againstmalaria.com/kaolack

Things in the village have been CRAZY.. i have been working my butt off but have successfully planted over 1500 trees in tree sacks. I originally planned to plant 2000 in sacks and try to reach a total of 6000 by planting 400 more directly in the ground after the rains come. After spending my entire week sitting in a pile of dirt, i decided 150 will have to do. I went to the Eaux et Foret last week to get more bags with no success at all. The man working there was nothing short of rude to me and i left empty handed. Eaux et Foret provides farmers with trees sacks and other materials needed for farming. Everything is provide at no cost. It is sponsored by the Senegalese government. Unfortunately, they looked at me and laughed and i went home mad. Its so frustrating when I try to work and people let their ignorance get the best of them. Nevertheless, i found sacks and spent my week filling them. I also got my beekeeping project of the ground. I spent the day today building beehives out of concrete. It was actually a success... as far as i know. I am now waiting for the concrete to dry so we can bait the hives and wait for the bees. Things are going surprisingly well. I originally wanted to weave hives out of grass but found this incredibly time consuming. The westerner in me came out in full force and i headed to the local quincallerie to buy cement to make the hives the easy way. I am in need of buying some beekeeping suits and tools but am looking for someone to sponsor my project. If anyone would like to donate money to sponsor this, please let me know via email.

On another note, i stepped on a scorpion this week in the garden while watering with no shoes on. I got stung and thought i was going to die. I started to panic and then realized i was alone... so i collected myself and sat down and cried. Scorpions can be deadly but i remebered the doctors saying the scorpions here are not. After i cried like a baby i went back to watering and pulling weeds. For the next three days, my whole foot was swollen and itched so bad i thought i was going to scratch it off. At the moment, it is doing much better and only my toe is swollen.

I have found a new group of friends.... Im sad to admit it, but really my best friends are a group of 10 year old kids. These kids have helped me tremendously with my pepinering. They all worked really hard last week helping me prepare the soil and fill sacks. I gave them some school supplies at the end of the week and now i am basically a celebrity. They were so happy to receive so little. School supplies are hard to find here and when they are available, they are expensive. If anyone is interested in sending school supplies please let me know... THE KIDS NEED ALL THEY CAN GET. While I am at it, i will give a shout out about our malaria prevention project. We are in desperate need of $700 more dollars. We are raising money to buy mosquito nets. The rains will be here in about a month and the malaria counts will start to flourish. Sleeping with a mosquito net dramatically reduces the chance of contracting malaria. If you want to know more or donate money, please go to againstmalaria.com/kaolack... Any help for any of these projects would be more than appreciated!!! I hate asking people back in the states for money for our projects but really, a little goes a long way over here.
I hope everyone back at home is happy and healthy... i just realized i have been here for a whole school year... CRAZY!