Lots to do with little time left

I cant believe its already March! The months are coming and going so quickly. This month i have a full schedule. I have less than 3 months left in Senegal so i am trying to get as much work in as possible while i have as much fun as possible. David and I have been working really hard on Book Mobile stuff. We cleaned out the truck today and got rid of old books that were damaged last year during the rainy season. We also are working hard to get the truck fixed up because we got a ticket last month because the drivers side mirror is broken. It was not really a ticket, it was more or less a police officer asking how much money we would give him so he would let us continue on without taking the driver's license.. corruption at its finest! The truck is having some serious mechanical issues also so we are trying to get them all fixed up before taking it out for another run.

the garden project is stil SLOWLY moving along. Its definately not finished and probably wont be by the end of the month. I just hope its finished by the time i leave... never ending battle it seems. i am having a PC agriculture assistant come out this week to talk to the villagers for me to get to the bottom of the problem. I finally figured out that there are a lot of politcal problems in the village. Diagle is sub-divided into two smaller villages that make on large village. The school is right between them both and i have heard that the problems are because each indivivual village does not like to work with the other side. I always knew there was a big divide between the villages but this is taking it to another level. I love teh Diagle side of the village.... unfortunately i live on the other side, Mbaleme. I spend 90% of my time in the village on the Diagle side... usually at a woman named Janaba's house...

Janaba Sarr is the most classy Senegalese person i know. She is my female counterpart and such a great friend. Her door is always open to me and my friends. I feel like she is the one person in senegal that really does not want anything from me other than my friendship. I am going to miss her sincerely when i leave. I do think i will keep in touch with her for a long time though... she reminds me a lot of my grandma back at home.. She is a great cook and always trying to feed me. Janaba has actually helped me learn to cook a lot of senegalese foods. I have really taken an interest in learning to cook the foods i eat here. So far, im not too bad!

Other fun news: I did decide to get on my bike and bike into Kaolack this weekend to get book mobile stuff done. i biked about 40 miles. After the first hour, i realized that the whole bike trip was going to be up hill and biking into the wind. I arrived about 4 hours later. The last hour felt like misery. I have biked this before and without the wind it took less than three hours. The winds here are hard core. Dont forget about the crazy sandstorm i was in last summer!

Plans for the month include: Next weekend i am going on a small mini vacation. Ablaye and I are hitting up another beach that i havent been to yet. We are only going for two nights but its super hot here and the beach is calling my name. The following week, my friend Daniel is coming for a visit and we are biking to a small town not too far away and catching a porogue (small boat) to a nearby island. The island is in the mangroves and has senegals only Eco lodge type campement. we wanna just go for the day and see what the place has to offer. Its always great to take porogue rides through the mangroves too! That weekend, Kaolack is hosting its annual party.. really i dont know what we are celebrating but fom what i hear tha party should be a good one.. lots of food, drinks, and i hear there is even going to be some sort of a DJ or something... who knows how that will end up but i sure am looking forward to it. the follwong week, David and I will be back in the villages with the Book Mobile. The month is going to fly by.

I plan to be back in the states by Memorial Day! im running out of time here and just trying to get through these last few months with good work and good fun. I hope you all at home are getting warmer weather than what i heard about a few weeks ago. Mother Nature is still blwoing our socks off here with temperatures in the 110's every day (already)! This is going to be one HOT HOT HOT dry season!