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!