International Day of Women

For those of you who do not know, it was recently the International Day of Women on March 8th. Now if you ask me everyday is womens day, but I guess some people need a reminder. I just learned that my Dad and Stepmom also celebrated the day in Mexico by hosting a special worship service: http://erasingborders.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/international-day-of-women/ . While I am sure that was great and meaningful, I decided to celebrate the day with a little lighter approach.

In the treasure chest of the Tamba regional house, I found an old wig and old skirts that I brought to my village. On the celebrated day I went to the elementary school and explained purpose of the day and its history. After I had the boys talk about women's work and the girls talk about men's work. It quickly became clear who does more work who has the pleasure of sitting around and drinking tea all day.

After some pantomiming of work activities I invited the courageous boys to come in front of the class to put on the wig and skirt. For a class that is accustomed to writing down what is written on the blackboard and being beaten when they speak out of turn, this was an enjoyable activity.

As typical with pictures here, most kids refused to smile, even though they would laugh uncontrollably after!

For the rest of the day I had kids streaming into my room to try on the wig and skirts and have me take pictures of them that I promised to print when I am in the states, exactly 2 weeks from today!!!

Decided to give this baby a go, pretty adorable.

Cant believe I have been here for one year. I have learned so much but have not learned to tolerate the heat! It is back to 110 daily, which is do-able when you have air conditioning to escape to but when your only escape is a hand-held fan the heat can be quite painful! With that said, cant wait for East Coast weather and to see all of you so soon!

I recently had my first visitor here in Senegal, allowing me to explore more of Senegal with a laid-back, fun, adventurous partner. Over 12 days we had a whirl wind of a trip- exploring Dakar, going to my village, Tambacounda, Thies, the Gambia river, Toubacouta (a gorgeous town next to mangrove lagoons) and Lampoul (a picturesque touristy desert spot).

Myself and Anabel (a fellow Berkeley grad who I met when we studied abroad in Ghana together and due to fate we lived next door to each other the following year)

The only downside of the trip was that I feel like I have spent enough time sitting in transportation to last a lifetime. One of the more ridiculous days involved riding on an ‘Alhum’, sept-place, taxi, bush taxi, back of a truck, snowboard and camel. Eight modes of transport in a period of 16 hours- you couldn't pay for that type of adventure in the US!

I think we really only had one low point-when the car that we were jammed in for 4 hours (dehydrated and starving) had cockroaches swarming the floor. Anabel became an expert roach killer while I tried to focus on not getting a concussion from my head hitting the roof of the car. The high point for me is a tie between our pirogue boat journey in Toubacouta where we watched over 100 birds flock home as the sun was setting and our camel ride during which we watched the sunset and the full moon rise over the sand dunes. Not too shabby.

But overall it was a well worthwhile trip (for me and I think for Anabel as well ;). Getting to show off my village to a person who knows me was a special experience. I am so of how much I have learned and changed over the past year! Just watching Anabel struggle to eat rice with her hand while I expertly licked the particles of rice and sauce from my fingers made me realize how far I have come. It is also refreshing to translate for others and remind people in my village how far my language has come- there was once a point when I too could barely spit out 5 words and did not know how to greet! But Anabel within no time Anabel was a pro, she was ecstatic to take on a new name- Oumu- and felt quite connected to her namesake whom we helped pull water at the garden and made lame attempts at pounding grain for her. I wish we could have spent more time in Soucoto as with 4 solid days there she would have had the greetings down, impressing everyone.

I have to admit tho- translating for another person for 2 weeks is exhausting, especially as I was working through speaking Jaxanke, Mandinka, Pulaar, Wolof, French, and English. My proudest moments involved haggling in Dakar making sure she got the lowest prices on souvenirs- and Id say we did pretty darn well.

Got to pet 10 month old lions at a Park Reserve! Pretty cool, their tails and paws especially felt cool!

Being a tourist here was a nice break from my day to day life- which I am eager to jump back into before I leave for my next journey, a trip to the East Coast! 

But cant wait for my next visitors to share my experiences and to explore all that Senegal has to offer! So Bismillah everyone!