Village life is starting to pick up finally! I have weekly women's group meetings with six different groups alongside members of the aid group AfriCare. We are going to construct either 2 very large gardens or six smaller gardens for the women to use. The produce (hopefully) grown will be used both to sell as well as (even more hopefully) eat. When there is money the people in my village subsist on a steady diet of greasy rice and dried fish only. When there's no money we eat this weird porridge stuff with fish bones in it...I prefer the greasy rice. I can officially say that such a diet leaves something to be desired in the energy and nutrition department. So fingers crossed we can start construction soon!
I also held a meeting for all the women in my town recently with the school director and teachers. To be honest that made me realize how little of this language I really speak. When you have 50 women trying to talk over one another in a small echoey room...let's just say I was extremely grateful that one of my friends was there to translate for me. Actually he had to translate from Seereer into Wolof for the school director who then translated into French for me. The outcome of the meeting was we organized 4 classes that I'll be starting up next Wednesday. I'm going to be teaching the women French, literacy, and basic mathematics like addition and subtraction. I'm also going to be holding an English class for the men in my village who have expressed interest. We'll see if these classes are a success. The rains are supposed to be here really early this year, so I may only get one or two weeks worth of classes before since once the rains come all my work will stop because everyone goes to the fields all day long. I'm actually really excited to go and help my family in the fields.
To take this in another direction, I have been told that I need to post more pictures, but unfortunately my camera has been broken for the past few months and I haven't been able to take any. Thankfully one of my friends visited my village and they were kind enough to take some pictures.
This is a picture of my counterpart/brother's two wives. The one on the left is Roqee, the second wife. Her son Modou is in the bucket, and the first wife Dib is on the right. I love these women so much.
This is me with Mara, he's about 3 years old and I really, REALLY wish I could bring him back to America with me. He's the sweetest baby in the world.
Ok, it was an especially hot day and we had a charete in our compound with a barrel of water in it. Apparently the barrel was leaking and these two boys are drinking the drops coming through the bottom. It was hilarious.
Baby Modou in his bucket. Adorable.
Baby Ami with her mother, Dib. Because you can never have too many pictures of babies. Fun fact, Ami can say three words: 'ya' which means mom, 'ba' which means dad, and 'Yacine' which is my name :) She always shouts it out whenever she sees me, and then usually starts a little dance.
My host mom Kumba with her 'power stick'. She uses it to hit anything annoying her. Horses, goats...children. Please keep in mind these are not hard hits, more like taps (at least with the children. Animals not so much)
Little family protrait. Dib's oldest son Goor (10), Ya Kumba, me, and Mbai (4-ish)
Another picture of me and Mara. I'm teaching him English and he can count to five. I don't know if he really understands that they are numbers or just that when he gets to three I toss him up into the air and that's just plain fun.
I went to visit the other Seereer sites in March (I'm the only Seereer placed outside of the Kaolack/Faticke region) and we had blueberry muffins for breakfast one day! De-li-cious
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