Books read: 6 Baby rats found living in a cabinent in my hut: 4 Adult rats caught in a glue trap placed on top of my other cabinent: 1 Times I had to drop an ax head onto said rat to kill it: 2 Donkey carcasses seen on the side of the road: 2 Rides [...]
The highlight of last week was a visit to Kim’s site, where (on her fifth-to-last-day there) her village’s women’s groupement put up 100,000 cfa for one heck of a going away party. A group of us biked in from Missirah in the morning. We arrived, greeted, and then put on our Senegalese finery. The party [...]
Since my last update, I: – Attended a village “alphabetization” class, where the women and teenagers are learning to read and write Pular. A teacher from Tamba (from the NGO TOSTAN, I think) comes to the village to hold a two- or three-hour class four days a week; everyone has a grand time, laughing and [...]
I feel I should provide some context for one of today’s uploads: These photo albums are a pretty common sight in boutiques around Tamba, as are Osama shirts and stickers. There are also World Trade Center-themed items, such as American flag/WTC flip-flops and table lamps I’ve seen in Thiès and Dakar that have pictures of [...]
The latest ET was Laura, who has returned to the world of air conditioning, ice cream, cable TV, and grad school applications. Today I’ll be dedicating an hour of sweating in front of a broken fan especially to her. Pouring one out for the homies, so to speak. Also, the start of album Month 5 [...]
Ratio of days in my village to days out of my village during month four: 1:1 German tourists who called me from Tamba after finding my cell number on the internet: 1 Average number of goats who come through the hole in my backyard fence at any given time: 3 New ETs from my stage: [...]