Work!

A common sight out my back door: herds of cows strolling across the dusty fields.

This week, finally, I have some work progress to report! On Monday a university student came to stay with me for a week. She's doing an exchange program in Dakar, and part of their curriculum is a visit to a village for several days, to experience life there. It was really fun to have a guest, though this involved a lot of Wolof translating. We brought a couple chickens home from the louma and the family was ecstatic. "Cere" with chicken broth is pretty tasty! She had an untypical village experience, though, because I was very busy this past week. On Monday evening I had a brief meeting with the president of the communaute rurale, who explained to me that there is a project in place to bring running water to villages in my area before the end of 2008. I hope that happens! Having a robinet would make life a lot easier for everyone, especially the women, who spend a lot of time hauling water to and from the well every day. Also, I seeded my pepiniere a couple days ago. It's a challenge to keep everything damp in this heat, but I made a shade structure with an old mosquito net and I water often, so hopefully things should sprout soon. I planted a lot of papayas because they supposedly like gray water, and hence can be placed in the bath area of compounds where they grow well. I also have a couple mangos, and a variety of shade trees and other various species. It's a real hodge-podge, but the real reason I have it is to encourage people to build their own pepinieres to plant what they want. Meanwhile the girls' scholarship is keeping me busy, biking back and forth to the two towns to speak with teachers and principals, filling out paperwork, etc. I still have several steps to go before the scholarship applications can be turned in, so the next few weeks should be pretty busy as well. It feels good! Also I've agreed to help start a bookmobile project with an NGO based in Kaolack, so I have plenty of work ahead to get that rolling. And to fill my free time, there's still peanuts in the afternoons!