Campish

I must say, there is nothing quite like a hat that keeps out everything. Say you are hot and want to sit under a waterfall....

Anyway, hello out there to whoever is reading this! Are you still following me after over a year of being away from home? If so, wow. I'm impressed. If not, you probably aren't reading this right now, right? Well maybe they are.
Anyway, back to business. I'm in Dakar! I'm with a friend, a fellow PCV that I randomly met and we randomly stumbled into this random luxurious hotel and asked them if we could use their wireless Internet and they said yes. Yay for black leather couches and cold drinks!
So I have just had an amazing few weeks. Two great things have happened. First of all, I spent 10 days involved in a week-long Summer Camp for the youth of Kedougou. I had been aware that I would be involved with this camp for a whole year. Heck, I even planned my family's visit around this camp, because I felt like I should be involved. Yet, knowing that I would be involved doesn't mean that I knew what I was getting involved with. I admit that all I really did was put the time aside, without really knowing what to expect.
The camp turned out, in my opinion, to be amazing. I've been spending this whole year learning first hand the paths and the obstacles to helping people and helping with the tedious “one step forward, two steps back” task of development. So, the camp to me was yet another PC project that I would learn something from and maybe help out a bit.
But what a great week! It turns out that this was the second year that the camp held place. One of the biggest problems with starting projects is trying to turn them into something sustainable. Something that will last beyond our short presence and continue to help the population after we are no longer a part of it. The camp is on it's second year now with a good plan that will hopefully make it last for many years and produce man leaders.
So summer camp doesn't exist here. There is a summer vacation but when out of school there is no time to play. In fact they usually spend their summers with their families helping with the laborious task of farming and keeping up with house work So for them the idea of going to a camp to have fun and meet new friends and play with tubabs is great to them. So that is what we did. We had two groups of kids, one group of first-year campers and one group of second year campers, and we threw a summer camp!
The camp took place in Dindefelo, a village popular for tourists because of it's beautiful waterfall and mountains, and weekly lumo. There were about 10 Senegalese camp counselors and maybe 7-10 PCVs running camp. We had agreements with the town and the campement where we stayed and lots of other people. We then spent a week together doing many activities. There were fun activities and learning activities, both of which ended up being fun. I was responsible for the Agroforestry activity. I did a pepeniere and outplanting activity for the first year campers and a grafting activity for the second year campers. After my activity I spent the rest of the week helping with other activities, which included many kinds of sports, teamwork games, scavenger hunts, art,

races,

soccer, food sustainability courses, gender and development,

career day,

and even a human rights course. The human rights course was just a lecture but was intense because the campers and the counselors (often teachers) started a heated debate about the right of a teacher to hit a student. Then of course there were the hikes, both to the waterfall and to the top of the mountain where there were amazing viewpoints, tops of waterfalls and caves.

The next amazing thing that happened. Well, I don't know if it is amazing. I went to Dakar. I haven't been out of the Kedougou region now for almost 8 months. Talk about a homebody! I'm in the capital of the country and I don't know my way around at all! I'm a bit ashamed but then again, there is nowhere to go but up! I've been wandering around a lot these last few days, trying to get a feel of the city so I can lead my family around when they come. Oh and they get here tomorrow evening, how exciting! We have plans to go straight to Kedougou off the plane. We will spend a couple of days in Kedougou, hen they will take my “auto lumo” to my village where they will spend two nights meeting my villagers and looking at some of the work I've done. Then I have a driver picking us up who will lead us on explorations of basari, bedik and pular villages for a couple of days. After that we will slowly make our way back up to Dakar, stopping a couple places on the way to see the sights. We will end the stay with a few days to explore Dakar.
Ok, I'm tired and I have places to be and monkeys to groom!

Until next time.