My Mega Month

What a whirlwind the past month has been.  After spending a lovely Christmas at the beach with a group of friends, I came back to site and started preparing for a busy month.  Since then, I’ve been on-the-go and changing direction almost every day.  It seems that all of my project work has converged at once over the past few weeks.  I won’t bore you with blow-by-blow details, but here are some of my January highlights:

• Held a T-shirt making class with my Girls Club (shout outs to my mom and sister for the supplies)
• Led another round of Safe Zone Training, this time for Volunteers during their in-service training
• Participated in a 2-day Junior Achievement preparatory training session (this is a worldwide program that “empowers young people to own their economic success”---see http://www.ja.org/ for the US version.)  I’ll be teaching both the high school and elementary school levels of JA classes this year.
• Attended a 2-day Small Enterprise Development Summit which included sessions on Handicrafts management and Agribusiness, as well as field trips to an Eco-Village, a Food Technology Institute, and a small business administration office in Dakar.
• Helped coordinate a day-long SeneGAD (Gender & Development) Summit which included talks on HIV/AIDS, working with kids through sports, and presentations from GAD groups visiting from Mali, Guinea, and The Gambia. Also, attended my last SeneGAD Board Meeting and turned over my Communications Coordinator position to two new gals who will now share the title.
• Participated in two Work Zone Coordinator Meetings to discuss the management of information and project coordination for volunteers in my sub-region.
• Attended a 2-day All Volunteer Conference where I:
• participated on a Diversity Panel sharing my experiences being a “Female Volunteer in Senegal” (more specifically, sharing the story of how the police treated me after I was mugged last year);
• presented a case study on the Gardens of Moringa training I organized with  my friend Andrew last month;
• demonstrated my Paper Briquette Press during an Appropriate Technology Fair
•  attended an assortment of interesting sessions on an environmental education club, a school correspondence program, and a beekeeping association in Guinea.
• Played in the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (affectionately known as WAIST) where Peace Corps regional teams play those from the Marine Corps, the Embassy, USAID, and a number of other ex-pat groups.  By tradition, the Peace Corps teams wear themed costumes which makes it a lot of fun for us. The other teams don’t which makes it less fun for them.
• Met with the founder of Swahili Imports (http://swahili-imports.com/), a small African arts and handicrafts importer from the lovely Eugene, Oregon, to learn more about the import/export process.  To my delight, not only did I learn a lot, but she was interested in some of Mamadou’s work, so I sent her home with a couple of his wooden plates to show her team.  She’ll be back in a couple of months and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she’ll place an order.
• Welcomed Jerry McGahan, a beekeeper from Montana, who came to Senegal on a Farmer-to-Farmer grant funded by USAID.  Together, we:
• met with the president of the Senegalese beekeeping union and with regional representatives of a  Senegalese NGO organization who are working on a localized honey consolidation project;
• visited with several beekeepers in the Thiès and Fatick regions and inspected their hives;
• visited with potential beekeepers in the Diourbel region and advised them on how to get started;
• taught young school kids about the importance of pollination and how bees fit into this process;
• coordinated a craft project with my Girls Club making and decorating bee sculptures;
• worked on a training presentation that I will later give to Peace Corps Volunteers interested in supporting beekeepers in their regions.
• Held my first Junior Achievement class with 35 students and 5 teacher assistants at the local technical high school.
• Coordinated an Eco-Ecole exposition for a delegation of visiting Scout leaders from Finland and Senegal.

Whew!  ALL of that took place over a three week period. I’m exhausted.  Maybe I should just submit this blog entry as my resume when I return to the states.  "If I'm capable of accomplishing that much in just three weeks (in a foreign language), just think what I can do for you!"


Sunday was my first down day since early January.  There was nothing on my calendar and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.  I made a big pot of vegetable barley soup, started a new knitting project, and lost myself in Pinterst for a couple of hours.  It was just what I needed.

Here are some snapshots of events from the last month.

Newly painted t-shirts!

A rockin' solar powered water pump at an Eco-Village

This light and gas stove are fueled by a methane gas
tank which is fueled by this couple's sheep and cows--so cool!

A pedal-powered machine at the food technology institute

Making paper pulp to show the briquette press
at the Appropriate Technology Fair

Panel discussion on Diversity

Les Francais aka Les Dakarois
(Yes, I'm the Eiffel Tower in the middle)

The lovely ladies who replaced me as SeneGAD Communications Coordinator;
yes, it takes two to fill my shoes ;-)

Abdou Seck's honey stand

The Three Amigos - Me, Abdou, and Jerry in Bandia

Meeting up with some more beekeepers down in the delta region

Inspecting hives in the mangroves

Busy little bees.  Aren't they pretty?

Jerry consulting about honey extraction

Mamadou's hopes of selling his products in the U.S.
just may come to fruition.

Beekeeping lesson at our Eco-Ecole

Making bee sculptures with my Girls Club

Soudou and Ibou planning out a future training garden and apiary.

Now that this crazy month has come to an end, it's got me thinking about how I reacted to it.  One of the benefits of living out in the middle of nowhere on my own is that my experiences often shines a light on my idiosyncrasies.  In my little bubble, it's hard not to notice slight behavior changes and quirks. Lately, because I've had too many things on my plate, my office has become littered with piles of project paperwork and supplies and the bags from my last couple of trips still lay unpacked on my bedroom floor.  Thinking back on my life at home, this rang true there, as well.  The busier and more stressed my work life became the more out of control my living space got and the weaker my coping skills became.  Take for example the mouse that recently died in my office. For days, I smelled it, knew it was there, but couldn't deal with digging through the piles of stuff in my office to find it.  Instead, I lit incense and said I'd get to it later.  This is not just laziness, this is not being able to take on one more thing.  My body also tends to shut down when I'm overloaded.  During the midst of this busy period I had to decide whether or not to make an unplanned trip to Dakar to deal with an inner ear problem I was having.  Making the trip meant cancelling some project plans and inconveniencing other people, so I opted not to go. Luckily, with lots of fluids and decongestants the the problem cleared up on its own.


These glimpses into my personality are a good reminder for me to pay attention to them.  My reactions to stress may not change much, but I can probably do a better job of recognizing the signs and using them as a reminder to stop and take a time-out every once in a while.  Ibou and his friends often comment to me that I work too much.  I used to think that my work habits were just exaggerated in contrast to the many rest periods and breaks they take throughout the day, but maybe there's something more innate to it.  I have to remember that there's nothing wrong with closing the laptop, putting down the reference book, and doing something completely recreational for a bit.  This weekend's date with my knitting needles and soup pot were a good reminder of that.  Self-reflection; it's a good thing.


If you're interested in seeing more recent photos, I've added a few new ones to the Photos tab (see tab at top of blog page).  The most recent ones are Christmas in Popenguine v2.011 and  Highlights from WAIST 2012.  I also added some new photos to the albums entitled: Keur Cheikh Girls Club , Skype Snapshots, and the Tangibly Marking the Passage of Time.

P.S. - I did finally look high and low for the dead mouse and, although I didn't find it (I fear it's in the wall, but thankfully, the smell has faded), this new one was waiting for me under my desk the next time I entered my office.  A sacrificial lamb, of sorts.

Thanks for sending the d-CON, Mom.

Settling in

Flower outside my window

Now that my agenda is not packed full of daily training courses and Peace Corps-sponsored activities, it’s all starting to feel a bit real.  The days seem longer and hotter and without other Toubabs around, I have to admit, it’s downright lonely at times.  My compound welcomes many neighbors and eco-village members throughout the day and we usually serve 8-10 people lunch, so it’s not that there aren’t people around; I’m just still struggling to communicate with them.  I spend a few hours a week at my tutor’s house conversing in French, but most people around me prefer to speak Wolof.  I know several PCVs who drew the line in the sand at the beginning of their service and refused to learn two languages while they were here, choosing to only communicate with people who would speak French to them.  This seems very tempting, but also pretty isolating, so it’s become clear that I need to commit to learning them both. Two other PCVs who live within a 2 hours drive will be joining me and a Peace Corps language teacher for a Wolof training session next week. Hopefully, that will strengthen my foundation and help me understand the people around me a bit more.

My pen pals at Peabody

That being said, I received my first letter from my French pen pal class in Charlottesville.  I’m participating the World Wise Schools Correspondence Match Program with my friend Maryline and her 6th - 8th  grade French classes at The Peabody School for Intellectually Advanced Children.  Thirteen kids wrote me a short description of themselves and each asked a question about the Senegalese people and their culture to which I’ll respond in my next letter back to them.  We’ve scheduled a Skype call later in the month so Khady and I can talk with them on-line.

Since I’ve not begun any kind of structured, regularly-scheduled work yet, my days are filled with rather mundane things, like reading, cleaning my room, and drinking tea with the neighbors.  I did two weeks worth of laundry this week and got a big ol' blister on my thumb from wringing my clothes out--that was fun.  I also tried to electrocute myself.  I bought this water heater coil thing that plugs into the wall and heats up a cup of water.  I stuck it in my stainless steel French press coffee maker and then, like an idiot, after about 2 minutes stuck my finger in the water to see if it was hot.  I was thrown up against the wall with a powerful jolt and water (yes, it was hot) spilled everywhere. I thought to myself, "well that was just stupid", water--in metal container--with a submerged electrical device, duh! Of course I got shocked.  Not to be defeated, I got up, brushed and dried myself off, and tried again, this time using a durable plastic coffee cup.  When the water started to rumble, I stuck my finger in it again (yes, I really did) and BAM, against the wall I went a second time.  So clearly, I'm thinking, it wasn't the metal vessel that caused the problem, and a few more brain cells died.  I'm beginning to wonder what anyone here is actually going to learn from me.

Thankfully, now that November is here, there’s s finally a touch of coolness in the morning air (that lasts for about an hour or two), so I’ve started doing a 20-min yoga pod cast routine every morning.  That’s been really good for me, as I haven’t had much exercise since I arrived in Senegal and it helps clear my mind and ground me.  The day quickly warms up after that; it’s been well-over 100 degrees everyday since I arrived in Diourbel.  Several times a week, I take a mid-morning walk to the Post Office to see if anyone loves me (hint hint) and along the way, I usually treat myself to a hard-boiled egg that the bean sandwich lady at the train station sells.  After that, I wander aimless through the market trying very hard to embrace my new surroundings but am quickly turned off by all of the vendors who push their wares on me.  The market is not really a place for window-shopping.  You've got to know what you want, where to get it, and get in and out of there fast.

À la Gare (at the train station)

À la Poste (at the Post Office)

My host mother went to visit her sister in Saint Louis this week, so I got to experiment a bit with cooking.  I found some no-boil lasagna noodles in a Toubab store in Kaolak last week when I traveled there for a meeting and decided to try making lasagna in our solar oven.  This was no easy task and it ended up costing me about $20 in ingredients (which is a fortune here).  I have to say, it turned out pretty tasty.  I’d made an entire pan of it and only Ibou and I were around for dinner that night, so now I’m dealing with the leftovers, which is a little tricky because even though we have a refrigerator, the electricity goes out for hours on a daily basis.  The next night I made Salad Niçoise, which also cost a pretty penny, but was equally impressive.  Trying to eat like an American here is not cheap, nor is it easy.  Cooking in Senegal is like cooking while car camping.  You’ve got pots and pans at your disposal, but have to cook everything over a one-burner propane tank in the sandy courtyard, with limited prep station room (I used plastic chairs as my counter tops), and running water but no sink.  People are so in the habit of eating a shared communal platter and welcoming anyone who shows up at their door to eat with them that I was caught off-guard the second night I cooked when two work-mates of my Ibou’s appeared after I’d already plated up two lovely salads.  The invitation I extended for them to join us seemed a little insincere, which I guess it was.  Why hadn’t they shown up the night before when I had a pan full of lasagna?  I couldn't even pull that out for the fridge to heat it up them because our only oven is the solar oven and it was already past dark.. 

My prep station

Assembling the lasagna in the sand

The result of leaning over the saucepan

Falou helping me with the oven

The finished product.

My salad Niçoise

On Halloween, my Ancienne (the PCV whose site I took over) was here helping us with the Solar Oven Marketing workshop, so she and I went to the market in search of pumpkins or squash to carve.  Unfortunately, the squash that is served in Thiéboudienne this time of year is usually sold in individual pre-cut chunks and we couldn’t find a whole one, so we opted for a couple of watermelons and carved those instead.  We explained the concept of Halloween to the workshop participants and they all encouraged us to eat a lot that day, since holidays here are often centered around feasting.

Eco-villagers admiring the Jack-O-Melon

Khady convincing her niece not to be scared

Everyone here is gearing up for the next big holiday, Tabaski, known across the Muslim world as Eid al-Adha (“Festival of Sacrafice”).  According to my Cross Cultural Journal, “Tabaski commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael in obedience to God.  At the last minute, God provided a ram to be sacrificed instead, in reward for Ibrahim’s commitment.  In commemoration of this event, Muslims around the world celebrate by slaughtering a ram (or goat, cow, etc. depending on the family’s wealth), dividing it into shares, and celebrating with family and friends.  Tabaski occurs approximately two months and ten days after Korite, the end of Ramaden.”

So, in anticipation of this big day, Khady bought two rams last week.  They’re tied up in our kitchen area (because someone thought that was hygienic!) just on the other side of my patio wall.  As one would expect of any animal-loving American, I’ve grown quite fond of them.  They’re tied with short ropes to poles that they keep wrapping themselves around, so I listen for their cries of “Hey, I just wrapped myself around the pole again” and go to their aid.  Aside from their short ropes, they’re treated well by the family.  They’re fed twice a day and are given regular baths.  Last night, I had vegetable scraps from my salad-making and tossed these into their feed tray (the wheelbarrow) thinking I was doing them a favor.  I think one of the rams got a piece of potato skin stuck in its throat as it coughed and make choking noises periodically throughout the night.  It would be just like me to unintentionally kill the Tabaski ram with a touch of kindness.  Thankfully, today, he seems a lot better.

This is our kitchen area.  Note the propane cook stove (red).

My new friends

My tutor's kid with his kid.