another one bikes the dust

Ok, that title was lame but I was trying to come up with something funny considering what happened yesterday on my way back into Kedougou. I was actually on my way to Thobakare to visit the new volunteer there and see how he’s been settling in, but just outside of Segou (7k from Dindefelo) my bike chain derailed. I looked back and this is what I saw…
The second major bike problem in just one week, and it's seriously not my fault, I know how to ride and take care of the bike. By some amazing luck, literally 2 minutes after I stopped, snapped this photo, and started to remove my back tire, a 4x4 carrying some Spanish tourists back from Dindefelo stopped. Before I could even finish introducing myself, the Senegalese driver and his buddy were already loading my bike onto the roof. Thank god for Spanish tourists and nice helpful Senegalese drivers. Made it back to the regional house in Kedougou, but since the bike is so badly damaged and we don’t have the part, I have to use a spare bike. Oh well. This weekend I’m off to Tambacounda for Tambaween/Hallowcunda!

Sh*t Happens

Things will never go as planned or as hoped during the Peace Corps. For example, after my last Dakar trip I was expecting to go back to site on Monday the 11^th, then disaster struck my GI system and I got stuck in Kedougou taking anti-amoebas/giarrdia medication (apparently the stuff they give us is banned by the FDA…). Either way, by the time I was feeling better it was only 2 days away from the arrival of our new volunteers, so I decided to just stay (it was a good idea, these medications make you nauseous). I guess the whole getting sick thing worked out ok because I met a group of 3 Polish couch surfers (tourists who sleep on peoples couches, google it, it’s awesome). They met a PCV in Dakar who referred them to stay with us while down here. It was fun meeting and hanging out with them, along with the shots of very tasty polish Wodka they brought for us. The next day they wanted an adventure in Kedougou, but I still wasn’t well enough for a long bike trip, so I took them to Bandafassi, an easy trip just 12k or so down the main road. From there we climbed to the top of the mountain (only a 25 min ascent, but kind of straight up), it was beautiful. Hopefully I can steal some of their photos after they get back to Europe. We spent that afternoon in the pool at the Relais eating warthog sandwiches; I know I work really hard here. It was nice meeting them and now I have travel contacts in Madrid, Milan, and Poland, thanks giardia!

The installation of the new volunteers went well and they’re all very nice. It’s hard to believe I’m a sophomore already. Joe, the PC bike repair guy, came down with the install car to fix all our bikes. He finished fixing my bike the other afternoon, so I finally got to leave yesterday afternoon to go home! The ride was great, until a bit outside of Dindefelo my rear gears started making a lot of noise, skipping, and occasionally derailing. I got into Dindefelo and just before I left to head back to Pellel, I checked my back gears…The new rear-gear assembly that Joe had just put on had sheared off and was wobbling all over the place. I took off the back tire and the assembly fell apart this is what I found.

that's all supposed to be one piece along with what's still on the axel

I wound up spending the night in Dindefelo at Lili’s place; she and some friends who were visiting from Spain had a car leaving the next morning to go back to Kedougou. Luckily I was able to get into that car with my broken bike (along with the PC Kedougou house bike that was lost down the river, but that’s another story for another time). We stopped along the way in Ibel to take a short hike to Iwol, another town along the same ridge that I visited with my Polish friends. Here are some photos of the view.

So that brings me to here and now…stuck back at the regional house in Kedougou. It wasn’t what I expected, or intended to do. I’ve been dying to get home since I’ve been gone so long, but I had a lot of fun because of getting sick and having my bike break…here’s to the bike trip back to site again tomorrow morning.

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!

Ramadan Recap

So the month of Ramadan ended on Friday, the celebration here is called Korite. It was a long day of prayer at the mosque and (finally!) FOOD! and lots of it. I really love food, and I think the people of Pellel do too. We definitely ate well to celebrate the end of the month of fasting. Although I didn't actually fast the whole month (I had secret meals in my hut) I definitely ate a lot less than I normally would have. In addition to all the not eating, I got some work started on a couple of future projects, I'll have more info on those as things start to come together over the next month or so now that everyone is up and running again.

I was in at the regional house this weekend to greet the new stage volunteers who came for site visits. They're a fun group and we're all looking forward to the 9 of them moving in with us here in Kedougou after they swear in at the end of October, I can't believe I'm no longer one of the freshmen here.

Tomorrow morning I head back to Dindefelo, where I'll be spending most of the next two weeks for the Kedougou Summer Camp. Its a leadership camp for students in the area. I'll have more on that after its done. But a busy two weeks coming up, and then I get to go to the Dakar region for a week or so. There's some new photos on Picasa, so enjoy those, sorry I don't have any other interesting stories for now, until next time.

My dad (he's the town Imam) and some guy I call Grandfather Time, in their Korite best!
(they never smile...my dad is really the nicest person, he just looks a little serious here)

Pellel Waterfall again (this time with pictures)

Hello all, I'm going to try to keep this post short, it's late and I need to get to bed soon, heading back to village tomorrow. I was back at the regional house for some organizational meetings for the Dindefelo summer camp that's coming up. Also met with the head of the local hospital with some other volunteers to discus implementing a permanent condom distribution system for the region. Not too much work, but things are starting to pick up, I'll definitely have more work and stories after Ramadan finished, right now everyone is fasting so not much work gets done.

Enough of work talk...Hannah and I made a trip out to the Pellel waterfall last week. It was beautiful, well worth the 1h15m walk out there. I won't go into too many details of the waterfall, the pictures say it all, and you can always refer back to my earlier post about the first time I visited out there, this time luckily I brought my camera. Enjoy the photo below (plenty more on my picasa account)

The Pellel Waterfall

and just because I want to share a couple more photos...

my tomatoes (i know spacing is terrible)

the amazing bridge we need to cross to get from site back to the regional house....