And We're Back

It has been a ridiculously long time since my last post. After spending a wonderful month in America, it has been a whirlwind back here in Senegal. After landing on the tarmac (literally) I immediately headed back to Kaolack and then straight back to site for a WASH training (a 3 day seminar on water, sanitation and hygiene) that was held in my village. The training was very informative and a great thing for the health volunteers in our communities. After designing action plans and enjoying some cookies we ended the training on a positive note.

The next day my friend CJ and I travelled to Thies for Malaria Boot Camp. The boot camp is a ten day intensive training that is put on by Peace Corps under the Africa-wide initiative Stomp Out Malaria. Ten Peace Corps Africa countries were represented at the training including Swaziland, Sierra Leone, Mali, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, among others. We spent our days learning about things like the mosquito life cycle, how malaria is transmitted, the various preventative measures, as well as our own countries malaria control programs. By the end of the training we all became part of the malaria team and came up with country specific action plans for future malaria work.

These ideas were expanded upon with regional meetings within Senegal to create work zone plans and come up with project ideas. As the new malaria representative in Kaffrine, it is my responsibility to set up regional projects and keep volunteers motivated. In Kaffrine we set up a meeting with our local radio station to get PSAs on the air and planned a net care and repair tournee that will cover surrounding villages at the end of July. I am really excited to take on this new role and have a more specific work plan for these last 9 months. For more information on what we do in malaria work check out the Stomp Out Malaria in Africa website www.stompoutmalaria.org and make sure to like our facebook page!

Malaria Team at Boot Camp IV

Finally after all that I was able to spend some quality time with my family in village. I was so happy to see them all after being gone for so long. Baby Ibou is huge and can walk now! Pa Dam is still a little say say and melted my heart when he saw me walking up to the house and ran toward me calling my name with a huge smile plastered on his face. I brought back a little present for each member of my family. The women all loved the perfumes, lotions and nail polishes; the men liked the flashlights that are crank powered; but I think the best gift of all was the blue kids sunglasses I found for two year old Pa Dam in the dollar section at Target. He doesn't ever take them off! To demonstrate check out these videos of a typical day in my compound:
So after two days of trying to upload these videos in two different locations, I give up! Another time, perhaps, when the internet doesn't suck. Here are a few pics instead.

Shelling Peanuts

Pa Dam and Baby Ibou

Ndeye Fatou, Baby I and Aisatou

Stud

*Ramadan is coming up in a couple of weeks and if you read this blog last year, you know that didn't go so well for me health wise. If any one was thinking of sending a package (hint hint) now would be a great time to do so! I recently updated my package request list and my new mailing address (the Kaolack one) that is supposed to be faster and a lot cheaper for me to receive mail. Both are posted on the left side of this blog. Thanks everyone!