Dakar Riots...

Normally I only write blog posts about myself (I know I’m so modest), but today I must share these gems of Senegalese news with you all at home.

So yesterday we received endless text-message update about the intense rioting in Dakar, let me explain. Yesterday the National Assembly was set to vote on a new Constitutional Amendment put forth by Senegal’s President Abdulaye Wade. The amendment was to lower the required percentage of the vote needed to be elected president and to create a position of Vice President. Clearly the 90-something year old Wade (the articles say 84-85, but everyone knows he’s much older, but no one really knows…) was planning this to be more easily elected in Feb 2012, have his son as his Vice President and then soon after hand over power…the people in Dakar did NOT like this, so as with the trend these days towards all nepotistic rulers who never want to leave power, there were riots all over the place, except here in Kedougou…people down here care more about Guinea.

I thought all of this was interesting so read some of the articles, or watch the video, or view the pictures at the links below…the best part was seeing that he actually proposed lower the minimum vote percentage from 50% to only 25%!!!! That was just too ridiculous to not let you guys know.

Spoiler Alert: The vote didn’t pass and Wade pulled back on it, let’s see how things go the next couple months…

Some of the links of articles about the protests:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13887613

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13899277

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13892506

http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE75N0GQ20110624?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

Village Adventures and Neem Lotion

Last week another volunteer and I hiked out to the Segou Waterfall and probably about 15 minutes before we got to the main falls I saw a 1.5meter long black cobra right in front of me in the middle of the path…yeah that scared the hell out of me. We didn’t spot exactly where it took off, but considering the trail goes through a narrow ravine it had to have been still near the path. After about 30 minutes of debating whether to turn back or not, we continued on to the falls, of course, although we snuck around the other side of the stream. Later the next night when I was in my hut I noticed a tarantula under my bed…seriously, did I just not notice all the cobras and tarantula over the past year, or is it just now that they’ve decided to come and greet me.

my (very) short-term roommate

Last week I biked out to Ninefescha, Meera’s site, to do a Neem Lotion demo and mural painting. We have these cool stencils that another PCV in the region designed that uses spray paint to complete an easy instructions mural. Unfortunately school was randomly out of session that day so there weren’t enough children to do the demo. (Neem lotion is a cream made out of a local leaf, with soap and oil and is a natural mosquito repellant). We’ll be doing more demos in villages all throughout the region over the next 2-3 weeks, hopefully I’ll get some more photos of that.

Meera spray painting the neem lotion instructions mural

me painting the mural (sorry couldn't trust the little kids with cans of spray paint...)

the finished mural

After we did the mural Meera and I decided to go camping for the night at the Ingeli Waterfall (see my older post). The bike trip was nice despite the thorns Meera encountered and the resulting 3 punctures in her tire tubes, but when we got there we realized the trip was a bad idea… Last year this time there was tons of water at Ingeli, I guess it hasn’t rained as much this year. We thought that the 4 straight days of rain and all the rain from Guinea would be enough…but no…no water at all, just the Ingeli -fall, or rocks. It was too late to turn around, so we sucked it up, were resourceful with filtering, boiling, filtering again, and then aquatab-ing some scummy pond water to drink. Luckily Meera had brought along a bottle of Cote-du-Rhone, so that made up for the lack of swimming. It’ll be at least another month before we attempt to go back there…may the rains come soon! Oh and a huge thank you to Meredith and the Ferfolia Family for the amazing care package! The students will enjoy the school supplies and I'll enjoy the M&Ms.

the pool from which we got our drinking water...didn't get sick either!

St. Louis Jazz Fest

Two weeks ago I traveled up to St. Louis, a coastal city in the north of Senegal for the Annual Jazz Fest. We spent Thursday through Sunday in St. Louis, had a great time with a ton of other Peace Corps Volunteers going through the artisan market and hanging out on the beach. We couldn’t go last year because we had just installed at our sites, and this time next year I’ll be gone…wow so fast already. So I was glad I got the chance to head up to listen to some Jazz. The festival wasn’t as “Jazz” filled as I would have hoped but we saw two really amazing live bands Friday night, and some Saturday night too. Enjoy the photos from the “French Colonial” town.

colonial French architecture

the fishing pirogue boats in between the island and peninsula

the bridge leading to the island of St. Louis

just cool

Health Hut Construction Update 2.0

Wow, over a month…sorry I haven’t updated in awhile. But GREAT news! The health hut got completed just shortly after I made the last post. The walls, and the cement work are all finished, they finished the added on front porch and roof. It looks great. I’ve been waiting for my counterpart, Dabi, to get back from a training in Tambacounda, we should begin painting the walls within the next 2 weeks. In the next month we should be moving in some furniture and getting the medical supplies fully stocked, and then we’ll have a huge grand opening party to inform all the villagers of the services at the med hut. Thanks again to all who donated and supported this project, the community is very excited about it.

the regional health chief from Dindefelo Badji (in the Yellow), my counterpart's father (blue) and a worker inspect the work done so far

the cement wall is all done

mixing the cement for the floors

excellent work!

the mason finishing up the floor of the porch (you can see the old hut to the left)