MegaUpdate: January 2012 Edition

It’s been a busy few weeks (month?) over here. I kind of can’t believe it’s February. I knew (in general and in Peace Corps) about the whole time-speeds-up thing, but it still feels surreal.

In any case, January kicked off with a scramble to get our Work Zone stuff all squared away (basically everyone in and around Salémata told me what they’ve been up to lately and I wrote up a report), getting things together for a potential latrine project, and working on visual aids for nutrition causeries (health talks) at the Salémata Health Center.

Then, along with a few other PCVs, I headed up to Thiès for the Gender and Development (GAD) conference and Work Zone Coordinator meetings, followed by our All-Volunteer Conference (All-Vol). The idea behind All-Vol is that all of the PCVs from Senegal get together with delegations of PCVs from other West African countries (Mali, Guinea, the Gambia) to talk about projects and plans and chat it up about Peace Corps stuff. I had a good time, it was great to see other people from my training stage and to hear about what it’s like living in other parts of West Africa.

After All-Vol it was time to head up to Dakar to get ready for the West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament (W.A.I.S.T.). There are two categories of teams at W.A.I.S.T., those that play in the Competitive League (for people who play softball regularly, know the rules, and own gloves and bats and things) and those who are in the Recreational League (for people who are more concerned with having good costumes). 

My friend Rachel is on the International School’s Faculty Team, so she had to play against us, and we had a little Logger reunion – there are currently at least five University of Puget Sound graduates in Senegal, and all of them were on W.A.I.S.T. teams this year. 

Loggers: Rachel, me, Mac, Mika, Emily. 

After all the softball madness I spent a couple days hanging out poolside at my friends Rachel & Emily’s wonderful bungalow, playing with their cats and talking about babies – baby blankets, baby names, baby nannies, baby showers, baby onesies… It was adorable and Leah would have loved it. Then I had Peer Support Counselor Training at the Peace Corps main office in Dakar, which went well. A lot of other PC programs have peer counseling systems and I think it’s a really good thing to have for PCV support. After that wrapped up there were enough of us heading back from Dakar to fill up a sept-place back to Kédougou.

Peer Support Counselors 2012
(I'm top left, with the tall kids.)

Once I was back in Kédougou I went back to village for a few days, and it was really nice to sleep in my own bed, hang out with my host family (baby Fatou is getting so big!) and help out at the monthly baby-weighing stuff and vaccination day at the Salémata Health Center.

And then I got strep throat. 

Birthdayapalooza

On August 1st, 2011 I turned 28, Marielle turned 25, Switzerland turned 720, and a good time was had by all. On July 31st, after the SeneGAD meeting, a bunch of us came in to Dakar and got all cleaned up.

I had a little beer to celebrate...

We all went out for fancy pizza and it was delicious. Ben and I shared one that was half "H&M" (merguez sausage and garlic) and half "Hammam" (caramelized onion and goat cheese, no idea how they chose these names), Nic and Ivy split something similar, Sarah ordered a calzone, and Nathaniel opted to slaughter his own pizza.

Afterwards everyone went out for beers, and Marielle came thisclose to pulling off the opening-a-beer-with-another-beer trick. 

Sharing a birthday (and a delicious birthday cake) with Marielle was great because she is awesome, as you can clearly see. 

On August 1st, our actual birthday, we all went out to Ngor Island. It's a tiny island along the northern part of Dakar, and for about a dollar you can take a 3-minute ride out to it in a pirogue, which is exactly what we all did. 

Even though it was overcast, it was warm and the waves we beautiful. Emma enjoyed the view of the coastline, and Kayla, Ivy and I had a nice time strolling around the cliffs. 

It was a good day for fancy fancy coffees. Ben treated Emma and I to cappuccinos and tiramisu, and then a little while later we treated ourselves to beachside Nescafes.

It rained for a little while, but it was hot, so we swam anyway, doing our best to avoid all the plastic bags and bits if junk floating around in the surf. We looked at a bunch of sea urchins and little fish, and after successfully clambering around on all sorts of slippery rocks, I stubbed my toe walking out of the water and wound up making a little bandage out of a piece of my skirt-towel-fabric. Then it was naptime, and then we hopped in a boat back to the mainland.

After showers at the regional house it was time for N'ice Cream, more espresso, and then out for Thai food at the Jardin Thaïlandais, and it was fantastic. Really just amazing. (When we sat down I was saying they should tell the waiters it's my birthday and maybe they would give us a free dessert, and then was so wrapped up in how lovely the food was that I actually completely forgot about it and so was genuinely surprised when there was a candle and singing with my caramelized bananas.)

AND THEN the next day Marielle and I went into town with Kayla and her visiting friends, to check out a giant fabric market, eat more ice cream (I was not such an ice cream person in the US, but lately my love for cold things knows no bounds), and go on the trampolines. 

Kayla and her friend Sabrina decided to reenact the Scar/Mufasa (Mufasa!!) fight scene from The Lion King. 

Obviously, it was a pretty epic few days, and I'm extremely lucky to have such wonderful, fun, photogenic people in my life. And not just in Senegal - when we stopped for internet and I read all the birthday messages I may or may not have teared up a little bit right there in the CyberCafe. Many, many thanks to everyone for being so great ~ 

Ah Hab A Code.

It's a gray and rainy day here in Kédougou. It's so chilly that I put on a long-sleeved t-shirt, even. The wet season is starting and I have a little bit of a cold, so the other under-the-weather volunteers and I are hanging out in the library hut, sniffling and drinking lovely green tea and rooibos from my Tekoe stash.

(Actually, I am drinking out of an old mayonnaise jar.)

The Cat in the Glasses

There is a very small, very thin, very pregnant orange tabby cat that lives around the Training Center. She's always coming in to loll around on the couches in the foyer and clamber around the buckets where we scrape the leftovers off our plates, teetering precariously while she reaches in after little bits of stewed meat and whatnot. She's a nice cat, and people like her.

Also, a whole lot of the people in my group of trainees (or stage, "stah-je") wear glasses, which is supposedly why our nickname among the current volunteers is the "Library Stage." (It also might be because a certain number of us are somewhat stodgy and bookish by Peace Corps standards, but officially it's the glasses thing.)
 
Anyway, earlier today someone said that they wanted to have stage t-shirts made, and that people should come up with ideas, and that is how I came to have the following conversation:


Cady, coming in & not seeing me at first: "Oh! Hey, whatcha up to?"

Me: " Oh! Hi! Just.... mmm... photoshopping glasses... on this cat picture... that I have."

Cady: "Oh. Wait, what?"

Me: "I'm, uh, photoshopping glasses. On this cat."

Please note the teeny tiny colored pencil set. It is my favorite thing. 

I explained about t-shirt thing and finished my photoshopping and then turned out the lights, put some paper over my screen, and used my laptop like a light table to trace the cat picture. I was in the middle of doing this when someone came in looking for something they'd left by my roommate's desk, and I got to have a whole other mildly awkward conversation about cats, glasses and Photoshop.