Chariots of Fire

This message is coming straight from Kedougou....

Tamxaarit or Senegalese Halloween

It seems that every time a holiday ends people start planning for the next one. As soon as Tabaski was done it became time to prepare for Tamxaarit, which is the lunar new year. It is also the holiday when everyone "let's loose" and has a great time! The holiday begins at sundown with a dinner of millet, a red bean sauce, and rooster (a great treat!). In Serere culture the millet is never changed on holidays and can never be taken out of the bowl. So, once the sauce is eaten up, my mom poured fresh unpasturized milk on top of the millet. It was veyr strange, but I really liked it, I think I am actually craving it right now! After this the kids crossdress and go from one compound to the other singing and in return they get cupfulls of rice! It is very fun, and it is something that men and women do together, which is always a nice change of pace. That may have been my favorite part of the event, after the millet!

I do also have a job!
In the last few months I have also been setting up a few projects that I will be working on when I get back from In-Service training at the end of February:
Rural Girl Entrepreneurship: One of Ftick's largest problems is that many young girls (10-15) go to Dakar to be maids in the summer because they need to pay for their upcoming school fees, an dthey often stay in Dakar because their parents become dependant on the income. As a result the government has made millions of CFA available for girls to start small "micro-businesses" to prevent them from leaving and therefore continuing with their studies. The problem is that it is very convoluted and hard for the girls to understand. My counterpart and I got funding from UNICEF to go out into rural villages and teach the girls about this program and then help them through the application and advise them for a full calendar year. It is exactly what I want to be doing and we have already gotten a lot of the paperwork done. In March we will bedoing visits in the field, which I am very excited. As a consequence, I will be learning Serere, which I am very excited about.
Wula Naafa: This is a USAID funded environmental project and I will be working to coordinate the Peace Corps Volunteers in the Fatick region to do mangrove replanting and encouraging agricultural best practices and income generating projects. It is a huge multi-million dollar project, and I will be working on the sidelines, which will be an awesome way to experience the aid world first hand. They really want us to work with the local people and help motivate people in the local languages, which they do not speak. Meeting all the USAID people also made me miss Washington, a lot!
Girl Camp: I am also helping plan a girls leadership camp in August, which I am so excited about!
Field Trips: I am planning overnight trips for teenagers to encourage business ideas and getting to know their own country.

As you can tell, I have identified my work being focused on youth, which is exciting but also frustrating to do in a society where entrepreneurship is rarely encouraged.

GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

This week also, was crazy, since I travelled ALL the way to Kedougou in the far east of the country. This was a long trip, to say the least. I left on Monday at 8 am from the Kaolack garage and got there at 2 in Tambacounda, which is an INCREDIBLY fast trip, considering that it can take twelve hours on a bad day, I could have gone straight to Kedougou, but decided to spend the night in Tamba to rest up and take a shower. The road was very dusty I was about three shades darker. The next morning I got up at 8 am and I headed to the garage with a friend of mine. We arrived at 9:30 and bought a place on a bus, rather than a 7 sept-place because we were being cheap, that was the tragic error of this story. 

7 HOURS LATER... We finally pull out. We tried a couple times to get out but they were not having it since we already paid. In any case, we pull out at 6 for a 4 hour trip. We arrive at the gas station in Tamba and and fire starts billowing out of the car and into the passenger section, so we pop out and run off the bus. They put out the fire and start working on the engine, I turn to my friend and we both share some fear of the car breaking down again on the way, in the dark. So we take the cost and get on a sept-place and arrive in Kedougou that night at 10:30 pm. A long day to say the least. As we were pulling out of the city Chariots of Fire came on the radio matching our feelings exactly. With sun setting on the Senegalese savannah our driver switched the radio to Obama's speech, and despite the hellish day I was so happy. 

In any case, I went to Kedougou to do Spanish translating for Ecotoursim websites so I spent two days in front of a computer, a lot like an American job, so it was a nice change of pace. The regional house in Kedougou is like camp, everyone sleeps outside, there is no electricty except for solar panels and the shower and bathroom are outside. It was however a lot of fun, and a lot of card games and candlelight evening chats. Very very fun! It is also beautiful, hilyl and green. The other big difference is that no one speaks Wolof! Its all Pulaar, so I learned a little of the greetings. It was really discomforting because I have just recently become very comfortable with my language. I also tried some great warthog snadwhiches! It tastes just like pulled pork, and we took some bbq sauce and it tasted AMAZING! Because I threw out so many names of places I have included a map this time, so you can follow along!