So much went on this week, I don’t know where to start! After spending two days in Kolda (city) writing my well grant and doing other paper-work/life-organizing I headed to the eastern part of Kolda (region). I went with Sharon to visit our friend Sarah in her village of Sare Coly Sali, do some training-group catching up and watch a project of a second year health volunteer, Charlene, nearby. Sharon, Sarah and I pretty much spent two days in tears laughing at each other and one afternoon at a nutritional porridge-making demonstration. Charlene is in the middle of a huge project in six villages where she works with women’s groups to teach nutritional porridge making and other things nutrition-related. The demo was great – very clear and something I’d love to do, albeit on a smaller scale, in Sare Sara. And to top it off, the peanut butter-banana-millet porridge we made was delicious.
After two days out east, Sharon and I decided to pinch a few pennies (aka save $6) and bike back west to the finale celebration of Kelly’s relais training (I went to one of them a few weeks ago, another great event I want to copy). The bike from Sare Coly to Thiewal Lao is about 78 kilometers and took us just over 4 hours. Luckily the morning was cloudy and with a brief midday rest in Dabo we made it in one piece.
Wednesday was the big fete at Kelly’s health post. The event was mostly run by the health post ICP (head nurse/semi-doctor/master in chief) and a trainer from World Vision, who are both excellent. The event included skits put on by the new relais as well as demonstrations with anti-mosquito neem lotion, nutritional porridges and condoms. In true Senegalese fashion there was a huge speaker system, incredibly loud gas generator and no concern for scheduling.
After five days away I finally made it back to Sare Sara Wednesday night, only to turn right around Thursday morning and head back to Dabo for Tigi’s first visit with the vet. After so much biking earlier in the week I opted to brave a car and luckily she was incredibly well behaved on both buses – even though she shook like a leaf half the time and got me a few crazy looks from other riders (who, for the record, had much more annoying chickens/goats/babies while Tigi was perfectly silent and stayed on my lap the entire time). Kelly met us in Dabo with her dog Kindi but our grand plans of a puppy play-date were shattered as they spent the entire day snarling at each other. Overall it was a success though, and now Tigi is one rabies shot down.
I finally got one day back in Sare Sara to do laundry, scrub my hut, greet everyone in town and meet a few visiting missionaries. Now I’m back in Kolda preparing for another week of traveling - up to Thies for our health summit on Monday, then a few days off at the beach, Halloween in Tamba and then a potential visitor (Maria) in Dakar.
It’s going to be a crazy next few weeks with lots more travel, holidays and projects starting but it’s nice to feel like I’m getting things done, doing semi-real work and pleasing my village - they give me a hard time for being away butt are always supportive when I’m off seeing other projects that I can bring back.
No comments:
Post a Comment