Saturday, April 17, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Hello, April
I've been back and forth from Sare Fode to Kolda, working on writing this SPA (small project assistance) grant proposal for chain-link fencing for the Sare Fode community garden. Pretty much done now, I think. We also just had the agroforestry summit here, so all the ag.fo. volunteers in Senegal came down for a few days and we exchanged seeds and stuff. I haven't been back in the village very long, but I'm hoping in the next few months to stay there as much as possible and finally start to get some actual work done. I feel like I've been at the regional house way too much, and most of the villagers don't understand all this Toubab business of seminars and conferences and summits and grant writing and pilot farmers... It must seem very odd to some of them.
In the few days I was in the village, here's what was new: Djiby and Jawo came back from school in Kolda for Easter vacation, and most of our high school students went home. Aliu is all better, but now Nene, Ellie, and little Sadio have colds. Demo and Wopa are both supposedly pregnant, and sort of switch off days of being laid up with morning sickness. Sadio has been living with Woura while he teaches for the past few months, and we've all really missed her, but I think they will both be back in Sare Fode when I go back today, Sadio for good, Woura for Easter break. Since women have been scarce in the household lately, I've been helping Demo and Wopa with the cooking and pulling water, depending on which of them is in good shape on the given day. Djiby wants to add to the barbed wire for Daouda's garden so he can start gardening there and raise some money to pay for entrance exams and other university expenses. He's a hard worker, but he has literally no money, so I think I'll end up buying him some seeds and stuff...
Quick explanation of the photos - apparently, what you do here with stickers is stick them all over your body. I loved that the high school boys put sparkly heart stickers on their ears like earrings, and left them there all day. There are a few pics of us cracking open a bunch of peanuts for seed. One of the more wealthy Diamankas in the village is paying people a little bit to open up tons of peanuts for his seed this year, so we've been doing a lot of that. Then there are a bunch of the chameleon that little Sadio spotted in the mango tree a few days ago. They say seeing a chameleon is good luck. It was so cool looking, especially when it changed! The last ones are of the men and boys of the village hunting. I went along, and got to carry the bird that Daouda caught. Somebody else got a rabbit. They just run around, over quite long distances, beating the bushes with sticks and yelling, to scare out the animals, and then try to catch them by hand.
In the few days I was in the village, here's what was new: Djiby and Jawo came back from school in Kolda for Easter vacation, and most of our high school students went home. Aliu is all better, but now Nene, Ellie, and little Sadio have colds. Demo and Wopa are both supposedly pregnant, and sort of switch off days of being laid up with morning sickness. Sadio has been living with Woura while he teaches for the past few months, and we've all really missed her, but I think they will both be back in Sare Fode when I go back today, Sadio for good, Woura for Easter break. Since women have been scarce in the household lately, I've been helping Demo and Wopa with the cooking and pulling water, depending on which of them is in good shape on the given day. Djiby wants to add to the barbed wire for Daouda's garden so he can start gardening there and raise some money to pay for entrance exams and other university expenses. He's a hard worker, but he has literally no money, so I think I'll end up buying him some seeds and stuff...
Quick explanation of the photos - apparently, what you do here with stickers is stick them all over your body. I loved that the high school boys put sparkly heart stickers on their ears like earrings, and left them there all day. There are a few pics of us cracking open a bunch of peanuts for seed. One of the more wealthy Diamankas in the village is paying people a little bit to open up tons of peanuts for his seed this year, so we've been doing a lot of that. Then there are a bunch of the chameleon that little Sadio spotted in the mango tree a few days ago. They say seeing a chameleon is good luck. It was so cool looking, especially when it changed! The last ones are of the men and boys of the village hunting. I went along, and got to carry the bird that Daouda caught. Somebody else got a rabbit. They just run around, over quite long distances, beating the bushes with sticks and yelling, to scare out the animals, and then try to catch them by hand.
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