Dindefelo Summer Camp and Joal Summit

Wow, it’s been a long time since I last posted. That’s most likely due to one of two things, I’ve either been busy with work, or just too lazy to post (in truth it’s been a little of both). I think the best way to recap everything that’s gone on in the last month or so is with a couple tiny blurbs and occasional photos. So here we go.

Dindefelo Summer Camp

Shortly after Ramadan ended the Dindefelo Summer Camp started up. The camp was 2 weeks long and there were just over 70 high school aged kids from the Kedougou Region. Since the camp was in its 3^rd or 4^th year, the Senegalese counselors have been taking over more and more of the responsibilities each year. Consequentially, the Peace Corps’ role this year was more of background support, although half the time we felt like we were doing so much more, just with no decision making power. Either way the 2 weeks went well. I got to teach basic First Aid sessions to all the campers, you’d be surprised that all of them thought a tourniquet was the first thing to do to stop bleeding…they know better now. We also went over broken bones, dehydration and heat exhaustion (which I actually had to treat one camper for later in the week), and choking. It was a lot of fun to teach those skills to the local kids, and I got to do it in French which was good practice, and fun.

(splinting...good enough)

In addition to that we had a bunch of other sessions like nutritional porridge preparation and techniques on how you could effectively sell items like that at the weekly market. During the camp I stayed at my friend Lili’s hut. Lili is a chimpanzee researcher from the Spanish Jane Goodall Institute, so she gave a few talks about local chimpanzee populations and did a nature hike.

In addition, during the 2 weeks there were some really amazing storms that rolled through in the evenings.

TOMATOES and eggplants too

During the summer camp, I biked back to my house in Pellel every 4 or 5 days, and the best part of that was getting to eat the tomatoes I’ve grown in my garden. On the last day I was there to pick them before I knew I’d be leaving site for the next 2 weeks, I think I ate nearly 20 of them.

Dakar and Joal Summit

After camp ended we took the car back to Kedougou so we could catch the overnight bus to Dakar. The overnight bus was the best! I watched 2 movies on my iPod, took 2 benadryl and fell asleep until we arrived in Dakar at 5am…sure beats waiting around in garages all day and a crowded, sweaty sept-place. We traveled to Dakar for our sector’s Health and Environmental Education Summit, which was held in Joal, a coastal town a little south of Dakar. The date of the summit got pushed back a few days after we had already bought our bus tickets, so naturally we spent way too much money running around and having fun in Dakar. The day before summit was made a trip back to Popenguine (see my previous post) and stayed in the same house. While we were there, we went swimming in the ocean at night again, although this time there was bioluminescence, or tiny planktons that glow when you touch them. So basically we swam around in the dark ocean looking like magical wizards for nearly 45 minutes, it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately there’s no pictures of that, but if you’re curious I’m sure a quick google or youtube search will show you how cool it is. After Popenguine we traveled to Joal for our 2-day summit. The one house we were in had no water, which was miserable, so the next night they moved us into a really awesome beach-side hotel (thanks American tax-payers, PCVs love the beach!). That hotel was supposed to have water, which it did, for the first 2 hours, then not again until we left…oh well the pool and bar made up for it. Summit was ok, I think it just seemed repetitive to my stage because we had just recently had our in-service-training a few months ago. I did get my grant written so it wasn’t a waste of time. After summit we went back to Dakar for one night, had a going-away bar night for some friends who have completed their service, and we traveled back to Kedougou the next morning.

That pretty much brings us to now. There’s a bunch of work on my plate for now through the end of the month. Trying to get my grant passed for a 6 month training stipend for my counterpart’s matrone (mid-wife) training, school building in my town, and more stuff with the med hut…I’ll keep you posted. Thanks again for reading despite the fact that my English skills deteriorate month by month…

and just a picture of my awesome cat Mawni, because look at what she caught!