Work Work Work

So if anyone's interested in what I've been doing the past few weeks, click here:

http://pcsenegal.org/malaria/velingara.html

There you have it. We've only distributed to a tiny, tiny percentage of the district of Velingara, so there's plenty of long, frustrating days of work left to do. When I think about the work, I'm less than excited for the weeks to come. What I am excited about, though, is the prospect of malaria being reduced in Velingara, a region that is very near and dear to my heart. So there it is. I'm a slave to mosquito net distributions but I'm happy to be a part of something this big and potentially life changing. Peace!

Appropriate Projects

Now here's an approach to development that works! I recently learned about this non-profit called Appropriate Projects. Here's an excerpt from their website:

Appropriate Projects is an initiative of Water Charity, conceived to slash through the red tape and get projects done immediately.

Access to safe water is a human right, and we are fighting to achieve this goal for every person on this planet. We will not sit around while people are dying and suffering from illness due to lack of water, contaminated water, and unsanitary conditions.

We use appropriate technology, meaning that the simplest and least-expensive methods are utilized to bring about the biggest impact at the least cost.

We do not deal with studies, reports, evaluations, nitpicking, reviews, administration, overhead, talk, delays, processes, procedures, format, overseeing, micro-directing, or excuses.

We start with the understanding that there are about 8,000 Peace Corps Volunteers stationed in over 74 countries around the globe. Each Volunteer is living in a city or community making a great contribution toward world peace.

Each Volunteer is competent and dedicated, having gone through a rigorous selection process, and having trained for the tasks to be done.

Each Volunteer has identified crucial projects that will affect the lives of those around him, but remain undone due to lack of funds.

Each Volunteer has the skills and capacity to manage the projects and funds, and complete the projects on time and within budget.

The projects submitted to Appropriate Projects by Volunteers are small, but they indeed have a big impact.

At the same time, there are millions of individuals around the globe who would like to do the right thing, to help those in need, and to make the world a better place to live.

Your contribution will bring to being a needed project in a distant place. It will affect the lives of individuals and communities, by letting them have the necessities of life.

I just want to go ahead and say that I like the way this organization works. I've been working in "international development" here in Senegal for almost 2 years now, and I've done my fair share of work with national and international government organizations (ie USAID, UNICEF) as well as non-governmental organizations (ie World Vision), and no matter what organization I work with, I always find something to critique. Some programs work fairly well, and I only see a few minor things I would change if I could. Other programs make me loose my faith in the possibility of international development. Appropriate Projects, however, seems pretty ideal to me.

I've been pretty bad at keeping this blog updated recently, and that's mostly because I've been so busy with work here lately. To make a long story short, I've been working the past several months on writing a proposal and organizing the community to build 2 "real" classrooms for the primary school in my village (the current ones are made out of millet stalks- not an ideal situation). It's taken a lot of persistence and patience, but my proposal finally got approved by The Powers That Be, and construction should start within the next 2 weeks. Thanks to my relentless persistent harassing of the good people at World Vision Senegal, they finally caved in and built latrines for the school.

The World Vision people, however, drew the line at latrines. There's a nice hand washing station in the nice World Vision latrines, but, guess what, NO WATER. No well = no water. Not their problem. Whatever, I am just thankful for their help with the latrines.

I'm at the end of my service here, so I don' t really have the time to write another grant and go through that whole song and dance again to get a well for the school. I'd originally just given up on the idea (hey, at least they're getting a school!) and thought that maybe my future replacement might (hint hint) want to do a well construction project. But then...I found out about Appropriate Projects and learned that the well idea could definitely become a reality for my village in the little time I have left there.

Today, I submitted the proposal for the school well to Appropriate Projects. My humble request to you all is that you go to to the website and learn more about this innovative organization. I believe in the work that they are doing and give them my stamp of approval as an organization that one can give money to without worrying about their money getting lost somewhere in the abyss of the international development machine. And, of course, helping people achieve access to sanitary water is a cause to get behind.

Barring any major faults on my part, my proposal should be up on the website in a few days. You can donate directly to my project (the total for the entire well for the school is $500) from here: Check it out, give some money, everybody wins. Please and thank you!

Happy Holidays!

I just made the best holiday newsletter ever with the Merry Newsinator from Plaid! You can too. Share with friends and spread love like salt on an icy sidewalk.

http://www.merrynewsinator.com/5lo

Ramadan Returns

Guess what? Ramadan starts this month.

I don't have to like it, I don't have to enjoy it, but I do need to prepare for it, and that involves me typing this pathetic blog post in a desperate attempt to gain your pity, which ideally will manifest as Ramadan survival care packages being sent my way. I have no shame.

For a variety of reasons, I have decided not to partake in the melodrama lose-lose transaction that is otherwise known as Ramadan. I (somewhat) fasted last year (for about 2 weeks) and can say firsthand that my experience during Ramadan last year was sub-optimal at absolute best, and that's even a stretch.

Last year, partly because I wanted to score bonus points with my family and partly because of the unique opportunity I have here to learn about Islam (nearly upwards of 95% of people here are Muslim), I decided to attempt to participate in Ramadan and all of the madness that goes along with it. In order to legitimately fast according to the rules in the Quran while also avoiding what I feared to be significant health damage to my already malnourished and angry body, I simply learned to be duplicitous in my fasting. Although the rules about fasting during Ramadan are few and simple- no consumption of food, water, or even spit (yes, spit) from sunrise to sunset- I decided to be a maverick and interpret the rules in my own pampered, pagan way, since after all, that's what I am.

I decided right from the get-go that waking up before sunrise to eat breakfast with my family was just not something I was even remotely interested in. I mean, I'm not even Muslim, for crying out loud. And it's pretty much common knowledge to anyone that knows me that I get very angry when my sleep gets arbitrarily interrupted. I classify religious dogmatic practices as "arbitrary," and as such, I choose to continue my normal morning routine: wake up, make coffee, make breakfast, prepare to exit my hut and face the world.

This, of course, is cheating; but that was the best effort I was prepared to make. I cannot fathom any reason that could ever possibly motivate me to follow all of the fasting rules for Ramadan with any degree of seriousness, but found it was best to pretend otherwise.

During Ramadan, I cheated in the mornings and legitimately fasted for the rest of the day: I would wake up at a decent hour (after sunrise, of course), eat oatmeal and drink coffee within the confines of my hut, and then exit my hut and fast for real with everyone else in my village until sunset. Well, I guess I never really took the "can't even swallow your own spit" rule to heart, mostly because in addition to being the most ridiculous rule within the entire idiocy that govern a Muslim persons life (with a few exceptions) during Ramadan, it also just seemed tedious.

I fasted in this manner for about a week. It wasn't so bad, really. It sucked pretty badly not being able to drink water, given the fact that this is AFRICA and, in general, GOD AWFUL HOT ALL THE TIME, but I wanted to push myself, so I held out.

For the most part, the fasting I did was bearable. Much to my surprise, it didn't lead to my immediate death, which was a nice victory. I felt like crap from head to toe much more frequently as the days wore on, however. My self-imposed deprivation also put me permanently on edge. Moody, angry, depressed, nauseated- you name it. I was a pleasure to be around, I'm sure. Yet all of that melodrama was not even the worst part of this lose-lose cultural exchange; it was just the most depressing part.

The element of this fiasco that proved to be the most demoralizing happened at the end of the first week. Upon exiting my hut one morning, the first person I saw skipped all morning greetings (that never happens) and immediately asked me, "what's wrong with your face?" Nobody wants to hear that first thing in the morning. Or ever, actually. I never look in the mirror when I'm in the village, so the fact that there was something gross on my face was news to me. When I finally located my mirror, the sight I saw was -at that time- gross enough to be the worst of all the other "ugly face explosion" atrocities that I had encountered in this country. My entire face was covered in a disgusting heat rash. Apparently my body decided to get back at me for depriving it of the all-too-important source of life that we call water. Looking at my disgusting face and knowing that I did it to myself was definitely a low point. Right then and there, I decided that I would lift my ban on drinking water during the day, but I would only drink water in secret. I don't think I was fooling anyone, but for the rest of the time that I claimed to be legitimately fasting, I would periodically "go to the bathroom" throughout the day- "going to the bathroom" being code for "pathetically chugging water in the privacy of my douche." I am happy to report that my face healed, in time, with no permanent damage, unless of course you count the damage done to my ever-shrinking dignity.

All in all, my diabolical fasting experiment proved successful for about two weeks (if "success" can be measured by survival). Forced starvation and dehydration made me a crankier, scarier person than I already was. It's not uncommon. Turns out, it happens to lots of people. By the end of the month, the people in my village were just grumpy, mean, annoying, and impatient, significantly more so than usual.

Ramadan is the harvester of sorrow. There. I said it. It's true. My opinion has not decreased in intensity over the past year whatsoever.

So that's get's us to the present. Ramadan will most likely start August 21st, depending on what the moon decides to do. I am not looking forward to Ramadan in any way, shape, or form. Shocker, I know. I do not plan on attempting to fast, nor do I plan on lying to anyone about it. People will give me shit, but I just don't care.

I am already mentally preparing myself for Ramadan: I know I won't be able to get much work done, I know that I am going to be annoyed with Senegalese people and Senegal in general, and I also know that I am probably going to go hungry, since lunch is going to be a difficult meal to come by for the entirety of Ramadan. Like it or not, this means that in all likelihood, I will often be forced to fast, anyway.**

Unless, of course, my loving friends and family in America (that's you all) take pity on me and send me Ramadan survival care packages. I know it's pathetic to so shamelessly petition like this, but I'm not above begging.

There is a handy dandy wish list on the right column of this screen with plenty of ideas for potential care packages. It's not terribly expensive to mail large envelopes, and there are also two different sizes of international flat-rate boxes at the post office. Anything helps. Thank you, in advance. Thanks for caring about my mental and physical well being, and thank you for reading this post of shameless begging and (hopefully) not judging me too much for it. Finally, thank you for putting up with me. Every little thing- letter, package, phone call, ect- means so much to me and brightens my life in a very significant way. So, thanks for everything you all have done for me in the past, and thanks in advance for anything in the future.

Hope everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying the last few weeks of summer!

(Sidenote: Luckily for me, I can afford to loose a few pounds. I'm not in the red zone, so it's not like I'm going to starve to death, as much as I might be making it out to seem that way.)

Taking It To A Whole New Level: Adventures in Fording Rivers

Here's how you get to my village: 2 hour car ride, bike 20K on a paved road, then bike 5K on a really quality bush path. The entire bike ride is gloriously flat, the road never floods, and there are approximately 2 patches of sand/mud on the entire journey that could be considered less than pristine.

Here's how my friend Daniel get's to his village:

Yes, that's me in the picture. Yes, I'm fording a river. No joke. That's how you get to his village: fording a river and biking 30K up a mountain. Geez.

When Daniel and I were getting ready to leave Kedougou for his village, he said, "make sure you wear clothes you don't care about, because you'll be filthy by the time you get to my village." I said, "Ok" out loud, but what I really wanted to say was, No fing shit, Daniel. I didn't forget that this is Senegal, you know. Normally, filthy just means "covered in sweat and dirt/mud." For Daniel, however, "filthy" means "chin deep in ambiguous river water."

Anyway, after biking a few kilometers, we reach the river. I looked for a bridge of some sort, but was suprised when I didn't see any. "What do we do?" I ask. Daniel, the most positive person I've ever met, just smiles at me and says, "we cross it." Oh, right, right, we cross it. Sounds like a good idea. I stare blankly as Daniel sets down his bike, holds his backpack over his head, and begins to walk to the other side. I'm alarmed when I see that the water is all the way up to his chest. He's several inches taller than me, and it seemed very likely that the water would be over my head.

Figuring that there was only one way to find out, I put my ipod/phone/camera in the top of my backpack, put my backpack on my head, and carefully made my way to the other side. I was so very happy to find out that the water didn't go over my head, which insured that my iPod- and the rest of my lesser important things- made it safely to the other side. Thank God.

Daniel was already back on the other side at that point, and I watched dumbfounded as he lifted his bike over his head and began to make the trek back. Shit. We have heavy mountain bikes, by the way. I realized that there was no other way to cross and that I had to be strong enough to do this myself. So, I get to the other side, attempt to lift my bike over my head, but can't do it myself. This is going to suck, I correctly predict. Luckily, there was a kid on the bank that helped me get the bike over my head.

I then began to ford the river, wholly aware of the absurdity of the entire situation. My arms shook a lot but managed to hold out, much to my surprise. I had been certain that I didn't have the strength or endurance to carry my bike like that all the way to the other side. Certain. I usually have a fairly realistic gague as far as realizing what I am and am not capable of, so it was a pleasant surprise to be wrong. I simply had to make it, and I did.

I joined the Peace Corps largely because I wanted to become more capable and self-reliant in life, in general. It's really important to me to be able to know that I can take care of myself. I was in no way prepared for the obstacles it would take here for me to learn these lessons, but I've been here for almost a year and a half, and I've survived. Thrived, even. It took fording a river for me to realize how far I've come, but it was a happy realization.

Anyway, the fording of the river is really all I wanted to write about. The pictures from the rest of the trip- which include an amazing waterfall and views from the top of a mountain- are here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/Dindafello

I Predict A Riot. Or Also: Amber Helps Out With Mosquito Net Distributions

Malaria season has arrived, and so pretty much all of my work right now is devoted to malaria-related activities. The 20,000 nets that Peace Corps Senegal collectively raised money for have finally arrived in Dakar and are being brought out to our sites every day. Our country director recently sent an e-mail saying that he and my boss, the Health Education program director, presented to the USAID and CDC US-based President’s Malaria Initiative team this week, and they said that Peace Corps Senegal volunteers are doing more than any other group of PCVs in the world to fight malaria deaths and illness. That's pretty cool, right? Our country director has done a great job of collaborating with other NGO's. We are working with USAID, NetLife, Against Malaria, Malaria No More, and World Vision to hopefully be able to achieve universal coverage in health districts all over Senegal. He even said that there's a good chance that through this coalition it might be possible to have enough resources for a universal coverage campaign this year for the entire health district of Velingara, which just so happens to be my health district. I'm so excited for the next couple months. Malaria-related work is the area I am most passionate about here, and it is also the most fulfilling work I do. I just got a call saying that the nets for my village are being delivered tomorrow, and I couldn't be more excited! Well, actually I could maybe be a little more excited, and here's why:

A few days ago I went to my friend Jessica's site, Malem Niani, to help out with her mosquito net distribution. She had 1,000 to distribute, and so 2 other volunteers and I went there to help her out. She organized everything really well, and so it seemed like it wouldn't be that tough of a job. Man was I wrong. Her town has 2 neighborhoods, one has mostly Pulaar people in it, the other with mostly Mandinka. Jessica and the two other girls that came all speak Mandinka, so I was put in charge of doing the Pulaar half. There was one other girl that came with me to help, but she was just a friend visiting Jessica who obviously didn't speak Pulaar and so couldn't really do that much. Jessica's host father and another health worker from that town were also supposed to help me out with crowd control and whatnot, but they did not do anything that I would even remotely think of considering "helpful."

Here's how the distribution was supposed to go: I had a list of every head of household in the Pulaar neighborhood with the corresponding number of mosquito nets requested for each family. There was a little math involved, but nothing a first grader couldn't do. There was a column on the right with the total number of nets each family needed, a column on the far left with the number of nets each family received during a recent national distribution which gave mosquito nets to pregnant women and kids 5 and younger, and then a blank column in the middle. A + X = C. Not exactly rocket science. Sounds easy enough, right?

Logistically, we had a table to sit at in a fenced in area that would have been perfect for limiting the number of people in my face at any given time, but Jessica's dad and the health worker didn't agree. While we were still setting up our demonstration net and getting everything ready, people started wandering into the gated area where we were. I told them that we weren't ready yet and kindly asked them to wait outside, but in a trend that was doomed to happen over and over again, nobody listened to me. You know who they would have listened to? The two Senegalese men who were there for just that reason. So, I asked Jessica's father to ask the people to wait outside, and he responded by saying, "oh, it's ok, we haven't even started yet." It was the first battle in the people of Malem Niani's war against me.

We got everything set up, and I tell them that we should start. Well, not without Jessica's dad taking the paper from me and telling me how to do my job. I tried to stop him, but he ignored me. He seemed to be of the opinion that because I'm a woman and he's a man, he is automatically the authority and I automatically am incompetent and inferior. It's a nice feeling, really, to work with people who think you're an idiot. Happens all the time. Anyway, after he tells me how to do my job we decide to back outside and get started because, hey, the Senegalese people are already there.

As I walk back out to our table, I see at least 50 Senegalese people hanging out in the closed off area that I had planned to use as a barricade so that this exact situation would never happen. There's no way I could have got that many people out of there without the help and authority of Jessica's dad and the health worker, but they are both socializing with people and I can't even get them to look at me. As I take stock of the situation, the one singular phrase that went through my head was "Holy fing shit." However, those were not the words I spoke. I just sat down, looked around, and attempted to take control of the mob. I don't know why I thought it would work, but I attempted to get the mob of people surrounding me on all sides to form a line. That was a bad choice. Now that I'm thinking about it, I've been here for almost a year and a half, and I have never seen Senegalese people form a line. The closest thing I've ever seen to a line here is at the bank. There's a guard with a gun in there at all times, and he even has to hand out numbered tickets to get people to not swarm the poor tellers there. The guy with the gun can't even get them to line up by his own authority, yet I still tried. I guess it's just the American in me. The reason I wanted to barricade them in the first place is because I didn't even consider the remote possibility of allowing everyone in at the same time and thinking that they might be orderly in any way.

I immediately realized that I had no control over these people, so I just decided that I might as well get started. It can't be that bad, I thought. I looked up and asked the first person I saw for the name of their head of household, which proved to be more difficult than it seems. First of all, it was often the women or kids that came to pick up their family's nets. No matter how many times I said, "head of household's name only," people still would tell me names that weren't on the list. So, I'd ask if they were absolutely sure that the name they gave me is the name of the head of their household and then check the list numerous times, just to be sure. At this point, I realize that the person in question is just giving me the wrong name, but Jessica's dad is sitting on my right, and the health worker is standing behind me, and they both repeatedly insist that I just look harder. Say the name I'm looking for is Amadou Diallo. The list was in alphabetical order by first names, so all I had to do was look on the first page. The Senegalese men I was surrounded with did not seem to grasp the concept of alphabetical order, and therefore repeatedly yelled at me to look at the other pages, for chrissake. I finally got on as much of a roll as was possible, but iit was still way more difficult than it should have been.

An executive decision was then made by Jessica's dad, who, of course, knows what's best, and I am ordered to just start calling out each name on the list. I mean, by that point basically every person on that list was jammed all around me, so it seemed that it couldn't possibly be any worse of a method than the one we were currently using.

What ensued can only be described as unadulterated chaos. [Jessica came over to check on us at one point and was horrified at what she saw. She took the above pictures but was too overwhelmed by the mob to really capture the insanity of the situation.] I started yelling out each name, and would say it twice just to make sure that everyone heard me, or at least had the opportunity to hear me if they weren't engaged in their own conversations. For reasons I'm not quite sure, Jessica's dad was in a very big hurry. Senegalese people, especially those who live in rural areas, are never in a hurry. Literally never. This guy, however, was. I tried telling him to calm down, but by that point had learned that his ears were inaudible to my voice. In what I can only believe had to be an attempt to see just how much I could take, he then begins to alternate screaming at me to go on with yelling at me to slow down. I couldn't do anything right. It was without a doubt the most needlessly stressful experience I have ever had in this country. I found myself just wanting to take a nap right then and there. But I (of course) didn't do that. I could always sleep later, after I finished crying.

I could go on and on describing the ensuing maelstrom of events that continued to kick my ass that day, but I think I've said enough. Suffice it to say that it was a full-on horror show that made me want to thow things. Things like daggars at all of the people who didn't respect me because I'm a woman, or because I'm young, or whatever other myraid of reasons they might have had. By the end of it all, I barely had a voice, had absolutely no love in my heart for Senegalese people, was seriously questioning why I ever came to this country in the first place, and, for the first time in my life, was so stressed out that I wanted a cigarette.

The good news, though, is that I know that soon I will be able to laugh about it all. Sometimes, when it seems like things couldn't possibly suck any more, I just tell myself that eventually I will be able to laugh about whatever the situation is. And it's true. For example, at one point during all of the madness, I just couldn't take being yelled at anymore and decided to stop everything and count to ten. Out loud. In Pulaar. God, those people must have thought I was crazy, but at least the yelling stopped and I got to take some deep breaths. It certainly was not fun to have to remind myself to breathe. And think rational thoughts. But now, it's already pretty funny to me.

The one thing that I still am frustrated about, though, is how nobody said thank you at all that day. They didn't realize or appreciate how many people went in to making this happen for them, and it really bothered me. It made me realize that I am somewhat skeptical of the effectiveness of a program that hands out free nets to people, whether they want them or not. Yes, insecticide-treated bed nets can protect people from being bitten by malarial mosquitoes while they sleep, thus significantly lowering malaria infections and deaths. No one is disputing that. Of course the over 20,000 nets that we Peace Corps Senegal volunteers are bringing into our communities will make progress on malaria, but I can't help but wonder if giving out mosquito nets like Santa Claus is just too easy. Last year, mosquito nets didn't arrive at all to the entire region of Tambacounda, so people had an excuse for why they didn't have one. This year, mosquito nets are coming, inschallah (God willing). I just want these nets to get to those who both value them and need them.

Maybe my doubts are unfounded. Yes, I am personally delivering enough mosquito nets for every single sleeping space in my village. Yes, they may not in fact value their mosquito nets as much as ones they would have purchased with their hard-earned money. But guess what? I'll make them value their pretty new nets! I will make sure that every single net that you all helped raise money for is properly hung and utilized. I will harass them until they realize it's less annoying to sleep under a mosquito net than be bothered by my incessant nagging every night. I guess that's where this Against Malaria strategy wins and other aid agency's fail; whereas the majority of aid administrators and celebrities blindly give hundreds of thousands of nets away every year to god-knows where, Against Malaria nets go to specific communities where their effectiveness or lack thereof can be evaluated.

Now that I've had a few days to think about the distribution in Malem Niani and my upcoming distribution in my village, I've calmed down a lot about things. My mosquito nets will be here tomorrow, and I'm so excited! The driver is going to take them to my village tomorrow, and I will probably start distributing the nets on Thursday, that way I can have time to help out other volunteers in the region who have much larger distributions to do. I've decided that I'm going to go door-to-door to distribute the nets, rather than doing it all at once. I figure my village is small enough for that to be a feasible option, and by doing it door-to-door I will be able to make sure people hang their nets correctly and do mini health talks with each person. This way I will also be able to make sure that they don't have any standing water (mosquitoes breed in water) and that their compounds are swept clean (mosquitoes also like to hang out in dirty compounds).

After I get done handing out the nets, I am planning on doing a big health talk with the whole village about all things malaria. I'm going to show them how to make homemade mosquito repellent lotion and give lots away as party favors.

Thank you to all of you who helped raise money for these nets. My village is going to be so very happy, too. Check back here in a week or two and hopefully I will have pictures and video posted of my distribution. And thanks, again for making all of this possible.

4th of July Festivities in Kedougou

Happy (belated) 4th of July! I went down to Kedougou- a city a couple hours south of Tamba, if that means anything to you- for their annual 4th of July party, and it was a really fun time. Alan, one of the Kedougou region volunteers, organized a 5K for the morning of the 4th. There was a pretty solid turnout by volunteers and Senegalese people alike. Just to clarify, when I say Senegalese people, I mean Senegalese men. I think that the day a Senegalese woman participates in a race alongside Senegalese men and a bunch of toubabs (whitey's) is a ways away.

Anyway, as we all predicted, the Senegalese people dominated. The guy that won finished in like 8 and a half minutes. That. Is. So. Fast. I was a long ways away from the finish line at that time, but I'm told that it was several minutes before the second person finished. 14 Senegalese people finished before an American finally crossed the line. That is just domination. Oh, and, that guy, Alan, just happened to be the guy who organized the run because he is a crazy runner and has done several triathlons and I think even marathons, too. Whereas my goal was to finish without dying first from my hangover or heatstroke, Alan was in it to win. But (of course) it's not like the finishing times for the majority of the rest of us volunteers really mattered, since we didn't really view our shot of winning and/or beating Senegalese people with any degree of seriousness, we were not clutch. I guess I just am not giving the Senegalese people enough credit, but I was pretty surprised that they did so well.

So, after the rest of us finally finished, Thomas, another Kedougou volunteer who helped organize everything, got on the microphone and talked about when Independence Day was, how many states there are in America- not 52, which a surprising number of Senegalese people will argue- and other bits of random American history. Then we had an awards ceremony. The prize for first place was 3 (live) chickens, and I think the Senegalese guy was pretty stoked about that. The other winners all got Obama paraphneillia; flip flops, t-shirts, hologram belts. Yes, I said Obama hologram belts. Isn't that awesome? There is so much Obama stuff here it's borderline ridiculous.

Anyway, after the awards ceremony Thomas spoke a little about what the Peace Corps is and the different kinds of work we do in that area. Then, we gave away little American flags, which I promptly saw someone begin to use as a tooth stick, the things that they use to brush their teeth here. We also gave out neem cream, which is a homeade mosquito repellent. All in all, I think the run was a great idea. The Senegalese people had a good time, got some free stuff, and learned a little about America and the Peace Corps. Not bad.

The rest of the day/night was devoted to partying back at the Kedougou regional house and celebrating America. The link to the pictures is here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/AmberGPatterson/4thOfJuly#