New town, new job!

So classes wrapped up without incident last week, and this week we MSID students start our internships. Two students stayed behind in Dakar for internships there, but the rest of us boarded the bus (the same one we took to Toubacouta) Monday morning to travel to our new towns, scattered over the southwestern region of Senegal.

Thiès is on the left, close to the ocean

I was the second one we dropped off, as I'm only an hour outside of Dakar. I'm in Thiès, the second largest city in Senegal and the capital of the region of the same name. With about 274,000 residents, it's still a bustling metropolis compared to a lot of the country, but after Dakar it's like a slow, small town - definitely more my speed.

A view of the main road I take to work every day

Its market, open every day of the week, is a wonderful place which one could almost get lost in. I pass through it every day on my way from my house on the edge of the city, where I live with the Seke family, to my internship, which is closer to the town center. I plan to explore it a little more fully this weekend, and write a bit here about it.

I'm working with Agrecol Afrique (their website is unfortunately only in French right now), an organization which promotes sustainable and organic agriculture in the Thiès region. I'm spending this week learning about all of their projects, and choosing which I will work with for the next few weeks. I'm here for six weeks total, and then after my winter break I'll be in Séssène, doing more direct work and research with the farmers who partner with Agrecol. 

Madame Sira manages the store for organic products from growers partnered with Agrecol

It's all rather new and exciting, and I feel as though I really have the chance to accomplish something here. At the very least, I'm planning to organize Agrecol's library a bit - it has serious need of some alphabetization, and luckily organizing books is one of my favorite hobbies. 

Ba beneen yoon! I'm glad so many of you seem to enjoy my haphazard notes about my journey, and promise to try being a little more regular with my posting!

Toubacouta!

Note: I planned to get this post up as soon as we got back (3 weeks ago, darnit), but once again, things happened. I'll post this today, then a little more about the events of the last few weeks tonight or tomorrow.

Wow! Toubacouta sure was something!
We left Dakar bright and early Thursday morning via tour bus,

The total drive took a little over five hours, with some stops in between to take the ferry to the other side of the Saloum (we got there just as it was leaving, so had to wait about a half hour for it to come back), and to have a delicious lunch of ceebu-jen and ataaya in Sokone with the family of the WARC director.

Ceebu-jen - the national dish of fish, rice, and vegetables!

It's not even lunch here if you don't have ataaya after!

We arrived at our hotel around mid-afternoon. We stayed at the lovely Club de Vacances Kairaba, a very cute hotel just outside of Soucouta, the twin town of Toubacouta. It had a pool, great food, and these terribly cute little cabins which we stayed in:

Our activities over the course of our four-day stay included:

• A visit to a local health center
• A boat tour of the mangroves

• Class in the forest on the agricultural economy of Senegal, followed by a visit to the village of Keur Aliou Gueye to talk to the villagers about farming
• A lively evening performance by a local dance troupe
• A visit to the community radio station

• A visit to a women's microfinance and farming collective

A plant from their peanut fields

• A visit to a daara, a traditional Qu'ranic school

• A lutte match, the traditional wrestling of Senegal. Lutte competitors are sports heroes here.

We also walked around Toubacouta a fair amount, and saw some beautiful sunsets.

I plan to go back during my break this December, when my parents and brother come to visit me. It'll probably be more crowded then, as December and January are the peak of tourist season here.

You can see the full photo album of my pictures from our trip here.

What I've been up to

One thing and another happens and then what do you know, I've gone three weeks without posting a thing! I've been here a little over a month now, and I'm doing really well! I love my routine, my classes, and goodness me, I really do love the food! Tabaski last Friday was a true feast - my host family celebrated by inviting a dozen or so of our neighbors over for a meal of freshly killed mutton and homemade potato chips, along with fresh salad and several kinds of juice. Then, we all went to two of the neighbor's houses to eat there as well! I felt a bit like Six Dinner Sid when we were finished!

I know in an earlier entry I mentioned the animals my host family kept were goats. I have since been informed that the sheep here have hair like goats rather than wool, and it is fairly common for Americans to mistake them for goats. I would now like to post a correction: my host family keeps sheep. I've learned now to recognize the differences in body type and horn so I can tell the difference between the two types of animals (sheep have curly horns and are bigger, goats have straight horns and are smaller). Not the first silly mistake I've made, and I'm sure it won't be the last either.

In the evening on Tabaski, everyone gets dressed up in their new clothes and goes visiting (or out on the town). Here's a picture of me in my lovely taibasse (two-piece, skirt and top outfit).

Last Saturday some friends and I went up to Les Almandies to stand on the Westernmost point of Africa, which was rather exciting. We got some gelato and walked along the shoreline road for a couple hours. We got to see the American embassy from the outside - I've seen a lot of embassies in the city, but none quite so grandiose as ours! Photos of its immenseness are forbidden, sadly.

This past week my classes took a few field trips around the city. On Monday, my sustainability class went to the suburb of Medina, to get a sense of how waste management and infrastructure work in less affluent areas. We also visited the offices of the company Maison de l'Artemisia, which manufactures an herbal preventative for malaria (their website doesn't seem to be working at the moment, but I linked it anyways).

Tuesday my French class went to the University of Cheikh Anta Diop, where our French instructor is an English professor. It's a sprawling campus filled with sand, palm trees, and the beige stucco buildings so common here. I have to say they make a nice break from all the brick I'm used to on American campuses!

All photo credits to Noah Nieting, who remembered his camera the day I forgot mine.

Dorms on the left, restaurants and shops on the right.

The whole class in front of the library - Professor Pame in the back, Casi, Claire, me and Noah in the middle, and Rika taking the photo!

Wednesday we piled into taxis to Yoff, to meet a Lebou priestess, as we've been learning about traditional religious practices. She talked to us about the work she does, which includes advising people about spiritual and physical ailments, as well as sacrifices of chickens and, once a year, a bull.

It's been a really great first month, and I can't wait to see what else Senegal has in store for me. I'll post some more pictures next week following our class trip to Toubacouta this weekend!