Mbour!

After Dakar we all headed south, stopping along the way to spend a night in Mbour, a little beach town a little ways down the coast from Dakar. (These are the sorts of photos that I post to show people exactly why they should come visit.)

Mural on the campement balcony

View from the balcony

View from the beach

After the beach we celebrated Wilma's birthday by went tasting at Les Liqueurs de Warang, a Hangar One-styleSenegalese distillery started by Belgian family, where they make flavors like ginger-bissap, chocolate-banana cream, baobab, and cashew-fruit.

Wilma, the birthday girl, and Leah

Les Dakarois

After the  Health/EE Summit my friend Leah and I went up to Dakar and had a wonderful time visiting Rachel & Emily at their completely lovely home, which, coming from village, pretty much seemed like Hearst Castle to us.

(Rachel is going to make the best baby blankets.)

I took some photos out the window of our sept-place (the hearse-looking station wagons that have seven seats) to capture the stunning scenic beauty of the Dakar freeways. 

It was mostly partly finished houses and rubble piles and the occasional baobab, but also a surprising number of these bizarre billboards encouraging everyone to "Be clever like Leuk!" and get bank loans to buy Christmas/a fridge. Leuk is apparently the father of a family of rabbits with human bodies? 

Thiès!

Last week there was a Health/EE Summit at the Thiès Training Center, which meant that all the Health and Environmental Education volunteers in Senegal came in to talk about projects, do presentations on Best Practices for things that went well (which is helpful) and Lessons Learned for things that were fiascoes  (which is far more entertaining) and grant-writing and whatnot. 

Also, there are some very savvy artisan ladies who came and set up shop in the Training Center courtyard, so Emma and Ivy and I did a little necklace-and bracelet shopping during breaktime.

Jewelry shopping with Emma at the Training center 

Then we went for a walk downtown and saw this huge, green, spiky, neat-looking caterpillar. Good times.

Ivy and the caterpillar 

Revenge of the John Boehner Laterite Road Tan

So, last week when we got on the Niokolo bus from Kédougou to Dakar, a very nice man sitting in the row behind us handed over these disposable surgical masks and told us to put them on. We weren't totally sure we would need them (the bus had windows and everything) but dutifully put them on anyway. (Left to right: me, Leah, Marielle, and New Ian.)

Four hours later when we stopped in Tamba we were very glad we'd done so.

Eight hours after that we were in Dakar, enjoying croissants and fancy coffees and attracting all sorts of sidelong looks from the well-kempt people on their way to work. (Once the Peace Corps office was open for business we went and took showers and felt much more presentable.) 

How The Peace Corps Works

So, a little while back I (along with a whole slew of other PCVs and RPCVs) e-mailed the Stuff You Should Know podcast and asked for an episode about the Peace Corps, and they listened!

You can find the Stuff You Should Know podcast on iTunes or stream the podcast here.

Also, if you just can't get enough of listening to things about the Peace Corps, NPR's Morning Edition did a Fifty Years Of Peace Corps episode awhile back and All Things Considered had a story about how texting and Skype and things are changing the Peace Corps experience.

Corn Harvest

The corn my family planted around our compound and out in the fields is ready for harvest, and my family has started bringing in huge piles of ears of corn to be shucked, pulled off the cob, dried, and stored. Eventually the kernels will be pounded, sifted, and steamed into cornmeal couscous, or lacciri, and we'll eat it for dinner with maafe haako leaf sauce.

Shucking the first round of corn

Some of the the neighbor kids came to help

In the shade of the mango tree

My favorite part was when Mamadou, my 13-year-old host brother, would carefully remove the corn without disturbing the husk, leaving a hollow corn decoy, which he would then put back on top of the pile. When I  picked one up it crumpled in my hand, I looked around in confusion and he just doubled over in a fit of laughter.

The neighbors and people from the village stopped by to say hi, drink some molten-hot ultra-sweet tea, eat a little roasted corn, and be amused that I knew how to shuck corn all by myself.

My other favorite part was Sajou Ba, Crown Prince of the Corn Harvest.

Sajou Ba, Mankaba, and Diouma: Corn Royalty

Trees and Plants and Whatnot

There's a pomme cannelle tree growing just behind my hut. I had no idea what it was when I moved in, it just looked like a sun-bleached twig stuck in the ground. When it started sprouting glossy dark green leaves in rainy season I was pleased, and then confused when it started growing weird dragon-egg looking pine cone things. My host family said that is was a fruit, and that it's delicious. I learned that it's called sweetsop or sugar-apple in English, and am looking forward to trying it when it gets ripe enough to eat.

Pomme cannelle/sweetsop

I also have a papaya tree just behind my hut, and am looking forward to all these big green unripe papayas turning sweet and yellow and edible.

Baobabs are also fruiting again. Before the green fuzzy fruit pods appear there are huge white hibiscus-ish flowers dangling down on those long stems, and it's beautiful like Christmastime. One of my host moms collects the fruit once it's dried out, breaks the pods open, and grinds and sifts the fruit part into a sweet powder that can be mixed with water to make a delicious, nectar-y drink.

And here's a cornfield near my compound, the harvest season is underway, but I accidentally left my hard  drive with corn harvesting and shucking photos in Kédougou, so those won't be up for another week or so.