The time since my last blog post has been some of the busiest, stressful, and most rewarding time of my service to date. First, I was able to send in a rough draft of my Capstone. I have yet to hear any feedback from my advisor, but I am hoping to graduate in December if all goes as planned.
After sending that in, I headed to Saint Louis for a week for our first Camp Gem Sa Bopp (Believe in Yourself). We hosted 42 middle-school aged girls from eight different towns, and worked alongside 5 jr. counselors and 7 Senegalese counterparts. Each day, we focused on a different topic – health, culture, environment, business, and future—trying to show the girls different opportunities for their future. Life here is so different, especially for girls. Girls are expected to do all the household chores, marry early, and maintain the housework of their new home; most women do sell random items at the market or from their homes, but they are not considered the “breadwinner” in any aspect. The other volunteers and I realized how fortunate we were to grow up in the conditions that we did, and wanted to put on this camp to help guide these young Senegalese women to a better life. Overall, the camp was a success. Yes, we made some mistakes, but you have to make mistakes in order to learn. All of the participants seemed to enjoy themselves and our Senegalese counterparts were such a blessing! A huge thank you to all that donated to help make this project a success!
I had to return to Dahra right after our Girls Camp in Saint Louis to help out with the Linguere region’s own two-day camp for middle school aged girls. These participants were all scholarship winners from a Peace Corps scholarship fund that helps out bright, motivated students that may have financial, social, or medical limitations. The theme of this camp was women’s empowerment, and also was a great success. It seemed to take the girls a little bit longer to open up, but they seemed to enjoy the camp and were receptive to all of the activities. On the second day of the camp, we had one of the Peace Corps employees who deals extensively with cultural issues talk to the girls and then the parents of the girls. The parents seemed to understand the issues, but I’m not sure how quickly behaviors can or will change.
Following the Girls Camp, I had a tree planting project planned. Overall, not a success. Almost everyone who was supposed to come out and help did not show up, including my supervisor/ host dad. Nevertheless, 46 trees were planted that day, and another 25 were planted a week later. We still have several trees that need to be planted, but due to lack of funding for protection, we have to re-think our strategy. Hopefully we can distribute the rest of the trees next week to individual households.
During the Girls Camp in Saint Louis, I fell during a 3-leg race, and really messed up my toe. I thought I had broken it, but was unable to go to Dakar for an x-ray until a week later due to all the other projects I had going on. After a week, it was still swollen, but turns out, not broken. I just really sprained it. So I took about 4 days of doing nothing in Dakar, and then went on with the rest of my mid-service exams. Supposedly I am healthy (even though I keep getting sick, and continue to lose weight), still have no cavities, but do have an issue with my jaw/bite. I hope to hear back from med next week to find out the next step with my jaw/bite. I then came down with a nasty cold, but was able to recuperate in the Dakar med hut for the weekend, resulting in the best sleep since I’ve been in Senegal.
Now I am healthy and back in Dahra, ready to get back to work. I plan on taking it slow though, so as to keep myself healthy. Plus, now the rain has stopped, so it’s nice and hot again…looking forward to the cool season :)
Also, for those that may not already know…I will be back in the States from December 15th to January 4th…I am more excited than I ever thought possible about coming home! Until the next post…
