Health Hut Expansion and Renovation Grant, PLEASE DONATE TO HELP

Hi Everyone, so I’ve been mentioning the Health Hut in my town and the upcoming renovations that my counterpart and I have been planning. Last month we finalized the details of the plan and completed the budget. Now I need your help. The grant we have written is called a Peace Corps Partnership Grant and is funded solely by friends and family who donate directly through the Peace Corps’ website. In the next few paragraphs I’m going to describe the project in better detail for you.

Some quick background info on my town: Pelel Kindessa is a rural community of around 1,100 people is located in the region of Kedougou, in south-eastern Senegal. There are no businesses or shops in the town and nearly every family farms to make a living. Since there are no means of income beyond small subsistence farming there is not enough money in the town to expand their health hut to a point where it can finally begin serving the community.

Pelel Kindessa’s single room health hut has neither the space nor the resources to function as the town’s health center. As a consequence the villagers must travel 7km down an extremely rough dirt road to the nearest Health Post in the neighboring town, Dindefelo. Even with the newly trained staff the lack of space is preventing the hut from operating as it should. Recently, solar panels that were donated by another NGO a year ago were installed on a neighboring hut, since the current health hut’s walls were not sufficient. As a fortunate consequence the owner of this neighboring hut has agreed to donate it as part of the expansion project. This new hut houses the solar panel equipment and would serve perfectly as the office and pharmacy/medical supply area. There is exactly enough space in between the two huts for a third, creating one large structure for the health building.

the existing health hut to the left, the space in between for the expansion, and the newly added hut to the right with the solar panels

a really bad 'blueprint' explaining the existing huts (yellow) and the area of expansion (green)

Three rooms; one for child birth, one for other patient treatment/observation, and one for the office and medical supplies. This expansion includes a permanent metal roof which will protect the structure for years to come. It will also provide adequate space for the newly trained mid-wife to work, room for general medical visits, space for the new patient beds and sufficient room for the pharmacy stock and administrative items. In addition to the building expansion we plan to deepen the well to ensure year-around access to water.

Dabi Souare, my counterpart, and the town’s ASC (Agent Sante Communitaire, or community health worker) is the driving individual behind this project. He built the current health hut and neighboring hut with the solar panels in his compound and will be directing the construction of the expansion to combine the two into one building. Villagers from each of the 5 neighborhoods of Pelel and members of the health committee will be helping with the construction as well as supply and transport such items as sand, rocks and wooden beams. Many of those workers who will be doing the actual construction have all agreed to take a percentage off of their fees to contribute towards the completion of our project, and a local Tourist Hotel in neighboring Dindefelo has donated money in addition to some money put forth by the local municipality.

Now, my plea for your help and your money. My villagers and I need your help to improve their rural health care access. Hopefully everything I’ve written above (and sorry I tend to ramble and it’s not concise at all), will have painted a complete picture of what we’re trying to accomplish in Pelel. Our grant request is small only about $800 and we’re hoping that with your help and the help of anyone you wish to refer these links to, we can reach this goal quickly, allowing us to complete the expansion and renovations before this year’s rainy season starts in May-June.

So please if you’re considering helping out, the link to donate is located on a personalized Peace Corps web page at this by clicking HERE. The box to donate is found on the right hand side of the page and is a quick process. And in addition, please forward the link to this blog post anyone that you think would like to contribute. The villagers of Pelel Kindessa and I thank you in advance!

again the link to donate: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-165

two models of roughly what the finished health hut will look like

the roof on the right will be slanted in another direction to accommodate the existing solar panels

1 year anniversary in Africa!

Well 1 year ago today I landed in Dakar and began this crazy journey. Lots of stuff happened, but no need for a recap, I know you all diligently read this blog.

Just some village/work related news. I’m now working with 3 active gardening groups in Pellel, the Women’s Group in my neighborhood, one in the far out neighborhood of Pellel called Tanege, and one at the school with the students. Got a well funded by appropriateprojects.com (you can view my project here ) We’ve already completed the well digging and a local NGO AfriCare will be donating a rope pump after we cap the well. Enjoy some photos below.

some of the Jam Weli Women's Group Garden with the vegetable nursery

the new well that was dug next to the Women's Group Garden

the vegetable nursery at the school garden

the students and teachers at the school garden after our transplanting work party

the very beautifully kept beds at the Tanege Pellel Women's Group Garden

I’ve recently submitted the budget and grant proposal for the Health Hut renovations, more on that when the Dakar office finishes processing it and it moves on to Washington.

WAIST

WAIST or the West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament. This was how we all spent our 3-day President’s Weekend in Dakar. There was some softball involved but mostly there was lots of time spent at the pool at the American Club, food, drinks, and parties. Practically every volunteer from Senegal was there and several West African countries Peace Corps’ sent teams as well. Our team was a combination of Tambacounda region and Kedougou region, forming ‘Tambagou’ and this year our theme was cops and robbers. I didn’t bring my camera to WAIST because I was sure I’d lose it, but here’s some photos I got from my friends, sift around on their blog links for other photos of the weekend too! Oh, yeah, I was the Hamburglar! ( I made the costume from scratch, I’m pretty amazing like that, and short-shorts is part of our theme every year)

Jessica (as a Banana Ballerina), Mika, Ari, and me the Hamburglar!

So a Banana and a Hamburglar walk into a bar...

Womens Group Garden!!!

The women of my town are amazing! I had been waiting for months to start a garden with the women’s group but they couldn’t decide where to put it and wanted me to give them money to build a fence (which their husbands should do for free). So nothing really happened for a couple months and I just focused on the med hut. Last week when I got back to site I couldn’t believe it, they told me they would be working later that afternoon on the fence for the garden. I couldn’t believe my ears. I got to the garden and about 20 of the men were there digging holes for the fence posts and bringing the cuttings to make the fence. I worked to and got my fair share of blisters. The garden is in the best place ever, down this one hill and close to the stream. Unfortunately the stream dries up for most of the year, so I’m working with a local NGO AfriCare to get a well and a hand pump that can be built by local welders.

A few days later I met with the women to begin the digging. I taught them how to double dig (a process where you remove the topsoil, break up the harder dirt underneath, and then place the topsoil back on top). At first they had no clue why I was digging my plot in such a particular way, but after doing some charades and some broken pulaar insistence, they got it, and they took off…in just that morning they dug plots for half the garden.

the garden from on top of the hill

a panoramic I took of the garden

the beds the women dug

The Women of the Pellel Womens Group

I head back today with seeds for their vegetable plots, and Morenga tree seeds that I’m going to use to do a Morenga intensive bed, so the women can harvest the leaves for leaf sauce.

Lots of work coming up soon. Seed collections, meetings with local NGOs for the garden and health hut. And the Ambassador is coming to visit Kedougou and Dindefelo at the end of this week. Thanks for reading.

oh and some hippos for your enjoyment!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year, I'm back!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Holiday season, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year to everyone!

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile, was doing some work with getting the school garden going and writing a grant for the medical hut expansion. But just before Christmas I traveled down to Kolda, another regional capital here in the south of Senegal. We spent Christmas there where we watched endless Christmas movies, drank and were merry. It was a great time. Thanks to all the great Kolda Volunteers for hosting!

The New Year was tons of fun too! I’d spoil it if I tried to describe it with words, so here’s a few photos, and there will most likely be more up on my Picasa within a few weeks.

amazing food!!!!!!!!!!!!!

all these clams...2$ no joke

Santa! and the Eiffel Tower!

I’m going back to site today, hopefully there will be lots of work to do with getting the school garden started, oh and a plane landed today in Kedougou, this is rare, so Frank and I rode our bikes over, said hello and took some photos.

new blog look

I'm trying to find a new design for the blog...the old one was a terrible color and I finally decided it looked more like northern Senegal, not like Kedougou. Hopefully the redo will be done by next week.

Deep Fried 24th Birthday

Tabaski is the biggest holiday here in Senegal. All the families slaughter at least one of their sheep and for 3 days everyone eats well. This is great for them, and even me, I had a lot of fun, but the mystery meat in the bowl leads to some GI distress over the following days…

My brother Yousuphu and I (and his friend to the left)

A couple weeks ago we made a trip to the Ingeli waterfalls (see my previous post). It’s rumored that they’ll dry up soon, but judging by what we saw when we finally got there I’d find it hard to believe they’ll completely dry up. We might make another trip in a month or so when there’s even less water there; there was a bit too much to swim in the upper pool, not to mention my friend Lili spotted a crocodile. This time we also made it up to the top of the waterfall which had some great views.

Ingeli Waterfall from the top

I decided to travel up to Kaolack for Thanksgiving and my 24^th birthday (the same day this year) to see my friends Jessica and Mikael. Jessica got 4 turkeys slaughtered in her town and brought them to the regional house for the feast. We set aside one of the turkeys just for us to deep fry. With all the stories of people burning down their houses in the US trying to deep fry turkeys, we definitely took our time to plan out how to do it the best way. It was a huge success and so was the rest of the meal that was prepared by the volunteers of the Kaolack house. I probably ate more than I eat in a week at site…but it was delicious and worth it. Great birthday, great thanksgiving! I hope all my friends, family, and readers had a great Thanksgiving at home.

testing the set up

birthday turkey!!!!

Jessica and I

Deep frying the turkey

We went to Jessica’s site, Keur Madiabel, and painted a mural at the Post de Sante. Now I’m still relaxing at the Kaolack house waiting to go to Thies in two days for our West African All Volunteers Conference.