Hello out there!
This month went rather fast. I think I did lots of stuff. The Peace Corps is funny. We are supposed to be living in this village, yet so many opportunities arise that are outside of our own village that we are able to get involved in, it seems as though there are times that the village gets neglected. Uh Oh!
News Flash! Front Page Headline!
So, how about some dollars? The one thing I don't generally ever do it ask people for money. Crap, I'm cracking. This month I decided that I am going to get my man, Numusara, a well (my farmer man). The main reason that I was put into my village was for this man. This man is amazing. This man has worked for me and with me for a year and a half. We have discussed tree projects and wells for a year and a half. I have asked my bosses about this for a long time to no avail. I thought I would have to buy this man a well with money that technically did not exist.
So I found another way. My job is to help people, right? And I want to help this man. But asking for money is bad, right? Right. But then there is this organization that wants to help us Peace Corps Volunteers, and they help us with small projects like this by giving us the money. Should I do it?
Fine, helping people is OK. So I filled out an application and they loved it and voila, I'm funded. This man's well is being dug at top speed and all the materials (after much work) have arrived. When you talk for a year and a half, the day that everything is put into place and the work actually starts is probably something like Christmas. This hard working, intelligent and kind man is gettting what he has wanted and needed for years and years to help him to obtain the results that he has always envisioned in his orchard.
So the digging has started. Look how happy this man is.
He was so happy he gave me this many bananas.
So this organization called Water Charity (water, imagine that), who understand a PC volunteer's dilemma, gave me money with the hope that someone out there will want to help fun this project with a few dollars of their own. I'm curious, have any of you ever had a desire to give to a purpose in the third world but were a little bit hesitant because you didn't know exactly where your money would go? Well, this could solve the problem.
Read about my project. It's called “Thiabedji Orchard Well” and the best link is
http://appropriateprojects.com/taxonomy/term/3?page=1
or just go to www.appropriateprojects.org to get to know the site. Click on Senegal and move on until you find me. Haha, or read the others ones as well as the other Senegal projects are my friends who are also looking for help from their friends and families.
If you donate and want to know progress, just check my blog. I will do a thorough follow through. As of now it is updated. The well constructing is still in progress. Thank you in advance!
Oh, and just so you know, Numusara knows where this money is coming from. He knows that my mom already donated a nice amount to this well (thanks, mom!) because I told him. He is so happy that my mom would help him to get his well. Anyone else that donates has the right to ask me to tell him anything, or have specific photos, a video, or anything I can do for you! Please feel free to contact me via email or comment :)
Ok now, quick update on what else is up.
With all this gardening going on, my village was full of salad. My family has never had a delicious salad. One day I brought some tomatoes, cucumbers, fish and potatoes. I actually did an equal amount of cooking that my sister did for this meal. It was delicious and the whole family loved it! here is Dalanda showing off her chopped veggies. This was everyone in my family's first time to eat a cucumber, and several of their first french fries.
Recently every moment in my village that I'm at home I'm a babysitter. I believe I've become one of the family.
I went on a day trip to a neighboring village named Tomboronkoto to talk to a guy who wanted to meet me to improve his banana field and giant garden. Imagine that.
I went with a friend and we spent the day together talking about possible projects. I also got to watch his wife getting silver out of pounded rock dust. That was fun but a bit dangerous considering how they were using mercury. The area is a huge mining area, there are goldmines every where My brother, Omar, is currently in one of these villages digging away in hopes of making some money, as money is hard to come by this season in my village. I also got to go visit Bantako, a gold mining village.
This month the volunteers of the region of Kedougou took a trip to Salemata, a villaage about 80 kilometers from Kedougou, for our annual regional retreat where we all get together and talk about the work we are doing and what we would like to do. We also discuss regional projects and group projects, things that are not only done in our own villages but done at a larger level. The whole thing was a two day meeting followed by lots of fancy eating, games of frisbee with the locals, movie nights, and even a trip to the village castle, some random piece of contsruction that was ordered by a French man living in the village.
ALSO This month there was a 2 week eye clinic in Kedougou put on by a small organization called “The Right to Sight.” A team of two doctors and three nurses came and, with the help of many of us volunteers, saw hundreds of patients' eyes, and did about 10 (or more) surgeries a day to give people back their sight who were suffering from blindness due to cataracts.
I helped for the first week. I was among the translators who translated from Pular or French to English for the doctors. I had several duties including: taking histories (name, age, location, problem with eyes), doing eye tests (“close one eye and tell me how well you see...), helping blind people get around (yes, some fell down the stairs if we weren't holding them up), and giving the diagnosis. The diagnosis consisted of “you have allergies, wash your eyes and wear sunglasses,” to “you have a cataract, if you would like, we can remove it with an operation and you may be able to see again,” Or, “I'm sorry, you have a problem that we cannot fix, you will be blind forever.” That last one was hard in a few cases, but surprisingly easy for most.
After that I was scheduled to go to an agroforestry summit in the region of Kolda. This is a yearly get-together of all agroforestry volunteers where we meet together in one place to talk about, well, agroforestry.
I went down a couple of days early to go visit my friend Dorothy. This was my first time in this regionof Senegal and I was pleasantly surprised. Well, kind of. I had some interesting travel experiences as well. I got stuck at the bus station in Velangara some 30 kilometers from Dorothy's town, for about two hours all because the bus drivers were not able to come to some sort of financial agreement. Then the next day I waited for four hours in Diaobe, the city that hosts the largest market in all of West Africa, with Dorathy, waiting for my car to fill up to go on a two hours ride the rest of the way to Kolda. While waiting we sat outside of this guy's boutique,
and ate cashew apples,
and watched the traffic go by.
Diaobe is awesome, from what I saw. I got 15 liters of peanutbutter for my family for only 9 dollars. That is such a great deal!
The visit to Dorothy's house was brief but fun. We got to catch up and I finally got to see her area. We also got to do a bit of detective work. There has been a mystery going on with young school girls having mass seizure attacks at school. In several cities throughout Senegal, a girl has beegun seizing and started a chain effect of up to 30 other girls falling into the same sort of thing. No one has gotten seriously injured. Well, it recently happened in her town and her villagers were mad, so Dorothy and I went to investigate a bit. Thats all you get!
The agroforestry meet was fun.
I am ready to plant some trees. We ate amazing food and socialized a lot. The ride home was a normal "I think I'm going to die every few seconds" ride, a lot less waiting, but still took about 10 hours. Mostly we just sang, slept, complained about the exhaust fumes, and took photos of one another.
Now I need to go back to my village.
Oh and on a side note, all the chickens in my village died. Every last one. Sometimes there is just an animal bug that is contagious and no one can afford medicine. I had kind of bonded to these chickens, then again, as soon as I realized how peaceful it can be without them, I was ok with this.
Eventually we will get more chickens. I might even help with that.
Bye bye.
