it's been a while...let me explain

So welcome to my life in Senegal, it's one of not being connected to the outside world and rarely knowing any US or international news. Most of this is due to the fact that "internet land" as I call it is a 47k bike ride away from my comfy hut to the Kedougou Regional house. The last time I was here, a little over 2 weeks ago I had wanted to upload a post I had written a long time ago, get some photos up on my Picasa (see the link to the right), etc....but the the circuit breaker box here melted and left me with no internet during my day off at the regional house. Now I'm back again, had to buy a new bike rack (the one that came with our bikes already snapped, damn rocky roads and crappy aluminum rack) and retrieve my bank card from the bank (the ATM ate it last time because I forgot my pin), both of those objectives were completed so this has been a successful trip back to the reg house so far. Below will be some updates, and hopefully the other backdated posts. New photos are up on Picasa now so take a look!

(I backdated the previous 2 posts, they're new as of June 16th, despite their dates)

Mosquito Nets!!!

Last week I finally did some work! We started off the 2010 Universal Net Coverage campaign for Senegal. There are a couple NGOs involved including Malaria No More, Netlife, and PNLP (the Senegalese government org against malaria). We started last Monday with the training of the local health workers at the Health Post in Dindefelo. The training was to teach them how to do an effective census of the people in the surrounding towns, find out how many beds in each household, and how many nets were needed.

I spent the next 3 days going around with my counterpart Nene Galle and my other counterpart’s wife, Sadio, (he was out of town). We went compound to compound all over my Pellel’s 5 quartiers...it was a long 3 days, but good because I got to meet everyone and also introduce myself as the new volunteer, one guy was so excited to meet me he gave me 6 bananas.

Then on Friday we did an early net distribution in Dindefelo, the touristy town 7k from mine. I won’t be distributing the nets in Pellel until the 2^nd or 3^rd of July but this happened so early on because the NGO who paid for the nets wanted to do a big press event. So, of course, they flew in some American celebrities...most notable was the actor who play Andy from the Office, who was also in the Hangover. There were some comedians I had seen randomly before on TV, and then some others who have done some smaller roles. Either way, it was nice to have them there and the net distribution went quickly and smoothly. Afterwards they filmed some stuff for some malaria awareness clips that will be out on the internet later this fall. I’ll post a link to that site once they’re done with it and have it up.

Labeling the nets so no one tries to resell them, organising them into households for pickup

Some of the crowd, waiting to get their nets

Meera, Hannah & I and the celebrities

Aside from that, we had 3 days of language training in Dindefelo, our teacher drove in. Back at the regional house for a day or two to email, blog & photo post, and buy a new bike rack because mine snapped; these roads out here are rough! Looking forward to net distributions at the end of this month and then the big Kedougou 4^th of July party!