Service Location: Segou

Noah and Josh are located in Segou, a small village 30 km, on a very poor road, south of Kedougou. It is a beautiful mountainous area near the border with Guinea and also not far from Mali. There are several waterfalls nearby. Excerpts from their early journals describe a bit of their situation.

Noah

Josh & I have been working at our service project here in Segou for about a week now & our work day is pretty consistent.  We wake up at our respective huts at Boubacar’s compound a little before 8:00 a.m.  We share a little of a bowl of some breakfast mixture(usually some combination of tapioca, sugar, water & sometimes curdled milk) and then head to Ndour’s (our work boss) to eat breakfast for real (bread & butter & hot water with either chocolate or milk powder).  We get to work at a little after 9:00 and spend two hours clearing brush and small trees from some area, piling them at the center to burn.  We have a few axes to help (between the 4 or 5 workers) and some insufficient gloves.

Josh

We clear brush until 11 or 11:30 and then we “take a break” until 12:30 or so, when we head home to Ndour’s house.  We shower, eat lunch, and then spend the afternoon resting in the backyard; journaling, reading, sleeping, playing cards, drinking attaayaa, etc.  If it looks like rain, I head back to Boubacar’s so that I’m in my hut when it rains.  At 6:30 p.m., we watch football on a 15” TV with the rest of the village (or at least it feels like it, easily 100 people) each night.  We eat supper around 9:00 or 9:30, hang around for a while and then head back to Boubacar’s.  We talk with him for a while, and then we head to bed, between 10:30-11:30 p.m.

Photo credits: Noah, Ron, Sally Jo