Quick Update

I don't have a lot of time or very much to say so I will keep this short. I just got back from spending nearly a week in Dakar (way too much Big City time for this village Vol) for my Mid Service Medical Appointment. Mid Service Med basically means general physical and dental (free cleaning and flouride treatment too!) checkups to see what kind of a toll life in this country is taking on a PCV. Good news, I am healthy! (or at least as healthy as a Rural PCV can be, with the usual ailments) The best part of Dakar was being there with several good friends from my Stage for their appointments and thus being able to hang out, get icecream (mmm Obama Cookie and Strawberry!), buy fabric, and run errands around the PC Office/Dakar.

As for the village, rain has been slowly starting, a bit delayed from last year. I overheard a bunch of different convos between people last week about how they were worried that we won't have a very good rainy season because all of the rain clouds kept passing over us without any rain. Surrounding areas are already planting, but we haven't had enough rain yet. Hopefully there will be a good Rainy Season and harvest, Inchallah. The one positive about the delay in the rains is that NO ONE in the village is done with their dry season work. Yes, the Dry Season lasts about 8 months and yet it's mostly been in the last month that people (men) have gotten off their butts and been building batiments (homes), roofing huts, and building latrines (my project). This just amazes me because March and most of April, the men of all ages in my village just sat around, playing games and listening to music, and now are running around trying to get everything done--and having to start prepping their fields. Good job guys. I guess procrastination is a problem here too (not like I should be one talking...).

Anyways, so the influx of hurried work before the rains has slowed down our village mason and my latrine project. Where several weeks ago he was doing two latrines in one day, the past few weeks have gone by with just 3 latrines being done in one week. Not cool with me because, frankly, I am ready to be done with this project (at least til next dry season, as I've told people). When I left my village, only 6 were left to be done and told the mason it would be GREAT to come back to them all being done. Here's to hoping!

So I only have a few days in the village before heading on my first real traveling in Senegal: down to Kedegou to celebrate the 4th of July with the majority of PC Senegal. In the four or so days, I hope to make a few more batches of neem lotion (natural mosquito repellent...I did 2 causeries on it in the last few weeks and have sold approximately 50 bags of it for about $.12), check up on the latrines and talk to people about covering the latrine holes, help transition the school garden to the Rainy Season, hold an end-of-year evaluation meeting on the school garden, outplant a few trees, talk Malaria (I think we just got a bunch of free nets last week, yay!), and prepare people for the fact I will be gone most of the summer.

And so begins my summers of travel and generally being out of site...

I love and miss everyone!

My Weekend at Sin Fest

Muslim Sin Fest, ie a big Catholic pilgrimage/party!

Story to follow...

So this weekend was perhaps one of the best weekends I've had in Senegal in a very long time and definitely one of the best since I arrived. Saturday, feeling stressed and annoyed at the people around me, I boarded a bus with 10 other PCVs headed to the beach to celebrate some birthdays. I was along for the ride only, as I was not in the mood for a big crazy beach trip of that nature, asking the bus driver to drop me off in Sindia, a small crossroads town known for it's towering bowls of mangoes available for around $1 each. I found a bench in the shade, greeted the men sitting nearby, and pulled out my latest reading book, expecting nothing but non-stop "hey, let's annoy the toubab" games as I waited for Jen, another PCV from my Stage coming from Dakar to meet me. Amazingly, apart from some general questioning and people finding out I speak Serere Sine/Saloum (and thus making other friends who spoke to me in Serere), I was allowed to read my book in peace. No probing questions about my marital status or "Hey Toubab!" or anything. It was such a pleasant wait!

When Jen arrived, we bought a few bowls of mangoes and hopped in a car headed to Popenguine with one of my new Serere buddies, a quiet Serere (Serere Safen, very different from Serere Sine/Saloum, so I don't understand it...) beach town to meet up with the PCV who lives there.

Popenguine, a small town of perhaps 2,000-some inhabitants is a popular spot for PC Trainees to visit for a weekend during PST, but this weekend would be anything but quiet as over 100,000 people descended on it for Pentecost. In the late 19th Century, some missionaries in the area were walking along the beach and saw an image of the Black Madonna--an African Virgin Mary--and Infant Jesus. Ever since then, the Catholics of Senegal have celebrated this apparition and this was the 121st celebration.

Some information on Senegal: Senegal is something like 90% Muslim, 8% Christian (mostly Catholic), and 2% indigenous beliefs, and that's being generous to the Christians. Popenguine itself is really only like 10-20% Christian, but it boasts a beautiful church in the heart of town and beautiful grounds for its priests and brothers, and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims each year. In Senegal, Christians are most likely members of either the Serere or the Diola (Casamance) ethnic groups--major generalization, but true. These groups, especially the Sereres (who fought slavery by hiding in the islands and were some of the last to conform to Islam), converted to Christianity and found favor with the French, and thus have a history of generally being wealthier, better educated, more powerful (2 former presidents, etc), and with smaller families (imagine, Catholics known for small families?!?!) than their Muslim counterparts. Again, I am overgeneralizing, but I'm trying to paint a picture of one aspect of Senegalese society. In my own (Serere) village, myself and a teacher (not from the area) are the only Christians, but there is a handful in the roadtown 4km away and a scattering of others in various villages. That is all to say that there were a lot of Sereres (of all dialects) around this weekend, which was awesome!

Anyway, we arrived in Popenguine on a Saturday afternoon only to find it quite transformed from the sleepy beach town we knew and loved. A few thousand people had already arrived, camping at relatives' homes or setting up tents in random patches of grass or gravel across town. Street food vendors were beginning to set up shop in a way that was strangely reminiscent of the Taste of Crystal Lake (or any other similar event), selling sandwiches with chicken, eggs, onions, fish, you name it--plus pork! (An obvious rarity in a mostly Muslim country) All 3 Senegalese phone companies were around, promoting their products, plus cooking oil companies, Coca Cola, tea companies, Obama Rice (a new brand), and many other companies had signs and tents, giving away free hats or shirts to people around. Ankith, the PCV there, showed us around to all of his "hot spots" and introduced us to his friends and "village" family while at the same time being totally astounded by the transformation that was taking place in his village and would only get crazier the next few days.

On Sunday afternoon, THOUSANDS of marchers converged on Popenguine--walking from Dakar, Thies, and Mbour (distances of 30-60km, if not more). Groups were divided by parishes, coming from each of those cities, and farther regions such as Kolda and Zuiginchore (below the Gambia) and even from a few neighboring countries such as Cape Verde. It was an awesome site to watch: exhausted marchers walking/running/skipping in, singing fabulous songs, spraying water from bottles and branches, and wearing matching white march tshirts and matching brightly patterned wax pants. There was so much energy in the air, I couldn't help but clap and dance along (only a little, I did have to restrain myself from really busting it out!). It was a hot day and reminded me of Toronto in 2002 when I was a pilgrim along with 800,000+ other people to World Youth Day in Toronto. There was one super energetic group that sang, ran forward, and then turned around, ran backwards thus confusing people behind them, danced, and then ran forward again that totally reminded me of any one of the St Elizabeth Ann Seton mission teams I had been a part of over my high school years.

Earlier that morning, Jen, Ankith, and I visited an American girl one village over, who is in Senegal on a university fellowship--she is basically doing her own Peace Corps thing, but without all of the benefits of healthcare, support, etc--named Brittany (she is awesome and super brave, I couldn't do what she did!). She joined us as we welcomed the pilgrims into Popenguine, climbed around, and explored the enormous and beautiful stage area and greater Popenguine that was all abuzz with the event. In Senegal, religious events such as this (or similar Muslim equivalents Gamou and Magal), are basically GINORMOUS shopping events as well. Vendors appeared out of nowhere (ie Dakar, Kaolack, Thies, all of the roads from Podor to Zuiginchore and everywhere in between), peddling tshirts with the Virgin Mary and Jesus, glow in the dark crucifixes, laminated prayer cards, plastic church hats, rosaries, Bibles, and other "religious items," not to mention hats, used clothing, shoes, purses, dvds (not real, of course), beaded bracelets and shells, etc, AND all types of street snack food and drink, including kinkiliba (a type of tea--I purchased a HUGE bag of leaves for my vil fam), homemade popsicles, cookies, gum, local juices, fried foods, mangoes, water, beignets (Senegalese donuts), and so MUCH more! As always, prices were only "kind of" set and thus up for negotiation (except on food), but amazingly, since this was a Senegalese celebration and not a Western one, we were mostly given fair prices and treated like everyone else, AMAZING!

So Sunday evening, there was a big mass for the youth while everyone else took private prayer time and later that night was a big mass. It started an hour + later than it should have, and for obvious reasons (the heat and walking 30+ km that day), most people were practically asleep during the mass or out in the village eating and drinking up. The mass (what we saw before we left 2+ hours into it) included an interpretive dance segment and a (long) theater piece about the life of Paul. The mood around town was one of excitement, friendship, and celebration of the Catholic faith. It was cool, and there were so many freakin' people!

Monday morning was the big mass of the weekend, and I mean BIG! Seriously, well over 100,000 people crammed into the large space, specially created for this event each year. And, there were probably another 20,000+ people not at mass--either sleeping, standing around, selling things, or helping with crowd control (military, police, firefighters, Red Cross, etc). The picture to the side is taken during mass. We were standing on the grass behind the alter and thus couldn't really see anything except Red Cross officials and military people carrying people who passed out due to the heat, out on stretchers every two or three minutes. The music was pretty good, but the mass was hard to follow since they kept turning off the speaker nearest us every time the priest spoke. This was mass meets Senegal in the fact that people were standing, sitting, squeezing past other people into tiny spaces, and the heat made it necessary for people to drink water and suck on popsicles and frozen juices in the midst of mass. However, everyone that wanted to, received Holy Communion, which was pretty incredible. It was done similar to the World Youth Day I attended back in 2002: teams of priests, nuns, alter servers, and boy/girl scouts (scouts and "guides" are run through the Catholic Church in France and Senegal), were dispersed to various locations across the entire grounds to give out the Eucharist. It was really cool. The music was also, as it should be here in West Africa, pretty rockin'.

After mass, we wandered around, amazed by all of the vendors (and all of the ridiculous junk they had to sell) and the crowd. At one point as we walked by, an obnoxious person selling tshirt from the back of a truck and using a loud speaker called out "I miss you!" a phrase that made me think "typical Senegalese...finding the white girls in the crowd and calling out to them," until it was followed by "Khady Diouf, I miss you! Khady Fall (Jen), I miss you!" I looked up and saw that loud speaker man was in fact my good friend Bartholomew from Thies (he is the best waiter in Senegal and thus Jen and I became good friends with him)! He proceeded to chat with us, while leaving the loudspeaker turned on, and I couldn't stop laughing for a good half hour after. Oh what a small world! While shopping around, we found a Serere Bible (which I now own), a partially translated Wolof Bible for Jen, and a fabulously ridiculous and horribly-printed muscle tank (Mary on one side, Jesus on the other). As we worked our way through the crowd, Brittany unfortunately became the victim of a pickpocket (lame!) who snagged her phone, but fortunately Jen had just received a freebe phone from a Dakar expat, so Brittany wasn't out too much (just a bunch of numbers). It was unfortunate, but could have been worse. And then we ate delicious cashew fruits on our way to the make-shift garage set up for all of the thousands of people.

I rode with Jen back to Mbour, rather than head straight to Kaolack, which was a good decision. We talked about the fun weekend, how good it was to get away, and generally catch up over delicious PIZZA!

So back to the whole "Sin Fest," which I am sure that you are all wondering about... first off, ANY Catholic event here in Senegal comes complete with cheap Senegalese alcohol--beer, wine, hard liquor, as well as palm wine--and these things were in the plenty as make-shift bars and palm wine vendors littered the roads everywhere the eye could look, and people were definitely partaking. Islam does not allow followers to drink alcohol (many do, but they aren't supposed to), so both alcohol and pork (which was being grilled up everywhere as well) are big defining characteristics of Catholic events. The authorities actually had the good forwarning to close down the beach, since there aren't any lifeguards, to prevent any intoxicated people from doing anything stupid. Another big thing was all of the couples everywhere--like seriously! In Senegal, it is rare to see a guy and girl hold hands or display any affection in public, with the exception of male/female prostitues and Westerners, while it is very common to see groups of men only touching each other and holding hands or groups of women doing the same. This weekend was a different story. Young guy/girl couples were talking together, holding hands, hugging, and generally interacting together in a positive way. We were all kind of, admittedly, shocked to see such a change, not realizing that the lack of handholding, etc, was probably a result of Islam's influence on local culture. And finally, there was the fact that for the better part of the weekend, no one harassed us at all. As a group of four foreigners, we were large enough to watch out for each other but small enough not to draw too much attention to ourselves. People just let us be, rather than saying "Toubab! TOUBAB!!!!!!!!!" over and over, which was just incredible. Catholics, go figure!

I also want to express my surprise and appreciation towards the planning committee who put the entire event together. There were tons of military people, police, firefighters, and general security people, plus ambulances, Red Cross volunteers, and several make-shift hospital areas for people who got sick/dehydrated/injured/otherwise ill. There were tons of port-o-potties all around town so people wouldn't relieve themselves in public, which is the first time we had seen such things in this country. There was a lot of water, though people didn't drink as much of it as they should have, and things were generally clean (no cholera, unlike Touba). The people of Popenguine will have a good amount of cleanup to do, but nothing compared with how bad it could have been. The local TV station had been showing public logistic meetings for the two weeks before the pilgrimage, so they had definitely been planning ahead. Things were as orderly and organized as they get in Senegal and we were genuinely impressed.

Thank you Ankith and your Popenguine family for being such kind and generous hosts for us for the weekend. Ankith kindly gave Jen and I his double bed for the weekend and his family kept us fed (when we weren't indulging in delicious street food).

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Tomorrow I am headed back to site. This weekend was the first time in over a month where I went two whole days without doing any work, which was incredible. It wasn't the type of spiritual retreat that I had hoped for, for various reasons (in many ways I was more of a spectator than a pilgrim, or so it felt), but it was a great psychological break from everything. I have to remind myself that it's ok and actually quite good to do that once in awhile rather than work myself to exhaustion. This week will be more latrines, scholarship follow-up (hopefully more on that in a future post), maybe some garden work/planning ahead, and spending time with friends and family in the village because I haven't done that in awhile. My APCD (boss) is coming to visit my site in a week and a half (Inchallah) and I need to plan ahead the next three weeks before life gets really crazy for 2 months straight. Love you and miss you all!

Btw, pictures are updated on my Picasa website, so check them out!

A Busy Few Weeks

So Happy Mid May Everyone!

Life has been crazy, in and out of the village over the last few weeks, so I've been staying quite busy. A lot of projects and events have been going on, especially with the school. The events of the last two weeks jump around a bit and are thus confused in my mind, but I hope that this post isn't too hard to follow...

Just after returning from Kaolack two weeks ago, my sister Khadium had her official wedding celebration. I'll spare the details, but it involved lots of presents (over 80 wash basins and 50+ buckets and 50 more bowls) all called out to the crowd (who gave what, elaborately announced), a traditional dance circle that lasted until 2 am, being woken up before 7am by the crowd gathering to accompany her to her husbands village an hour away, and my sister spending most of the night crying (traditional and symbolic reaction, though she has been unofficially married to him for 5+ years, she just now had the money to do the big ceremony). Traditional wedding celebrations are 5 days long, but time did not permit me to travel to her husband's village and join in the long celebration. It was a fun celebration in my village and I was sad not to have been able to go with her to her husband's village (she wanted me to be an equivillent of a bridesmaid-ish, but I don't like her husband and was too busy), but probably a good thing because the crowds would have been too much for me.

Tuesday I went to Foundiougne with Mary and Chris to finally pick up a bunch of mail that had been waiting for me for over a month. Special shout outs to my parents (with Uncle Mark), Saki, the Mahans, and Kurt and Jodi for excellent care packages! I was totally shocked and in awe of the kindness and knowing people were thinking of me. I was able to spend the following week eating well and reading celebrity gossip magazines whenever I wasn't running around working.

Biggest of all, last Wednesday (May 13), I celebrated my "anniversaire" in the village. One year in a small Senegalese village, wahoo! I was out of site however, for part of the day, so we had a belated lunch celebration the next day. At least one chicken was killed (maybe 2, I'm not really sure), and I gave my family food for yassa, a yummy Senegalese dish made with onions, garlic, mustard, and other deliciousness. My sisters did a great job cooking and there was enough that bowls could be sent to some of my closest friends in the village (Sally and the Teachers among others). Everyone enjoyed it, while reminding me I still have another year left (if you ask Sally, she will say at least 3 or 4 years...silly!).

Last Wednesday (my village anniversaire), I dropped nearly $900 ordering 4 TONS of cement and a bunch of PVC pipes for a joint 2 village latrine project. A good friend went with me to Passi (horrible place) to make the purchases and then we rode back on the huge delivery truck with the purchases.



The first pic to the side is of the delivery in my compound, then a bunch of the pipes and wood next to my hut, and then a (sideways because I couldn't fix it) picture of the first latrine built in my village with this project--at the teachers' compound. The mason does one a day while another does two a day in Mary's village--when he finishes, he will come to my village to speed up the work. It's going well, though it's quite annoying to keep having to ask people for money (for each latrine, villagers are supposed to pay $4 as "participation") and check to make sure their holes are dug. Yay for tackling diarrhea and sanitation!

The school garden is progressing nicely. We have started harvesting carrots and tomatoes, selling them in the village and at the local market. Over the past few weeks, we got a tree pepiniere (nursery) planted on the grounds of the school to provide trees for the school and rest of the village (about 250 bags or so). For those unfamiliar with tree nursery preparation, it involves collecting, pounding, and sifting dried cow manure (breaking it up with my hands and pounding with a large stick--several days of work), mixing it with sand (to form real-ish soil), filling long plastic bags with the soil mixture, watering for a few days, planting seeds (collected and prepped by your's truly and fellow PCVs), and watering twice a day for 3 months. It's a lot of work, but it should ultimately be good, providing shade for the school, fruit for the village, and nutrients for the garden soil. Here's a picture of some of the boys posing for the camera after filling a bunch of sacks.

Saturday was the grand opening of a youth foyer/classroom at the middle school nearest my village (not the one in my roadtown), where I've recently started getting involved. The event started almost 3 hours late (AST: Africa Standard Time--fortunately I brought a book to read), but then involved the principle talking about some of the events and activities of the middle school (Peace Corps and our reproductive health sessions got a big shout out), giving out awards to the highest achieving students in each grade, skits, martial arts demonstrations, and a rap about AIDS. All finished with boissons, begnets, and a fancy lunch (at like 4:30)--because what Senegalese celebration is complete without a good lunch? The answer is none!

Sunday, I accompanied Mary and one of her counterparts (the only Catholic in her village) to the nearest Catholic Church to have mass and watch some of the local kids receive their First Communions and be Confirmed into the Catholic Church. Unforunately for us, they took the few kids up to Foundiougne where there was a bigger group making their First Communions and thus, as is the story of every attempt of mine to attend mass in Djilor, there was not a mass. There was however a huge party with beignets (Senegalese donutholes), boissons (sodas and liquor for those partaking) and a good lunch (pork and lots of chicken), which I unfortunately couldn't participate in because by the time lunch was being served, I had to be in a village another 7km away, attending a health lesson on malaria prevention. I missed a great meal, or so I hear, but the lesson was a good chance to have women talk about malaria, how it is spread, and how it can be prevented (mosquito nets, village trash-pickups, and neem lotion making). When I returned to my village, I hurriedly planted a bunch of seeds in tree nursery sacks, and rushed home (at dusk) to find out that my sister Rhokya had given birth to a little boy around noon that day! When we found out there was no mass (around 11), I had thought about heading right back to the village and would have thus been around for the noon-time delivery, but alas, got distracted and wound up staying the whole afternoon until the health session. The baptism is going to be this coming Sunday and I am very excited because I will finally be around for a baptism, even if the kid won't be named after me (note: the newborn baby girl was NOT actually named after me...). It should be fun and interesting, and nice to know I can escape to my room when I need to during the course of the daylong celebration.

I have had a lot of journal entries and blogs in my mind the past few weeks to write, so maybe at some point I can get them onto paper and eventually into future blog posts. However, as you can tell, life is crazy busy. I came into Kaolack to attend to a bunch of projects, but could only really get away for 2 days, which isn't nearly enough time to even scratch their surfaces, and now I have to run back to site to attend to things. Hopefully next Monday I will have a day off, but probably not--maybe in another 2 weeks when I escape to Kaolack again. Life is busy and work crazy, but that's ultimately a good thing--especially because it should (hopefully) make the time between now and my US vacay fly by. I can't wait for it and find myself fantacizing about it way too much--I need to stop so I don't go crazy, err crazier than I already am :)

Special shout out to Heidi and Bryan who will by getting married this Saturday and Suz and Chris the following Saturday. I love you all and wish I could be celebrating with you, but know that I will be thinking about and praying for you guys. Many blessings on your continued lives together :)

Also, pictures are (mostly) updated on my Picasa website, so check them out. There's some weird self-portraits of me in the garden and carrying tomatoes on my head. They aren't pretty, but I was bored.

All for now, talk to you guys in another few weeks!

Lame Post, But Actually Quite Exciting...

So, don't really have anything to post this week, sorry! Life is really ridiculously busy, so I was really just too exhausted last week to think of anything to post.

However, thanks to my Dad (the real James), plane tickets to the States for vacation have been purchased, yay!!!!!!! I will be in DC July 24-30, down to South Carolina for a good friend's wedding, and then to CL (hurrying back for another good friends' wedding) until August 6. It's shorter than I had originally hoped for, but due to work constraints, have to be back here sooner than expected. I hope to see as many people as possible while I am in the States and enjoy some delicious margaritas, iced coffees, and yummy summer desserts (strawberry shortcake...mmm!). One of my first activities will be a much needed pedicure with a good friend :)

But this trip isn't for another 2.5 months, so back to the village and back to work!

The Start of Junior Year...

(Note: I am not pictured above)

As PCVs, many of us joke or at least refer to our Service as very similar to high school (which it is in many different ways, which are not the subject of this post), and for my Stage, Junior Year (halfway point) started as a group of 26 awesome people swore-in as the newest Peace Corps Senegal Volunteers! Don't they all look beautiful?! Congratulations!!!!!

It has been a pleasure for me to be involved in their PST, spending time with them and Training Staff in order to improve the quality of PC PST for future groups. While I've been mostly involved with the cross-cultural aspects, as a year-in Health PCV, I've been able to offer some technical/work advice (and learn a lot of new things in the process as well!). The entire Stage was very friendly and welcoming to me throughout the length of training and I am going to miss them all a lot. Fortunately, some of them are going to be my newest neighbors: Marie Diouf (Mary) and Moustapha Senghor (Chris). We took a picture of the old and new Djilor groups, but I think that they are on Jaime's camera because I definitely do not have them on mine, so those will come in time.

So, life is pretty crazy work-wise right now, which is a blessing and a bit of a surprise. I was just in Thies, as already mentioned, finishing up stuff with PST and working on the evaluation of the new Cross Culture book I helped put together for training. In June, probably, I will go back or at least spend some time in Kaolack editing and getting the next edition ready for the August 2009 Stage and prepping stuff for their PST (since I will, Inchallah, be in the US right before their arrival).

I was also around for the end of the Counterpart Workshop, where Trainees and their work partners meet, talk about PC stuff, and plan the first several months of their Service. It's nice to have counterparts learn about PC and PCV work, because they can usually better explain it to other community members once the PCV is Installed at site. Mary and Chris' counterparts were there, all of whom I have met and could chat with, as was Jaime, which was cool. What was weird though was that not one of them (4 Senegalese, plus Jaime) did NOT recognize me when they first saw me. Why? Perhaps because I was wearing jeans and a nice shirt rather than an old wrap skirt (pagne, laapa), or perhaps because I was showered and my hair was down (curly and to Jaime's surprise, quite blond!). I greeted them in Serere and they just gave me weird looks, not knowing who I was at first. Jaime told me that later they said they were surprised that "Khady looks nice!" haha, yep...not even kidding. I guess I clean up ok, but must be a pretty big mess when I'm just in the village. Not really a surprise to me though.

Hopefully my next post will have an introduction to Khady Diouf ondep (little Khady Diouf, my namesake), my sister Diboor's new baby girl, born the day before I headed up to Thies. [Note: Diboor walked the 4km to Djilor to deliver at the health post because her husband had taken the charet to the fields and no one else passed her on the way in. She then delivered almost immediately. Next time you are in labor, imagine walking that distance in the African sun...no thank you!] She is the 4th baby to be born in my compound since I've been there, and the 4th baptism I've missed. I'm a pretty horrible aunt. I will also try and get a picture of "James" Ndaar Diouf, Khodya's baby boy born just a few weeks before little Khady, and unofficially named after my US dad. I'm excited to get to know these two little babies (James cries A LOT...), esp since Ndeye took Baby Ibou (the formerly malnourished baby, who happens to be the light of my life here in Senegal) away (just to Kaolack, but she doesn't have a phone and I have no way of contacting her) until Tabaski (December...). I was sooooooooooo sad when they left, but hopefully Ndeye has some work or something to help take care of her and Ibou (since his father claims he's not the father--jerk!). Rhoky will hopefully be delivering within the next month or two so there will really be lots and lots of babies around the compound!

Sorry for such a random post...this week will be tree nursery planting, Mary and Chris' Installs, the first girls' reproductive health session at a new middle school, and major latrine project stuffs. I'll hopefully be back in Kaolack in another week to work with some other PCVs on some joint projects (theater group health tourney, Serere dictionary, etc). My one year at site is coming up in just 2 weeks and it's great to have lots to do!

Not just any ordinary Sunday...

Happy Easter Everyone!!!!!!!!!! From the looks of facebook, the weather (in DC and CL) was beautiful today so I hope you all enjoyed such an awesome holiday.

My Easter was fine, nothing spectacular though the highlights include a phone call from Josh and loaded Kraft Mac and Cheese for dinner (including packaged salmon, dried veggies, extra cheese, plus some French wine). I went to mass at the cathedral in Kaolack this morning. I could have stayed at site and hoped the priest would show up at the church in Djilor, but I didn't want to take the chance and miss out on Easter mass. Pretty good music, but a good majority of the homily was in Wolof and I don't understand Wolof enough to follow it in such a situation and had to prevent myself from dreaming up clothes to have made. A bunch of babies were baptised and many kids also received their First Holy Communion (they didn't have an Easter Vigil service), so that was pretty cool. Though it didn't particularly feel like Easter (there weren't any events leading up to it, I was the only PCV celebrating it in Kaolack, plus Senegal is like 90% Muslim even though a lot of Sereres are Catholic, I just don't know many of them), it's amazing to know that no matter what, He rose so things can rock. Good day!

On a side note, I think a shopping trip is an order upon my return to the States after COSing next year. I really want some new cute stuff (I've been facebook stalking just to keep up on the fashions...I think I have a problem, lol) and that's been on my mind lately (hence the mentally designing clothes while in church...). I have plenty of village appropriate clothes, but am just looking forward to nice stuff again. Just 12 months to go--CRAZY!

Back to the village tomorrow for just 3 days, then up to Thies again. Lots of stuff coming up and my calendar is pretty booked, but that's a good feeling. I need to get on the same page with Marc before he leaves his village next week with regards to our latrine project, etc. Also this week, meeting with the Djilor middle school principal about the PC Scholarship program and meeting with the Sadioga middle school principal about bringing a sexual education program to the school. Lots and lots to do!

A call for posts!

I just wanted to give a chance for any of you who so faithfully (or not) read this blog, to ask questions or give suggestions on topics you want me to write about, with regards to life in Senegal, Peace Corps, culture, work, etc. Even though I only have internet access every few weeks, even then I sometimes don't know what to write about, esp since for the most part, projects take a really long time (a few or several months at least) to complete, so I feel like any update about work is really just the same thing from week to week and don't know if it really necessitates a post. Ya know?

Also, shout outs to the awesome peeps at Women for Women International for an awesome Inauguration-inspired care package (Obama face cookies!), to Suz for keeping me fed with oatmeal and updated on current events with a liberal bias (ala old Time Mags), and for Kurt and Jodi (Jan too, prob?) for keeping me up to speed on all of the hottest celebrity gossip. As always, I love all letters and care packages and really appreciate people taking time (and money in a horrible economy, or so BBC tells me) and sharing their love. You all rock!