I made it through the 6 month mark!

So what’s been going on in my life…Well let’s see. September marked my official 6 months here in Senegal! Can u believe it? It feels like it was just yesterday I was standing in the airport saying goodbye to my family! My oh my how time flies. At times I feel like my service is just flying by and other times slow as molasses.

The beer is Fae's lol

A Tequila Sunrise

Me and some of my fellow stagiaries took a little weekend trip to Dakar to celebrate our 6 months in country. As of now after reading about all my other trips to Dakar you are probably aware of what our little trip to Dakar entailed…. Food, drinks, some sun, food, drinks, lounging by the pool and more food and drinks! It was the best way to celebrate our 6 month anniversary as well as post Ramadan!

Jillian and her Margaritta

Our yummy desert

So what else have I been up to besides traveling back and forth to Dakar and almost dying during Ramadan which as a side note I am feeling much better besides being constipated all the time and the occasional cold. But anywho, during the month of September I was busy working on my Baseline survey which is a community assessment to better help me understand my community (Peace Corps requires us to do one). I really didn’t enjoy doing my Baseline, mainly because no one in my village understood a word I was saying and I as well had just as much difficulty understanding them, it was a very frustrating undertaking. But I was very fortunate that one of my teachers at the Primary School came to my rescue to help me out. He speaks a little English and can understand my broken Wolof and I can understand his clear well spoken Wolof so it’s a perfect duo.  As much as I didn’t enjoy doing the Baseline it really did help get me out in the community and have conversations with everyone in village which in the end only helped better my Wolof. I also got a better understanding of some of the needs in my community for example there is a lack of information about  health related issues, most people in my village could not name one STI or  what a nutritional food was (everyone said rice was a nutritional food rather than naming a vegetable). Not to mention the people in my village really appreciated just talking with me.

Girls Leadership Camp

 Peace Corps Senegal has a program called SENEGAD that deals with gender development in Senegal. Part of that program is the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship which provides money for school fees as well as school supplies for 9 hard working, bright young girls at each middle school throughout Senegal. This is to help ensure and encourage young girls to continue their education and pursue a future career. There are an equal proportion of girls and boys enrolled in Primary school (Elementary school) but unfortunately there are a smaller proportion of girls than boys who continue their education on to secondary school (middle school). In general, most girls are encouraged or even forced to drop out of school so they can stay at home and help with the up keeping and tidying of the home.

the girls got creative and made wildflower planters from
tin cans

At the end of September, Team Linguere held a girls leadership camp for all the winners of the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship in our region. This was the grand finale for the winners of the MSS, designed to help high-achieving female students with limited financial resources to pay for enrollment and school supplies. We had a total of 45 girls participate (9 girls each from 5 different villages) in our 2 day girls camp which included activities like motivational movies featuring successful Senegalese women, a true and false HIV/AIDS game, arts and crafts, a sexual reproduction session and a guest panel of local Senegalese career orientated women which was very inspirational for the girls since they dont know too many women with careers personally. My favorite part of the camp was when we watched Bend it Like Beckham dubbed in French one night. The girls really got a kick out of watching girls playing soccer. We even had some of them up the next morning trying out their soccer skills with a ball.

I think the most successful part of our camp was having Awa who works for Peace Corps as a cultural liaison, come to our camp and hold discussion groups with the girls about the importance of continuing their education as well as female empowerment. Awa is amazing at her job! She plays a huge part in Peace Corps with helping new volunteers adjust and assimilate to Senegalese culture as well diving into a lot of gender development work throughout the country! The girls loved talking with Awa and really connected with her. It was really rewarding to hear the girls speak about their future plans and their dedication to continuing their education.

Awa giving her inspiring talk about her path to her career

The last day of the camp, we had invited one family member from each of the girl's families to come and attend to just what we had been discussing with the girls. Awa gave this amazing talk to the families about supporting these young girls in their efforts to continue school as well as encouraging them to set career goals. She stressed the importance of keeping the lines of communication open between parents and their kids. We also had the girls prepare little skits about certain topics they had learned during the camp like preventing HIV/AIDS, staying in school, and physical abuse. At the end of the day we held this wonderful ceremony for the girls where they received a certificate as well as their scholarship for the next school year. All in all the camp was a huge success! The girls really enjoyed themselves and it was great to see them having fun rather than being stuck in the house cleaning and cooking. Camps are a very rare and special opportunity for kids here. It's not very often that they get a chance to travel and participate in activities such as these. The best part of the camp was seeing how appreciative these young girls were.  It's amazing how much we take for granted back home.  Its things like this that remind me to be more appreciative of the things I am so blessed to have in my life.

I would also like to give a huge shout out to everyone who donated to our cause. This camp would not have been possible without your generosity and support. Thank you so so so very much. Your donations not only meant the world to me and my other fellow volunteers but also to 45 other young girls who got a chance to take part in a once in a lifetime opportunity. From the bottom of my heart THANK YOU!

Family Planning in Mboula

After the girls camp, I had Awa come visit my women’s group in Mboula to talk to them about family planning and female empowerment. This turned out to be a little bit of a nightmare! The day started with me running around the village to let everyone know that the talk would begin around 3 and that it was important that everyone be on time because I didn’t want my boss waiting around. Senegalese people are known for their tardiness…you could tell them that the meeting will start at 9am and they probably wouldn’t show up until 10am. The women are the worst at being late because for any kind of meeting or outing they have to get all dressed up in their fancy outfits and their make-up all done and just have absolutely no time management. So of course when I was telling my women about the discussion being at 3, I got a lot of “well once I’ve showered I’ll be there.”  Senegalese people also love using the phrase “Inshallah” which is Arabic phrase meaning God willing. “If Allah (God) wills it will happen.” They use this phrase at the end of everything like “I will see you tomorrow God willing,” or “We will be at the meeting God willing.” So I heard a lot of Inshallahs that day, the worst one being “the discussion will happen inshallah,” and I would then respond “No it’s definitely happening, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”

By the time I had finished setting up mats and chairs anxiously waiting for Awa's arrival, it was already 3:30 and I only had 6 women who had shown up. Thank god Awa was running late! Unfortunately Awa wasn't running as late as I would have hoped because by the time she arrived, only 3 more women who had shown up and it was already 4’oclock. To make a long story short more and more women started to show up once Awa had began her discussion. Awa started her session about working and the frustrations women face her and it seemed to be going well until she moved on to the discussion about family planning. What a disaster! The women were very defensive when it came to talking about family planning and at times they even seemed a little hostile towards Awa. I was nervous thinking everything was going down for the worst but somehow Awa pulled it around and got the women to open up and let their guards down. Some of the women even started to mention the types of birth control they were using. Family planning is not very culturally accepted yet and even if a woman wanted to try some form of birth control it wouldn’t be her choice, it would be up to the husband. Which is one reason next time Awa comes to talk, I am going to have her talk to the men in my community about family planning (that should be interesting). In the end my Awa talk was somewhat a success. There is a lot of work to be done on this topic but at least Awa's talk has helped open the doors for future discussion related to this. Baby steps!

Health/EE Summit!

At the end of October, I had my very first Health/Environmental Education summit in Theis at the training center. My training stage and the health/EE stage that is a year ahead of us in their services attended the summit which was composed of mini sessions about current volunteer’s projects. It was really helpful to hear the types of projects current volunteers were working on. We got to listen to their successes as well as their failures. Summit really helped me focus in on what exactly it was that I wanted to do for my village. I had so many ideas and knew of all the needs of my community, it was just trying to figure out where to start. Like for example, I really want to train relais (which are volunteers that the village picks) to do informational causeries on certain health related topics like maternal health. I also want to set up a healthy baby weighing program where each relais in their village will have monthly baby weighing and will be able to properly document and monitor the growth of babies in their village. Some other ideas I really want to implement in my village include a school library, nutrition and sanitation classes being taught at the school as well as a starting a girls group where I can teach them about puberty and other female related health topics (they are never taught here about puberty or their menstrual cycle). I also want to try and get an agricultural volunteer to help train my women’s group in gardening so they start planting lots of vegetables to be sold and eaten in the village!  The summit was a great three day event and it was just so nice to get a chance to see and hangout with everybody again. It also didn’t hurt that it was held in Theis which meant cappuccinos, goat cheeses salads, goat cheese pizza, chicken pot pie, beer and wine! 

These past 7 months have truly been an emotional rollercoaster filled with lots of highs and lows! You go through so many emotions…one minute you’re loving this country and then the next your cursing it! One minute you’re loving your new family and friends and then the next you’re missing your real family back home and wondering why you ever left the people who Love you the most! The most frustrating thing for me here is the slow pace of everything…I’ve been here for 7 months and I feel like I haven’t done anything yet! Change is a slow gradual process and in this type of work you don’t see the rewards as quickly as you would like. It is so hard to get things started and to get people motivated that at times it is very discouraging. This has truly been the most challenging emotion for me and it is so easy to forget the reasons why you decided to come!  But I am learning that Patience is a virtue and gradually things will start to take their place. As I was contemplating the up’s and downs of my service, my dad (America dad) left me with this little piece of advice to ponder over which I think just really sums up my whole work here in Senegal:

“Just remember the parable of the starfish." A man was walking along a beach where thousands of starfish had been thrown up on the beach and left stranded by the tide. Out in the hot sun they obviously would not last long. Then he came upon a woman who was picking up starfish and throwing them back in the sea. What a waste of time - he cried - there are thousands of these starfish - you can't save them all. But - said the woman, as she threw another one back, - the ones that I do save are very grateful" Just remember that you are the first Peace Corps volunteer in your village - not everyone understands why you are there - some may even resent your presence - but you are the pioneer and others will come behind you and build on the foundation you have laid. However insignificant it may seem to you the hardest step is always the first one and you have taken that step.”

Some of their beautiful flower parts

AnnMarie and Abby doing a little theatre about being pressured into sex

The girls trying out their acting sides!

My Local Health Post

My wonderful matrones doing a Post-natal consultation!

Fatou Ceilia..the head community health worker (matrone)

A Local soccer game in Linguere..Sparky really ejoyed it!