Trip to Dakar

So here i am in Dakar, whop-d-do really. been here since tuesday morning when we got here on the overnight bus from Tamba. Nice trip could have been a lot worse considering it was Senegalese public transport. So I came up to Dakar with Kevin and his two brothers from the village. Kevin wanted to take them to Dakar as they have never been past Kédougou. So they were very keen to know every little village that we passed through on the way to Tamba. It was kinda funny really.
So we left Kédougou on the morning of the 13th and rolled into Tamba around 1ish. I was lugging about 55 kilo's of Jatropha seeds with me in the attempt to get them to Kaolack for the volunteers there. When we get to the garage in Tamba i realize it would be a big pain in the ass as well as expensive to transport them all the way there by 7-place and resolve to leave them at the regional house for the next peace corps car to take on its way back north. Luckily there is a car coming down to Tamba with bed nets sometime in the next two weeks. So that kinda ended my dealings with Jatropha seed. I still haven't heard if its gotten down there, but oh well.
We make arrangements to take the Nikolo transport up to Dakar that night, the bus leaves at 10 and gets into Dakar at 9ish the next morning. Kills a night and you're in Dakar! Worked out well, the 4 of us were the first four on the bus and got great seats. The bus ride was uneventful luckily and we got to Dakar after a awful trip through Rufisquie in the morning. Rufisique is a town on the outskirts of Dakar that is really awful to get through. It took much longer than it would take if we were in the states or anywhere else.
We arrived in Dakar and went to Kevins Hotel to drop off our stuff and allow his brothers to relax a bit before heading out to explore the town. The Hotel is nice and the guy who was at the desk spoke Pulaar as well as the usual french and Wolof which was nice as we were able to talk to him quite easily. We relaxed a bit then took off to check out the sites of the area we were in. We saw the Presidential Palace and the changing of the guards which was interesting. The government buildings and the place de independence were the other two land marks we checked out. The place de independence is a big square that is in the heart of town. Also a landmark for volunteers is the Casino supermarket that is next to the place de independence. European/American supermarket, super nice and great to just wander around in. The two boys loved it and i think enjoyed walking around the town.
After this i head back to the Peace Corps Office to meet with the Med Staff as i told them i would. Of course by the time i get there around 1:30ish, its lunch time and i have to wait for them to get back. Not a problem as i have my laptop with me and they have wireless there. After lunch and my meeting with med i get to stay in the 'Med Hut' which is basically a section of the office which is for PCV's who are sick and need to stay at the office. Its really nice with AC, power, running water, TV, DVD's, everything! I basically hang out here for the rest of the night. While playing around on the wireless i find out that kevin had gone to the french cultural center for lunch and said it was great. I think ill head over there for dinner tonight actually.
Anyway I meet the guy whos in charge of the net distribution and who was getting my Jatropha seeds to Kaolack in the Med Hut as he had bronchitis. Kicked it there for the night and had a nice chwarma for dinner and ended up speaking pulaar with the guy who made it as he was from Conakry. It was nice to be able to speak a little pulaar here as usually no one really does.
So i wasnt scheduled to meet with med till the 16th so that meant i had 15th to myself. Basically that meant i would hang out with Kevin and his brothers. We went to Gorée Island and had a great time there. Got a tour guide and walked about the Island. Had lunch and relaxed before catching the ferry back around 3ish. We ran into another volunteer from Kédougou on the boat on the way over there with two of her friends from the states. It was a good outing and I think the two boys really enjoyed it as well. It was the first time that these boys had seen the ocean and been on a boat. Its really crazy that they hadn't been outside of Kédougou, it must have been something else for them to deal with all the sites and sounds of Dakar.
So when we get back to Dakar, I head back to the Med Hut to wash up and get ready for dinner. We decide to head to a restaurant that is known by volunteers that has really good food and is decently priced for the portions you get. We were told that you get huge portions so we decided that Chez Loutcha was our destination for the evening. So while I was washing up and getting ready, there was another guy in the Med Hut from the Gambia that was extending here in Dakar for his 3rd year of service. Spoke good Wolof hence he was allowed to extend there. Gambia speaks English so he doesn't know any french. Adam said he'd come with us for dinner. Nice guy and definitely knows Wolof well. As promised, Big portions and great food. Kay, her two American friends and two Dakar Volunteers were there as well, so it was definitely a winner for volunteers. It was a fun night and I think the boys again really enjoyed themselves.
So the 16th I meet with med and have a chat and agree to come back the next day again. After this I end up tagging along with Kevin as they were going over to Ngor island for a picnic and a afternoon on the beach. We take a pirogue over to the island which takes all of about 5 min. A pirogue is a traditional senegalese boat, only they tag on a Mitsubishi motor onto the end of it these days. Lots of kids were there as it is the summer holidays right now. It was fun and we got to swim and sit about on the beach for a couple hours. Very nice afternoon.
The boys decide that they want to go back to Chez Loutcha as they really enjoyed it. So we do that. This is their last night in Dakar as they head back to Kédougou via Kaolack the next day. Again good dinner, after they remembered my plate. We don't eat all the food again, but the boys while walking over to the restaurant see a homeless family and didn't understand what the deal was with that. Once Kevin explained the situation to them, they got a little quite. So as with the previous night, they took all the leftovers to this family. Very nice, very innocent they are.
So Kevin and the boys head off to Kaolack yesterday the 17th. While they are on the way back, I meet with a Mrs. Helen Manning for a chat. That goes OK and ill be back in Dakar at the end of August again for another chat, good times. After this I basically hang out for the rest of the day. There are a couple Kaolack volunteers hanging out in the Med Hut when I get back enjoying the AC and TV, and I end up hanging out with them and eating lunch with one of them who is a Ag/Fo down there. We go to the farthest point west in Africa for lunch. Sitting on the point eating ridiculously fresh seafood was great. Swapped hyena stories and generally had a good time. He had swam over to Ngor Island that morning and that left me really wanting to do that! There is a swim race sometime that is just that, that I think I will end up doing at some point while im here. But the rest of the day is just hanging out watching TV and dicking around online.
Towards the late afternoon, I get a call from the country director to see if ill be around as he was bringing some sick Gambian volunteers in. Yea ill be around thinking they were just in need of Dakar speciality or something. Well when they get her its a little more serious than that. So we kinda joke around in the PC about all the crazy shit you can get here during your service. One of the ones no one really thinks anyone will end up getting was this particular one. So these three volunteers have flesh eating bacteria in multiple spots on there bodies! Fucking crazy. They were being med evaced out to the states that night and were just hanging out till there flight left at 2 or something.
So I have company for the evening which was nice, as they were really nice folk. I walked with one of them who was actually just the wife of one of the two that had the bacteria to get pizza and had a nice chat about the Gambia and Senegal. Its a little ridiculous that the Gambia is there at all really, sandwiched in-between Senegal as it is. Ah well good old colonialism. Well they take off that night late to catch a flight back to DC to get the bacteria taken care of.
And that brings us up to today. I really haven't done a whole lot today. Sat around and watched the entire 4th season on the Office. Very funny. Went and sorted out why my American bank card didn't work. Having sorted that out went to the bigger Casino next to the office and literally wandered for about 20min wanting to get basically everything I saw! Ended up getting some stuff to make a good pizza back in Kédougou as well as razor blades for my mach3. Then back to the Med Hut to watch more TV and screw around online some more.
When I have finally worn myself out on TV I go for a walk to collect cactus pears I had spotted a few buildings down as a live fence. So needless to say my hands and arms are full of thorns while my hands are dyed red/orange from the juice. I should have a good amount of the seeds to take back to Kédougou. It'll be nice to finally be able to plant these guys as I had a batch of them from out in service training that I managed to lose. Either way ill get on that when I get back to Kédougou on Sunday/Monday. That brings us to now. I'm sitting around finishing this up and then debating about what to do for dinner. Not sure, I'm hungry though so I'm going to go figure that out.

Yea ive been bad about this, so heres a recap

so its been a while, i know, what can i say. haven't really been that busy but I've been a little out of touch so to speak. So what all has been going on? I think it was back in april or may that i last wrote.
bunch has gone on,
went on a long bike trip ask about that ive got a write up floating around

Biked out to the Bassari Initiation festival out in Salemata. interesting time but i left before the ceremony actually kicked off on the second day so as to not bike back in the heat of the day/not be around 25 other toubobs

Tried to bike to Tambacounda and ran out of water with a 1/3rd of the distance left and hitched a ride with a car the rest and then picked up a stomach bug.

Champions league final, the best team won, what can i say. and then C. Ronaldo left, wanker.

Confederations Cup with the USA surprising the shit out of everyone by getting to the final and racing out to a two goal lead only to lose 3-2.

AIDS garden thing kinda is up in the air because of well im not really quite sure although my participation has been dropped to a minimum. wankers.

Biked some rice out a friends village about 20k out and back during the hot part of the day, not the best idea. dehydration's a bitch and I'm not the biker i was when i got here.

Checked out the pepiniere that we made out in Dindefello for a 500 mango orchard, looking good.

Birthday, not a fun day

Boss came to check out my work and was quite pleased with what ive got going on here.

my pepiniere at the regional house has a great germination rate and theres lots that will be out-planted from there

Visited Kevins site for the day and ended up finding a source for sizel plants, good find kinda made my day as when my boss came out for our site check up, he mentioned he wanted to find somewhere where he could get some for demonstration during the next pre service training.

Went out to Sheila's village as well and hung out there for a day to see what all she was up too there, got my wireless odometer stolen, not the whole thing, just the computer which is useless alone. assholes, that'll bring you down

Also working on getting a list of all the fields that current volunteers are working with to make a database for future volunteers to use.

iPod broke, africa wears down and breaks anything and everything, bye bye music on rides

giardic scists and persistent headaches, shitty literally, not fun and the headaches aren't going away

The decent of 50 other white people onto Kédougou (my site) is a great way to stress the hell out of someone, especially with a party and 5k to prepare.

Independence Day 4k Thomas and I organized went off great and was a great start to the 4th. 18th overall, absolutely smoked by the locals, of which it was basically military, firemen, and police participating. So they better be able to whoop a sick, skinny out of shape, toubobs ass, i was def the first toubob though my legs are still a little sore from that and i wont bother telling my time for those of you who care as it wasnt good. The winner was about 12min

And then the big party that Kédougou throws every year that i tried and failed to avoid. Not a good time for me particularly, avoidance and anxiety to the max moy´y´a mi anddi

Jatropha seeding out in Djakaba with Andy and some of the other new volunteers, which reinforced my belief that I'm losing my ability to bounce back from rides as I'm fried, it was a good ride though.

Have yet to hear back from the bank about my missing 200,000 cFa, so again that sucks, fuck banks

Tour de France season! Mark Cavendish is kicking ass and armstrong aint doing half bad as well, good time of the year from a sporting perspective. what a bunch of badasses, seriously the hardest sporting event in the world! Not only is it the season for this, but i can watch it as well! French TV, sat drinking a beer enjoying this past stage with one of the new volunteers, great time

Frogs! So when it rains frogs come out. Theres big puddles everywhere down the street, we wont mention the malaria, but the frogs are wonderful! absolutely wonderful, overwhelming almost with all their calls

Flooding toilet, well the rain also tested the architectural design of my douch which sucks as it failed miserably. The first mildly big rain and the damn thing filled up 2/3rds of the way with water, one more rain and im fucked.



In the future, i can look forward to these things

Organized a grafting training seminar for the region with Andy, 4 dates across the region in collaboration with the other ag/fo volunteers here in Kédougou. Beginning of august is when that goes on.

A bike trip to Kolda at the end of august, maybe further on down that road as well

a new pay period! losing out on that 200,000 kinda fucked me for this period

erosion control with my counterpart in his field and other fields of interested parties around kédougou.

New site mate in October, will probably know pulaar better than me but interesting none the less

beginning the getting back in shape process as its not as hot and i dont have babies living in my gut! WoooHooo for that one

New premier league season in august! alhumdeallah! im sick of real madrid buying everyone they see, the season needs to start

inchallah my head will stop wanting to explode most of the time, we'll see about that one

So its not all bad, but im not really having a great time at the moment, i was kinda waiting for something good to come along to write about, but alas not really happening. Everyone here is really nice though and keep my spirits up so what can you do right. Off to Dakar on monday to take care of some med stuff there, we'll see what they say. so were on a large scale recap this time, if anyone has any questions about anything in particular let me know and ill fill in the gaps if I've got the time. Ill be in touch if i feel like something fun and interesting has happened.

Its all Ups and Downs, Fuck the Downs and Bad Days

So Recently ive been busy with work running around the region of Kédougou trying to plant trees and keep my sanity in ridiculous heat. Had a little break last weekend when a Guinean musician came to Kédougou for a concert which was a great time minus the lost phone bit, but fun none the less. Something about the music here is just fun, makes you want to get up and dance around a bit. So much so i had to go both nights of the concert. The second night was cool as a friend of mine who speaks pullar like a native was called up and asked some questions in front of the audience in pullar and had the crowd rolling on the floor laughing. Too funny, everyone was blown away that he knew pullar that well. So that was a fun couple evenings. Before the concert we were hanging out at the hotel that has a pool here in Kédougou as there was a hand full of study abroad kids visiting and we were trying to keep them entertained. While kicking it there we actually got to meet Momadou yati golle( it means Momadou who doesnt work or something along those lines). Great time got my pic with him too. My host family loved that and now im called Momadou yati golle when they want to bust my chops.

So yea the part where i start to want to come home starts then. So this happens to corespond with easter as well. Im really not a big fan of easter, not since freshman year in college anyway, something i dont really participate in and dont get. Anyway, like i said i lost my phone, reason being i was ended up drinking way too much. Didnt realize that i was without phone till the four of us got back to the peace corps house. Being as inebriated as i was, i was talked into walking the like 1/2 hour back to the concert venue with one of the study abroad kids, little weird and awkward as i dont know this chick and find out she'd stepped on glass at the concert and still wanted to walk all the way back there, whatever. And of course i dont find my phone there and walk back rather let down. great times, to top that, i end up locking myself out of my hut when i eventually get home at like 430 in the morning. fuck that night. Even with that it was fun, it was just building up to my having a mild freak out and wanting to ditch it all and go home yesterday.

Adding to this is my host dad pulling me aside and having a little talk with me about looking after my things as he heard i lost my phone. I had told my family here about my little experience in Dakar after the soccer game but i guess they didnt quite understand the entirety of the situstion and seemed to believe that it was me being careless that led to me having all my stuff stolen. So my dad was lecturing me on why i should better look after my things here. Appreciated, sweet even, but unneeded and litte demeaning. i then had to explain that i had my locked bag, me being one of the few that didnt have anything stolen at the game, ripped off my back after we flee a car thats just hit 2 people. He wasnt expecting that and was a little taken aback by the full extent of that. Always fun reliving that fun experience. but whatever just knocks my head about a bit all this nonsense.

So yea concert was fun and the day after easter im immediately back out biking around kédougou doing pepiniere formations and demo sites which is great keeps your mind off things and content. Went out to a village where they want to put a new ag/fo volunteer about 17k out of kedougou and did a formation there all day with plans for a check up tomorrow. that was fun, my pullar is def way behind the other two guys who came with me and they did most of the talking, i guess i was just the technician or something(not that pepiniereing is that hard). It was good though got to swim in the river Gambia there, very nice and cool as it is getting really hot here. So the formation itself was a little ify, we basically had to sit around all day waiting for the chef de village to get people motivated to come and attend this. Very Senegalese and very annoying, adding to my kinda built up frustration. In the end everyone shows up and is very interested and has good questions. We leave planning on coming back like i said and matt and I head back for Kédougou. Still really hot out, even in the afternoon in the cooler part of the day.

So when we get back to Kédougou i find out that my friend kevin out in kafori hasnt left yet for site and decide to head out with him the following morning to help him with his pepinieres out there. Good times, hes got a really cool family, and kafori is a great site. We get two pepinieres seeded out there as kevin had already spoken to the farmers there and had them prepare the pepinieres as in fill the tree sacs and water them for a week so weeds will grow. It was good, good experience and very nice to get out of kédougou for a day. Unfortunately i think the bike ride back at the end of the morning kinda zapped me a little bit. In fact i think that might have something to do with my recent down turn in moods. Dehydration kinda sneaks up on you even when youre drinking shit tons of water. 110 is really fucken hot, and its really hard to stay hydrated in that. I kinda learned that in PST a little but i think this is another learning experience. Its not just water that your body needs, i found that out after of course.

So i get back from kafori and rack out for a bit, get up on time to watch man u vs fc porto, great goal by c. ronaldo by the way. good times feeling pretty good after that game have more work planned as i ran into andy when i got back and was planning on going out to laminia in the morning with him as its on the way to his site. I needed to check up on a some folk who i had given tree sacs to at a site of a old volunteer and trade some of them out for larger tree sacs. So basically day # 4 id be hoping on my bike and heading out to do something work related. Great as its again keeping me occupied and and happy. On the way out of town we stopped and meet with the commandant of eaux et forret here in Kédougou which was important as were supposed to be working with them in our tree work. Seemed like a nice guy, said he was game to work with us, we'll see how that works out. Anyway make it out to Laminia and drop off the sacs as the guy hadnt even began to start his pepiniere yet. Great, switch the sacs out and head on back to the Gou. I manage to get some more accomplished back at the regional house as well as we needed to organize the seed bank that we have there as well as take stock of all the tree sacs that we have there. Done and Done.

Now the day after this, i think is where i start to run my self down, but it is jsut kinda things building up. I end up going over to the Regional house to start a pepiniere there, good times, get 50 r so sacs filled and realize its like 1230 and i should stop as its fucken hot out. id been working without a shirt, bad idea, back got burned. Also means my body was cooking a little bit. I was only out in the sun for like a hour or two but it kicked my ass. I head home for lunch as it was getting towards that time of the day and chill out for the afternoon till it got cooler out. Thats kinda how most days are here. anyway by 430 i kinda start asking around to see if we can use the families charet, 'donkey cart' to go buy some wicker fencing for my douch/bathroom. Turns out that the charet has a flat and they need to take it to the garage to get it fixed. well my brother and i head into the market to get a cell phone cover for my new phone. get that after just giving my brother 1mil to go get it for me as the first couple boutiques we went to saw toubab and thought rip off. any way end up going to the garage after that to meet up with my host dad and the charet to see about getting some of that fencing so as to finally 6 months on have a finished complete hut. long and short is we got the crentin and head back and put it up. Done and dusted. Thinking that that day was one of the best ive had! Obviously not the case as the next day proved.

Next day matt the head volunteer here comes over to check it out and see about using the families charet and asks why the cement pad is covered by dirt? I dont know but say ill get it off. So I go down to the river with matt to collect smooth rocks for the douche and swim a bit, it is nice living next to a river. come back and chill a bit., then start removing the dirt thats on top of the cement pad. Oh but its like 1230 when i start ie really fucken hot. End up working in the heat for like the next two hours only to find that the cement pad is bowing and water pools on it. Not good, bubble burst. No finished douche. THe new stage is going to be installed and ill still not have a complete site. bubble well and truly burst. Not that its a huge deal, it was more of this should have been done 6 months ago kinda thing. My family of course comes and tells me to stop digging in the heat of the day and my stubborn ass declines as im almost done. So ive come to the conclusion that when i get dehydrated im ubber irritable and always in a pissy mood. so fast forward to the evening when matt comes over again to check out what i found to say that yes some more work needs to be done on it and that prob wont happen for the foreseeable future as im so fucken busy. the never ending project continues and im pissed. Also didnt finish the pepiniere i wanted to at the regional house or my houe that day either. So tag all this onto me having to sit in my back yard brooding listening to one of my little brothers get the shit kicked out of him for some unknown reason by my dad (not literally kicked but beaten). At that point i said fuck it what the hell am i doing here i could be sitting in a nice well conditioned room where its fairly illegal to do that kinda of thing to kids and people actually do good work. So yea i was feeling liek a big empty hole opened up in my chest, really shitty feeling and most everyone was back in site so i couldnt really go kick it and relax.

So after sitting there for a good 20min feeling this way i kinda phsyc myself up to go eat with my brother, oh yea to make me feel even better i basically eat by myself. I think ive already mentioned my dislike of that s i started out eating with the fam. And now heres where my science power of deduction comes into play. Im eating with my bro, lachery and maffay hako, pounded corn and leaf sauce, and i start to feel a little better. My brother doesnt like maffay hako so he always eats a little and then get cossan, sour milk to mix into the lachery. very tasty with the sugar you add in, ah ha a clue Sherlock! After dinner im feeling better and after the surgery cossan im feeling like a million bucks. Id run myself into the ground and basically all the underlying thins that are going on in my life surface and make me feel like shit. sugar and water. awa gassi! sugar water and dinner, im recharged and ready to run up a mt again. lesson of this particular sequence of events, the sun is hot. Fucken do like the locals do and dont do anything in the heat of the day without lots of sugar and water. So yea i wanted to go home yesterday, im sure everyone has that go on, and some of the underlying problems that surfaced havent gone away and wont for the foreseeable future cause im just a awkward son of a bitch whos got way too much going on at the moment.

Anyway today was productive and some work stuff has been semi sorted out. Checked up on the two pilot villages im working in with my counterpart and even got to check out the site where we're going ot try to do some erosion control (youd like that one dad), thats actually a decent orchard. Still need a bunch of sacs but was pleased to see that people had actually started to make their pepinieres and they didnt look that awful. Some even looked down right good. Also in the second site, we got orders for tree sacs from people who have worked with peace corps in the past. they basically know how to pepiniere and we just need to get them the supplies. so that was very encouraging. Up and Down, that just how these days go. what can you do? day to day week to week, and month to month. The new stage is here next week and were not the newbies anymore. Craziness. Well i think i can deal with situations liek that if they so arise again int he future, heres hoping they dont! it helps to vent to some folk here if they are around, and if not hop on the bike and ride till im tired. it generally works.

So work work work, thats basically whats on the agenda for this week. going to Tabakari for a follow up tom on their pepinieres, then wed help hassana and andy with a grant proposal for wulla naffa and then the Kédougou Regional Strategy from the 24-26 and the install dinner the 27th. lots going on. keep in touch ill try to as well if i dont go lose my mind to the heat first.

Yea ive been bad about this recently, but here ya go

So its been a long little while. Lots has happened lots is happening. Brief run down of the events that have transpired... After the eye clinic we had a work day at the regional house and cleaned the whole place up real nice. Also had a meeting about what is going on and what will be going on in the coming months. We ended up talking about the 4th of July, we hold a big party down here for all the volunteers in country.

Also had a meeting about an AIDS garden that i might be working on here in the near future down by the river. Its for people who are living with AIDS and is supposed to help supplement some nutrients that they are not normally getting.

Also went out to Tjibedji to visit Sheila for a day and hike around the hills out there, very fun got some good pics and had a great time. Shes got a new puppy who is rather cute.

The day after we got back we had the ag/fo conference and i was kinda fighting some kinda weird bug or something. Upon further review, consensus says it was dehydration i was fighting as i was running/biking too much without drinking enough. So that was fun for the conference but it was nice to see the rest of the ag/fo folk for a day or two and short of a few awkward exchanges had a good time while actually learning some interesting information for my work. Too bad it was only 2 days, would have liked to spend more time with some folk.

The day after the conference was over, Kevin and I hoped on our bikes and headed out to dindefello for the day to check out the waterfall and all that it had to offer. Dindefello is a very cool place, very pretty and great for hiking and camping if youre into that type of thing. We stayed at a nice campement there for like 4$ and had a great time hanging out. The next day we shoot out to the waterfall and then hop on our bikes to get back to Kédougou for the instal/COS dinner. On the ride back to kédougou we actually run into the Folk who were COSing as they were coming back from a trip to Guinea.

So kevin beats me back to kédougou as he found a short cut and i thought hed blown a tire or something and went back looking for him. i only bring this up as it has endlessly been brought up to me since as me getting soft and slow as kevin beat me back. he loves reminding me of this just to bust my chops.

The dinner was really good we roasted a pig and had a great time. Great food, we really know how to put a good spread out when we put our minds to it down here. So like i said it was a two sided shindig, newbies arriving for the first time and les anciene leaving for the last time. the newbies seem cool, three jahanky speakers. All three of them are over 6ft and all dudes. That makes for a grand total of about 20 people down here and 4 girls, yea what are the odds right! Oh and in contrast to that, tamba our nearest neighbors have 2 guys and the rest girls. So polar opposites basically. these guys seem cool and one of them os a cyclist, well more so then me and im looking forward to seeing how much better he is then me! They dont instal down here till the 28th as this visit was more for checking out their sites and meeting and greeting people.

So basically while they were off up north at their sites i was working down here in kédougou with my counterpart in two places, Sintiou Roudji and Jalaya, both within like 7k of kédougou. My counterpart and I basically handed out some tree sacs to motivated farmers in jalaya and are kinda still assessing the situation in sintiou Roudji but it looks like we'll be doing some interesting work in and around kédougou. Also have started visiting the Kédougou Eaux et Forets pepiniere. Its a sweet location next to the river and just loads of potential for some interesting tree work.

Started up my pullar classes again which i think will be a big help with my language. Although my tutor did kinda bust my chops for forgetting most of the stuff we had learned before i went up to Thies for IST. Ill get it back, im feeling better with the classes now anyway. I feel like the language plays a large role in good days and bad days. My theory is that you have varying degrees of good and bad days here, and the language plays a large role in that process. Well that and how awkward im acting around people, just kidding of course.

So the 4th was Independence day here in Senegal, 49 years of independence and it was kinda neat to see everyone all worked up down here. They had a big parade and everyone watched it. I bailed as the sun is hot, very hot and all this nonsense was going on at like 11-12. Far too hot to be standing around in the sun for really no reason. The day after independence day there was a Omar Pene concert here in Kédougou. he is a big Senegalese singer and it was a big deal he was putting on this free concert here. Long and short of it was that it didn't start till 12:45 and he only did a few songs so i bailed. I guess i didn't miss much.

I had my pullar class on monday and that was productive, djiby is a great tutor, so glad he knows english so well! End up getting invited to tag along with Andy and Hassana to Dindefello to check out his field there. We end up doing that the next day, good times, hes got a great field, lots of potential for some good work there. We'll see how things go.

Also at the moment there are US Department of Defense folk down here checking out projects that they are funding and are thinking about funding. Got to sit down with them with Kevin the other night and have a few beers. Weird hanging out with the full spectrum of Americans after being rather sheltered with the peace corps folk we hang out with here. Nice folk though, bought us some dinner. Its just so interesting seeing folk who are in the military, the couple times weve run into them here they all seem to be cut from the same cloth. Not a bad thing but very different for sure. They sure arent the guys i went to school with ill just say that, although its always nice to meet new types of people.

That pretty much brings us up to today, short of my little run in with a beard trimmer and a pair of scissors making me rather a lot cooler. shockingly short, the first words out of my tutors mouth when he saw me was i didnt realize that you looked like david beckham, not sure how to take that really as most people here think all toubabs look the same. Good times all round though working on a run of good days with only a few marginal ones sprinkled in there to keep things interesting. Ill try to keep on top of this blog thing a little more now that im back in a regular schedule and am feeling like ill have some interesting work shit going on to tell you all about. Stay in touch and ill do my best as well.

End of Sight Giving adn Moving On

So the clinic is about over and guess what, blindness cured world wide! oh yea thats how we roll in Kédougou. Of course its not but theres a lot more people who can see than at the beginning of the clinic. Basically it was for people with cataracts and there are rather a lot of people with that here. We had to turn away people with legitimate problems at the end just cause we were all booked up which was rather hard as these practically blind people had to be sent home with nothing. Not much to be done about that i guess. I will say that today when we were doing some for the post operation instructions and seeing just how ecstatic these people are now that they can actually see, it was worth all the depressing bits. People dancing as they were walking out and thanking allah and everyone in the room, they were truly happy. The last day for the clinic is friday morning for last minute post operation check up and then done. Weve stopped taking consultations as were completely booked up for the rest of the week and theres nothing more we can do. It was a good practice and i think everyone who helped out had a good experience, as corny as that sounds.
Theres still lots going on at the moment, we have a house meeting the day after the clinic and a ag/fo clinic at the end of next week where we get to brush up on some tech stuff and hang out with the rest of the ag/fo folk. should be fun, good people and they should be bringing seeds with them as well! so double cool. After that the new stage comes down for a visit and we get to see the replacements for the stage that COSing. and right after that is the Senegalese new years and our regional strategy retreat. So busy busy busy outside of actual ag/fo stuff.
With ag/fo tagged in im hopefully going to be checking out a couple things here in the next few days, a aids garden down by the river, a potential sight out on the road to dindefello, and check up with my counterpart on some promising leads for projects this year. So between regional helping out, ag/fo and keeping in shape, ive got full days! good times, now to actually accomplish something! ill keep in touch

Curing Blindness and the like

So I've not written in a while as beaucoup is going on right now. I've been really busy for the past few days as there has been a eye clinic here in Kédougou with american doctors removing cataracts and giving away free eye glasses. This is quite possibly the most interesting experience ive had so far here in senegal. Not only do we open our doors at 8 and close at 6/7, but because there are so many people that come into the clinic with such a variety of problems, we have to turn people away with legitimate problems. Kinda depressing as someone who has glaucoma, theres nothing that we can do for them though so we have to tell them to go home even though they are basically blind. I mean the only thing i can take away from it is that we are actually helping the people that we are giving the surgery to. Also with the glasses that we're giving away, along with the free loaders that just come to get free glasses like the governor and the commandant of the local military camp, we do actually help some people. Today I had a kid in to get glasses that could barely see the chart that we were using for our distance tests, but by the end of trail and error, we were able to get him to see about 5 lines down the chart. with some seriously strong glasses. That does make you feel good when you know that in with these people who are just after a col looking pair of glasses there are actually people who need glasses.
There are about 7/8 of us working the clinic at a time with about 4 american doctors as our guides so to speak. My main job over the course of this past week is as the glasses guy. My job is to test peoples vision who want glasses. So basically all the volunteers who are here to help end up doing some kind of translating. most of the people who come in are pulaar speakers with a healthy mix of malinke thrown in. Those are the two main languages down here. So Its kinda important that we have the speakers here that know those two languages. Weve had a few people down for the nearest big city, Tambacounda, to help out and there will be more next week to help out as well. My french and pulaar has made my glasses station a one man operation. I only have to go get help when i get truly stumped with the pulaar or a malinke comes in as i can pretty much get by with the french most of the time.
So as well as this clinic ive been doing some ag/fo type stuff as well. On this past tuesday i went out to a village on the other side of the river from kédougou to check out some potential work partners with my counterpart and Sheila. Good meeting with the chief of the village, he seems interested in working with us and was going to go talk to the farmers to figure out how big their fields are and check interest levels. I think my counterpart is really trying to brach out for this coming year to try and find people who are interested in working with ag/fo technologies. I need to get my counterpart some tree sacks for a nursery he wants to make for this year. Also the seeds that will be coming down with some of the other volunteers for the ag/fo conference at the end of the month.
Also on the ag/fo front, i was able to make contact with a farmer on the banks of the gambia in a town called Sintiou Roudji who has a very nice looking field with a pump up from the river. I just kinda introduced myself and said that i worked with my counterpart on planting trees and helping people with their farming. He seemed interested and his field would be perfect for this type of work as hes got cement basins already made for storing water that he pumps up from the river for watering his field. He said he knew my counterpart as well so we'll hopefully swing by and talk to him next week or so when im not busy working this eye clinic thing.
But the eye clinic is going well and when i was walking round the market yesterday with one of the volunteers that come down to help out with it, we ran into at least 4-5 people who had been there and knew me because of it. Great practice for the pulaar and french though.Hopefully this afternoon ill be collecting seeds for the ag/fo clinic and maybe finishing up my bathroom fence. Thatd be great, only 4 months since I've been here and ill be done. im also going to be trying to bang out a proposal for a irrigation system for a farmer here in kedougou as well as for my counterpart as he wants a cement basin for his field to hold water for his jerry rigged irrigation system. Im thinking that i could write into the proposal a request for a pump for his well, as there are good hand pumps that could work very well for his situation. We'll see how it goes.

Mali and Tamba fun, kinda long but FUN!!!

So im back from Mali. Took about 5 days and 322km but im back. It was a fun trip two other volunteers and I took off from Kédougou on the 24th and stayed in steve woods village the night which was only 25k away. I really didnt count this first little stint as we were meeting steve there and then really taking off the next day from Touge. A huge wind/rainstorm had gone through the region a couple days before which is really really weird as its the dry season and ended up doing a lot of damage. A bunch of trees got knocked over and you could see where the water had been flowing on the ground. So we stayed the night there and took off the morning of the 25th. We had a great day of biking made it about 83k and basically stayed in a village called bofeto on the border with mali. That was our best case scenario and we did it quite handily to our surprise. We breaked during the hot part of the day as its ridiculously hot. we just chilled in a village under a tree and ate our lunch that we brought with us. Its always kinda neat rolling into these little villages and seeing how the locals react. sometimes you get good reactions or sometimes people are a little weirded out by the random white people who show up. This was a little of both for lunch as they let us chill in a compound for the hot part of the day. We ate a MRE and took a nap and continued on down the road at about 4ish. basically killing the hottest part of the day.
The goal was to try and reach bofeto by nightfall and talk t the mining camp there about potential work partnership options for our mosquito net distribution in july. We basically would like to use their cars and they get the publicity of having their sticker on the side of the car that drops off free mosquito nets. It turned out that the guy who was in charge of the camp is the brother of my counterpart in kédougou so we were able to get a meeting and get some concrete results. We were thinking of trying to weasel our way to a nice bed for the night there but ended up crashing with the locals in the village of bofeto in some friendly villagers compound. They were going to kick people out of one of their huts for us but we insisted on them not doing that and taking where ever else was available. We did have a tent and made that aware, but they insisted on putting us up somewhere. We ended up staying in a unfinished hut that was all but done except for the floor. They insisted on putting wood pallets down for us to sleep on and even gave us a mat to put on top of it. This is what i was talking about with the different type of villagers there are, some will bend over backwards to help and aide you while others are a little warry of the foreigners. these folk even made us eat dinner with them, it was great and was more then we could have asked for. We left nice and early the next morning at about 7ish so as to get teh majority of the biking done in the morning. That was basically for the extent of the trip, waking up at 6 and getting riding by 7.
After staying bofeto the first fun river crossing was upon us. This being of course the international border crossing with no border guards or anyone even remotely close by. So this was the first international border crossing of the trip without any semblance of official interaction. While looking at the map of the area that we would be traveling across, the mali side of the border looked fairly sparse. We thought that that was due to the fact that we were looking at a map of senegal and they just didn't put any of the towns in mali on it, but it is actually the case! there's about jack and shit on the other side of the border. It was fun biking through as it was really pretty, mountains and gorgeous landscapes, but not many people. We made it to keneiba in about 50 odd km and by lunch time.
Keneiba is a neat little town in the southwestern corner of mali. Its bigger then kedougou but less developed, i believe that we heard they only got power a few years ago and thats still a night time thing as opposed to a all day thing. So our plan upon reaching Keneiba was to try and find a friendly family to crash with or find the peace corps volunteer there and crash with them. Well we stop at a boutique for a nice cold drink which is harder then it sounds because of the power thing only being at night. We end up finding a boutique that has a gas generator and semi cold drinks, relax a bit and start questioning about americans in the area. The guy who ran the boutique actually spoke english and said there was a american next door. So that was very convenient and we headed over thinking well heres the peace corps volunteer. that would be the wrong assumption. This woman was a who had been living in senegal for the past 8-10years who was in mali now. She was really really nice and immediately offered us a place to stay and was very hospitable. Also weirdly enough, she lived with my counterpart while she was living in Kédougou. My counterpart has been central to the whole trip which was cool.
The missionary told us some good info about the town and actually spoke wonderful malinke. She told us a nice little restaurant to go to for lunch which was great and cheap as most of these little cheb shacks are and really hit the spot after our bike ride. While coming back form the restaurant we spotted a very common sight for peace corps volunteers, a red trek bike. Standard issue for most volunteers and was a little odd for a Senegalese guy to be biking around on. We chase him down and ask him about the bike and hes more then helpful and offers to take us to meet the volunteer who lent it to him. So we make contact with the volunteer who is a little weirded out to have three white boys roll up in the middle of nowhere just to see what was going on. she is a environmental volunteer and has been there a year or so. it was nice to make a contact there as well as the missionary.
The shower and hospitality of the missionary was great, she even bought us some local food as a welcome to mali kinda thing. We again wake up early the next day after a wonderful nights sleep on nice mattresses and blankets as padding. She even had a spare room for us. But the next morning we leave her a note and head out to the garage to find some breakfast. Without a doubt the breakfast we found was one of the biggest bean sandwiches that ive ever had as well as one of the sweetest cups of coffee ive had as well. Not really the best thing to get you going right before a nice long bike ride but it did suffice. We ended up taking off a bit latter then normal because of the breakfast and it was slow going for the first part because of this. the ride back from mali was again not that interesting, passed more villages then on the way up to keneiba. So basically we did a big loop from kédougou up to keneiba and then over to saraya and then back down to kedougou. we end up talking ot Aaron in faraba, near to saraya to find a similar river crossing back to senegal as hes been over to mali before without running into any border guards. he tells us the village to go to and end up talking to a kid on the road to get him to show us the way. Another thing that people will love to do is bike with you and show you the tight way to go even if its out of their way.
So we end up making the trip back to senegal in the same fashion as we came into mali. see facebook fro pics, ill hopefully have them up in a bit. But the ride to Aarons village was good we even managed to book it into the final 20k or so which was great. right up my alley booking it along at the end of the trip. Aaron meet us at a village that was actually about 8k away from his village where there was a big party thing going on as some people from the village who had made it to france 15 yrs earlier and were back celebrating the magal, a muslim holiday. So everyone and their brother was there for this and we roll up all dirty and road weary. We basically leave as soon as we've done the compulsory greetings of everyone and their mother and head for Aarons village.
Aarons got a cool village and hes really coming along with his malinke. We only stay there the night then head off for andys village, stopping at a few more work sites on the way meet and greeting work partners. Andy hadnt been back to his village for a while but his family were all happy to see him and we had a good meal there. We again take off early to get back to kédougou only to get stopped by a meeting where andys trying to sort out a irrigation project that hes been working on. We end up leaving at 11, ie the hottest part of the day. we dont get into Kédougou till like 230 and im done by that point. Dehydrated from our last little blast into the gou trying to out race a local kid, which we did, but dead none the less. I pay for that latter when i spent the night puking up anything and everything i had eaten. But i was happy to be back and back in one piece even if i did limp into town on my first flat of the trip. good luck if i dont say so myself.
I end up leaving for tamba the next day feeling a lot better for not being on a bike and sufficient fluids in my system. Theres a public transport strike on so we kinda have to find a ride in unconventional ways in the back of a truck thats been converted to a people carrier with just a open back. It was a fun time even if it did take 6hrs for a like 3 1/2 hour trip. We make it and i have a badass time in tamba. The stage that is about to go home is such a cool group of people. They just know how to have a good time. Well the folk in tamba are pretty good at that as well. A bunch of the guys who are getting ready to leave had just gotten back from their close of service conference and were heading back to site for the last time and were hanging out in the regional house. Great time, even got to talk to a bunch of folk from the states and around senegal, put me in a great mood and i had a great night. Got my banking done in the morning and then headed out as the strike was over. The 7 place driver was a hot head young-un and was driving way to fast, never thought id say that, but senegelese public transport we'll change a lot of impressions you have. Nearly got ran off the road and now im back in gou thankfully in one piece and in 3 and 1/2 hrs. Meet my counterpart and am going on a work related field visit in a neighboring town on the 10th and things are looking pretty good. Got a initial proposal out of the way for a irrigation project here in gou, and i might end up working with him some more if hes down for doing some tree work. His field is really cool and in the center of town. Anyways back to the nitty gritty i guess but im feeling pretty good, lots is going good for me at the moment, just need to work on that lang and work bit i guess! stay tuned for the next edition....