Monday, April 27, 2009

Hot

The hot season has arrived. It's miserable in the afternoons, when even the wind is hot, like a blow-drier. Last wednesday I got caught in a dust genii while on my bike, a mini-tornado of hot, dusty wind. Fun! Not much village news to report. I seeded my pepiniere, but it has not yet sprouted. Just today, after a series of delays, I finally got to start contacting principals for this year's Michelle Sylvester Scholarship, for middle school girls. It went really well last year, and was both fun and rewarding, so I'm looking forward to meeting 2009's candidates. Yesterday I finally brought out some coloring book pages I've had stashed in my hut for months, dug out my bag of crayons, and hosted a mildly chaotic colorng session on my mat beneath the shade of a couple of neem trees. The kids were all screaming and coloring, having a general good time. And today I saw one drawing taped onto the wall of one little boy's mom's bedroom, which was cute. Finally, too, I brought my tape over to the school so that I myself could tape up the world maps which have been sitting there since Mom's visit. Now, at last, kids can study geography properly! Otherwise, not much to report. It's just HOT.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Bookmobilerific!!!

Me standing in front of a FINALLY FINISHED Bookmobile.


It's happened at last! After over a year of hounding the mechanic and scrounging for funds, the Bookmobile has been completed! Shelves are installed along both walls, and everything is painted bright red. Today I worked with a volunteer from Buttercup Farms (the group in the US who sells 10,000 Girls products stateside) to label the shelves and start sorting books. We have at least these groupings: Very easy English picture books, Easy English picture books, Medium English picture and story books, Advanced English books, Teacher's materials, Easy French books, French novels, French comic books, French textbooks, French grammar books, and a few books in other International languages. This coming week, hopefully, girls can get to work sorting and loading the books into the truck. How exciting! It's finally happening!
Meanwhile, I need to start planning fund raising and attention-getting activities in Dakar, so we can collect enough money to run the program for a year. Now that we have books, a painted, revamped truck, and volunteers ready to work, all we need is cash and we're on the road!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Two more weeks


After being very sneaky, I managed to catch this photo of mother and daughter at a wedding, watching the bride being blessed by the village elders.


My as-yet-unplanted pepiniere. I'll seed it with mostly nebedaye when I return to site, along with a little jitropha, and some flamboyant trees.

School is still out, so it's been awhile since Internet classes, but they're sue to start up again next week, once I'm back from our annual Agriculture Conference in Dakar. Which will also be good and an opportunity to eat tasty food. I realized, once again, how desperate my body is for nutrients, when I put away two brochette sandwiches last night. A single sandwich is half a baguette, roasted meat, french fried, tomato, lettuce, onion, and spiced mayonnaise; I ate TWO of those without pause. Wow. But, as I think on it, my caloric intake is so little, as every day I eat maybe a cup of rice, and another cup of millet, along with scraps of fish or vegetable or a little peanut sauce, and that's pretty much it. With the exception of the bad cookies I buy to stave off munchies on occasion. But soon it's mango season, which is a healthier way to indulge my sweet cravings. And now that school is back, I can get started on the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship, which will keep me busy. And better yet, in just a couple months the rain will come, and there is nonstop activity in the rainy season. My focus this year, I hope, will be on upland rice and beans, plus finishing the vetiver grass demonstration fields.
This week I finished preparing my pepiniere, which is a small tree nursery. Hopefully I can convince people to make ones of their own, too, as I have more sacks, but in my personal backyard I have 150 sacks stuffed with half-and-half sand and sifted manure. Next week I'll seed them and water them all, so hopefully every family can have at least one more nebedaye tree, which provides extremely nutritious leaves for "mboom" sauce. That will go well with everybody's new latrines!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Lucy Lays an Egg

Perhaps the highlight of my week is that Lucy the red hen is finally laying! No eggs from Gertrude yet, but two days in a row now Lucy has hidden a tiny, pointy-topped cream-colored egg somewhere in my backyard. If only it were pink I could pretend I was hunting for Easter eggs. But as it is, I cooked both those up and they were delicious! This was after showing them to the family, who refused to believe me when I claimed that female chickens will lay just fine without a rooster. I said in the USA there are whole yards full of only hens, which lay just fine, but they shook their heads and said, "Oh no, Senegalese hens are different! They need a rooster!" In fact, as we confirmed this week, they do not need a rooster. But baby chicks are so cute I might buy one anyway.
In other news, the REALLY hot season has set in. Everyone is miserable in the afternoons, and I copy everyone's example by spending all day sprawled out to try and escape the heat.