Lately

With all of the power outages (or more accurately, small windows of electricity), I haven't been able to post. One hour of power between 3 and 4am is not prime "posting" time even though I did wake up since I forgot to flip my light switch into the off position.

Here are some pictures of what's been going on...


The Fall 2009 Stage Girls at the beach at Popenguine before the Murder Mystery Party



My sept-place being pushed out of the sand during my epic four hour trip to Dakar.



All the boys thoroughly enjoying the water rocket!

Although I haven't been posting, I have been busy. The new Health/ Environmental Education volunteers arrived last Wednesday, which officially makes me a senior! Hooray! While I'm not going to play an integral role in their training since I don't know anything about Health or the Environment, I've been busy with them the past couple of days going over Muslim culture in Senegal and taking the new trainees on their first walk through Thies. These two events take place before they go to the village for the first time (they are on their way to the vil right now!) so no one has any idea what to expect and there aren't too many questions because of that fact. There was one girl in my walk around group who told me she was completely overwhelmed. I really tried to calm her and tell her about my experience. If you had polled my stage 18 months ago, 0 people would have thought that I would still be here... including me! The terrible part about PST is that you have incomplete information. You never know anything and you wont have full information until install. There's just no getting around how much PST sucks.

Today was another busy day. This morning Emily, Clare, and I journey out to an agricultural university on the outskirts of Thies. It was a reconnaissance mission for this year's girls camp. Moving to Thies would make all of the logistics for the camp much easier, especially since Katherine will no longer be in Bambay and a brand new PCV will be in her place. The Director of Education was very nice and spoke great English. He even had someone take us on a tour of the grounds, but we came up against an obvious problem. We were at an agricultural school and we want to have the camp during the rainy season. School will still be in session. It was definitely a strike out, but the Director gave us some good leads and we're on the case.

This afternoon I went to visit Mme Ly. I spent the entire afternoon with her and we talked about potentially having another expo during the annual Jazz Fest which is held in St. Louis. She has a bunch of problems with the idea since she's had bad experiences in the past so I need to do a lot more research on the event and speak with the coordinator in St. Louis. We'll see what happens. Even if Mme. Ly doesn't go there are several other artisans who are very interested.

Tomorrow I'm off to Dakar for a couple of days to say goodbye. Oliver and Ankith are leaving! I can't believe it and am already dreading the goodbyes although I'm ready to get out of Thies again!