And the cried the whole time!

so last week i did an art and nutriention week at the school in my village. they don't have any fun classes like art or music, plus i had a bunch of art supplies. so the first day was with the youngest class, and i was alittle nervous. i'm not what you would really call a fan of kids, especially kids here. so this one boy at the front of the class had his head down and wouldn't look at me while i was talking. so i presented my little lesson on fruits, talked with the kids and then started passing out drawing paper. all the kids kept saying they couldn't draw and i assure them that we could all draw. so i'm walking around, looking at all the kids paper, they were supposed to be drawing their favorite fruits. i tell him to draw and he looked at me, said "i can't draw!!" and then brust into tears. i had no clue what to do, i tried to talk over him but i couldn't hear anything going on because he was crying so loudly. so then he stood up and started crying even louder but standing next to his desk. all the kids are annoyed by now and start instructing me to beat him. i of course said that i could not beat him, which was responded to with a "pick up that big yellow ruler and beat him." i kept telling him he could leave the classroom if he wanted but he just stood there are cried even louder. turns out he was from a different village, so he didn't really know me and was terrified by my presence. i just love how kids brust into tears when i walk up and how parents tease their children with threats of giving them to the toubaako. so i finished the week of classes without any problems. i think the kids liked it and i hope to do more things at the school much like this. a teacher from my school expressed interest in having wednesday night game and music night at the school. the kids have nothing to really do in the village, plus he loves singing, dancing, being crazy. that will start tomorrow and i'm alittle excited. i've also found some people interested in doing some public education, i'm just going to set up stuff for them. i'm thinking the middle school by my village would be a good place to start. so i've only got three weeks til i go off to spain for vacation and i can't wait. plus WAIST is coming up, or the west african inventational softball tournment. i'm excited to see all the other volunteers who live outside my region and have a good time. so i'm doing much better now, work has picked up, i'm having fun, life is good. sorry for not posting in such a long time. also thanks deb and tina for the awesome package, the junk food was awesome! take care everyone.

One Time Use

So like most days here in senegal, while it's hot as hell and i'm sweating i start to think about all the things i miss so much from back home. i've created several meals i plan on eating upon arrival back to america, which is still so long away. but it helps pass the time and takes my mind off the heat and helps with the boredom. but anyways i was sitting outside the other day thinking about my former life in america, we all sometimes call it this 'movie' that we may or may not have not seen before. it seems like a dream at times. i was having a bad couple of days, i was really sick and thinking about college and all my friends. thinking about nights out on the square in ol' san marcos and all the fun times i had floating the river, hangin out at the park, eating at all my favorite places. then i was looking around in my hut at all the pics i have of my friends and i, there are also plenty of pics of the family too. but looking around at the pics i noticed most of them were taken with a one-time use camera, and just how freaking great one-time use cameras are. Then i got all nostalgic about one-time use cameras. they are perfect, cuz you really never know what will be on a one-time use camera when you develop them, or at least i never did. plus they always have the most random photos on them, because like i always did you randomly find one before going out and decide it could be funny to take the camera out with you. they usually end up being on nights of random birthday parties or random events, plus one-time use cameras are always i great impulse buy at the grocery store. they only cost $5 and they are just everywhere. but then i started thinking about how much of a waste one-time use cameras are. i mean you spend $5 of the camera and then another $8 or so on developing, and then are they even recycled, i'm sure or at least hope. but even though one-time use cameras seem to be a waste, i still love them and miss them dearly. so if anyone wants to send me out a couple one-time use cameras, that would much appreciated. Happy Thankgiving everyone, and don't worry i'm eating a good dinner today here in Kedougou. Although Aunt Debbie's German Chocolate Cake won't be here, that's going to kind of suck!!

I suck at spelling

so i realized after i published that last blog that i made some many spelling errors and didn't spell check it before. i'm slowly losing my abilities to spell and sometimes even speak english, let alone french or pulaar. so forgive me, hopefully i can remember to spell check from now on. showed up for my meeting at the radio station and of course home-boy didn't show up. i'm not too disappointed cuz i didn't sleep well last night and didn't feel like attempting to speak french for an hour. my abilities at speaking french have been on the major decline, i understand when someone speaks to me in french but hell if i can give a decent response in anything other than pulaar(and that is sometimes laughable). well i guess it's time to hit the market and get something for dinner, hope everyone is doing well.

Worst Week Ever

Not to be confused with the hit tv show 'Best Week Ever!'. So i've had a pretty rough week; from children who won't stop crying, goats who won't stop bleeting, roosters who won't stop making that god awful noise they make, added to that not being able to sleep! I've been on a mad search to find this middle school girl and give her a scholorship for this school year, foiled many times by her just not being around and then after tracking her down and giving her the money and this certificate, being informed that she's pregrant and her family won't allow her to go to school this year, to having to take the money back from her to finally selecting another girl for the scholorship, all of this after biking 60k just to complete this one task! Thank god for the two guys who spoke english to help me cuz i got all stressed out and lost all ability to speak french or pulaar. my school garden project was scutinized by some douche bag teacher on some soap box about development, your kinda preaching to the choir buddy!!! All in all he told me it was a dumb idea because the soil is bad and the water the far away. First of all, soil isn't bad, my family grows all kinds of veggies and secondly it's not my fault this village was settled at the top of a mountain and then all the huts were built so far away from the two natural springs which are the villages only water sources. i told them that we had to at least try, because this village doesn't have anything because no one is willing to try anything partly cuz they're all pretty unmotivated. then i also got a lot of crap from them because the volunteer i replaced didn't do anything in the village, i couldn't really say anything except 'well i'm not him.' and nothing is really getting done about getting our health clinic up and running, everyone seems to be pretty complacent about the whole thing. my girls club will start soon, that will be lots of fun and i'm excited about that. today myself and another volunteer have a meeting at our radio station, we're looking to re-do our show and make some improvements. i'm becoming quit the local celebrity from this radio show, people are always commenting on it and not just in kedougou. i've also made a new senegalese friend, one who happens to have a fridge, yes that means cold water and she eats very well. allah jaraama(thank god) she likes to feed this toubaako!!!!! i ate at her house three times this past week, only bad part of it is her house is 9k from my village. oh well i'll make that trip cuz it means no crying children, a nice couch to lounge on and good food and cold water! i'm having all these ideas for stuff but just finding it hard to figure out a starting point. hopefully it will start coming to me. hope all is well back home, send me letters!!!!!

james

I've created a MONSTER!!!

so doing laundry in my village is not fun, you have to hike your cloths all the way to this spring and then all the women make fun of me while i'm doing it. so i pay this girl in my compound to do it, plus i hated doing laundry in america where i had a machine to do it. so this girl is 12 or 13, really funny and probably does laundry for me once a week. let's also add she's probably one of the richest 12 year olds in the southern region of senegal, because of this. i'm always asking her what she does with the money, if she's saving it help with school stuff or what? she says no and that i would soon see. one thursday, weekly market day in a neighboring village, she returns with a ton of jewelery and a brand new outfit! she bought these giant bright green hoops, flower braclets encrusted with jems and flashy rings. another volunteer was in my village and so we started calling her 'bling-bling'. did i also mention that this girl is a total ham, she cracks me up all the time. so my friend and i are sitting under my shade structure, reading and what not. we look over and she, Marie, pronounced similiar to Mary, is laying on this stick bed having these two children massage her. as soon as she notices that we are wathcing her, the diva comes out. she said things like 'rub my eyes and i'll pay you 200cfa,' 'rub my neck and i'll pay you 300cfa,' 'rub my back and i'll pay you 1,500 cfa.' she sat there and did this for a good 20 minutes all the while wearing every piece of her new trashy jewelery. since she has bought even more new cloths and head scarves and is becoming one of the best dressed girls in senegal. so i've started doing alittle of my own laundry so as hopefully this won't keep going to her head. so everytime she walks by i say 'bling-bling'!!!

Hey Mr. DJ, Turn the music up!!

So we have this weekly radio show here in Kedougou, and today the girl who was supposed to do it peaced out and left the slot open. Another volunteer Alexa and I were in town and decided last minute that we would do the show as to keep good relations with Radio Communitaire here in Kedougou. without alot of time to prepare we decided we would have some friendly bantor but mainly play music. mind you the entire show is done in Pulaar. we were going to talk about how it's the month of fasting and whether or not we were fasting in our villages. Then we did alittle talk about how the rains are slowing down. While in a music set the techinican tells us he's not happy with our show because we aren't talking about important. So we add in a quick bit about what kind of work Alexa is doing in her village. She's at her one year mark so her pulaar is way better than mine. All of a sudden he just cuts off the music and says talk! we throw on our headphones and begin talking. I was so freaked out and messed up some of the words a bit. Then we're into another music set and he cuts off the music and again says talk! not knowing what to do we throw our headphones back on and Alexa decides to ask me what i'm doing in my village. My heart sake, i was so nervous, i choked up but i was able to get out some things i've done and some things i'm hoping to do. then she asked me about something, but i had no clue what she said, so we just started joking about how i can't speak pulaar. It was so nerve-racking, but fun and the techinican, although not my favorite person right now had some good ideas for radio shows he wants us to do. Turns out he is also the director of the station and all the DJ's. We talked over some things and Alexa and I promised him that our next show in two weeks would be much better. Also could to find out he spoke some english and we had been talking about him unaware of his abilities. We're so used to the techs not speaking english and usually just talk about whatever. So now the shows over, i'm getting a special shout-outs on all of his shows he said. I can't wait for the family in the village to hear me getting shout-outs from the DJ on the radio. I'm alittle disappointed the family didnt' know i was doing the show today, i greeted them in hopes that someone was listening. After all this excitment i need a beer! hope all is well with everyone. write me letters!!

james

Pics of the Mango Flies!!

http://txstate.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2148073&l=4c6cd&id=29606259

here is a link to my facebook album of the mango flies after they were squeezed out of butt cheeks! it's pretty gross, so weak stomachs shouldn't look after eating a full meal!!!