the others from my group. I havent seen many of them in about 3 months. I have been in Senegal for almost 5 months by the way!
So i think i met an angle this week... his name is Cisse'. I was reading out in the field one day and this random guy comes walking up and started talking to me. We spoke in Sereer for a few minutes and then he sais "you are a bright girl" as he was walking away. We started speaking English and come to find out he speaks fluently and used to be an English teacher. He also speaks Italian, Spanish, French, Wolof, and Sereer. I went to visit him later that day and we discussed projects etc... AND NOW I FINALLY HAVE A LANGUAGE TUTOR!!! It has taken me almost 3 months to find someone in the village that speaks English. Cisse' is one of my new favorite people. I love his family and he is very intelligent. He is a hard worker and has many projects that i hope to help him with. I am starting lass with him after i get back from training. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it all works out and he really will help me out with language tutoring.
Everything in the village has been going ok but this was a very tough week to get through. On Monday, i was hanging out with my family and one of the little kids started crying. His mother went out and got a stick from the tree and began beating him with it...she showed no signs of topping so one of the other mothers pushed her away and thn they began fighting. This has happened several times but this week was the worst of it. It is very hard for me to sit back and watch this. Its hard to make an effort to like people when you cant stand the things they do. The kids in my family are so cute and i really like them. After this incident on Monday, i really almost left the village and came to Kaolack.... in the end, i stayed but the rest of th week sucked. I am hoping that during my training things will cool off at the house and i can go back to a fresh new start. In the meantime, i am trying to figure out what i can do next time this happens because next time im not going to watch it. I think i want to have a talk with the mother that is always hitting her children and tell her that i want to find a new family if she continues with her wreckless behavior because i refuse to sit there and watch it. I dont know how i will go about this but i am hoping i can do it in a successful way. Until then, I plan to have a good time in Thies and enjoy my friends. I hope all is well with friends and family and everyone is happy and healthy :)

Lots and lots of work!

Lots has changed in the last few days...

First for all.. i want to give a shout out to all of my republican family members and say GO BARACK OBAMA! The inauguration was a great one. A few friends and i had the opportunity to watch it live at a restaurant in Kaolack. I was hoping for a Peace Corps shout out by the big man himself but beggers cant be choosers and i was nothing short of pleased with his speach!

Anyway, I now have work.. and lots of it. I met with a lady named Viola this week and i tink she is the answer to many of my problems here. She is running an NGO here called 10,000 Girls. I am now working with her and am starting a girls group in my village. My girls group will consist of any interested girls in the villages ages 12-22ish... I plan to go back to the village and just start having meetings once a week. In these meetings, we will just do small projects and start making things that can possibly be sold..such as pepineers and neen lotion. Neem lotion is made from soap, oil, neem leaves. After boiling the ingredients together, a lotion is formed that helps fight off mosquitos. This lotion is a big hit in many villages and i am hoping t get it startd in Diagle as well. The girls group will spend a few months just doing small projects so the people that dont really want to work will weed themselves out. In the meantime, i will be trying to get a plot of land. I need atleast 10 hectors before Viola will work with me. After i get the land, the girls will plant and harvest bissap. Viola's NGO will then buy the bissap from the girls and then her group will work to have it exported to the states. Another voluteer is working with Viola n the smae project. She told me that her girls cant keep up with the demand for the bissap so i am hoping this will be a great new project for the young girls in my village. It will be a good way for them to learn how to have a business but also do somehing they know how to do...like grow bissap. The entire project will tak about a year but hopefully it will be succesful and the girls will be able to continue it without my help. This whole thing sounds somewhat easy but really it will be VERY hard! The other volunteer that is working on the project has had numerous set backs because the older villagers are not so happy about the young girls making so much money. Hopefully this will not happen in Diagle but i have a feeling it wont be a piece of cke to get this thing rolling. Regardless of the setbacks and whatnot, i think the project sounds great! I am excited to work with young people because (for me anyway) i find it hard to relate to te older people in the village. They seem to think that since i cant speak their language like they do, I am an idiot. I think i will have a lot more success with the younger folks because they are not so set in their ways.

I am also going back to start the Mangroves project. I wrote about it in my last entry but maybe i should elaborate more. I am going to talk to a man that owns a campement near my village. The mangrove trees grow right through his campement. I am hoping to be able to start a mangrove pepineer directly in the water there so i wont actually have to carry water to it every day. I am going to colect seeds this weekend and then Laura and i are starting the pepineer next week. We will build a large wooden box that just has seeds planted in it. The box will be places directly in the water to grow for a few months. Potentially, we could have hundreds of small trees by August. In August, we will invite the volunteers that live in the kaolack region to come help us plant the small trees. This project should be somewhat easy but is very important. Really, we could keep it going for years to come.

All in all, a successful week it has been!

Right now i am enjoying the wifi connextion at a campement in kaolack. We are having a three day regional meeting. Today was the first day and it really has been great so far. I have been able to meet with many other volunteers and find out about some of the projects they are doing. It is a good way for new volunteers to find out what really worksaround here and what doesnt. I am planning to start a girls group in my village. The girls will have a garden of their own and will plant bissap (hibiscus in the states). One of the oher volunteers has a connection with an organization that helps her girls group export their bissap to the states and is sold in California. She said they the demand is o high they they cannot keep up. I am hoping to be able to get the same thing going in my village. The girls will be able to earn their own money and put it to use somewhere they see beneficial...hopefully school and such. I am planning o go with this other voluntee Monday and meet with the lady that got it all started for her. Getting projects such as this one started always tate forever. First i am going to have to meet wit this lady and find out what sh wants me to do. There is a ton of paper work and i also have to go to someone in charge of land and get a plot of land to give t the girls to get started on. All of these things take time...much more time than one might think. Buthopefully i will be able to get on it because i se big advantages for the girls if it really works out. The young girls already hae a small bissap garden so i know there is interest. Now i just need the right materials to get started. Imsure i will also have to fork over money out of my pocket to get it going but i think it sounds beneficial.

There wasa holiday here last week somewhat like Halloween. All the chilrdren cross dress and go to each other's houses begging for rice and millet. They sing and dance. It was cute. I got some good photos. Thanks to a nice package of candy from miss Angie, i gave out sweet tarts...lets just say i was a celebrity for a day...

Soo... today, i fond ou that my faher just took on a 4th wife!!! I just wrote in my last blog that he took on a third wife...and now there is 4. I dont know much about this yet but i am kind of thankful. Im over the drama that this creates and i am thankful that i am not in the village at the moment listening to it. Im in shock and disbelief because my family has NOOOO money. I dont know what my father here is thinking and dont even want to know. All i can say is God Bless America.

Also, i finally figured out how to upload photos here..ENJOY:):)

Im finally teaching

Many things have happened this week. I went to the high school in Sokone and have decided to start an English club. I will be working with another volunteer and we are planning to have Enlgish classes with willing students after school and on weekends. I am excited about it because i will actually be doing something i like and something i know how to do....unlike gardening. I am waiting to hear back from the principal. The other volunteer also wants to help out with lqndscqping the school. I am down to help out with that too... the school is very nice but really needs plants and trees. The principal said we could write out a budget and they would be able to get the money for us. Things like that rarely happen here so i think it might be a miracle if it actually happens. Im keeping my fingers crossed. Also, i am getting a wolof tutor. I decided to cool it on the french lessons and dive into wolof. My french is good enough to get around and many villagers dont speak french anyway. I have more training in Feb and after that i plan to start in on the Wolof.
Oh i almost forgot..... after i got back fo*rom Christmas vacation, i noticed my dad was not around much. I kept asking around to find out where he was but evryone kept saying... he will be back later. Come to find out, he snuck off and got married AGAIN. I now have three moms. My new mother is 21 years old. My dad has a son that is 27.... im not going to tell you how old my dad is because basically i have no clue but i think you get the point. My new mom is not living with us yet but she will be moving in soon is what i was told. I think things will get interesting when she gets here because one of myother mothers is not very happy about this new wife and she is very open about it. Hopefully, things work out pecefully.
I have a big regional meeting next weekend with all fo the volunteers in my area. I am hoping that i will be able to get involved with some cool activities. I am planning to start helping out with some girls camps soon. Im not really sure what my roll will be with all of that but i will let you know when i find out!

Happy New Year!!!

I just got back to Kaolack yesterday and a about to hea back to my village in a few hours. I spent the last few days in Dakar eating good ood and getting fat. I enjoyed New Year's Eve. I wet out with only Senegalese people. We got tickets to go out on a midnight cruise out on the water... If you didnt know, Dakar is surrounded by beach! The midnight cruise wa nice...everyone was soo dressed up. Wore jeans! People here drss up sooo much. We got on the and the boat started cruising around 11. We were sitting in the front row an i noticed there was a box of sand in front of me about 5 feet ahead. I asked what the box was for and someone said it was for fireworks.... So about 11 55... the captain of the boat comes out and starts putting fireworks in the sand... I told the people i was with that i thought it was dangerous for s to be sitting so close to such big fireworks...they assured me that it was safe... the next thing i know, someone says it was the new year and the captain starts shooting off the fireworks one by one. NO ONE EVEN COUNTED DOWN TO MIDNIGHT!!! most people here are muslim and dont drink... it was very tame and people were more concerned about watching the fireworks than saying happy new year or kissing joe shmoe beside them... bizarre! Anyway, so the captain knocks over one of the fireworks and they start exploding on the boat a few feet away from us... So loud and dangerous. At that poin, my face was burried into the guy's chest next to me... Apparently i make friends easy here haha...no one really seemed to think it was scary but me.
After the little explosion, the boat cruised for about an hour and went around this little island. I am not sure what is at this island exactly but i heard that it is really historical. I think it is where the first slave trades took place. I want to go there next time i am in the city. I was told there ae still shackles and chains and eerything there. Not the nicest thing to see but still cool.
I am heading back to the village today and decided i am going to go to the high school in town and start teaching English. I dont know how it will all work out but im sure they will jump on the fact of having a free english teacher... hopefully that will go over well and i can start being productive.
I hope everyone had a happy new year and had a drink for me :)