A quick update

So after a few weeks in Kedougou I have started to become used to my city. It is small but it has everything that I need. It’s also nice because I don’t really have to deal with the typical things that you have to in bigger Senegalese city, such as garbage EVERY WHERE, traffic, and constant noise. One thing that I have noticed is that the Senegalese have not figured out a good system of waste removal and therefore throw their garbage on the street or where ever they are standing. Without proper waste removal the cities are littered with trash which gets really bad when it’s the rainy season and there is literally a river of garbage in the street. However, since Kedougou is a smaller city and a new one, it doesn’t suffer from this problem as much. Kedougou is also very bike friendly without a lot of cars on the road, so the only thing that I have to worry about hitting is one of the many goats or sheep lying around or one of the numerous potholes that line the streets!

As for what I have been doing, well not much. At first I was worried that I was the only volunteer sitting around not doing too much and feeling overwhelmed by how to even start tackling the problems that I see and help people. Luckily, I spoke with the other volunteers from my stage (that’s what they call a group of trainees that come in together) and found out that I was not the only one feeling like this. That made me feel somewhat better about the amount of work I was not doing. Also, I figured I didn’t really want to start any major projects now because I will be gone all of December. We have an all volunteer conference up in Thies (where I had my training) and then I have 2 weeks of In-Service training there. After that there’s only one more week till Christmas so I decided I would go visit my roommate from Thies at her site. She’s living in St. Louis and I’ve heard it’s a really nice town because it used to be the former capital of French Africa so apparently it looks like a European city. I figured since I was up north any ways I might as well take the opportunity to visit the city and spend Christmas and New Years with her. As for Thanksgiving I plan on spending it at the regional house with the other Kedougou volunteers. They say that they plan a nice dinner and try to get all the fixings for a real Thanksgiving dinner. Apparently you can get a turkey here so I told one of my fellow volunteers who really wants to kill something that he gets the honor of killing it. So I have some good plans for the holidays.

This week I have a language seminar at one of my fellow volunteer’s sites so I get to spend the next 4 days living in a village of 75 people without electricity and running water (well not that I have that right now either, welcome to the dry season!!) and living off of rice and oil, it should definitely be an experience!!! So that’s a quick update as to what I have been doing for the past month and what my plans are. If I don’t blog before Thanksgiving, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!