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)

Health Hut Construction Updates

Well I got back to Village last week from my little stay-cation in Dakar/Thies, where I was helping out with trainings and getting my mid-service checkup, and boy did they make a lot of progress on the health hut renovation. Here’s the photos; with the new room in the middle, they decided to add on a tiny front closet room and a front porch, we’ll see how that works into my budget…but I still think its great progress so far. They also dug the well deeper so now it has water in it, if the water table drops some more before the rains start, they’ll dig it deeper again to guarantee year-around access to water there.

the front of the health hut (notice the murals from the old health hut on the left)

the back of the health hut, solar panels, and the new metal roof

I had to head back into Kedougou for the weekend to help greet the new group of volunteers who just swore in on Friday. A big welcome to Marielle, LaRocha, Ben, Ian, Patrick, and Martin, they’re the new Health/Environmental Ed stage, which means I’m old now… Then Monday, Meera, Leah and I facilitated a training out in Bandifassi for an upcoming region-wide condom distribution program, this was to start out the 3-month test phase. But since I was at that training I unfortunately missed my workers back in Pelel, who, before the weekend, promised me they were going to finish covering the walls and floors with cement and finish the roof panels on the veranda. So that should have been done yesterday, I’ll get some more photos tomorrow when I get back to site.

and here's a photo of some of the stuff growing in the women's group garden, slow growing I know, the rains will come soon!

May Day Updates

Well I wasn’t exactly sleeping for all of April but you wouldn't know that considering the fact that I didn't even make one blog post during the whole month, sorry for that. I’ve finally had some time to sit down and knock a couple of posts out and even put up new photos on my picasa, you know what they say, when it rains it pours, enjoy the 4 new posts and new photos!

Health Hut Renovations!

As I mentioned in my last post, thanks to all of you who were able to donate to the grant to fund the renovation. Because of your amazing and generous help, we got the whole thing funded in 6 days! That’s pretty amazing, and my villagers were pretty excited to hear that we could get started so soon on the renovations. As soon as I knew the grant was full, I told my counterpart Dabi, and the next day we started removing the old thatched roofs from the two existing huts.

Dabi, up on the roof, removing the thatch

The next day our builder showed up and we started making the mud bricks to construct the walls. Every day the builder, Sadijo, can add a foot or two of the mud wall, allowing it to dry in time to support what goes above it. Afterwards the mason will add cement on either side of the walls. This is the basic way they construct huts in village. With a good roof for protection from the rain (which we’ll have with the new metal roofing sheets) my counterpart said these huts will last 15-20 years without major repair.

Sadijo, building the mud walls

Dabi making the mud bricks, I helped out with this half the day, and ate mangoes the rest

Sadijo and Dabi decided to add a small room on the front of the 3^rd hut to help support the roof , apparently they’re going to try to extend the roof a few feet out over the front of the structure to make a porch, we’ll see how it turns out. Either way I was extremely surprised and happy with how fast everyone started to work on the renovations, they’re definitely dedicated. I left village a few weeks ago to help with the training of the new volunteers and to say goodbye in Dakar to a few friends who have finished their service. I've heard that they finished most of the construction, and when I get back we’ll be able to install the wiring for the lights and plugs in the new hut, and paint all the walls. As soon as I get back next week, I’ll post more photos of the progress.

The new walls, gaining some height after the second day of construction

Again thanks to everyone who donated, with the rainy season approaching in a few weeks, having that grant funded so quickly meant that we could actually get this project completed before the rains come and all building stops. I heard that the grant got funded so quickly that some people weren’t even able to donate, if you still wanted to help out with a similar cause, or want to help out some more, two of my friends, volunteers in the Tambacounda Region of Senegal, have health hut projects as well, click here and here to visit their sites. Thanks!