Staying Grounded on the Run

Lake Taupo Climbing Expedition

2012-02-09T13:21:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah!

Swing Bridge Time- Longest in NZ

Dinner

It’s been an interesting week since I last wrote, and by chance I’ve found myself in the same coffee house where I wrote last time- maybe it’s just conducive to finger tapping. By far the most interesting feature of the last week was a trip through the north island for a climbing expedition on Lake Taupo- an extinct Volcanic crater large enough to fit the city-state of Singapore within it, now filled with crystalline blue water. I was invited by a new friend who spent his first year in New Zealand scurrying from one climbing site to another in a beat-up van and thus knew all the best locations.

My host Danelle and I decided to head up a day early in order to do some site-seeing on the eastern coast and camped our first night out of the city at the head of a trail with the longest swing bridge in New Zealand. As you can imagine we had a ball swinging around on it suspended a couple hundred feet from the riverbed below. We continued north in the morning, cruising through the wine-rich region of Hawke’s Bay and the quirky town of Napier, somehow still stuck in the Art-Deco style of the 1930’s. Walking down it’s avenues with swooping neon lights and pastel colored facades is as close to a time warp as you’ll get.

We finally arrived at Lake Taupo and hiked the circumference trail a couple of hours to our base camp, a tent-city of backpackers and climbers all high on the adrenaline of dangling from sheer rock faces with your fingertips. Camping literally 10 feet from the lake’s edge, we could gaze up at the rock formations we would be scrambling up looming over us. I must admit I was initially unnerved. Looking up from our campsite we could see climbers making their way up vertical and overhanging routes on the cliffs we were intending to tackle, and after not climbing at all for 3 years, I doubted myself.

Fortunately we were in capable hands and we spent our first day on a lower rock face with more preparatory climbs we could use to build up our strength and confidence. The next couple of days were a mixed bag of climbing, swimming, falling, climbing, eating, sleeping and more climbing!

It was a thrilling reintroduction to the sport, and it looks as though these climbing trips will become a regular placeholder in my agenda. After peaking out on our last climb, clipped in to the top bolt some 400 feet above the lake’s edge, I gazed out over the blue expanse of Taupo and felt the full weight of my good fortune. I also realized that my ecstasy at that moment would probably be replaced by utter fear by the vast majority of the population- and smiled again!

Sadly the weekend had to come to an end and we turned our headlights back towards Wellington, this time cruising down the western coast, where we traversed an incredible valley on the Wanganui river and camped on the black-sand Turakina beach, strewn with massive driftwood from past floods. Situated at the mouth of a small river, it is growing at a rate of 4 meters(16 feet) per year in places. Strolling down the beach in the bright morning sun, the black sand sparkled like we were walking on the night sky littered with stars. There is scarcely a square kilometer in New Zealand that doesn’t leave you gawking, and I’m told that the South Island is even far more impressive.

That’s why I’ve bought a ferry ticket bound for the South Island tomorrow, and even got an extra seat for the grouch. We’re going to see what the place has to offer for the next couple of weeks until International Orientation starts on the 22nd. Hopefully I’ll be back with some beautiful photos.

A bientot!

Ready, Set, New Zealand!

2012-01-31T14:38:00.000-08:00

Time for a little change of scenery. After two years on the dusty plains of Senegal, I decided that the next stop on my international tour had to be GREEN! So far, New Zealand has proven to be a wise choice, with some of the most extraordinary flora I've ever seen, bursting at the seams. I've come to New Zealand to start a Masters program in Environmental Management, drink lots of good coffee and go on lots of great adventures(in no particular order, though NZ is the adventure sport capital of the world). After 28 hours of flight time on 4 different airplanes, I hopped off to beautiful weather and took to the city- a rolling, San-Francisco-esque place with hints of British colonialism, Pacific Island heritage, Chinese and Japanese food infusions and enough accents and languages walking through the streets to feel very international indeed.

Aotearoa, the Maori name of New Zealand. Art by Justin Campbell

I've only been here one week but it feels like much more. Each day has been packed with tours of different neighborhoods, incredibly varied weather(sunny and hot, windy and cold, gale-force winds, horizontal rain, etc.) and an assortment of cultural experiences from a weekend at the Horse Races to a tour of the national museum, to bouldering on the wharf and lazy afternoons sprawled out on various beaches. I've done a fair share of walking, but despite Wellington being the capital it can be traversed in about 45 minutes on foot, so I've started to get a pretty good handle on my surroundings.

I've also developed a penchant for good coffee shops in the last year that's a little difficult to explain, but whether or not it's a good thing it has become more than a trivial interest. Fortunately for me, Wellington has an amazing coffee culture, and there are literally dozens of interesting places each with its unique style and blends. A staple of my daily routine has been trying out new and interesting places, searching for the creme de la creme. Expect to see a fair share of coffee posts in these pages.

Coffee Craft at 'Mojo Coffee'

My first excursion out of the city was to the annual Horse Races north of the city, where about 20,000 people show up dressed to impress, some in period English clothing- there's even a hat competition for the ladies. A day full of unsuccessful betting ensued. We had to console ourselves with an abundant amount of wine- and thus I was introduced to New Zealand's favorite pass-time(drinking!). The summer months are full of activity, and the city is abuzz with foreigners on vacation and locals trying to soak up the pleasant weather.

We bet on the wrong horse, again and again and again...

Dressed for the Occasion

I'm planning on taking full advantage of the good weather myself, so I've decided to buy a motorcycle and head off on a mini-tour of the Islands to get out the urge to move before I settle into my studies. This weekend promises good rock climbing on Lake Taupo in the center of the North Island with a group of friends from the university, and then I'll jump on a ferry to the South Island to explore wine country, careen down winding mountain roads and hopefully throw myself off a cliff or two(bungee attached, of course). I've acquired an old bike with great character that I've lovingly dubbed 'The Grouch," and tomorrow we set off on our first adventure together. All of this may be the fault of my older brothers, who put the notion of NZ in my head to begin with, so Matthieu and Justin, THANK YOU.

A Month in Island Time...a Decade!

2011-05-01T14:56:00.000-07:00

It's still a little difficult to come to terms with the reality that I have completed my Peace Corps service and moved on from Senegal for good. I wake up some days wondering why I don't hear chickens crowing in the distance and the odd donkey call, and I imagine it will be some time until I think the sound of traffic in the street is normal. It's now been a month that I've been in Cape Verde, and life is good.

Hiking with pals

Cape Verde has been just as stimulating the second time around as it was the first, and I have been reveling in the open silences that I find on my solitary hikes around these mostly deserted islands. Generally very arid, there are hidden pockets of green in deep valleys that that pierce the typical tan/yellow that dominates the color spectrum, and when you find them it's like striking gold.

After spending a short week in the capital speaking with some hopeful work partners, I hopped on a ferry to one of the most secluded islands in the center of the archipelago, Sao Nicolau. Inhabited by about 12,000 people in total, it is mostly empty space and I made it my personal mission to fill in that space with my footsteps. Hosted by Peace Corps volunteers in little communities across the island, I walked everywhere, covering 42 kilometers on my longest day. I was glad to get to know the volunteers and see how different their lives are compared to what I experienced in Senegal, and together we played basketball, drank local cane rum, made pizza, traded stories and laughed a lot.

Local grogue(sugar cane rum) production

After 7 pleasant days on Sao Nicolau, it was time to catch the weekly ferry to another island in the north, but to my great surprise, the ferry which is ALWAYS late left 12 hours early! Island life strikes back. It looked like I was going to be hiking the island for another week, but by my good fortune a French couple had arrived on their sailboat and were bound for the same island that I wanted to get to. After a few minutes of schmoozing, I dropped a hint that I really needed to get a ride off the island and they offered to take me with them, sure to stop at some deserted islands that almost nobody gets to visit- talk about sweetening the package!

My hosts on the sailing adventure

Sure enough, my time on the sea was terrific, and on the first day we pulled in a massive fish that fed us for the two full days of our voyage. They called it a Wahoo, and we prepared it as steaks, sushi, steamed and Sicilian, each time bringing out a new texture and flavor. After being away from seafood for so long I could have eaten it all week! They were on their way to Brazil, and when we pulled into port on the island of Sao Vicente, I was sorely tempted to stay aboard and continue with them across the ocean...after perhaps dropping some more hints that I really needed to get to Brazil!

I have since been more or less stationed in the town of Mindelo, but have ventured to another island called Santo Antao that is known for its vast open spaces and jagged valleys reminiscent of Hawaii. This is the island that really captured my heart the first time I was here, and I have to admit that it did it all over again. In contrast to the barren nature of most of these rain-starved islands, Santo Antao has valleys full of lush vegetation and stream beds intricately engineered to support hydroponic agriculture creating the effect of cascading gardens. I've just returned from 6 days of solitary wandering, finding unique corners that I fantasize are my own and scheming different ways for me to build Cape Verde into my future. There are days when I think of staying, but to do so would mean changing so much about the way that I live and there are still too many things I need to do with my life before I can cut myself off from the rest of the world. Cape Verde isn't going anywhere, I'll know where to find it. I just hope it's the same when I get back.

Landscapes out of Jurassic Park

Never learned to say no to a climb

I may soon be on my way to France, so I am trying to make the most of the next couple of weeks here. There are still a few islands that I haven't seen, and yet others that I have been to that I would like to revisit, so I will have to choose wisely and not waste the precious time I have left. One thing is for sure though, I won't leave disappointed!

Cape Verde Round Two: The north and beyond!

2011-03-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

It's taken me a little while to get this second installation on my time in Cape Verde up on the blog, and a lot of decisions and head scratching have taken place in that time. The fact of the matter is, I was so won over by my experience in Cape Verde that I have decided to move their immediately following the completion of my Peace Corps service and spend about 3 months getting to know these islands better.

Beautiful valleys of Santo Antao, the northernmost island

Dramatic volcanic formations

Villages hug the steep hillsides

Initially, my plan had been to head across Africa on motorcycle, sweeping through West Africa, down the central west African coast to South Africa and finally north along the East African coastline to Tanzania, where I had planned to climb Kilimanjaro. Despite my enthusiasm, my trip was frowned upon by most of my friends and I think my mother had a mild heart attack at the first mention of heading through the Congo. None of this was enough to dissuade me, but one trip to the Cape Verdean islands and I had an irresistible urge to return.

Stunning cliff-lined coastlines are the staple

My plan for the next year has thus dramatically changed in the last few weeks. As of now I will spend 3 months on the Cape Verdean archipelago, bouncing from one island to the other and discovering corners that I missed on my first trip. In July I'll travel to France for a half season of guiding cycling tours with the company that I worked with before coming in to the Peace Corps, and in the fall I hope to return to the African continent to climb Kilimanjaro and perhaps explore the East African coastline to South Africa. There are of course a dozen factors that might derail this plan over the next few months, but for now I am going for it.

The terraced Valley of Paul, where I can't wait to return

Amazing streambed agriculture puts Senegalese practices to shame

There are a number of factors that draw me to Cape Verde, and I think its mix of African culture and flare combined with its familiarity with Western culture is one of the most attractive elements. There is a large Cape Verdean diaspora, with significant emigrant populations in the US, Portugal, Spain, Germany and France therefore most people that you meet have a relative of some kind living abroad and sending remittances home. This creates a strange double standard of course, as locals are often seen wandering around with iPods and flashy phones even while living in relatively low standard housing. Youth are pulled away from these idyllic places with the promise of material goods and the fast lives seen on satellite TV, so the islands suffer a perpetual brain drain.

Shrooms! On donkey dung!

One of the most remarkable impressions for me while I was there was the abundance of natural energy sources that remain largely untapped. The wind blows non-stop, and the sun shines 365 days out of the year, yet the islands remain almost entirely powered by diesel generators, so what gives?? One of my main goals for my time in Cape Verde is to see what potential lies ahead for these islands in terms of renewable energy and determine whether or not there are any opportunities waiting for me. My head is already swimming with ideas, so we'll see where things stand in a couple of months.

The old capital of Mindelo, where I will hopefully live in a couple of weeks

Cape Verde Round One: Fogo

2011-02-24T03:00:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit the African archipelago of Cape Verde, some 500 kilometers off the coast of Senegal, to do some collaborative work with their Peace Corps program, and came back feeling inspired and invigorated. Cape Verde is a place of wide vistas, dramatic and varied landscapes, smooth African music and good natured people. Though the local language is a Portuguese Creole, I was fortunate enough to stay with local volunteers and otherwise get along fine with lots of smiling and hand gestures, with a dash of French/English thrown in too.

My first stop was the island of Fogo, an ancient volcano that remains active and erupts every 15 years or so but mostly minds its manners. My first impression was, "this is Africa?" The streets were clean and paved with beautiful cobbles, the buildings weren't falling over, and I wasn't constantly heckled by calls of 'toubab, toubab' (whitey, whitey, the constant refrain in Senegal). Things only got better as the days went on, and I found myself slowly but surely lulled into an appreciation of these seemingly forgotten islands. Though still undeveloped by western standards, they are far ahead of Senegal, and there is a peace here that we should all be envious of.

A visit to the island of Fogo is incomplete without scrambling up the newly formed volcanic cone and dashing down its rocky slopes in a fantasy land above the clouds. Nestled within the walls of the original volcano, a small town supports a tiny population that somehow manages to grow wine ON THE INSIDE OF THE CRATER! The soil is actually quite suited to growing grapes, and from a seemingly impossible moonscape sprout vines and a small winery even does tastings of their red and white creations. Though not comparable to a fine Bergundy, they hold their own.

Waking at dawn to climb to the top, I was greeted by a sensation that I had practically forgotten about: COLD! Atop the mountain it had actually frozen overnight and in the shadow of the volcano it was a chilly start to the day indeed. As expected, it was all worth it- after a 2 1/2 hour hike, we reached the top to clear blue skies and a truly fantasy-like landscape above the clouds amid the silence of the atmosphere. We toured the extinct cone, still burping sulfurous steam from its yellowy floor, and still had the best part of the day ahead of us- the DESCENT! Essentially a controlled fall, coming down the mountain entails a several hundred meter-long dash on pebble size stones that rise to mid-shin. It is without a doubt the most intense rock slide I've ever experienced, and once we finally reached the bottom all I could think was, "I want to do it again NOW!"

Alas, time was short and we still had to hike 7 kilometers to the coast where we were staying the night, so any thoughts of climbing up again just for one more intense ramble back down was out of the question. Something tells me I haven't seen the last of Mt. Fogo though. After hiking out of the desolate crater, we emerged on the green side of the island, blessed with almost all of the precipitation Fogo sees, and were all of a sudden walking through a mist-filled forest amid giant spiked bromeliads and a dense green forest. Contrast, contrast, contrast, smacking me in the face without pause. We strolled through coffee plantations with banana and papaya trees and ultimately emerged on the coast to a pure blue ocean with a cool inland breeze...from 2829m at the top of Mt. Fogo to the edge of the sea it had been an amazing day.

With three more islands to visit yet and short on time, I sadly said my goodbyes to Fogo and the two great volunteers who had hosted me there, Sarah and Rachel, with my sights on Sao Vicente and Santo Antao, two islands to the north. I had no idea what I was going to find, but you'll have to wait to find out...

Kedougou Tech Training

2011-02-23T03:24:00.000-08:00

Looking down the pipeline to my completion of service with the Peace Corps, I realized it was time to transfer some of the technical capacity for the projects we have started to new volunteers. With that in mind, I organized a three-day technical training for volunteers in other regions and invited them to Kedougou for a few days of hands-on building, installation and promotion. The peace Corps tries to emphasize the sustainability component of its programs, so I felt that this step was really important to ensure that our projects continued to move forward.

Existing Rope Pump Demonstrator at the PC Regional Center

Rocker Pump-off!

Well Cap Preparation for the Rope Pump

Mold assembly for the Rocker Pump

Our focus was on the two pump technologies that I've been using over the last year, the Rope Pump and the Rocker Pump, since there are already other volunteers trained in the assembly of the Universal Nut Sheller. Now that there is a new wave of volunteers trained in the assembly and installation of these devices, I hope to see our work fan out into different regions, and I encouraged them to run with these projects during our final session. We discussed the possibility of doing a 52 pumps in 52 weeks challenge, and two volunteers in the Kaolack and Kolda regions have decided to take this on in the next year. Shout out to Marcy Todd and Garrison Harward for taking on such an ambitious project!

Fully installed Rope Pump

As the following pictures will show, it wasn't all about hard work and blistered hands, and we still made the time to hike to one of our local waterfalls and take in some of the natural beauty that Kedougou has to offer. The countryside is all the more striking at this time of year, as the dusty windswept grassland meets lush stream-side canyons home to howling baboons and even Chimpanzees- though none came out to greet us on this excursion.

It's hard to believe that this will soon be a recent memory and that I will have moved on from my little corner of Senegal, but surely I will feel better knowing that we have put a process in place that will ensure that these projects live on. As I was walking away from the waterfall on our hiking excursion, I turned back at the first bend in the canyon, knowing full well that this could be the last time I see this place, and was hit full on with a wave of loss and nostalgia, which only served to show me how much I came to appreciate my life in Senegal. With little over one month left, I'm gonna make the most of it!

Care for some pizza, Madame Ambassador?

2011-01-24T01:41:00.000-08:00

Alright, I know that I've been getting a lot of mileage out of this pizza oven in my blog posts recently, but I seriously couldn't make this stuff up and it gets better and better. This past weekend, I kid you not, we served the US Ambassador to Senegal in my hut! Not only did she enjoy it, she brought the beer. Madame Ambassador, you are welcome any time.

For the celebration of the Peace Corps 50th anniversary, the US Embassy is producing a film about the work of the Peace Corps in Senegal, to be aired on public television and perhaps in the US. For the past couple of weeks, a film crew circled the country shadowing a few volunteers and I happened to be the last one they visited, which coincided with the Ambassador's trip to our corner of the country. When the film crew got a look at my hut, they decided that they HAD to bring the Ambassador by for a visit, which they did, and when she got wind of the fact that we made pizza there she decided she HAD to come have a slice or two, which she did.

Alex working the ingredient line.

Service was top notch!

What resulted may have been our best Pizza Night yet, with a gaggle of delicious ingredients and excellent company. We are getting pretty close to perfecting the technique with the ovens, now sliding pizzas onto the slab inside using metal paddles, and with two running in tandem we can't roll them out fast enough! The heat inside is intense, and in less than a minute the cheese you've sprinkled on top is bubbling and the ingredients have fused together for a sublime taste. In the end, everyone was stuffed and the Ambassador gave us the honorary title of the best pizza in Senegal!

Building the pizza oven proves to be a sound decision!

Nobody had any fun.

Even more rewarding than the successful pizza night(well, maybe) was the fact that the Ambassador was able to follow us to a couple of villages and see first hand the work that we are doing in the region and the technologies that we have been working with for the last two years. She was very impressed with the impact that these simple machines can have on people's lives and we even had her shelling peanuts on the UNS and pumping water using the new Rocker Water Pump! If we're lucky, well have good footage of her using the Full Belly technologies come March, when the film is supposed to be completed.

Demonstrating the Universal Nut Sheller

With the completion of my service right around the corner, the timing couldn't have been better, and having the Peace Corps Country Director and the US Ambassador both surveying my work, I felt a true sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. The film could be a huge opportunity for our project, and the journalists that came for the documentary suggested that the Minister of Agriculture might be interested in doing a major project with both the sheller and the Rocker Pump once he sees the film. Fortunately, I'm training a new group of volunteers to carry the torch once I'm gone, so with luck this project will live on.

Ambassador Bernicat testing the Rocker Pump

PC Senegal Director Chris Hedrick on the Rocker Pump

Needless to say, it was an exciting week in Kedougou, and not only did we have the Ambassador's visit, we installed two pump systems, placed a Universal Nut Sheller in a new village, and did some endurance testing of the new Rocker Pump- it feels great!

First spout of water!

Completed Rope Pump feeding into an irrigation reservoir (Faraba)

Christmas, New Years, and a Surprise Visit to boot!

2011-01-18T04:58:00.000-08:00

To begin, I feel it's only fair to re-visit the Pizza Oven, which has become one of the more successful points of my service as a Peace Corps volunteer. Over the past few weeks we have tested it exhaustively, with the care and attention that you would expect from a team of highly trained scientists, as we are determined to find the best method of baking Pizza in Senegal.

To illustrate this point, I must tell you that there are now not one but TWO pizza ovens, capable of running in tandem and cranking out delicious pizzas at double the original rate. Indulgent? Perhaps, but after two years of eating nothing but mostly corn mash and rice, it's hard to resist the temptation. We've mastered the thin crust, the deep dish, interchangeably use tomato and white-sauce, pull from a smorgasborg of toppings including tomatoes, onions, peppers, olives, potato, artichoke heart, sausage(pork and cow) and season with fine Italian herbs. When pizza night is announced, people jump into action like termites rebuilding the mound before a big storm.

When my dad was here for his visit just after New Years, we indoctrinated him as soon as possible, and before the night was done he was flipping pizzas over his head like his name was Luiggi and gesticulating with his hands as if he was surrounded by a cloud of flying gnats. Our specialty has become the dessert pizza, and I can safely say that we have a corner on the market with the Nutella/peanut crush/banana combination in this neighborhood. You don't know heaven until you've have a Nutella filled banana served on a pizza dough sled, cooked to perfection in a wood-fired oven, just saying.

Christmas was celebrated in the Kedougou style- heaps of food in the company of good friends and at the cost of several local animals, with everyone dressed up in the proper attire, but the best part of it all was the gift exchange at the end of the night.

Never have I ever seen a White Elephant gift exchange with as much zeal and treachery as the one this past year. Essentially, for those who don't know, it is a method of gifting by which you select a package in order of numbers lifted out of a hat, with the caveat that gifts can be exchanged with other people and you're not exactly guaranteed to like what you get. There are any number of ways that this can go wrong, and I think we chose the

"all of the above" option and it led to nothing but hilarity...perfection. As far as I'm concerned the most important elements of Christmas were there- the Feast, Eggnog, Good people and Good times.

New Years came and went in similar fashion, and the most exciting event of the last couple of weeks was the arrival of my father and the time that we spent together in Kedougou. It all happened far too quickly, but there was just enough time for me to show my dad the highlights of my life here and what it means to live humbly as a Senegalese. We raced around the countryside to visit a variety of different villages, got our hands dirty with a few well pump projects that we are working on in the region, learned how to greet the locals in Wolof, Pulaar and Malinke, and he even became a peanut-cracking professional by the time it was all said and done.

The sad truth is that we wouldn't have had enough time even if he had been here twice as long, but I think we had enough diverse experiences for him to get the essence of my life, even if it was still in the honeymoon period. The most important part of his visit for me was simply the time we had to sit and talk, something we hadn't been able to do for over a year and a half. I won't soon forget enjoying a morning coffee and conversation with my dad in the morning glow of my hut as the sun rises across the valley. We trekked to waterfalls, crisscrossed the bone-dry and dusty landscape on bicycle(FAST, my dad is a beast now), and managed to keep things moving on the work front as well, delivering supplies for projects to three villages and performing the first steps of a Rope Pump installation in two.

My Dad's visit reminded me how quickly the end of my service is approaching, and it made me glad to share some of the experiences that I have had here in a way that is impossible in the words of a blog or the images of a camera. So many things can only be understood if you live them. The next few months of my service will come and go with incredible speed, and I am trying to focus myself on the most important elements on my long list of obligations and work goals to ensure that I leave with a sense of accomplishment and peace. I'm also doing my best to enjoy every last bowl of breakfast porridge, remember the dusty glow that hangs in the air in the afternoon, be unbothered by the 5 a.m. call to prayer, and appreciative of the smell of cow dung.

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship

2010-12-18T12:53:00.000-08:00

There are few things that can take you home like the taste of familiar food, so recently I set out to build a small pizza oven beside my hut so that my fellow volunteers and I could put our artistic and culinary talents to the test. It all started a few months ago as I was watching a baker make local bread in a mud-brick oven in town- it seemed so easy that I knew eventually I would have to make an oven for myself and give it a try. The initial idea took a while to mature, but eventually I decided I could wait no longer, and set to making my oven.

The process itself isn't complicated and is actually a lot of fun- forming and mashing together big globs of mud like it were play dough in a kindergarten classroom. The first step was to create a nice solid base and form the dome with sand in the shape that I wanted- it is important to have a nice rounded roof line to reflect all the heat into the center of the oven. Once the basic shape is prepared, you simply pile clay around it in as uniform a layer as possible and leave a space for the opening, starting from the base and slowly working your way up to the top. After the clay has had a chance to dry for a few days, you come back over with a smooth coat of cement to protect it from the rain and presto- you have an oven!

Last night was our first heat test, and I must say that it went pretty well. We cranked out pizza after pizza and totally stuffed ourselves with American-style deliciousness. The heat was so intense in the center of the oven that it would only take 2 or 3 minutes maximum for the ingredients to fuse together and so we were pulling them out faster than we could eat them! We played around with basic ingredients, mixing cheese, tomatoes, onions and basil with garlic, and even experimented with calzones. Though we had our fill with traditional fare, we broke loose all our creativity with dessert. And it was glorious! The winning combination was a base of Nutella embedded with crushed peanuts and bananas, topped with a drizzle of local honey- I'm not gonna lie, I was still thinking about it when I woke up this morning!

As the title of this post implies, this is only the beginning of a beautiful friendship! The first round was such a success that we have planned a major pizza fest for Christmas Eve, and I have a feeling that this oven is going to see a lot of good use in the next few months. Dominos was a little too slow on delivery, see what they forced us into!

Getting Pumped up Again

2010-12-12T07:11:00.000-08:00

So about this time last year I started experimenting with a pump design that would effectively pull water from shallow wells called the Rope Pump. With the help of a generous family in Wilmington, we were able to install a pump at the elementary school in my home village of Khossanto, and now we are on the cusp of doing many, many more. The bulk of my energy in the past year has been invested in the Universal Nut Sheller project, but before I leave at the end of March I want to have contributed a significant amount of time to water access projects in the region. To this end, I have renewed my efforts with the Rope Pump, and will soon start promoting a new technology from the Full Belly Project called the Rocker Water Pump.

A very happy neighbor

Our first project was at our neighbor's house, Kaly Bindia. He is the Peace Corps handyman in Kedougou, and we call on him regularly to help us at the regional house with a variety of things, so I thought it was only appropriate for us to help him and his family out in a small way. He, of course, was thrilled, and helped with the entire installation. With the help of a few volunteers and a lot of happy spectators, we put the pump together in a couple of hours to a finale of whooping and laughter. He was so happy when it was all said and done that he gave us a duck, and we honored his gift by making it into a delicious duck noodle soup that night! Never have I been so close to the whole process of preparing a meal.

Serious teamwork

We now have a line-up of about 10 rope pump projects in the region, and they will be for an assortment of individuals, schools, womens groups and community gardens that just need a little help pulling water. I have trained the local metal smith who was so instrumental in the Universal Nut Sheller project, and he will soon be trained in all steps of assembly, installation, and reparation.

First taste of water!

In due time we will also start distributing the new Rocker Pump designed by the Full Belly Project in Wilmington. Our first tests were really exciting, and it could be a great design to implement in large garden projects and there has already been a lot of interest from a few partner organizations that have stopped by the Peace Corps center to ask questions and see how these things work. While I was in Dakar I bought enough supplies to do an initial run of about 15 pumps, and hopefully if our test sites receive good reviews we will try to roll them out in even greater numbers. As of right now, it's still in the testing phase, but soon I'll be able to comment more on its actual effectiveness. I just hope it turns out as many ducks as the last one!

The Installation Team

First Tests with the Rocker Pump

Adventure Comes at a Price

2010-12-01T08:17:00.001-08:00

Yesterday officially marked the third Thanksgiving that I have spent away from friends and family in the States. Though I’ve always found good company on my favorite holiday of the year, first with fellow backpackers in the capital of Bulgaria and the last two in the company of Peace Corps volunteers in Kedougou, there is an unrelenting tug for the comfort of home on that day.

Though I have immensely enjoyed the last few years of travel and adventure since graduation, the reality is that it comes at a cost, the cost of being distant to those that you care about. Since I cherish my personal connections, this has slowly become a smoldering issue. All the more since I seem bent on remaining footloose for the foreseeable future! Not only will I embark on a major overland tour of Africa after I end my stint with the Peace Corps next spring, I’ve been accepted into a Masters program in New Zealand beginning early 2012, which will only drag me to another far corner of the world for two more years.

Without intending to add undue weight to this post, my grandmother past away last week, only heightening the awareness of my absence in the United States. By living abroad I am constantly introduced to new and exciting experiences, stimulated by things I would never know in the States, and yet I still pine for the hugs from my mom, the good coffee conversation with my Dad and the nights out with my best friends. I can only say now that I will work harder to have both in my life. So here I make a pledge to break the streak next year and spend Thanksgiving with my family- if three in a row isn’t too many than four certainly is!

Despite my moaning, we had an exceptional feast at the Peace Corps house that deserves recognition. With 10 chickens and 5 ducks roasted up for about 20 people, we can say with authority that nobody went hungry! Add to that the sides of mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, heaps of stuffing and an endless stream of cakes and pies, and we were all borderline comatose before a night of revelry even had a chance. We might be stranded in the backwoods of Senegal, but it sure felt like America to me!

2010-11-21T07:43:00.000-08:00

These guys are amazing. There's more than one way to pour a concrete slab on the third floor.

Dakar Concrete Workers

2010-11-21T07:32:00.000-08:00

When you have no pumps, there's nothing like twenty strong guys with shovels to get the job done! I took this short video from the Peace Corps headquarters in Dakar on my way to a lunch meeting and found them doing the same thing when I got back a couple hours later...incredible.

The mysterious case of the sheep on the roof

2010-11-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

The Muslim holiday of Tabaski is right around the corner, and it generates as much frenzy in Senegal as Christmas does in the US, only here the big centerpiece of their meal is a sheep instead of a turkey. For the few weeks leading up to Tabaski, transport vehicles around the country are loaded with sheep and piled high with goods to sell at market, which certainly makes for a strange sight as you roll down the road. These are a few of the images that made me laugh in the past week.

The Midnight Shellers

2010-11-14T12:22:00.000-08:00

In a continuation of the UNS trainings in the region, I took a sheller to the communities of Diarra Pont and Salemata this week to show off its capabilities. Both are beautiful villages surrounded by foothills leading to the Guinean border, and both rely heavily on subsistence agriculture. Since I've moved into Kedougou, I get cravings to be back in the village where life is slow and simple, so spending a couple of days out in the countryside was exactly what I needed.

Being in these small communities also made me remember one of the strangest features of village life: villagers never sleep. After getting up with the sun and sending all day in the their fields during the harvest, you'd expect them to return home and collapse in exhaustion. Not so. After a quick communal dinner, women and men alike sit up until the wee hours of the morning talking and making tea. It's for this reason that I shouldn't have been in the least surprised when our first demonstration didn't start until 9:00 at night under flashlight! With the help of my friend and fellow volunteer Ian Hartman, we walked them through the operation of the UNS, talked about its potential in the village, and explained the tremendous impact that it could have in the village. But the villagers were most interested to see it in action, and half the women of the village had brought the peanuts they didn't want to shell by hand this week- the result being that we were at it until 11:00 at night!

The following day we joined forces with volunteer Steve Sullivan in the Salemata market town, where we were sure to get a big audience. Throughout the morning people would walk by with intrigue on their faces and once we started shelling away their questions were unstoppable. We ended the day with many people wanting to buy it outright, and we decided to sell this demonstration model to the primary school in Steve's village of Kekeresi, where they will use it to generate a small income for the school as people in the community come to shell their peanuts for a small fee. I was really lucky to have Ian and Steve along to help translate into Pulaar, the local language west of Kedougou that I haven't been adept enough to pick up in the last 6 months! As we continue to push the UNS further and further in these communities, help from other volunteers is essential. Thanks again guys.

UNS on the Road

2010-11-10T02:49:00.001-08:00

Since my return from France, we've been on a major push to promote the Universal Nut Sheller in the region as we approach the peanut harvest. In collaboration with my fellow volunteers in the region, we have been bringing communities together to test, examine and play with the UNS,

with positive reactions all around. Everyone is really impressed by its performance, however it's a difficult time of year to scrape funds together for most of the individuals and families that we

talk to about it. Usually, I hear a similar refrain, "this machine is amazing, and the women in the village would love to have it, but

it is a bad time of year for us to buy it- maybe in a few months when the harvest is in and we have more money."

This, despite the fact that the machine is very affordable and we have even lowered the price twice since we've started producing it due to efficiency gains in the manufacturing process. For a family or group of women to buy a machine, they would have to put together about $60, which is nothing when you consider the time savings that it would deliver and the number of people that it would affect(1 hour with the UNS vs. 40 hours by hand, serving several hundred people). Nonetheless the fact remains the same- they can still shell peanuts by hand, and during the 'starving season', as this time of year is called, buying a sac of rice is more important than a machine made of concrete.

The response of a village can be overwhelming. I did a demonstration in a village called Bembou nearly a week ago in which they broke out their drums, danced around the UNS as we were doing the demonstration, and sang my praises for a good 15 minutes before letting me go! The women of the village were especially jubilant, and assured me that as soon as the harvest came in, I could count on them buying at least one for the village, if not several.

For now we are content to keep pushing the knowledge of the machine into the region with the hopes that it will eventually take off on its own accord. We have made great strides in other regions as well, distributing 10 UNS in the central region of Kaolack, with preparations for a second round under way. A few volunteers have been doing little advertisements for it on the radio in the local language, and every time the word is spread in the community the more familiar people become with "the new peanut sheller." After another demonstration in the town of Diarra Pont this afternoon, we're going to set up a stand in the market town of Salemata to drive more interest in the region west of Kedougou, and on and on it goes!

60,000 Pedal Strokes Later

2010-11-08T04:00:00.000-08:00

Fearless (or foolish) road warriors

To mark the arrival of Halloween, a fellow volunteer and I decided to embark on a bike trip that would scare the wits out of most people- a 232 kilometer(144 miles) ride in one day through the national park, home to lions seen crossing the road all the time! To make the distance in one day, we had to get ourselves up at 4 am and ride out in the dark, equipped with 4 kilos of bananas, countless energy bars, lots of oral re-hydration salts and a healthy stock of foolhardy good thoughts!

Baboons!

Though I've been crisscrossing the park for the past couple of years, I have yet to see one of the lions that roam the park, feasting on a cornucopia of baboons, warthogs, bushbuck and a wide variety of smaller game. And although I curse my luck for still not seeing one, this was a day that I really didn't want to make any acquaintances. To that end we made a lot of decisions to keep us out of the park in the prime hunting times of day- dawn and dusk. We also made some necessary purchases to be sure that we'd have what we needed to fend off any man eaters we might run across- a massive Bowie knife and some firecrakers(more of a psychological safety net than anything else). Fortunately for us, the time to use these measures never came, and the most fearsome wildlife we came across were mooing at us.

Bananas and peanut butter, our energy lifeblood

We realized that perhaps the greatest challenge to our attempt to cross the park would simply be staying hydrated and keeping our energy levels up, so we established a system to force each other to drink and eat on a regular basis. As the title of this post suggests, we estimated that we would pedal anywhere between 60-65,000 strokes during the day- which requires a whole lot of energy and even more water and electrolytes to feed the muscles. Every time one of us took a sip from our Camelbacks, the other was obligated to do the same to a chant of "drink", even if it was on a few seconds later, and each hour we stopped for 5-10 minutes to gobble down a couple banana/honey/peanut butter sandwiches.

Drink!

All in all our efforts paid off, and we made it through the day without any clawmarks on our calves nor any muscle cramps to slow us down. After 13 hours and 34 minutes, 232 kilometers and a veritable heap of sandwiches and energy bars, we pulled into the Peace Corps regional house in Tambacounda just before the final glow of hazy sunlight disappeared from the sky. Ahead of schedule and still with a reserve of energy, we were nonetheless happy to reminisce over the events of the day with a cold beer and retreat to our pillows at an early hour! Next time, I suggested, we'd go for the 300 kilometer barrier, Zack said simply, "good luck."

The sign reads, "Caution, Wild Animals"

We took the advice very seriously

Wild animals indeed!

Home Sweet Home

2010-10-10T06:47:00.000-07:00

After nearly a full month of R&R in France, I've arrived back in one piece and am already sweating profusely! I returned with suitcases full of wine, cheese and other goodies from France to offer to my friends in Kedougou, and when I get back down south we are going to have a big gourmet extravaganza.My time in France was an incredible renewal, yet I felt confused and discombobulated as my new cultural identity that has grown in Senegal was thrust against the person I am in the 'west.' Constantly aware of the differences in the two cultures, even a simple trip to the grocery store was a moment of sensory-overload! Everything that I was experiencing in France was so rich in opposition to the way that Senegal is so poor- tastes, sights, smells- I was constantly stimulated. Equally stunning was how easy everything felt.

Life in the west is just easy! We have everything we could possibly need at our disposition and the things that we equate with hardship are so far dislodged from an objective value scale that we scarcely see the bounty of our lives. I sure saw it in France!

I didn't have the time to post a blog before I left for France, so I wanted to dedicate this one to a brief update of the last couple of months altogether. Sadly, one of my best friends in Senegal is now embarking on a new chapter. I am happy for Sheila as she moves on from Peace Corps life, but I will miss here a lot in the coming months. The picture above is the two of us near here village, where she did a lot of work with wells before heading off. Sheila was

always up for an adventure, and we have a standing date for some horseback riding in Patagonia...I hope that day comes.

One last adventure I embarked on before heading off to France was a float down the Gambia river as a test run for a longer trip we had discussed doing as a group. On a simple catamaran made of small oil drums and lashed together with bamboo and rope, I cruised about 23 kilometers down the river in search of hippos, gators and close calls with death! Unfortunately, none of those things presented themselves, though I did get caught in a massive thunderstorm, saw lots of monkeys scampering along the riverbank and managed to make friends with some local fisherboys who thought I was a monster coming straight out of the river to get them!

I hope to pot more on my time in France once I get some photos downloaded, and then it's back to full work mode here in Senegal. A bientot!

Dessert, Kedougou Style!

2010-09-07T03:52:00.000-07:00

I tagged this video on my Facebook page a few weeks ago, but forgot to link it here, so just in case you didn't see it there, enjoy!

Let's Speak English!

2010-08-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

Almost every American child has a camp experience of some sort at least once in their youth. Here we learn ridiculous games, the importance of teamwork and honesty, build amazing friendships, and sing lots of corny songs. This is something that most Senegalese youth would never understand and never have the chance to experience in their young lives. With the help of the US Embassy, we had the opportunity to make summer camp a reality for a couple hundred deserving Senegalese students in some of the under-served neighborhoods of Dakar and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Most of us take it for granted that we know how to win a three-legged race or the right strategy for tug-of-war, but it was amazing to see students playing these games for the first time with nothing but unabashed and unchecked energy. Throughout the week, we engaged them with a combination of indoor and outdoor activities designed to keep them speaking English, understanding American culture and mostly just having fun. It was my first experience as a camp counselor, and I found it really rewarding- not to mention that I felt like a middle-schooler all week as I joined in with the games and general hilarity of our activities. At the beginning of the week they all assumed American names, and due to the personalities they know from pop culture, we were in the presence of Jet-li, Shakira, Jay-Z and Beyonce all week!

Something that I appreciated immensely was the lack of self-consciousness on the part of the Senegalese students. They were unafraid to try new things, confident in their abilities and not in the least bit shy when asked to sing in front of the class or perform a skit in front of all their peers. One of the greatest challenges was focusing their overflowing energy on a certain task, especially concerning trust activities, where we had students lifted completely overhead and spun around, relying on their friends to keep them from falling.

By far my favorite day of the week was when we held a mini-Olympics, challenging the different teams with a series of activities including sac races, three-legged races, water balloon relays, hoola-hoop races, and a final blowout game of dodgeball. The day was full of nothing but smiles, and though there was serious competition at hand, there was an air of friendly encouragement between teams. At one point we broke out in an impromptu water-balloon fight, and the pandemonium that followed was reminiscent of the crowd running from a stampede of bulls in Pamplona. I may never get to perform my duties as camp counselor again, but remembering all the fun I had as a young camper, I'm glad I had the chance to pay it forward.

Reactions to a tug-of-war battle; see major drama at left

Touring with the UNS!

2010-08-13T04:59:00.000-07:00

It's been about 15 days since I last saw the hills of Kedougou, and I'm itching to return home. Beginning in late July, I left the greenery of the south to promote the Universal Nut Sheller to other Peace Corps volunteers and their interested work partners in several regions in the north and west. The initial run was a success, and we had enough interest to leave demonstration models in all 4 regions we visited. Already, one volunteer in the center of the country has held a follow-up interest meeting with about 50 locals and women's groups who were eager to test the new technology.

The training schedule was very tight, and we would typically do a training in the morning, followed by a 4-5 hour drive to the next destination in time to set everything up for the following day's demonstration, for 5 consecutive days. It was a very busy week, and admittedly exhausting. Still, I was happy to be on the road, actively promoting the project that we have been working hard at for the past several months. The next phase in the project is to promote more actively and concentrate on trainings as opposed to construction. I feel confident that the workshop we installed in Kedougou is sure on its feet, and now it is up to them to market, promote and produce them individually. This, in turn, will allow me to extend the technology to other regions.

I especially had fun when we would stop in random communities on the way from one training to the next and do a demonstration for a village here and there. In a matter of minutes we would have a crowd of villagers surrounding us with curious stares and eager glances. Everyone wanted a chance to try it themselves, and eventually we had to quickly load it back into the car and drive away before people got too excited! THIS IS WHAT I LOVE.

For love of the bike

2010-07-20T09:54:00.005-07:00

For those of you who might have been concerned that my life has turned into nothing but the droll office cubicle routine since moving to Kedougou, I wanted to create a post that would reassure you that I still find the time to get out into the amazing surroundings and enjoy life. The photos that follow are from a short bike trip that a few buddies and I went on just before the 4th of July. 4 days and 3 nights of madness ensued.

The Lads

On the African savana...

Not all roads are created equal

The velo trail

Low-key excitement

Local celebrity

Awesome flora in the rainy season

Cooking hut

The prodigal son of Senegal

Being humbled by the locals

Our only wash stop of the trip

The gang on the roll

Amazing trees in the village of Youkounkoun

Camping Light

Too much confidence= the only one to fall

Our one river crossing...a couple weeks later and it wouldn't be so easy

More Scenery

Overall, it was a great trip. And the best part about it is that we arrived back in Kedougou just in time for a blowout 4th of July party...to make all our hard work worth it.

Rain, rain, (don't) go away

2010-07-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

The midnight skies above the Guinean border

Ahh, it's the rainy season again and am I ever glad about it. Though I still have a leaky roof and have to dodge water droplets in my sleep, the greenery of the landscape and the cool evening temperatures far outweigh the small inconveniences. The strength and power of some of these storms is impressive, yet they're generally short-lived and restrict themselves to evenings and early mornings. The occasional storm will lazily hang around until noon, offering the perfect excuse to lay around and read all morning with a full cup of coffee.

Early morning shower

Another reality of these mighty storms is their interference with the communication towers that bring us the joy of the internet, hence the long delay since my last posting. Towers are affected by lightning strikes, and just last week the radio tower in town was actually blown right over with some of the more forceful gusts- a testament to the rigor of Senegalese construction practices. Overall, though, it is nice to be separated from the cyber world on occasion, for it thrusts you back into a time when things were less complicated.

My hut in its new green setting

I had to post some pictures of the landscape in its new skin. After the months of dreary brown and tan, the first rains of the season feel like deliverance. Only a few rains later and everything is covered in a blanket of green- but a green unlike any other you've seen. I think I've called it nuclear green before, and I stand by that description, for it seems unnatural in its vibrancy. That hue only lasts a few days, however, and then the all-out fervor of everything to GROW bursts forth in a hundred other versions of 'green.' It is spectacular.

Out lightning hunting

I've taken to sitting out on stormy evenings and enjoying the lightning shows in the distance. Often times storms will skirt just out of reach of our region and hug the border with Guinea, our southern neighbor. There, far enough away that the thunder is barely audible, they blast away at the sky with lightning bolts in a silent show of force. Trying to capture this show on film is a new challenge. Though it's technically near the end of summer, it feels like spring here, and life is good. Enough on play- more on work and projects in the next post.

Back to Work!

2010-06-17T03:52:00.000-07:00

The past month has been a busy one. The onset of the rainy season has brought green back into the landscape, and I had forgotten the intensity that some of these storms can unleash. The first rain of the season was thunderous and mighty, and completely swamped the workshop I had built at the Peace Corps training center to start assembling the Universal Nut Sheller on a large scale. Realizing that it was impossible to continue working there, I was thrown ahead of schedule and moved into the workspace of a local metalsmith who I had long discussed the project with.

Now that we are in the new space, things couldn't be better. We have already molded 20 new shellers, and fully assembled and welded 10. Our first sale came from a man who happened to swing by the workshop one afternoon and see us working. He is from a region half way across the country, and transporting one of these shellers home will be challenging for him, but he was so intrigued that he had to have one ASAP. He now wants to return to his home region and find another metalsmith who can launch a production line down there.

Another technology that I have long anticipated working with is the Rope Pump, and we are finally ready to start identifying host communities. Saliou Kante, the metalsmith, has just finished assembling 3 new pumps, and as soon as we have found the right locations we will start putting them to good use. As of right now I am extremely proud of the work of the guys at the workshop, who are now fully trained in the molding and assembly of the machines and will soon be an independent enterprise. Once they are completely independent my work load will shift from construction manager to road warrior and promoter, taking the UNS to villages and even into other regions. Once the demand has reached a certain point, I am sure that word of mouth alone will bring in more requests than this little workshop will be able to keep up with.

The Bedik...Fuzzy Wuzzies?

2010-05-26T00:05:00.000-07:00

Not long after my adventure with the Basari, I was invited to yet another local festival by a completely different tribe known as the Bedik. Comparing the two experiences, I have a hard time saying which culture fascinated me more. The bedik live in far flung highland villages with minute populations and extremely difficult living conditions for reasons that are none too apparent. It takes spending a day with these people, dancing, drinking millet wine and lazing away the afternoon to understand why they stay as far away from Western influences as they can. The village that we visited was called Ethiowar, with a population of about 50-60 people and perched upon a rocky outcrop overlooking the plains separating Kedougou from the Guinean border.

The "masks" of the Bedik captured my imagination immediately. They are covered head-to-toe in a costume of leaves, tightly packed to hide any skin whatsoever and their legs and arms are painted in a white dust. We arrived just as the action was getting under way, and all of the villagers were huddled around the dancing fuzzy wuzzies under the protection of two massive baobabs that stand in the middle of the family compounds. The festival is a celebration of the upcoming rainy season and the plantings that are about to begin, so millet beer is prepared in large quantities several days in advance so there is an air of abundance and plenty throughout the day as people consume cup after cup of the thick brew. It's thick enough to resemble some sort of alcoholic soup, yet less potent than the honey wine of the Basari, so you can drink with less anticipation of falling down! As you can see in the photo, even the kids are encouraged to drink!

The kids were still hopped up on their own recent initiations and throughout the day ran through the village savagely whipping each other with stout wooden switches. The severity of the blows was enough to make me wince, yet none of the boys even seemed to flinch when they were whipped. A favorite tactic was creeping up behind an unsuspecting friend and going after the calves with full gusto, just to see if the reaction was good enough. I was tempted to join in just for the experience, but soon realized that once I joined the fray I wouldn't be able to get out until I had traded blows with all the village boys...and I was wearing shorts. Fortunately my companion for the day talked me out of it.

Despite the magnificence of the Bedik warriors, the intricate jewelry and costumes of the women were by far the most impressive part of the day. Dressed in their finest and covered in jewelry, they are truly a sight to behold. Some had as many as 15-20 rings on a single ear, and their hair had been woven with seashells and metal ringlets. The elderly were sure to take part as well, and though they weren't as willing to get up and dance all day long, they sat in the shade of the Baobabs and talked amongst themselves, contended by the smooth millet beer. All their lives they have lived on this rocky hideout and their wrinkles spoke of countless initiations and festivals of the past. For them, time seemed inconsequential.

We returned to Kedougou at dusk, and as we left the party raged on without us. Not even 15 miles away from electricity and running water, eschewing the comforts of the modern world creeping in around them, the Bedik were content. It's on days like these that I question my place as an agent of change in this society. What influence are we truly having on these people, and can we really be so sure that our way is better than theirs? I haven't had enough time to figure that one out, and can't tell you if I ever will, but there are certainly no hard and fast rules about what leads to a full life. For now it's enough to share in this culture and pretend as though I'm playing a part in it, but before I know it I'll be gone, an outsider once again.

The Basari, revisited

2010-05-17T00:18:00.001-07:00

The path to the village of Eganga

Imagine that you are surrounded by a pack of young men adorned in war paint and wielding blunt swords, yelping at the top of their lungs and whistling in your ear with piercing volume. They're pumped up on adrenaline and honey wine, and you're one of three white people in their tiny home village, lost in the wilderness of Senegal...seem intimidating? You might think so, but reality has a much gentler face. After all, most of these young men are nervous beyond their wit's end, knowing that on the next day they will have to face off with the spiritual figures known as "the masks" and hopefully cross into manhood. The honey wine has made them loopy and indolent, and most are wandering around smiling uncontrollably and bumping into each other...

The festivities that I am describing are the annual rights of passage of the Basari tribe, a group of Christian animists in the hills bordering Guinea who blend their traditional beliefs with the more recent ideas of Christianity, which suit them well. Each year, the young men of the village must face off with "the masks," usually an older brother or a cousin, hidden behind a terrifying costume that conceals their identity completely. Large, muscular, and smeared with a reddish body paint, they look fearsome indeed. The ceremonies entail two or three days of drunken celebration, culminating in the battle for manhood, followed by more drinking. Basically nobody goes home until all the wine has been consumed, more pedaled in from neighboring villages, cheaper liquors imbibed, and everything polished off. On rough backwoods trails, you can't overestimate the value of a good bicycle delivery man!

"The masks"

Generally the Basari hold one large initiation for all the young men of the region, but on years where there aren't enough to justify a large gathering, individual villages will initiate their own in a more intimate event. It has also become something of a recognized tourist attraction, and last year's event was much larger and colorful, but we were amongst the hoard of 'toubabs' (white people). This year, it was only three of us, and we had been invited by the village chief.

Young initiates

From the moment we arrived at the chief's hut, we were treated like a part of the family. Chairs were brought out, warm greetings were exchanged, and, most importantly, we were given our own personal cups of honey wine, never to go empty for the rest of the day! The local variety of honey wine is very potent. It is prepared in clay pots and the fermentation only takes a few days, it's alcohol content getting progressively more concentrated. It is very sweet, hits you like a ton of bricks, and goes straight to your head. And the locals absolutely drink like fish. All day long I felt like I was simply struggling to stay vertical, and as we stumbled around the village from compound to compound, everyone wanted to share their own home brew to show their gratitude for our attendance, so any progress on emptying the cup was immediately reversed. At some point during the day a family we were visiting ran out of wine, but couldn't bare to have us go thirsty, so they broke out a plastic bottle of gin that had been carted over from Guinea...I think I may have partially lost consciousness at this point.

The general vibe of the day

The day passed in something of a hazy, blurry fuzz, and the whistling and yelping in the village really gained steam in the afternoon. It's a sound that is difficult to describe; a rhythmic and constant undulation of whistles, drums and bells attached to the heels of the warriors. As night fell to an overcast sky filled with faraway lightning, the only sensation to hold on to was the sounds of celebration bouncing from hut to hut. Slowly but surely fatigue overcame us, and we fell one by one on the mats that had been pulled outside for us. In retrospect, last year's festival was much more spectacular in terms of scale and pomp, but this year's much more authentic, more true to form. This time around we were much closer to experiencing the initiation as it has occurred for hundreds of years, and maybe, just maybe, next year we'll be allowed to don the warrior garb and join the fray with the rest of them!

If we don't look three sheets to the wind, we are!

The last of the thatch!

2010-05-13T05:17:00.000-07:00

HUT COMPLETION!

2010-05-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report that Dominique put on the last of the thatching two days ago and paved the way for me to move into my new hut! It seemed a bit like the home stretch of a marathon at the end, with my hopes mounting with each passing day, yet my nerves building as we approached the finish line. The Senegalese work ethic is not exactly on par with the Western standard, and your average work day is about half as long as what we would expect in the US. From about 8 am to noon, work advances at a sleepy pace, and once the sun reaches its apex in the sky, you break for the day. I couldn't help but be a bit frustrated by this, as I would start work early in the morning, then finish late in the afternoon, once the heat of the day had subsided. My colleagues, however, weren't planning on changing their habits on my account!

The Loft

Nonetheless, it gave me the chance to work on the details that have made the hut what it is. The loft has been poured and makes for an ideal relaxation area up above, the stairs are finished, with small shelves built into the side for storage, and just today I finished installing a desk nook where I can tuck away and do some work. All in all I am extremely pleased with how it all turned out, and hopefully it won't be too hard to part with it at the end of the year. I plan to enjoy it as much as I can before then!

The main interior space

My desk space

Pouring the concrete floor

2010-05-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

Dominique, my thatcher

2010-05-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

Wondows and Doors are on, Thatch's coming along

2010-05-03T07:18:00.000-07:00

The loft almost ready for concrete

2010-05-03T07:17:00.000-07:00

Stairs, that's right, stairs

2010-05-03T07:15:00.000-07:00

Thatch Roof Lattice

2010-05-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

How to build a hut, Basari Style

2010-04-25T02:47:00.001-07:00

As I approach the one-year mark of my Peace Corps commitment here in Senegal, there are a number of changes in the works that will dramatically alter my service. The most important change is that I will be moving out of my initial host village, Khossanto, and into the regional capital of Kedougou, in order to pursue the Universal Nut Sheller project more seriously. It was a difficult decision to make, as I was just beginning to meld quite nicely with my host family, my Malinke was getting noticabely more fluid, and the mango orchard was full of fruit! Nonetheless, making the move to Kedougou will allow me to be far more effective in my work than I ever could have been in Khossanto. I will have non-stop access to the metal smiths I am working with and will no longer be slowed down by long gaps without communication.

As I began the house search in my new town, a work partner suggested that we build a hut on a piece of land he had recently bought, allowing me to rent it for the next year, at which point he would take it back. This sounded to me like a win-win. He would supply the materials, and I would have free reign to build in whatever style I wanted, stretching the boundaries of traditional Senegalese architecture. At first the piece of property didn't look like much, essentially a field of stones and scraggly shrubbery, but with consistent day by day effort, it has finally taken some shape.

Instead of cursing the stony and boulder-leaden landscape, I decided to make the best use of what I had and build my hut in the style of a local tribe called the Basari, who make beautiful, round huts of stacked stones. I first dug into the hillside to level the spot I had chosen, then started pushing boulders. It has been rewarding work, but arduous, and every day I come back to the Peace Corps training center(my temporary digs) exhausted and sore.

The whole prospect of building my own humble home was very exciting to me, and I spent days just drawing out little sketches, trying to imagine what it would be like one way or another, deciding how I should orient it and how to accent certain features. In the end I decided on a very non-traditional design that blends local and western design concepts. Maintaining a round shape and a thatch roof, I put in lots of windows to create a breezy interior(7 windows total!) and two doors to create a cross current of air. The windows even boast arches, and the three on the upper story are round! To maximize space, I built in a half-loft so that I can sleep upstairs and liberate the understory. This lead to a staircase that slides up one wall, guaranteed to be the only one in Senegal. The locals keep approaching the hut during the day in surprise and wonder, having never seen anything like it.

Slowly but surely the hut has made progress, and just two days ago we lifted the frame of the roof onto the circular walls. With a team of about 15 Peace Corps volunteers and local boys, everyone gathered around and lifted the bamboo lattice in one united effort, never faltering until it lay perched and perfectly centered on its stone walls. The windows and doors should be done in a day or two, and pouring the concrete floor remains one of the last few touches keeping me from moving in. The well digger has been at it for a few days, and as soon as he hits water I'll be able to get a garden started and map out the rest of my yard to maximize my water use and avoid any unnecessary runoff.

Soon the rains will arrive(a couple of early showers already have!) and when they do I'll be able to watch them swoop in across the river valley before they reach my hut and deliver a nice big cool blast of air. Next on the order of business is a smaller storage hut for bikes and tools, and maybe even a little pizza oven to spice up our weekends here. With all this new space, I just need more visitors, ahem, ahem.

Hot Season's Back, Hair's gotta go

2010-04-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

With the onset of the hot season, the hair that I had worked so hard to grow over the last year proved to be too much to bare. As the temperatures crept up and over 115 degrees, the sense in having hair draped over the back of my neck made less and less sense. Tying it back in a ponytail proved somewhat effective, but in the end I was just tired of the maintenance and decided it was time to return to my roots.

The impetus for the long-hair challenge was something of a bet that I had made with a friend in the States before leaving for the Peace Corps, and I had been bent on fulfilling my two-years of service without so much as a pair of nail clippers coming close to my head. All year long other volunteers questioned my sanity in the heat of Senegal, but I was determined to hold strong... in the end though, my confidence waned, my spirit broke, and I succumbed to the blade.

I can't say that I didn't have fun on the long-hair foray. It was as if I had transformed into a new person at times, and having long hair seemed to give me a new persona. Surfing had so much more style as I whipped my hair to the side...but in the end the limitations outweighed the fun.

Soccer became more difficult as I struggled to see where I was going. Searching for a way to tie my hair back became a permanent art of my day. Going for a run became a whole new experience, as 5 pounds of hair went swishing back and forth on every step. Now that I'm back to my old self, everything feels lighter, I can wake up in the morning and be ready to go in a dash. 2 minute showers are now a reality once again, and conditioner is a thing of the past. I can't say that I'll never grow it long again, but for now and the near future, short is in!

The Youth of Khossanto Rise Up

2010-04-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

After months of inaction in the village of Khossanto, the youth of the village were fed up with the state of things. They took to the streets with stones and logs, setting tires ablaze and even attacking a car that tried to make a run on their makeshift barricade, severely wounding the man inside. They were fed up with the gold mining company down the road, whose passing trucks cover the village in dust every day and whose promises for social equity aren't respected. Their middle school, expected to be completed in 3 months with funding from the mining company, had entered its 18th month of construction, with no workmen on site in half a year. Meanwhile, asthma and other respiratory problems are becoming more and more common in the village due to the massive dust clouds kicked up by passing trucks.

The company in question, Sabodala Gold Operations SA, is sitting on a gold reserve of 3.5 million ounces of gold, valued at approximately $4 Billion Dollars. How much is dedicated to the local community? A social find was established to keep some of the wealth from these mines in the local economy, valued at $500,000 a year(one thousandth of the value of the deposit), but the truth is that beyond the first year, these funds never make it to the local population. As the Senegalese government is a 10 percent stakeholder in the project, and they are comfortable in the capital 700 kilometers away, the dust in Khossanto is of no bother for them.

This is a true crisis and problem for the locals. They are underrepresented, powerless against a behemoth with the backing of the government, and chronically ignored. The mining operations have a lifespan of 10-15 years and are destroying the natural environment with no regard for the surrounding populations. This story has already been played out hundreds of times across the world, but it is amazing to see it up close.

For the youth of Khossanto, the options are limited yet their minor rebellion proved effective. A few logs and burning tires can more or less cut the mine off from the outside world, and without their trucks carrying fuel, food and supplies, their operation would cease to function. Funds have been released to complete the middle school, and the mining operation has promised to pave the road that traverses the village. These are band-aides; insufficient measures to shut up the locals and continue with business as usual, yet steps forward nonetheless. It is hard to say if justice will ever truly come to the people of Khossanto, and until that day they will continue to be mislead by the mines, ignored by the local government, bribed into silence with paltry gifts and forced to go on with their lives while their environment is destroyed around them and their natural wealth exported to foreign markets.

The major instigators of the incident

How do you say "you're blind" in Malinke?

2010-03-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

Over the past two weeks the volunteers in the Kedougou region and several visiting volunteers from the northern parts of Senegal assisted in the Right to Sight clinic provided by US ophthalmologists who offered their services free of charge. Our duty was to translate into local languages the complex and sometimes very difficult details regarding their sight, leading us all to find innovative ways to describe certain afflictions.

There is no easy way to tell someone that they have Glaucoma, and even in English it's hard to describe to a patient that increased pressure on the optic nerve was causing an irreversible loss of vision. As I learned from a more experienced Malinke speaker, you have to find a way to describe such things more creatively. To break it down into vocabulary that we and our patients are familiar with, the explanation goes something like this: "so there is a road that travels from your head to your eye, and that road conveys blood so that your eye can work. Unfortunately, that road was cut, and blood hasn't traveled to your eye in a long time. Because there was no blood going to your eye, it died. We cannot fix this road, and your eye will never get better, I am sorry."

It is painful to tell someone that their eyesight is gone forever. Most take it in stride, having already lived without their vision for several years, but some are devastated. The prospect of Western doctors who can fix anything tends to lift their expectations, and when there is nothing we can do for them, they are rightfully crushed. One father came in with his 18 year old son, who was completely blind in one eye and losing sight in the other- neither were operable. He asked us over and over again if there was anything we could do, and all we could tell him was that we were sorry. I don't think he was consoled by our apologies, and that night I dwelt on his pleading eyes and the image of them leaving the hospital arm in arm, and considered long and hard the life that his son must now live, with no sight, no government support, no hope for a job, and, in this culture, almost no hope for a wife and family. Blindness is difficult for anyone, and we had to turn many people away who had lost their sight indefinitely, but most were old, and had already lived through the prime years of their lives. He is only 18.

The flip side of this coin was experiencing the joy of those to whom we were able to restore sight. Post-operative interviews were a thrill, and we were thanked over and over again, given firm handshakes and wide grins, for they could see again! Cataract surgery was the specialty of the visiting ophthalmologists, and they were performing 13-19 in a single day, which means that over the course of 2 weeks they restored the sight of over 200 people. It was very rewarding to take part in the clinic, and I look forward to helping the same team of doctors as they return once again next year. Until then, I'll have to figure out how to say, 'you're blind' in Malinke...

10 flats to Bamako!

2010-03-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

After an exciting bike trip to a waterfall a few months ago, I remember finishing off a post extolling the virtues of traveling on two wheels. My most recent experience has only reinforced that impression and I can guarantee, whether here or on the other side of the planet, that it will not be my last.

Just before New Years, a fellow volunteer suggested we do "an epic overland bike trip from Kedougou to Bamako, staying in Malinke villages all along the way." It sounded great at the time, but there proved to be too many conflicting obligations, and the trip fell through. Last week, we decided that it was either now or never, and just as we returned to the region from a series of conferences in Dakar, we packed our bags, sent bush messages to our village to warn them our return would be delayed, and set off for the Malian capital of Bamako, 600 kilometers east.

The trip began easily enough, as we coasted along the newly paved Dakar-Bamako highway until the border and into our first Malian town, Kenieba. Tucked into a curve of the rocky escarpment that marks the beginning of the Malian highlands, Kenieba has the feel of the wild west, cowboys and all.

We passed the night in the house of a Peace Corps volunteer and prepared ourselves for an early rise. Throughout the night, the wind howled through the hills and we were greeted by gale force headwinds in the morning, just as we started our climb into the ridge line to the east. To make things worse, we had already anticipated this day to be our most challenging ride of the trip, so the strong headwind only added to its difficulty. The smooth road disappeared, replaced with hard pack gravel and sand, rutted so severely that only 4x4s and motorcycles could possibly handle the track. We saw neither all day.

Despite the rough terrain and the gaggle of flat tires we had already accumulated (4, on day 2; everything is thorny in Africa!) we made steady progress and stocked up on water at every village we passed to hold back dehydration in the 110 degree sun. As nightfall approached, we knew we would inevitably miss our intended destination for the day, still another 40 kilometers away. Undeterred, we new full well that we could pull into any village and be welcomed as honored guests, offered the best hut in the compound and reserved a spot around the dinner bowl. And we did just so, to the delight of the children, who laughed and let me chase them through the compound in mock menace. The locals were incredulous that we spoke their language and knew their culture, that we weren't your average 'toubab.' We stopped in one village for lunch the next day where a man proudly showed us a training certificate he had received from the Peace Corps 17 years ago- it was so precious that he had kept it carefully in a plastic sleeve under his mattress for nearly two decades.

Much of the trip went just like this, with encounter after encounter with the local population, breathtaking scenery that put our humble hills in Kedougou to shame, and one flat tire after the next! Never in my wildest dreams would I have assumed we could get so many, and changing a flat tire became an expected part of the daily routine.

On the third day of the trip we reached the mountain town of Manantali, which sits below a hydroelectric dam and massive reservoir that feeds the Senegal river. It proved to be the perfect spot to while away the afternoon, and we even floated down the river in the afternoon, ever watchful for the hippos that rummage around and graze on the bottom all day long. I must admit that the notion that an angry hippo could pop up at your side at any moment is slightly terrifying!

Beyond Manantali the road got steadily better and we knew it was only a matter of riding it out. One day we were so determined to make our intended destination that we rode until 9:00 under the light of the moon, putting our tally over 150 kilometers, our daily max of the trip. As we got closer and closer to our goal, Bamako became ever more tantalizing and when we still had 100 kilometers to go, it felt as though we were already celebrating our arrival.

When our arrival finally came it was glorious. Bamako lies in a valley surrounded by hills, so we literally coasted downhill for about 20 minutes into the city, winding through mango orchards and garden plots, waving at partying revelers dressed in their colorful boubous for Saturday weddings, baptisms, circumcisions or any other reason to get together and blast loud music! To be back to the 'civilized' world was just as impressive as leaving it. We wound our way through unfamiliar neighborhoods to the apartment of a volunteer who had served in Senegal and extended for a 3rd year in Mali to work with the national tourism office. Jessica graciously welcomed us into her home and took it upon herself to be our tour guide for the next couple of days.
Bamako has a distinctly different feel to it than Dakar, and in many ways it feels more authentically West African. The buildings are lower and there are more streets of simply dirt and gravel. The vibe is less that of a city and more of a village on steroids. Known for its artisan markets, we wandered through stalls full of carvings, leatherwork, intricately beaded necklaces and bracelets. Leather skins stretched out to dry in the sun and the pounding of hammers and chisels accompanied us as we bargained and perused the goods. If I have one hard and fast rule when visiting the market it is this: you must buy something. What it is you buy is almost immaterial, a simple trinket will do; it's all in the art of the exchange, the dance of finding the right price. I owe that one to my father.

Bamako also held some very surreal surprises for us, among them being: RAIN, in the middle of the dry season. I can't say that it was unappreciated, but it was certainly very unexpected. FRIED CHICKEN, of which we ate an inordinate amount...and yes, it was that good. SOFT SERVE ICE CREAM...ditto. A MOVIE THEATER, which was most definitely the most shocking for me, and as we emerged from the cineplex from a viewing of Avatar and back into the melee of third world traffic, the contrast was startling.

The city is bisected by the immense Niger river, which originates in the Guinean mountains and acts as a transport artery for goods and people from Bamako all the way to the Atlantic ocean after making its northward arc, then plunging south through Niger and Nigeria. The river is still a very important source of livelihood for the locals, who use it for fishing, bathing, washing clothes and even to drink(I stuck with tap water myself, likely one and the same anyways).

As our time in the city came to an end, it was time to engineer our return to Senegal and for us the only obvious answer was to take the train. We had heard nothing but terribly things about the train: it derails frequently, it is nothing but a pack of thieves and pickpockets, where you're nearly guaranteed to be mugged, it breaks down constantly and could take three times as long as projected, it's hot, overcrowded, and you're more likely to end up stranded than your destination. Every mention of the train in any guidebook we read recommended we seek another travel option. Naturally, the train was our obvious choice.

In reality, of course, it didn't live up to the hype and was actually a fantastic experience. Despite the usual hassles at the ticketing office and the attempted bribes to put our bikes in the baggage car, the train was clean, with more legroom than we would have ever gotten on a bus, and it actually arrived earlier than expected. The real boon of this method of transportation was the frequent train stops, which turn the open windows into a ceaseless and extremely varied drive through. Let me explain: as soon as the train pulled up to a platform or stopped just outside of a village, the sides would be swarmed by women selling any multitude of food and other miscellaneous items from baskets perched upon their heads. Water, coke(in glass bottles, drink quickly!), frozen popsicles, apples, bananas, fried plantains, cookies, doughnuts, sandwiches, potatoes, whole fried fish, ribs, small stools, shirts, caps, sunglasses, shoes, carrots, tea, etc, etc. All day long, nothing but a constant stream of food coming up to our window ledge at pennies to the dollar...what's not to love?

In the end the trip seemed all too short. We were amazed by how quickly it went by and returned to Kedougou with a longing to return to Mali and explore more of its hidden wonders. As we pulled into the bus station after dark and unloaded all of our baggage from the transport vehicle and casually strolled towards the entrance, it felt as though not a moment had passed since the week before. The noises, the smells, the dry heat hanging in the air long after sunset, all were the same. Had we, in fact, been to Bamako? Was it all just a brilliant moment of imagination? How could we possibly have done so much in so little time? Did we really get 10 flats?!@**#&*

"It's not the number of years in your life, its the life in your years" - A. Lincoln

The All-Volunteer Conference and WAIST

2010-02-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

Thank You Griffin Family

2010-02-20T12:58:00.000-08:00

Now that the rope pump project at the primary school in Khossanto is nearing its completion, it is necessary for me to thank the family that made it all possible. With the help of Water Charity, an NGO that matches donors directly with Peace Corps volunteers in the field, the Griffin family generously donated and funded the project in full, assuring that the primary school will have direct access to clean water, and open opportunities for a tree nursery, school garden, and ultimately latrines.

The project was a big success, and brought together the school director, students and members of the parents association to make it a reality. As an important token of support and ownership, the school supplied the funds for the cement and metal reinforcements for the well cap, and we contributed the entire pump system, as well as the reservoir and any ancillary equipment like hoses, etc.

Our next step is to focus our energy on the womens groups that have been doing incredible work in the river valley below the village. I was so impressed with their organization and motivation that I am hoping to do a short documentary on their collective garden as a training tool for other villages. Their work is inspiring, and if we can be a collaborative force sharing tools and techniques that already exist, than our work is easy.

Initially, we are going to try and build rope pumps at each of 4 individual wells, and later in the year we will focus on installing a much larger pump system that will make them even far more productive in the years to come. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself, but the opportunity is incredible and I am confident that we can get all the pieces together sooner than later. More on this to come.

Breaking the silence

2010-02-17T00:24:00.001-08:00

So it's been quite a while since my last post...perhaps I was waiting for the swelling in my hands to go down after the bee attack so I could type once again. The truth is that the last month has been incredibly busy, with projects flowering in the village and many changes to my service coming in place. Most importantly:

1) The rope pump project reached completion, and looks fantastic, all thanks to the griffin family for making a very generous donation. The school will benefit with clean water and a drinking reservoir that they have never had before. This will also enable them to build a small tree nursery and start a school garden, something that the school director was very excited about.

2) I will soon be moving to Kedougou to concentrate my work efforts on the Universal Nut Sheller project. I realized that if I stayed in my home village there was simply no way for me to complete all the work that I had laid out for myself, and with one year left in my service I want to focus my energy. Therefore, before the end of the month I will be moving to a new place in Kedougou, from where I can still manage projects in my home village from afar.

3) The Senegal All-Volunteer Conference and annual West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament(WAIST) were just held in Dakar. It was a huge convergence of volunteers from as far as Niger and Togo to share best practices and reflect on changes meing made in the Peace Corps. The softball tournament was essentially 4 days of relaxing by the pool, eating hot dogs and hamburgers on the field, and soaking up enough of the American spirit to last us a few months!

More explanation in the upcoming posts!

Killer bees...the name is fitting

2010-01-12T13:09:00.001-08:00

This morning I woke up in the twilight of quickly fading stars and a fingernail moon, seen through the twisted and mangled branches of two enormous twin baobab trees. I awoke in a twisted bunch, more or less the way I had fallen asleep a few hours before, with backpacks and other possessions strewn about me and countless bees still stuck in my tangled mass of hair, an insistent pain in my hip and ribs and a nagging thirst in my throat. I wasn’t alone, however, and the none-too-distant howling of baboons and the rustling in the forest around me reminded me of the wild presence all around. I couldn’t dally too long, for I didn’t want a repeat experience of the harrowing dash down the mountain I had 24 hours earlier, so I begrudgingly urged my body into movement, threw all items into three packs on my back and one on my stomach, and set off into the maze of bamboo forest down the mountain in front of me.

This isn’t really the beginning of the story, nor is it the end, but it was quite an awakening. The proper beginning of this story sounds like many others, the start of an adventurous camping trip on the top of distant rock formations known only as “The Spires.” 48 hours before that moment I set off on bicycle with my good friends Sheila and David, packs heavy with camp food, sleeping bags and pads, water, and enough snacks to last a month for what we knew would be a memorable experience in the Senegalese bush. Along the way we spent the night in the home village of another PCV, KC Crocker, and convinced her that she needed to be in on the camping trip as well. Although she had a full to-do list to get through in the village, we convinced her to join our crew and the following morning we all set off together, 4 strong, to climb to the top of these distant peaks about 40 kilometers from Kedougou.

The day had all the beginnings of a fantastic adventure, with clear skies and beautiful weather ushering us along, and many a photo-op along the route. We laughed and sang as we rode, and eventually made it to the base of the mountain in the early afternoon, where we chained our bikes in the shadow of the massive spires above us, jutting out of the hillside like big orange teeth piercing the sky. We were hungry and ready for lunch, but decided to push our way through burnt-out scrubland and a thick bamboo forest, scramble over boulders and scale the steep walls of the spires themselves so we could enjoy the reward of eating on the summit. Our decision paid off, and we basked in the view from the top as we took down sandwiches of sardines and onion, lazed away the afternoon napping and clambering around on this high rocky outcrop, feeling at the top of the world.

We were thrilled with our campsite among the clouds except for one pesky detail- some persistent and rather aggressive bees that were unwilling to leave us alone. Sheila and KC mostly avoided the problem by napping under sheets, while David and I were off exploring the further reaches of the spires, and nightfall came with only a sting or two to show for their presence- but what camping trip is complete without something to show for it? After a hearty dinner of corned beef fry-up and a desert of M&Ms, we whiled away the evening with a stargazing session and “if you could…” hypotheses, with a brief commentary on the risk of sleepwalking in such environs before heading off to bed. The night was peaceful.

This is not a story about sleepwalking, it is a story about bees, and they were determined to make it a story to remember. So at the break of dawn, with that beautiful fingernail moon hanging in the sky and the first light of dawn on the horizon, they decided to make their move. The morning wasn’t silent, and in the air hung the sound of a collective machine, a reverberating buzz that filled the air and reminded us of the other guests on the mountain.

The four of us slowly started creeping out of our sleeping bags, going about the morning stretching ritual, tying on shoes and snapping a couple photos of the coming dawn when a lone, daring bee materialized out of nowhere and made a dive-bomb for my nose, inflicting the first sting of the day. I swung out and killed it off for good, cursing the darn thing for its flagrant and unprovoked attack on my tranquility. Moments later, in apparent bad luck, another struck David, standing no more than 10 feet from me on the ridge. He swore and brushed it off, as we climbed the few feet back down to our camping spot to pack up our belongings. These were the last moments of the day that seemed like reality.

Within moments the apparent bad luck revealed itself as an all-out offensive on our position and as the buzz around my head grew louder and more concentrated, I glanced at Sheila and Casey to see a swarm of bees intensifying around us all. At first our reactions were mixed and confused, with Sheila still putting on protective clothing and Casey frantically stuffing objects in her backpack as I dove and tried to cover myself with my sleeping bag, unsure if we could simply wait out the onslaught. Waiting was simply no option, and every time I lifted a small hole to look out of a handful of bees would fly into the opening and viciously attack my face and head. Even as David tried in vain to start a fire to drive them away, we knew the only option was to get off of the mountain, and as I threw off the sleeping bag and emerged into a massive swarm of crazed and stinging insects, we all made a headlong dash in every direction off the spires, thinking of nothing but escape from the unrelenting and endless hoard.

David and I crashed off one side, sliding and bouncing off boulders and tumbling over ledges, all the while swatting wildly at out our heads and faces, trying to ward off the bees. Eventually down from the spires, we found ourselves pushing through head-high grass, with no true direction to go, only “away!” and the crashing sound of grass and broken bamboo shoots as the only means of locating one another. We had no idea if or how Sheila and KC had made it out, and only the sound of tumbling masses making their way in my general direction gave me assurance that they had made it off the top. At this distance the hive had stopped sending out new attackers, but the only way to make the ones surrounding us relent was to kill every last one of them individually.

After echo-locating one another and yelling to rendezvous at the bottom of the mountain, KC and David headed off together as Sheila and I killed off the last of the bees still caught in her hair, up her nose and sticking out of her ear. We now only had to get down through the bamboo forest and find one another to assess how bad the situation really was. We had all sustained between 30 and 100 stings apiece, with Sheila certainly the worst for wear. Her face was completely swollen with her eyes nearly shut, and David was having trouble breathing and a rash was breaking out over his entire body, his face nearly unrecognizable. Casey, although generally allergic, wasn’t experiencing terrible affects aside from some minor swelling and I was almost completely unaffected.

We rushed everyone to the village at the base of the mountain where we received an outpouring of empathy and kindness (as well as strange and bewildered stares) from the local villagers, who welcomed us into their huts and brought water to soothe the stings. Thanks to the wonder of cell phones, even in smallest and most distant African villages, we were able to summon a doctor from the medical post 12 kilometers away who sped over on a motorcycle carrying anti-inflammatory medication to give both Sheila and David shots to calm their allergic reactions within less than an hour. He said that he had personally seen many deaths from bee stings in his short time in the region, which made me all the more grateful that all of us were still breathing and well.

David and Sheila were transported back to the health post on moto, and as KC and I pulled up on bikes an hour later another volunteer had made it out from Kedougou in a 4X4 to transport us all back to the regional house. With the immediate danger over, we could breathe easy again, but the story was far from over. In our haste to get off the spires, we left everything in our wake. Bags, sleeping pads, wallets, passports, phones- nearly everything had been left on top of the mountain and had to be retrieved. Thus a hard decision had to be made.

Because I was really the only one who didn’t react severely to the stings, I refused to hear any of the others talk of returning to the mountain, and in the end stubbornly decided to return on my own to gather our lost items and bring everything back. As such, I only spent about an hour in Kedougou before turning right around and heading back to the spires. We decided that I could only go back up under the cover of night, when the bees would be dormant and I could climb to the top in safety, so I had to stage myself just beneath the spires at sunset and had little time to spare. As it turned out I arrived there just in time, at sunset, but without a flashlight it would be impossible to make it up in total darkness, so I decided I must venture up for at least this crucial item.

Almost immediately as I made it to the top the stomach-churning buzzing returned, and as I jumped about the spires throwing backpacks on my back and sleeping bags under my arms, the intensity of the swarm gathered around my head until I could take the stings no longer, and again dashed off the mountain, with perhaps even less regard for safety. Unbalanced with so much gear, my descent was haphazard and awkward, and I seemed to pick myself up only to fall again and again, all the while beating at my head to kill off a few of my attackers. At one point, in one calamitous moment, I stumbled over a short ledge, bounced off a rock and performed a sideways summersault in mid air, then free-fell until I crashed onto a boulder down below in a thudding blow to my ribs and thigh. The bees would not relent. I could only pick myself up and scramble on, until I was far enough away to throw down my encumbering load and smash the rest, my hair a tangled mass of bee carcasses. Their smell still lingers.

Exhausted and burning from all the fresh stings, I collapsed in the pile of bags and fell asleep with the sounds of the forest around me, if not unaware then uncaring of the bugs crawling over me. At 10:30 I awoke from my sleep, convinced myself that the evil hive must now be calm and made my way back up to the top yet again to retrieve the remaining items scattered about the top. In trepidation I made it to the peak unchallenged and made off with the rest of the gear, slinked down to my stash under two towering baobabs where I could finally rest, knowing my mission was complete. All I had to do now was make it through the night(baboons howling and rustling in the distance), hike 4 people’s gear down the mountain in the morning, and make it back to Kedougou. Ahh, sleep never came so fast. I was sore in the morning and Kedougou never looked so nice.

First post of 2010!

2010-01-12T11:48:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that we've already eclipsed another decade! I was just reminiscing having buried a time capsule under our home in Wilmington on New Years Eve 2000, and how I promised myself not to open it until at least 2005. Here we are, 10 years on, and I've still kept my itchy hands off. I guess I now have to see just how long I can reasonably hold off.

Recently I read an issue of Time magazine entitled "The Decade from Hell," which made me re-examine the recently passed decade more closely. It was, by all objective measures, pretty terrible for the world in general- marked by war, environmental tragedy, and near economic calamity- yet I couldn't help but think how amazing a decade it had been for me. I endured and must say quite enjoyed high school, moved on to a university experience that shaped my life in extraordinary ways and introduced me to friends untold, crossed the world on far too many opportunities than I deserve in the pursuit of truth, beauty, and fulfillment, and made out relatively unscathed by the major disturbances of the century. I currently find myself in a state of intense freedom, happiness, fulfillment and purpose.

I did experience tragedy, both deeply personal and more generally in empathy and solidarity, I experienced failure, both great and small, I came close to losing my own life on more than one occasion(I won't tell all to my mother!), but I can only say that these experiences made me more human, more humble, more tolerant and(hopefully) more tolerable. I relish every moment that I am still alive, try to live for every day and hope to keep my hands off of that capsule until 2020!

The Rope Pump

2009-12-17T05:05:00.001-08:00

This is a very simple pump design that I am going to be working with a lot in the next couple of months. With the help of an organization called Water Charity, I will be providing clean water to my village’s primary school and helping the womens groups garden more effectively. Our first priority is the primary school, which has been lacking a water source for months. The well on the school grounds was contaminated with a dead goat, and the water smells terrible. To gather water before the school day begins, students now have to walk about 300 yards and carry water back in buckets, which usually takes them about an hour before classes even begin.

Our plan is to pump the well dry with a motor pump and clean it vigorously, then seal it with a concrete cap. We will then install a rope pump at the top so that kids can access water quickly and easily right on the school grounds. Access to clean water will then spawn several other accompanying projects including a fruit tree nursery, handwashing and drinking water station, and, most importantly, latrines, which currently don’t exist at the school. To relieve themselves, students have to run off into the woods…not ideal.

Once we are done at the school, we will move on to the women’s communal garden, which has enormous potential. It is amazing how little it takes to vastly improve someone’s quality of life, and easy access to water is a great way to start.

Food Security Conference

2009-12-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

Following my last blog post I was sent to Dakar to receive medical attention from the Peace Corps Medical staff, a completely unnecessary measure, but it gave me the chance to sit in on two transformative conferences that I would have missed out on completely if I had stayed in the south.

I first attended a Permaculture workshop directed by an expert from Tanzania, who trained us in the fine art of intensive gardening on the small scale. Permaculture is a complex term, but it essentially means small, high-input(work input) gardens that give high yields. In the workshop we learned how to manage and maximize water use, built raised growing beds with high energy content and how to compost effectively. I learned so much in one day it was amazing. The trainer was an excellent teacher and very visual, so it was a dynamic exchange of information.

I had to miss some of the workshop in order to perform a demonstration and explanation of the Universal Nut Sheller in a nearby town called Diourbel. Diourbel is a large peanut center, and there is an environmental group there that is interested in reproducing the UNS for its womens groups in the area. I spent a whole day there talking about design, management, construction and maintenance, and before the day was done they wanted to start out with 50 machines! It was incredible, and I have already arranged to return there in the near future to set them up with a mold set and get them started with construction.

I then traveled to Dakar to take part in the Food Security Conference hosting Peace Corps staff from all 28 programs in Africa, with the intent of pushing the UNS idea on other regions. To my great surprise and delight, a Program Director from Malawi named Brian Connors was attending the conference, and he has been working with the UNS for 3 ½ years! For three days we bounced ideas off of one another, talked about challenges with the machine and solutions to those challenges, mulled over compatible technologies and generally got excited about small development projects. I was so encouraged and excited after the meeting that I bounded back to Kedougou full of ideas and energy.

Now back in Kedougou, I am busy building new shelling machines, gardening every day with my family and neighbors, and planning out several water pump projects that I intend to implement in the community to help out the women’s groups. Altogether it is a very exciting time for me. I feel reinvigorated in my work, more at home than ever in Senegal, and encouraged to be working more in concert with other groups attacking the same problems. La vie est belle!

Malaria...not your common cold

2009-12-01T08:15:00.000-08:00

I remember joking with a friend before leaving for Senegal that coming down with Malaria was really all just part of the Peace Corps experience, but in hindsight I can say that having Malaria is no laughing matter. Malaria is one of the biggest killers in Africa and among the most prevalent endemic diseases in Senegal, along with TB and Schistosomiasis. Despite all the research surrounding the disease, there is no vaccine and your best bet is to simply avoid being bitten by mosquitoes.

Malaria, as described in the Peace Corps Medical Handbook:

- Caused when a female Anopheles mosquito infected with Plasmodium parasites injects the parasite into the bloodstream of a human. The incubation period between the bite and the actual illness may vary from 10-30 days. Since 1993, Malaria has been the primary cause of mortality in Senegal, and in some areas the lethality rate has been as high as 50%.
- Worldwide, Malaria kills 1.5 million people annually.

How does one know they have the disease?

- High FEVER. Fever usually goes up quickly and can reach 104-106 degrees.
- The 'classic' case starts abruptly with a feeling of coldness and chills then within 30-60 minutes the patient feels hot for 2-3 hours, gets a high fever then sweats profusely for 2-3 hours. The fever will then drop, and resume again in 9-10 hours.

In the end, I only had to endure about 3 days of intense fever before I was administered the antigen to wipe out the parasites in my bloodstream. Many suffer under the fever and chills cycle of Malaria for as long as 2 weeks before they recover(or die), so I count myself lucky. On day 3, as I re-read the Malaria symptoms in my hut and did a double-take at my digital thermometer reading 104.3, I decided that I must indeed be infected.

I immediately went to the health post in my village, which is fortunately attended by a trained nurse and stocked with all the necessary medication. They performed what is commonly referred to as the 'Malaria rapid test' which confirmed my infection within 5 minutes. He quickly gave me an intravenous antigen solution and my fever came down in about 10 minutes. I carried out their prescribed medication regimen and within a few days I felt like my old self again.

Needless to say, the Peace Corps Chief Medical Officer wasn't too happy with my experience and gave me a good tongue lashing for it. I am currently in Dakar having some blood drawn to confirm that the parasites have been completely wiped from my system.

As it goes, I am the most distant volunteer in the country. I am 40 kilometers from my closest neighbor, 90 K from the regional center and more than 800 kilometers from the capital. I was scolded for not notifying the Medical office immediately even though I have no cell phone reception in my village and the local telecenter has been disconnected for the past 5 weeks. Getting to the capital means 3 days of miserable public transport crammed next to anyone from a greasy man to a wailing baby, and my doctor was furious that I didn't do just that with a temperature of 104.3!

In the end, I am only grateful that Senegal is blessed with the decent medical network there is. Most doctors in the US would have shivered when they saw the inside of the facility where I got the IV to bring my fever down, but at the moment I wasn't too concerned about the cobwebs hanging in the corners or the color of the sheets on the cot(not exactly white). After falling asleep to a sweaty fever and then waking up freezing in my pool of sweat every couple hours for three nights, I was content to take the relief.

I've definitely learned a thing or two from this brush with Malaria. For one, I was able to get it even though I sleep under a mosquito net, use repellent regularly and am always protected by a prophylaxis. Even one lapse in the preventative medication was enough to give me a wild ride on the Malaria train. What chance does the local population have, especially when they cut up their mosquito nets to make a lining for their pants(a true case)? Several young kids died of the disease in my village this year, as with every year, and our efforts seem silly in their ineffectiveness.

As for my case, I am fortunate to have a medical staff waiting on me if something should go wrong. I can't be bitter about it, but it's still terribly unfair.

Cold in Senegal?

2009-11-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

After sustaining the incredible heat of the dry season, and the muggy nights of the rainy season, I never imagined that the temperature in Senegal could ever be comfortable. Boy was I wrong. We have entered the cool-dry season, and I must say that I couldn't be happier when I wake up in the morning and shiver as I get out from under the warmth of my sleeping bag. That's right, I said SLEEPING BAG! It seems like only yesterday that I was sleeping on my outside stick bed, sweating through the night in unbearable heat- at the time I couldn't even imagine this wonderful weather.

In the village, my host family will light fires in the evening and sit around splitting peanuts by hand or drinking tea late into the night. Now that I can move around without bursting into sweat immediately, I play much more willingly with my host brothers and sisters as they implore me to swing them through the air and toss them around. "Tickle me more," they say, and I indulge them.

I feel much more settled into the village way of life since my return from France, and I am able to be in the village without feeling a constant urge to escape, much as I did when I first installed. I have fallen into a good routine of running in the morning, doing some reading and having a cup of coffee before I begin the work day, spending the main hours of the day at work and then playing soccer with the village boys in the evening before washing up and spending some time with my family in the evening. All-in-all, I think I have finally found a measure of balance.

That said, I am about to begin a work tournee to begin working more extensively with the Universal Nut Sheller in the surrounding areas and into other regions in Senegal. In less than a week I will be transporting a sheller to the central province where I will be doing a demonstration and hopefully installing a machine with a women's group who will begin using it regularly. There is so much to talk about, and I feel like there are to many projects that I would like to pursue.

Who needs fiberglass to build a boat?

2009-11-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

Sainsoutou and Ingley Falls

2009-11-14T08:49:00.001-08:00

If you looked through my photo albums at this point you might assume that I never get off my bike here in Kedougou, and that might be a pretty close assessment. In the last couple of weeks, I took two pretty extensive bike trips with other volunteers to the far reaches of the region, taking me from one end at the border with Mali, and the mountainous border with Guinea at the other. Both were incredible.

Our visit to the village of Sainsoutou was driven by a grafting training that we performed for motivated farmers in that region, teaching them how to transform their mango trees to produce large, succulent fruit instead of the small, local variety using grafting techniques. The training went really well, and at the conclusion we did a large loop ride all the way to the border with Mali on the Faleme River. The trail was terrible and weeds at head height after the nourishing rains of the wet season. We pedaled through about a dozen villages, staying and eating with locals along the way, carrying our bikes across small rivers and getting lucky with a couple stick bridges like the one in the picture.

The trip was exhilarating, tiring, and left me craving some more. To my good fortune, another volunteer from the north came down and wanted to do a trip to one of the most spectacular waterfalls in the region that I hadn't had the chance to visit yet called Ingley. The water comes from the highlands of Guinea, then spills off the plateau along the border and into Senegal, which is truly spectacular.

We fought our way there through more grass-shrouded trails and spent the night with the sound of falling water and a delicious campfire dinner. After stuffing ourselves with pasta, we slinked off to the pools of water beneath the falls for an evening stargazing session, lounging in the cool water and staring up in awe at hundreds of thousands of stars. Under the light of the campfire, we passed the evening with stories of college days gone by, famous bike accidents and dreams of adventures yet to be had...everything a camping trip should be.

There's something special about traveling by bicycle. It puts you in touch with the land like a car never could, and lets one explore to a range impossible on foot. I love this form of travel, and yearn to explore so much more on the back of a bike.

The real use of stickers

2009-11-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

I had a great time getting back into the family swing of things after my return from France a few weeks ago, and the first thing that everyone wanted to know was what I had brought them from the land of milk and cookies. I think most of them ended up disappointed that I didn't haul back DVD players and flat screen TVs, which are obviously EVERYWHERE in Europe and America, but there were still some fun times to be had with stickers, balloon helicopters, bouncy balls and lots of candy!

I have felt more at peace with my life in the village since returning from France, and am finally feeling myself more comfortable with the rhythm of daily life just as I will most likely be sending more and more time away from the village as I try to promote the Universal Nut Sheller. Nonetheless, I make the most of my time there, playing with the kids, having lots of tea with the guys in the village, and joining in on the evening soccer match behind the school. I am bringing them a new ball this week, I can't wait to see what their reaction will be!

France, the land of food and sun

2009-10-30T04:06:00.000-07:00

So it's been far to long since I added a post, but there were many exciting things going on since during this past month that kept me far from the computer. The most significant of which was my brother's wedding in France, which was an event of joy, family solidarity and most importantly, good wine.

Matthieu and Christen were married in the same small chapel that my parent's were wed in 30 years ago, so it was quite the walk down memory lane for my parents and their invited friends as well. The days preceding the wedding and those following were full of good conversation around the dinner table and long forgotten stories retold.

It was amazing to reconnect with friends that I haven't seen in a long time in a place that is so far removed from our usual stomping grounds. I must say that the south of France is one of those places that will always be an important part of my life and sharing it with other people is one of my favorite things to do.

My brother Justin and I took our friend Hayden and his girlfriend Diane to one of our longtime favorite places, the Pont du Gard, where Hayden and I had one of the most exhilarating free jumps of my life. We have been going to this monument since we were little kids, and the allure of jumping from the bridge has always been one of the untouchable elements tickling and tantalizing us since as far as I can remember. The only limiting factor was that it scared the piss out of us, and we had seen people taken away from badly landed jumps in ambulances. On this occasion though, the will for adventure trumped hesitation, and jump we did. I can't express the exhilaration in words, but suffice it to say that I never feel as alive as in those moments where life happens faster than you can think. (photos to come when the connection is better)

Following the wedding, I took advantage of being in France to take a bike trip through the alps and rode through some of the most beautiful scenery that I have had in months. It was my first foray into the French alps, and it only made my appetite grow for more exposure to those remarkable mountains. I could imagine myself trekking and adventuring for weeks in those wild places that most dare not go. Three days and a few hundred kilometers later I was back at our beautiful home in Provence, feeling more fortunate than ever for all the things that I have been endowed with in my life.

Now back in Senegal, I have been trying to get back into the volunteer mindset. Just before leaving for France I had a couple of weeks of deep thought on our impact here as a development organization and I have begun mulling over those thoughts again since I returned. More or less, I am trying to digest my experiences over the past 8 months and reconsider/consolidate my opinions on development work in general, as well as the impact that I am having more specifically. I want to be effective, but need to be sure that I am still having a net POSITIVE impact on the people here. More on this to come later, but I wanted to get some thoughts out and start a stream of consciousness.

In the Final ideablob.com running!!

2009-09-08T03:48:00.000-07:00

Excellent news everyone, we have made it into the final running for this month's ideablob.com competition, set to begin SEPTEMBER 22nd. We had a clutch late surge in voting, which lifted us into the top spot for the first sprint!

Although you cannot vote for the project any more between now and then, ALL VOTES WILL BE RESET on the 21st of the month, at which time the final running will begin. We are up against a couple of determined and very well organized opponents, which means that we need to get creative and resourceful to find new voters to fill our ranks. Talk to your church congregations, e-mail your neighborhood listservs, reach out to friends and family, place a link to my ideablob.com page in your own blog to lead people there more easily, anything will help.

Included are more photos and video to help you visualize the UNS more completely, together we can make this project a success!!

The UNS in Action

2009-09-07T08:38:00.000-07:00

ideablob, here we go!

2009-08-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

I am launching a campaign to raise funds for the Universal Nut Sheller distribution here in Senegal. Taking a page out of a friend's gamebook, I've decided to go for September's ideablob.com venture competition, so please take a few minutes to create an account and vote, you could literally be the difference between my getting $10,000 or not!

All you have to do is click this tab and it will take you directly to my site page, so what are you waiting for!?

In the Mines!

2009-08-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

These are a few shots of the artisinal mines that a good proportion of the men in my village work in to supplement whatever income they can make off o their crops. As you can see, they aren't exactly the most profesionally supported holes in the ground, and they toil at depths of up to 15 meters below the surface sometimes zigzagging in different directions hoping to find the proper seam of gold. They break rock off in large chunks, then haul it back to the village and literally pound it to dust(the women do most of this). They then sift it and wash it in hopes of maybe getting a gram of gold out of the whole process. That one gram will fetch around $20.

I decided on my last trip to the mines that I had to experience being down in the shaft for myself, so my friend Kellen and I slipped off our shoes and made the descent, esentially bracing ourselves off the wall as we went slowly lower and lower. We took a look around, impressed by the amount of rock that had already been manually excavated, and got out of there. Cave-ins are not unheard of, and considering these holes aren't braced whatsoever, we were taking a 50-50 chance just being down there.

Adventuring Around Khossanto

2009-08-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

Crossing into my village, always a wet endeavor during the rainy season. I have it mild though, some volunteers in the region have to lift their bikes over their heads to get through small rivers!

My Backyard. I love it!

Snakes you say...I hope I don't run into any out here...

Adventuring Around Khossanto

2009-08-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

My friend and fellow volunteer Kellen Eilerts payed me a visit in Khossanto the other day so we took advantage ofthe opportunity to do a bit of a tour of the surrounding areas and hike up into the hills just to the south of my village. Kellen is my closest neighbor, at a cool 39 kilometers away, and I can get to his village in just under 2 hours on my bike. I always have to ride through his village on my way to Kedougou, so I know it well.

Ramadan and Snake Stew

2009-08-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

This month ushered in the Muslim religious holiday of Ramadan, which asks those in good health to fast from sunrise to sunset. This can be very difficult at this time of year especially, with villagers still making the trip to their fields to work their crops without eating or drinking a drop all day long. After a few days of fasting myself, I can attest that it is hard enough to simply sit idle and read, much less toil under the sun half of the day.

I actually rode my bike in from Kedougou on the first day of Ramadan and had quite the surprise on the way. I found a monster viper on the road that must have been squashed by a passing truck, and amazingly, its head was the only part of its body that had been run over. Sensing an opportunity, I picked it up, threw it on my bike rack, and brought it home with me- to the great surprise of my family. Although I’ve never eaten snake before, I don’t get meat in the diet all too often here, and I guess my carnal instincts said that I needed some protein!

With my host siblings crowding around and looking on intently, I skinned the massive snake, chopped off its head(fangs half an inch long!), gutted its insides and we cooked it up in a fine tomato and onion sauce! I hate to be cliché, but it really did taste a lot like chicken, only a bit chewier. I enjoyed it so much that I’m looking forward to my next road-kill find!

It was amazing to see how quickly it disappeared, but I guess the same instincts that made me pick it up off the road are the ones that coaxed my family members into eating it along with me, despite their initial fear and hesitation. All of the other volunteers were shocked and impressed that I was able to get my family to eat it with me, and now Senegalese villagers think eating roadkill snake is common practice in America! Having never eaten snake before, I was pleasantly surprised by how the whole thing turned out, and can definitely say that I would do it again.

My host sister Kuta was responsible for cooking it up, and she was really excited about it. She has two little kids, Marie and Ibu, that are super cute and who like to hang on me all the time, especially in the evening when we are all just hanging around the compound after dinner. Last week I gave them a puzzle and they were fascinated by it, haveing never seen one before. It took us a long time to actually put it together, since they couldn't really understand the concept of how to match similar colors or shapes, but after about 30 minutes, I was eventually able to guide the pieces into the right places sothat they could put it all together. Interestingly, we did it a second time almost immediately, and it was almost more difficult for them the second time through...I guess we'll just have to keep working on that skill set!

Taking an easy afternoon

2009-08-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

There's a string of mountains that run just south of my village that provide a perfect afternoon reading spot if I'm feeling like taking a little hike. Every so often I'll sneak out and spend a quite afternoon on my own for a little escape. A few weeks ago I had a troop of baboons barking at me from two mountain-tops away; they weren't happy about me encroaching on their territory. Fortunately they kept their distance too.

It was only a matter of time...

2009-08-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

Ever since my hair got long enough, my sisters have been angling to get their hands on my head to put it into corn rows. Braiding hair is how they spend a great deal of their afternoons, so it only took them about 5 minutes to whip me into shape. I left it in long enough to get strange stares around the village.

The Universal Nut Sheller

2009-08-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

As much fun as IST was and as much as I enjoyed catching up with my fellow volunteers, I must say that my attention was about 90% diverted to this small machine pictured. This device is known as the Universal Nut Sheller(UNS) and it was actually designed by an entrepreneurial soul from no other than Wilmington, NC. It took me a couple of months to connect the dots on the potential impact of this device in my region, but suffice it to say that it now holds my full attention.

I came upon the UNS while working with the microfinance non-profit organization La Lumiere, who organizes and facilitates women's groups throughout the region of Kedougou and other parts of Senegal. With their help, we are going to distribute a UNS with each women's group in the regions of Kedougou, Tambacounda and Kolda. All told, we will reach 942 womens groups in 504 different villages with a membership of more than 21,000.

The impact of the UNS will be phenominal. Currently, all peanuts in this region are shelled by hand, which takes a tremendous amount of time and is usually a task reserved for women and young girls after they come out of the fields in the evening. The UNS can de-shell 50 kg of peanuts in an hour, the equivalent of 41 hours by hand! What's more is that it can also de-shell countless other useful nuts like coffee, Shea, Jatropha(used to make biodiesel), Moringa(used to make vitamin-rich porridge) or Neem (used to make a mosquito repellant).

I am very glad to have found a project that I can make a central part of my service in Senegal, and pleasantly surprised that it is in collaboration with an organization from my home town! This post is only the beginning of what will hopefully become an ever-expanding project to bring the UNS to as many corners of Senegal as possible, and with luck and good coordination, maybe into neighboring countries in West Africa too.

Friendly little guy at the beach

2009-08-09T10:06:00.000-07:00

Mangrove reforestation

2009-08-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

Sunset over the harbor in Joal

2009-08-09T09:34:00.000-07:00

After the Rains!!

2009-08-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

Before the Rains

2009-08-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

The rainy season: Hellooo Weeds!

2009-08-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

July: what a month!

2009-08-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, a whole month has gone by since I last posted to the blog and SOO much has happened in that time that I don't really know where to begin. The last post was just after the 4th of July- a huge party for the Peace Corps- after which I headed to our In Service Training(IST) back in the city of Thies where I had my initial training in March.

It was a really fun two weeks of reuniting with volunteers flung all over the country and telling stories(funny, traumatic, boring and exciting) from our first two and a half months at our new home sites. Most are content with their host families, and we've only lost one more volunteer who decided it just wasn't for her.

A few of the highlights of training were:

-Learning Wolof, the lingua franca of Senegal and crucial to not being rippied off in the markets and in transport. Now I can start elementary conversations with just about anyone(including two nuns just the other day!)

-Lots of technical training to hone our skills on tree outplanting, latrine building, gardening and environmental education teaching methods

-Group cooking nights including a Mexican-themed evening complete with fajitas and bean salad and an Italian night featuring some incredible Spaghetti Carbonara and Angel Food Cake

-Our second Volunteer vs. Senegalese soccer match (which we lost...again)

Following our IST, we had another training more focused on Environmental issues in a coastal town called Joal. Being on the ocean made me long for Wilmington, and I capitalized on very chance to jump into the waves between sessions. We were invited to participate in a mangrove replanting project, which was very interesting and a lot of fun. We also toured a composting facility that was started by a former Peace Corps Volunteer that has had a lot of success.

One evening we did some midnight swimming and the phosphorescent organisms in the water were incredible. If you have ever seen green sparkles in the water when swimming then you know what I'm talking about- just imagine it 10 times more numerous than you have ever experienced it and you'll have an idea of what we were swimming in. The mangroves here create ideal conditions for the microorganisms to thrive in, so there numbers are much higher than normal. Standing on the edge of the ocean, every time a wave would crash I could see a long green trail moving off in the distance. Throwing water on myself was like having a green liquid splashed on my skin...absolutely icredible. The only place where I have experienced better phosphorescence was in the Bahia des Mosquito in Puerto Rico, which has similar conditions.

After our little sejour on the beach, most everyone headed to Dakar for the weekend to get some ice cream and eat some delicious food in the city restaurant scene before returning to their villages. It can take a long time to get to Dakar for most volunteers, so anytime we are close in it makes sense to go all the way! The weekend culminated at an event called Cool Graul, an ex-pat party hosted once a month at a bar right on the beach in Dakar. We reveled and danced until 4:00 in the morning, then cought our breath and hung out for a couple of hours before catching a ride to Kedougou with a Peace Corps transport at 6:00 in the morning. No sleep + a 12 hour drive to Kedougou = no fun.

My ride to Khossanto!

2009-07-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

Amazing trees in Thaibeji

2009-07-06T11:07:00.000-07:00

Bike ride from Tambacounda

2009-07-06T10:27:00.001-07:00

Last week I had an amazing experience riding my bicycle through the Niokolo-Koba national game reserve with a couple of other volunteers on our way down to Kedougou for the 4th of July festivities. The total distance of the ride was just over 280 kilometers, with the longest riding day clocking in at 174k- tiring, yes, but oh so worth it.

The Niokola Koba national game reserve is the largest piece of protected land in Senegal and still home to a great abundance of wildlife, from lions and hyenas to wild boars, monkeys and countless birds. As we rode through the park, we would occasionally encounter a large troop of baboons sitting right in the middle of the road, and as we got closer they would scatter into the woods, barking and howling at us as they went. Wild boars were a regular staple of the ride, and at one point I glanced off into the woods only to lock eyes with a boar that was silently staring out at me from the bushes. It made me realize that despite all the wildlife we were seeing, there were countless others that were stalking us undetected as we made our way through the park.

The third and final day of the ride was exceptionally beautiful, as we got off the main road and climbed through the mountains and valleys in the foothills surrounding Kedougou. Here we meandered through countless forgotten villages, with towering trees and amazing vistas of the surrounding mountains, each its own isolated paradise. There is something wonderful about the simple existence of life in these wild places, but the local population is far more vulnerable to sickness and disease here, and could be hours from the nearest competent medical technician. In one volunteer’s village that we passed through on our final day, we stopped at her compound to meet her family only to learn that her younger brother has come down with a case of Malaria. Fortunately for them, there is a health post in the village, but for a family in one of the more isolated locations, it often means that your child simply won’t make it.

The Peace Corps is doing an extensive mosquito net distribution this next month to try and get as many as possible out to the population before the rainy season begins in earnest. It falls just when I am leaving for the capital for a two-week training session at our training facility in Thies, but hopefully we will be back in time to help with the final push.