3 more months!

        You read that correctly; I will be home in less than 3 months! During the middle of April, I made my way to Thies and then Dakar for my stage's COS (close of service) conference. I found out then when I would be returning home and what all needed to be done before I can leave Senegal. While I have enjoyed my time here in Senegal and would not trade it for anything, I can honestly say that I am ready to return home and start the next chapter in my life. I will be COS-ing on July 31st and should be home in Kingsport sometime on August 1st :)

        Now concerning work-related activities:

• The computer lab at the high school is up and running, yet not all the computers are in the best of shape. Nevertheless, I have already started teaching some night classes. It's really interesting to teach basic computer skills to someone who has never used a computer before. I sometimes have a hard time explaining things because they are just second-nature to me, having access to a computer for most of my life. What's great though is the wide range of "students" that I have the pleasure of teaching; some are actual students, some are teachers, some are educated, some are not... I feel like this will be one of the more rewarding, yet complicated projects that I will work on.

• I have also started teaching Junior Achievement at two different elementary schools. It's really interesting to be in a Senegalese classroom setting; the kids are very disciplined and respectful, yet outside of school, they can be so rude and loud. It's just nice to see the children in a different setting :)
• The soap training that I had planned to send a few women to turned out to be a slight disaster. The training went from being three days to one, and they moved the training up by one day. Oh, and I wasn't informed of any of this until after the fact. My host mom is very motivated though and tracked down someone who had attended the training and had them explain everything to her. She is planning on making soap this coming week. If all goes well, I will have her go to the other women's groups and teach them how to do the same.
• Remember that huge tree nursery that I did last year? Well the group wanted to do another one this year. After all the issues that we had last year, I didn't really want to help out at all, but in the end, I decided to help get them started. So Erin, who is an Agroforestry volunteer, came in to Dahra to explain to the group how to care for the tree nursery and they filled up 300 sacks. Their original goal was to fill up anywhere from 500 to 1000 sacks, but we ran out of time. I plan on helping with seeding the sacks, but after that, I am leaving the care of the nursery and the transplanting of the trees to the group. I pray that they remain motivated and succeed with this project.

Well, I think that's about it for now. I plan on teaching through the end of June and then take the month of July to travel around Senegal and say good-bye to some wonderful people that I have had the pleasure of getting to know during my time here.
Let the countdown begin!