Rando Greetings from Dakar

I just wanted to send a major thanks to the supportive words so many people have shared about George. My village and I really appreciate it.

As my parents noticed, I updated my picasa website, so check out what's been going on (though most are scenes of my backyard and other random things).

I've been in Dakar the last week, after a week in Thies for the end of PST (yay 52 new Senegal PCVs!), visiting with Med (multiple weird skin infections and eye issues) and trying to really delve into grad school and post-PC life options. I am almost done with the antibiotics and have new lenses for my "fun" glasses, as it turns out my vision has actually improved since coming to Senegal. Turns out the headaches were from my eyes correcting the "over-correctedness" of my original lenses. Of course, my hard-core village glass lenses haven't been changed, so I guess I will have to bench them for awhile. Anyway, I'm head back to Kaolack/the village tomorrow.

Over the next few weeks, work will really be picking up again. I am planning an awesome Girls' Leadership Day in early November for middle school girls, plus I am trying to get together materials and write a grant for a reproductive health training in December/January. Chris and I have reached a critical point in the Serere Dictionary, where we now need to take what we have and share it with members of our villages to verify words/sounds/spellings. Oh, and gardening season is starting up so I really need to prepare pepiniere space. Plus, I have two new neighbors (yay Jack and David!) to visit and a bunch of other random stuff... so much for the slow season of August and September (which I honestly LOVED). AND I need to finish and send in my applications for grad school! [Holy cow, I had forgotten how overwhelming applying for school is. Now multiply that by 300 and you will almost understand what it's like to apply without regular internet access or printing capabilities.] It will all be good and time is really going to fly by over the next six months before I COS (Close of Service).

Miss you and love you all!