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Each student chose their own topic.  They were as follows:

Mary – Conservation

Olivia – Women’s education

Andrea – Pular language

Erin – Women’s knowledge

Katie – Senegal SST guidebook

Aaron – Poultry farming methods

Josh – Senegalese cuisine

Chris – Tiling styles

Rosanna – Women’s stories

Molly – Dances

Alysha – Women’s stories

Leah – Trilingual ABC book

Kristina – Senegalese recipes

Patrick – Griots (traditional storytellers/musicians)

Lindsay – Gris gris (traditional medicine)

Mallori – Christian conversion stories

Mayra – Stories of children

Jon – Attitudes toward homosexuality in Senegal

Jeff – Creative story in Wolof

Kristen – Games and education

Paul – Art & architecture in Saint Louis

Noah – Senegalese perspectives on Western influence

Adrienne – Music and song collection

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Everyone was excited to see each other again and share experiences from their locations.  One afternoon we hiked up to the lighthouse and enjoyed wonderful views that included the westernmost point, the city of Dakar, and a view of our conference  center.  We were able to enter the lighthouse and observe its workings from the inside.

We stayed at the center for 2 ½ days during which time we heard project presentations, had individual exit interviews, and reflected on our experiences during the last 12 weeks in Senegal.  We had a mix of emotions as we thought about leaving Senegalese friends and returning to American friends and families.

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Andrea, Alysha, Katie, and Kristina are working with an organization called “10,000 Girls” which is headquartered in Kaolack. They spent 2 weeks of their time helping with camp activities in Toubacouta which is about 2 hours south of Kaolack, near the border with Gambia.  They jointly wrote the following description of their activities.

Immediately upon arriving in Kaolack, we were thrown into preparations for a two-week summer camp for teenage girls from all around Senegal.  This educational camp is run by 10,000 Girls, an American women’s organization.  We all worked for two weeks with a lot of other American volunteers to compile the curriculum centering on democracy and the environment.  Then we headed to Toubakouta, the village where the camp took place.

Our initial work paid off each day that we spent with the girls.  They had fun with most of the classroom activities, crafts, and games that we had planned.  Our favorite times were the spontaneous dance parties that occurred several times each day.  These happened either at the school where we spent each day or at the hotels where we were all spread out living with the girls.

Having said tearful goodbyes to our girls at the camp, we’re now back in Kaolack for the remaining two weeks of SST.  Katie will be assisting with a film project intended to teach girls how to use technology and raise awareness about 10,000 Girls.  She will also be working to make sure that the project  is sustainable in Kaolack.  Alysha, Kristina, and Andrea will all be working with the Bookmobile, a traveling library intended to increase literacy in Kaolack and the surrounding villages.

In these last two weeks, we hope to spend a lot of time with our host families, who we haven’t seen too much of because of being away at the camp.  We can’t believe how quickly our time has gone by on service, and we look forward to meeting up with the rest of the SST group in Dakar!

Photo credits:  Alysha, Kristina, Ron, Sally Jo

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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

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Rosanna and Lindsay are located in Djilor in the delta region of the River Saloum. It is also the birthplace of Senegal’s first president, Leopold Sedar Senghor. In fact their host family lives next door to the Senghor birthplace.  Excerpts from their journals describe some of their experiences.

Lindsay

We don’t really have a set service assignment here.  For part of the first week we were going with our host brother François to help clear the fields to plant millet and rice.  We did a lot of watching and not a whole lot of doing.  We would get up at 6 and leave by 7 on the horse cart.  We usually ended up staying until noon.  We think that our host brother believes that the work is too hard for us and that’s why he doesn’t let us do a whole lot.

The second week we didn’t really work at all.  It also started raining this week so we were told that there would be plenty to do in a week or two.  There were a few days this week where we helped shell cashews and peanuts.

Rosanna

Many days this past week we’ve gone to the “discothèque.” It used to be a discothèque apparently but our father is having people make it into a house.  The workers are different every day except for Deché who is there every day and loves us.  He’s huge, drinks a lot of attaayaa (tea), smokes a lot of cigarettes, and spent 20 minutes today trying to persuade Lindsay to marry him.

We’ve done things there such as clean out rooms, move bricks, shovel sand, carry buckets of cement, etc.  It’s been great.  I love getting to go there now because there we can work hard.  Latyr (our host father) says that since its been raining though we’ll have something to do next week at the fields.

Photo credits:  Lindsay, Ron

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Mary and Kristen are located at Grand Mbao on the outskirts of Dakar. They work with an organization called “Les Amis de l’Ecole” (Friends of the School) that provides extra opportunities for students after regular school hours and during the vacation months.  They describe their activities in the following journal excerpts.

Mary

Other than work, a typical day consists of a 7:30 a.m. run on the beach followed by some yoga.  After breakfast of tea and bread we have some free time that consists of anything from reading, writing, sleeping, lesson planning, cyber café, watching soccer with the boys, sitting outside with the women, or going to the beach.  Lunch, or ceebu  jen as our family calls it, is around 2:00.  After lunch we watch soccer and drink tea until school at 3:30.  When we return home after school we play with the kids until dinner at 8:30.  After dinner is more playing with kids and talking with the adults until bedtime around 10:00 p.m.

Kristen

At school, our time is split into 2 sections.  The first is usually me and Anais (French volunteer), working with 4^th graders.  We do a variety of activities, from practicing math facts to spelling bees to dictations to songs.  A lot of that time is just observing and helping kids with errors, just being there as support.  Then at 5:00 we go over to another class and I teach English with Mary for 2 hours to 13-17 year olds.  Everything is designed by and provided by us.  We do a combination of lessons on grammar and vocab, activities, games, and lectures about American culture.

We occasionally do field trips and activities with the kids, meaning that we are on that bus of singing children that our Goshen group laughed at on our field trip to Gorée.  We went to a bookstore in Dakar, where we got a lecture on books, had story time, and helped with some activities related to building their own stories.  This week was “green week,” where we did some activities related to the environment such as decorating garbage cans to place around town, picking up all the trash around the school yard, and finishing in a field trip to a polluted swamp.  We had a sports day where the kids learned some basic basketball skills and games.

Photo credits: Mary, Kristen, Ron

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Patrick has remained in Thiès for his service assignment, but in doing so has also moved to a new host family.  He has been assigned to Barthimée clinic, part of a mission program, which is also on the verge of being recognized officially as a hospital. His days are varied, as described in journal excerpts below.  Patrick, a trained EMT, has observed and given some assistance in surgeries, and he has had at least one chance to accompany other medical staff on a one-day visit to a local village to help administer polio vaccine.

Patrick writes:

Life at Barthimée has been great.  Well, the first couple of days were weird, but now that I’ve settled into the routine, I really like it.

I tend to have 2 kinds of days.  When I’m assigned to work with the nurses my days are pretty slow.  Usually I’m assigned to the Salle de Soins (the room where bandages are changed) or the Salle d’Observation (where injections are given or patients are kept for observation).  Normally the two rooms don’t see a lot of use, so I spend a lot of time chatting with the nurses, watching the World Cup, or even working on my play …  : )

Other days though, I’m assigned to Dr. Ted or one of the other doctors and those days are much more hectic.   … I tend to spend most of my time with the surgical team or other (foreign) volunteers who wander through.

To be honest I can’t help with a lot.  The regular staff all know what they doing, and a lot of the more advanced stuff is way beyond my certification.  However, I am managing in small ways to help, even if it’s only by entering information or mixing saline solution into powdered medications or whatever.

I will say this.  I’m learning a ton AND I get to wear scrubs all day, which are perfect for the Sénégal heat.  It’s great.

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Jeff and Chris are located in Fandéne, a small village just 7 km outside of Thiès.  They live and work with a family that is part of a partnership with Heifer International.  Excerpts from their journals tell more about their typical day.

Jeff

If he (Thomas, host father) doesn’t decide its too hot for us, we head to the fields to start watering the plants.  We draw water from his well to water a wide variety of fruit trees and some ground we recently worked for rice starters.  In the morning we also try to collect a mixture of three types of leaves for the goats and sheep.  This is all done relatively slowly with mango and nap breaks in between.  At around noon we head back home to sit for a while before lunch.  We usually catch part of the world cup game with half the village in our living room before heading back to work at five.  Thomas usually directs our work in the afternoon with something new.  We wander home at about seven or eight and catch the other world cup game.

Chris

This style of workday is one very different than the one I am used to in the States, the idea of the separation of work and relaxation.  The work I do here could probably be done before noon and then I could relax and do something more leisurely.  The style I am used to is work to finish things; here it’s the “tomorrow we’ll finish” idea and days are only planned the night before which isn’t always the best idea.  Today though I am starting to pick up their pace/idea of work and leave behind my nagging Western ideas.  Recently, I’ve been planting millet frantically before the rainy season is in full swing.  It’s rained hard twice already but Thomas says it’s still coming soon.  I wonder how much planting and watering we will do during the rainy season?  I have no doubt my days will change when the rain comes but unsure how.

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Mayra

We (Aaron, Olivia, & I) have to go to work two times a day at the chicken farm.  We have to go at like 10:30ish and we get out at different times depending on how much work we have to do.  Sometimes its noon sometimes 1 o’clock, but we have to be back at work at 3 o’clock again up until 5ish but that also depends on how much work has to be done.  We have breakfast before we go to work and we eat in between work hours.  In the evenings I usually take a shower, read, but I mostly play with the kids.

Aaron

We go into the white chicken house first.  There we collect the eggs.  After collecting we go around the house checking food and water.  If something is low or out we refill it.  After that we take the eggs to the storage house and sort them out by size and put them in cartons.

After the white eggs have been collected we go into the brown chicken house where do the same things.  After sorting eggs, I typically have to refill the water buckets.  This means going down to the well which is about 50-60 feet from the houses and bring the buckets back.

After that’s finished I walk over to the newly planted area and check things out.  Maybe rake some sand around.  Then the guys and I start up the water pump and water the fields.  After that I sit around for about 1 ½ hours and do the process again.  I wait for that 1 ½ hours again then walk back to where I sleep and eat.

Olivia

In the evening once back at the orphanage we play with the kids, either soccer or some little song games.  We take our dinner around 8:30-9:00 p.m. and play several games of UNO before going to bed.

Every Tuesday there is a women’s prayer and worship time that me and Mayra go to and on Sundays, Mayra and I help out with Sunday School for the kids.  I like the combination of working at the farm and with the children.

Photo credits: Olivia, Mayra, Ron, Sally Jo

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