The Elections!

Election=Loud Music

Since my return to Fatick, the campaigns have kicked it into high gear, or rather, high volume. The louder, the better, seems to be the philosophy with campaigns here. I wonder if McCain would have won the election if he had only played his music a little louder? We’ll never know.

In any case the city is all riled up for these elections. I think the majority of the excitement comes from the fact that we will actually have a mayor. A few months ago in a very tense power grab there was a “coup” in Fatick. The mayor was ousted and the military took over administration of the city, and in turn appointed a counsel of people to run the city in the interim. The reasoning behind this is still unclear, and few people have been able to explain it to me. But I think it was the Senegalese version of impeachment. In any case, besides for basic city administration, the government has been closed for business here, and people are getting antsy for some public investment. Hopefully soon. The popular choice here is Macky Sal, the ex-prime minister, but people are feeling very ambivalent about voting, so Wade’s candidate may win. It is interesting watching elections unfold, because it is so different from the overblown media-crazy American elections. It is almost like watching a student council election. Instead of signs on the front lawn, people graffiti their own houses! Also, candidates will pay people to put up signs in their businesses, so often some small stores will have three signs up for different candidates. It has been great to watch from a safe distance.

My first class!

The time finally came for me to teach for my class. It was really exciting and extremely fruitful. My class had two parts. The first was a technical class on how to make Neem lotion. Neem lotion is a natural mosquito repellent made from the leaves of neem trees. It is really effective and lowers malaria incidence, since it is cheap and easy to make. The second half of my class was focused on costing and marketing the lotion. My idea was to add a capitalist twist to a traditional Peace Corps home remedy. The Association I taught the class to, will soon start selling the product for a profit to benefit their organization. I am really excited to see this project get off the ground. The hardest part of teaching the class was that it had to be in Wolof! I realized that although I am comfortable with my every day usage of the language, the technical aspects are much harder to convey. I made a script for myself on how to do costing in Wolof, but when the class did not really understand, I realized that that was the phrase I had studied! It was really hard to think of a different way to explain it. At the end of the day and with plenty of clumsy language mistakes, they got it. It was a valuable lesson for future classes!

In other news, I have started with a man that makes jewelry made out of cow horn. It is really awesome stuff, but he has no cell phone so I have to wait to for him to drop by in order to talk to him. It is kind of frustrating, but it is a part of the job.

As usual, I really hope to hear from all of you. E-mails and letters are always welcome!
Daniel Robles
BP 53
Fatick, Senegal
West Africa