This past weekend marked my largest project and training session of my service. For 3 days, 4 PCVs, one PC Supervisor, and another NGO representative worked in town to train 58 new and exciting garden and farming techniques. The work was exhausting and stressful, but the goal is to provide people with new techniques that can exponentially increase their garden and farm harvests, thereby increasing their income and standard of living.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Community Gardens
Friday, June 11, 2010
Rain!!
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Time for more Theatre!
This time, I had a break – sort of. Another PCV wrote a grant to invite a local professional theatre group on tour through several towns and schools. They did a performance on the protection of the environment. The students were captivated, entertained, and most importantly, educated.
Business Training: A lesson on how to teach
I was fortunate enough to have my supervisor, Talla, come to conduct a training with one of my groups I’m working with. Subject Matter: Roles and Responsibilities of a group, Contracts, and By Laws. These are subjects of which I have limited technical, let alone language skills to conquer. Overall the sessions were very well accepted and successful.
After he left, I had enough energy (and newly found inspiration) to conduct a training of my own. Subject matter: How to calculate profit; a simple equation. The challenge: half the women’s group was illiterate, and their primary language was Mandinka.
Needless to say, I’m very, very tired right now…
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
An Epic Journey Completed
For the first time ever, I just completed reading the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The story was wonderful, captivating, and fun. Reading about a small hobbit conquering an entire dark world of evil somehow made my challenges in Senegal seem much less difficult and frightening. Thanks Frodo Baggins for the inspiration. And thanks Tolkien for creating such a beautiful story.
Eco T Conference
All the EcoT volunteers spent a week in Dakar for a much needed 3 day training followed by Senegal’s first ever International Tourism Conference. The training was helped answer a lot of our questions and gave us PCVs a solid direction of work and development.
The conference was exciting as all major tourism companies and agencies were represented. Senegal’s president, Abdoulaye Wade also made a special appearance, of whom I got about a 2 second glimpse. This conference also exercised my language skills once again, including newspaper and TV interviews in French and Wolof (Mom! I may have been on TV!).
After being away from site for an entire week, it’s time to get back to work. And now work on introducing Eco Tourism into my town as well.
--Sunday, May 23, 2010
New Pictures!!
A New Breakfast Dish
This morning I had cow’s feet in a sauce for breakfast. On the rare occasion that meat is slaughtered, we waste nothing. Intestines, stomach, feet, and all are eat (except the hide). As I rarely eat meat and severely lack protein, I eagerly eat whatever remnants of meat I’m served the few days following the main event.
Gamou: Round II
I yet again was able to experience Gamou (The birthday of the Prophet Muhammed), but locally this time. Similarly to Tivauouane, lots of people, lots of food (including delicious meat), and lots of praying. I actually did not experience much of this event other than a very late lunch (4:15pm) and an even later dinner (10pm). After eating dinner, I managed to sneak into my room for the rest of the night when the main events were actually starting.
Apparently our local marabou and other special guests came to pray and conduct Koranic lessons. I woke up occasionally to the sound of prayers, loud feedback, and honking horns. The next morning, most of the 200 people had left and that was that.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Chicken for lunch (sort of)
Yesterday we had chicken for lunch – meaning a chicken flew into our lunch bowl, which was immediately scooped out by my brother’s spoon before continuing our meal.
Man, I really miss PB&J sometimes…