Creativity

Training was fairly entertaining. We worked on a strategy framework called SWOT to gauge a business' viability and potential strengths, weaknesses, and threats. We also had a presentation on artisan best practices which revolved mainly around the basket exportation project. Katherine and I have some grand ideas about a artisan network in Senegal so we'll see if that ever takes flight or if there's any interest among volunteers other than the two of us. The best part of training today wasn't actually training. A SED PCV in my stage volunteered to create a slideshow of all of our sites if we gave him pictures. We watched it at the end of the day today and it was really cool to see pictures of other people's Senegalese families and their sites. Some of the other PCVs' sites who are Eco-Tourism volunteers have breathtaking locations. It's not really the trash laden streets of Thies.

After training I went to the local speakeasy to enjoy a beverage and some peanuts with a bunch of people which was nice. This weekend we are staying at the center again so I'm planning a trip to chicken dibi along with planning a presentation about creating a business plan all in French that I have to present with two other people next week.

At home, Ahmed discovered the colored pencils that Shirley sent and I couldn't divert his attention from the rainbow of fun in the box so we colored for a while on my porch. Since he's obsessed with letters right now we drew letters in all different colors and then I suggested that we draw a tree and our courtyard. This pretty much blew his mind. He didn't know how to start so I drew a tree, but he was too afraid to copy it. He was worried he would mess it up. I'm really trying to teach him some creativity and expression. All the adults really liked the colored pencils too, but no one just wanted to draw on the paper I was using they all wanted the coloring book. Coloring within the lines is as far as we're getting right now.

The big news of the day is that Mami is back! Yay! She's been gone for about a month traveling Senegal with her basketball team. From what I can ascertain her team is pretty good and it's like a minor league team so she travels a lot. She looks amazing and appears happy to be back. She came into my room right away to talk and we sat outside together for a while. Mami really interests me because she's obviously postponing marriage and living her life for a while which I really admire. It has to be hard for her because the social pressure to get married is huge here even for me!