12/17

12/17
So I've finally moved into my hut. Albeit a month late and i still don't have a douche, but I'm moved in and my room is pretty patron. I've got a a nice bed, a chest, and a little stool my water filter sits on and a bedside table my host family is letting me use. so what has happened since my last update? Quite a bit really, Tabaski has come and gone I got some good pics of the family all dolled up for that, x-mas is next week and I'm in a muslim country, and I'm starting to make some progress with some actual work. So yea I'm really enjoying myself right now.
I've been hanging out with my host brother a lot of the time as he's supposed to go off and work up at one of the mines up by Saraya but hasn't yet been called back about it, so he's just kinda chilling here at the moment. But because of that I've got someone to hang out with pretty much all the time. This of course in between my language lessons, procuring things for my hut, and trying to learn ag/fo stuff from the 10yr old manuals I'm borrowing from the regional house as I've not been given mine yet. Yay PC being on top of things go figure right. Speaking of manuals I've been in touch with trees for the future, as that is who my counterpart works for here in Kédougou. Ive had a few email correspondences with their west african rep who was a PCV here in Kédougou 5 years ago or so. Ill be in touch with him again here in a little bit to coordinate my activities with him and Karumba for the next rainy season.
On the work front also, well kinda, today i should be working on my garden next to my hut. Ill post pics, but at the moment its rather ambitious as there isn't a whole lot there and I'm not so sure about the soil. I think if i remove a thin top layer, then double dig the soil with a bunch of manure, it should be decent enough. Yay for my host families having cows and a ample supply of cow poop! never thought id say that. But i think the garden will be roughly about 3x8 aprox. I haven't actually measured it but it the length of my hut and about 2-3m out so roughly 2/3x8m. A decent enough size for a little garden to keep me busy and provide a little something for the family and me!
More on the work front, i was rooting around the research section of the regional houses lib and came across a book called the miracle tree. Its all about a tree called 'never die' or Moringa oleifera for those who are scientifically inclined, which i know there are a few of you out there. Basically this tree is badass. You can use it for so much, just google it and check out the results. But i think im going to try and do something with this with my counterpart this coming growing season. I think it'd be interesting to alley crop with it and see how it does in helping out the surrounding crops as well as selling the leaves for fodder or human consumption, because in the market if you go looking for it you better go early in the morning as it'll all be gone by afternoon. I don't think there is a lot being produced at the moment on a carmercial scale, but if some serious farmers were to get interested it would be cool to see the results. So anyway that book that i was reading that got me interested was written by a organization called Church World Service. Well like i said this book is pretty cool and at the back of it it gives a bunch of organizations that use or promote M. olifera. Upon checking out these and getting a few names of interest, one who might actually send me some free seeds to promote the plant, i came across a blurb on the author. Well it turns out he's based out of Dakar for CWS and I'm going to shoot him a line to see if he has any thoughts on working together or something.
Right-o well thats about it for work type stuff. My new camera is here as the new pics on facebook and here(hopefully) indicate. Loving that, thanks so much chris, my host family loves it too. I think i must have taken about 100 pics on tabaski with each and every member of my family. It was cool and I've got lots of photos of my family now which is cool. They love digital cameras here and the pics. So I've taken a lot recently and plan on taking a lot more! Hopefully with x-mas around the corner ill be able to take a few more at a really nice waterfall with a few other people. but X-mas is next week, its kinda weird being away from home in really hot weather for xmas but it'll be different. But like i said there's a nice waterfall thats not too far away that I'm going to try to go to for a little excursion.
While ill do that, Thomas kinda got roped into working a sumer camp type thing for kids on their winter break. They did a similar one while we were site visiting back in October which was evidently a big success hence they are doing it again. So thomas got roped in and is basically roping others into it. I will probably go help him out a bit if I'm in the right mood. This camp thing is in Dindefello which is where all of my host family is from so perhaps ill meet some of them if I do this. My host dad has been wanting to show me the village and the waterfall that is there. So maybe thatll happen. But speaking of my dad, the garden that im trying to start up needs posts to hold up the fencing material i bought and my brother told me that my dad was going to go out 'en bruce' to get them for me. That is soooo not american. This is just land that i guess the government/no one owns and most people just kinda use when they need. Were not talking about hardcore logging or anything like that, but going to get poles/wood material people use for building. Its rather interesting. i saw the same thing when i was riding back from Tjibedji and we went en bruce to get Hayes's post for her douche. Same thing.
So last week i guess, i was hanging out with my brother and a friend of his who is a spanish teacher who has satellite TV. Yeah im roughing it i know, but anyway. We were watching the champions league game between Bayern Munich and Lyon in Lyon. It was a great game, Bayern were up 3-0 inside the first half. I figured the game was over and was ready to leave, but Thierno got some lacherie and cosan. Which is basically ground up cooked corn and sour milk with sugar. Its delicious. So we end up eating that and watching the second period. What a game it turned out to be! Ended up 3-2 with Bayern holding out. But the point was at half time as in all champions league games there was a advertisement for Heineken. Basically these adds consist of places all over the world where people are sitting around watching champions league football drinking Heineken. I think it says something like proudly sponsoring the champions league all over the world. I've never felt more like that then during that game while sitting in Kédougou in the south eastern corner of Senegal. Very appropriate for the worlds game.
So I think I've gotten over the worst of the sickness i was carrying about. I've just got a nice little cold left to show for it. Yea i got a cold in africa go figure. Its gorgeous during the day and cool at night. Perfect in my book but i guess my body thinks otherwise. But hopefully ill finally shake that as well. Right now I'm sitting in my room trying to add a bit of a personal touch. I've got some pics up that people have sent me. So send me pics and ill put them up on my wall. I've also got a few leaves on my wall that some crazy person sent me *cough* sarah *cough*. But i like things that can go up and remind me of home. Like the Obama montage that sarah sent me as well. My family loves that too, all of Africa loves that.
Lots of Africa also washes their clothes in rivers. I got to witness this first hand yesterday as well. Very interesting. The best example i can think of is when we were driving to Tambacunda earlier this week and crossed the Gambia river. There were prob a hundred people all crowed round this one spot that was quite accessible and were washing their clothes. Now this might seem normal but the way that clothes are washed here is a little different. Were not really talking about the washboard style cleaning I'm sure most of you are familiar with. This is taking the clothes, lathering them up and then beating the shit out of them on big rocks. lets just say i wash my nicer stuff as my clothes will be KOed in no time if i don't. Anyways i got a good pic of the place where my sisters were cleaning our clothes while i was busy fishing with my brothers. That was fun, fishing not really my thing, but catching the frogs for fishing was interesting. There's a big pebble beach that thousands of baby frogs live on, and we basically just started picking up rocks and smashing them down to kill the frogs for bait. very fun. I think we ended up catching 3/4 fish. When we were all done we trooped off back to the house with the laundry on our heads and it was a really fun day. I even learned some new Pullar words as well. Everything we end up doing generally gets me new words to learn as i really don't know a whole hell of a lot in Pullar.
Well i need to organize my room as i moved a bunch of stuff around for the little video i made for g-mas b-day, even got my brothers to say happy birthday for her, im sure she'll like that. but yeah got some things to do, ill update again later.