Dakar, here i come

I left the village late yeaterday evening. I was planning to stay until today but started to feel the oncomings of yet another illness so i decided to get out before I got reall sick. Sickness seems to hit me HARD in waves so i decided i needed to be proactive. Im currently in Kaolack at the regional house. My counterpart recently had a baby and another volunteer and I are going to the baptism later today. Relgious ceremonies here are never too fun but they are a big deal so i think its definately important for me to make an apparance. I was sick last night and my family knew it so I a hoping i can milk it for whats its worth and sneak out a little early today ;)

Things in the village have been good the last week. My english club started out successfuly. We had about 35 people show up to the first class and about the same to the second. The club is currently just learning the English alphabet and number 1 through 25. I have tried to squeeze in some fun trivia also. Im trying to make the classes fun so people will continue to want to come. if anyone has any ideas about fun games or project for English clubs, let me know. We tried to play telephone at the last club meeting. We made it through 3 people and then they completely forgot what i had originally said. We tried again and then someone stopped us and said "Huh, why are we doing this?" They didnt understand at all... I need something simpler.

I worked out in the fields some this week. I helped plant millet and i also helped till the land in a sorghum field. They definately do not have machines for this. There were about 6 women including me bent over with a small little han-held hoe digging up a 2 acre field. I stuck with them for about 3 hrs. Its two days later and the back of my tighs are still quite sore. I dont know where the women get the energy to do this type of work. I am definately in better shape than any of the women working in the field that day, but they kicked my butt in the work dept. In general, people wont let me work in their fields because thay say i will get sick. I forgot to mention that one of the women working out in the field is about 7 months pregnant. I saw how hard she was working and told them that if she could do it, i could too... Really it sucked but i was trying to prove to them that i am not as fragile as they think... The next day, i got sick so maybe i am more fragile than i think lol...

I passed out all of the trees that I have been growing. I donated a few hundred trees to a local cemetary. A man is planning to transplant the trees and create a better fence around the cemetary. I also gave away hundreds of other trees for random fencing in other family compounds. I also gave out many Nebadie trees. This is just a fsat growing tree that has very nutritious leaves. Many people use the leave to make a sauce to eat with millet. People were very interested in getting the trees and i think next dry season, i will plant even more. I am in the process of talking to the director of PC about trying to be replaced in the village by an Agroforestry volunteer after i finish my service. I think my village would definately prosper from having a agfo volunteer instead of just ag.

I am on my way to Dakar tomorrow. I am DYING to get there. Dakar is like a little America and I havent been there for almost 2 months. My family was joking around yesterday saying i was sick because i missed the city...they have no idea...hahaha.. I am going to Dakar to work with the US Embssy teaching English camps. I will be working with high schoolers and have been placed with my friend Thomas. We have about 45 students I think the wee should be a good one. Also, I am excited to get to the city with my friends, eat some good food, and hang by the pool...

Oh, Senegal

What a week this has been. I came back to the village with hopes of getting things done. I have been having a tough time the last few weeks here because it is planting season and have i mentioned... I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT FARMING????? I passed out all of the seeds and am following the progress of each field. There is no positive reinforcement whatsoever here so i have absolutely no clue if what i am doing is correct. Whatever.... ugh... anyway, I have decided to take it upon myself to keep busy doing other projects that i do know about. I have held classes each day this week on how to make insect repellent lotion out of neem leaves. People know about this repellent from the volunteer before me, but they dont seem to know how to make it. Its super easy and quite cheap to make. With the use of oil, neem leeves, water, and soap it is possible to cook up a lotion that repels insects such as mosquitos; therefore, reducing the number of malaria cases. Today i started the class with only 5 people showing up. Everyone kept telling me to wait and see if others would come. I decided to be hard-headed and go ahead and begin. Im tired of the Senegalese way of thinking that schedules do not matter. We cooked the ingredients and made the lotion at 10 am like i planned. We finished around 10:45 and soon after about 20 other people showed up. They couldnt figure out why i didnt wait for them... so i agreed to teach one more class on monday... Starting ON TIME!
I also got our Mangrove restoration project off the ground this week. We are planning to do a seed collection day on july 29th and have an out-plnting day on August 19th. I want to invite other volunteers and villagers to help with the out-planting. We are hoping to be able to plant several hundred trees in just one day. I am excited to find out that things are actually working out with this project.
Monday will be my first day of teaching an English Club. I have visited other English clubs in the area to see what the kids like to do. I went through the village and invited EVERYONE here so hopefully i will have a good turn out. Another volunteer is coming to help me get the club started. The first class will probably just be used to find out who exactly wants to study English and also find out English levels. i plan to break the club down into smaller classes for adults, students, and children... keep your fingers crossed for me because this is going to be a big project.... hopefully anyway!
Im trying to put in two more weeks in the village and then head to Dakar for a week. i am teaching English classes in the US Embassy... the next two weeks are going to be tough because its super hot still and its not raining much... wish me luck!

America, sweet America!

So i made it through the bike ride in one piece! Hooray for that! This past week has been looong and tiring and i am glad that it is over but i will say that i had a great time. Ill just start from the beginning and fill you in on the bike ride. We started out saturday morning in a Sept Place heading to Tambacounda. We were meeting other volunteers there and starting the ride sunday morning. The car ride down was not bad and we met up with the others and spent the afternoon being lazy and loading up on carbs. Sunday morning started off ok but we left hours later than we originally planned because of minor bike problems. There were 7 of us total. We headed out and got caught in rain showers almost immediately... but actually the rain was a blessing because it cooled things off quite a bit. Within the first 30 Km one girl decided she conveniently didnt want to do the ride anymore and caught a car back to Kaolack. This was really annoying but in the end it was for the best because she was dragging us down and complaining. If she was ready to give up that easily then she needed to go anyway...then there were 6. We did over 80 miles that first day. We stayed at another volunteers house for the night and tried to get some rest. The next day, approximately the same amount of biking. Day three- Riding through the game park. Daniel and i were super tired after the first two days and decided we didnt want to ride through the park 1. because we were tired 2. it is illegal and you have to bride the guard to let you through with a bike and i felt this was kind of dangerous seeing as lions live there and 3. It is a stretch of approximately 100 miles with no water. There are no villages through the park and no where to get clean water. A few other volunteers have tried to ride through unsuccessfully because of the heat and water issue. Daniel and I were soo lucky. We hitch hiked through the park and caught a ride with the nicest guy ever. We ended up on the other end of the park relaxing for the day and swimming. Throughout the day, others from the bike ride showed up because they ended up quitting in the middle of the park and catching a random car also. Two people actually made it through the park without quitting..props to them but im not ashamed of cutting out early. The next day, we decided we wanted to go to a nearby waterfall. We were told the ride was easy and we could get there in under two hours.... YEAH RIGHT! A few other volunteers tagged along and there were 9 of us total. We started out just fine and then things got rocky... i got deathly sick and was projectile vomiting off my bike. It was too late to turn backand i reallllly wanted to see the waterfalls...so i kept going. About the same time, another volunteer got a flat tire. And by the way, this ride was into the mountains so there were no cars or people to help out. We all stopped to help the girl with the flat but she seemed to know what she was doing and worked hard at repairing the tire. I decided to bike ahead of the group because i was so sick i was going much slower than anyone else and didnt want to fall behind. I biked for about an hour and no one caught up so i decided to sit along the trail and wait for the others. I didnt want to get too far ahead. Finally, after sitting for another 45 minutes, one girl caught up (Erin) and said the flat was still not fixed and the others were walking to a nearby village to see if they could find someone to help them. She and I decided to go ahead and keep biking because at this point it was about 6 30 PM and we were nowhere near our final destination. Around 7 PM, the worlds biggest storm blew in. We could see it coming. The sky blackened. Winds were howling and then a huge cloud of black stuff started heading our way. I had never seen something like this. Erin and I were pedalling at full force trying to get the heck out of there before it all hit. We ended up getting split up and i was caught alone in what i finally figured out was a huge sandstorm. I certainly was not able to bike through it so i jumped off and my bike was blown out of my hands and kind of just skidded on the path around me. I squatted down and covered my face. Sandstorms are outrageous but only last a short time. It was incredible. I have never seen winds like that in my life. After i got out of the sand and was able to see again, i ran to get my bike and jumped back on. At this point adrenaline kicked in and i was no longer feeling any pain.... i was completely terrified. I started pedalling and about 3 minutes later rain started pouring down in sheets. I couldnt see anything but i just kept pedalling. Finally i caught up to Erin. She had found some sort of shack and was screaming my name so i would come hang out in there until the storm passed. We stayed there for about 30 minutes. Dont forget about all of the others...they were still out in the storm as well. They managed to stay together and took a really cool video of the sandstorm action. I wish i would have been smart enough to bust out my camera but at that point i was only thinking of ways to get out of there. We waited in the shack and the others caught up with us and the storm subsided to just a sprinkle. We headed back out and still had about 10 miles to go and it was 8 pm. Only 4 of the 9 people had flashlights. It took us two and a half more hours to get to the campement where we were headed. We arrived around 1030 unannounced and starving. Luckily someone was still awake and let us in and gave us rooms. The man running the place went to wake up all of the women and they cooked us a big spaghetti dinner. The day turned out to be something we had never expected but we totally should have. Next time we will know to come moer prepared. While we were stuck in the storm, it was pretty scary but looking back, it was actually really cool and probably something i will never experience again.
The next day, we woke up and hit the trails to do some hiking to find these waterfalls. Senegal has had a problem with rainfall this year and one waterfall was dried up. We found another one and spent the day there swimming. It was gorgeous. I got some really great photos that i will send out later in the week. At the moment i dont have my computer and dont like uploading from pulic comps because of viruses. I will upload sometime this week so be on the look out. I got some great photos of people that acutally live in the mountains. They were doing laundry in a spring. We spent the next few days hiking around and biking to some nearby sights. We swam in The Gambia river, saw monkeys everywere, saw hippos, hiked, camped, played in the waterfalls, and even had a big party for the 4th that included roasting a pig and firworks! Many Senegalese people were watching our party and fireworks peeking through a broken fence. We all thought about what it would be like to be on the other side of that fence and were all thankful that we have what we do. I always think watching fireworks on the 4th is a good time for reflection but this year it was extra special because we just had to look anywhere around to be able to fully appreciate the life that we have been given. A life that most others in the world will never know.

Lets just say today i am more than tired. We didnt sleep last night and caught a bus out of town at 4 am. It was a great week but i was worn out and ready to go. There were about 60 volunteers in Kedegou and the regional house accomodates about 10. I dont think i got moer than 5 hours of sleep any night during the week. Camping is great but after about two nights, i really just needed a Holiday Inn!
Its about 730 PM here and i am deliriously typing so im gonna cut it off here. I need some serious sleep. I hope everyone at home had a happy 4th!!! :):)