Alieu Camara

On the front porch of the yellow trimmed hut, Adama and her 6-day-old baby boy, sit on a blue plastic chair, studying each other’s faces. The baby has one day to go before it is named at the traditional baptism ceremony. I have no idea what his parents will call him, but I do have a hope for one name in particular…

I met Alieu Camara a few weeks after he married for a second time to a girl named Hadia (Hadja) Ba after his first marriage disintegrated. He was always very friendly toward me, greeting me whenever I passed by, which was often, and made sure to include me when drinking tea or snacking on cassava roots. Though a deeper look into his behavior, especially toward his first wife, would cause me to wince, he was a well-respected member of the community and regarded as a leader, often time a de facto chief and councilor when my dad (Chief Amadou Camara) was not around.

Alieu was my father’s youngest brother, the youngest of 11 children in the Camara family, and my uncle in Coumba Diouma. He was fairer and very different looking from the rest of his brothers, which struck me as odd until I found out that grandma had been fooling around with another man in the village and out popped Alieu.

He and my dad’s oldest son, Moussa, were very close – in age and in friendship. They often drank tea, joking the hot afternoons away when taking a break from working in the peanut and cassava fields. When seasonally free from farming, Alieu worked as the middleman for a well to do man, named Malik, buying peanuts from local farmers and selling them to people in Dakar or other main cities. Consequently, he traveled a lot for his job and spent many nights away from his newly pregnant wife. A tenacious hustler, his boss was so impressed with him that they became good friends. In fact, upon hearing that his wife was pregnant, Malik bought Alieu a motorcycle to commute to work everyday from Coumba Diouma so he could spend more time with her and his family. When Alieu’s son was born last April, he was, without hesitation, named Malik.

Alieu became sick in August during the last remaining days of Ramadan. He thought it was malaria, but a trip to the health post and a rapid diagnostic test confirmed nothing. The Senegalese health system is in shambles and is often neglected by the government, particularly in Kolda, the poorest region in Senegal. He came home from the health post with the standard issued Tylenol syrup and no diagnosis.

As the weeks passed, Alieu did not get better. He wasn’t showing up for work and only hand enough energy to lie in bed inside his hut while his wife tended to him and to their new baby. Family members grew concerned as months passed and he showed no signs of improvement. But due to monetary constraints, he had little other option than to wait it out and hope his illness would fade on its own. His boss, Malik, finally took him to Dakar in November, and paid for his medical treatment in a proper hospital with qualified doctors. Unfortunately, it was too late. Alieu died two weeks after being admitted to hospital in Dakar.

It came as a shock to the entire family, sudden and tragic. As is often the case in Senegal, Alieu’s illness was never discovered. I believe it may have been pneumonia or a relation of the virus. No one saw it coming and it hit the family and the community of Coumba Diouma deeply. None more than Moussa. He had lost one of his best friends and closest family member.

A month later, Moussa’s pregnant wife, Adama, gave birth to their second child, a baby boy. As they prep for the baptism, neighbors and friends speculate about the name of the child. But I know it can only be one.

The day of the baptism arrives. Adama is wearing her best complet (traditional Senegalese dress) and has her hair done specially for the occasion. The imam (religious leader) starts to chant his blessings for the new baby, praying that Allah will take care of the child and bring it luck and wealth. The imam walks over to Moussa to confirm the baby’s name. All eyes are on Moussa as he whispers the name to the imam. The imam turns to the crowd gathered in the compound to announce the name of the baby boy. “May Allah bless Alieu Camara,” he says.

Profiles: Ado Camara

Adama (Ado) Camara

Age: 16-17

Schooling: Yes. She is in her last year of middle school for the second year in a row. She failed the previous year and will be retaking the school year at a private school this year.

What she likes to do in her free time: She likes to study and dance in Toulaye's (me) room with her siblings when Toulaye has dance parties.

Relation to me: My younger sister. We have the same Nene (mom) and Baba (dad) in Coumba Diouma.

Future plans: She wants to continue studying and hopefully make it to high school. After high school, she wants to go to the University in Dakar where she can study either medicine or nursing.

Ado's Story:

Ado is without question the smartest child in my family. She is bright and driven, always with a smile on her face. Nene (mom) and Baba (dad) recognize that Ado is particularly special and actively encourage her to pursue her studies. Ado's final year of middle school, known as 3iem in the colonial French model used in Senegal, was in 2010. At the end of 3iem students have to pass the BFM final exam to gain entrance to lycee, or high school. The BFM is a rigorous and extensive exam covering the entire years worth of material. It must be passed in order to move on even if the student received continued high marks throughout the academic year. Many fail due to its challenging material, especially girls whom are often too shy to seek extra help or are inundated with house work taking valuable time away from studying.

Ado prepared diligently for her final exam staying up late in to the night. Pinching a flashlight between her neck and shoulder to see, Ado quietly recited a year's worth of material repeatedly, under the moonlight. Nene and Baba ensured studying was Ado's top priority delegating chores to other family members and even bought her an extra notebook. If Ado passed, she would be the first family member to enter high school.

Unfortunately, Ado failed the BFM. It was a shock to the family as Ado never before failed. She received a 6 out of 20 on her final exam despite her status as one of the top 5 students in her class. Ado was very upset, but there was something else in the way the family reacted I could not decipher. It took me a very long time to figure out what led to her failure. I found out the other night. Ado's teacher, a man, tried to sexually bribe her for a passing grade. When she refused - or at worst, I dont know all the details - fought him off, he failed her.

Ado said nothing to her parents for along time. She was too ashamed and traumatized to talk. Nene and Baba figured it out quickly, though, as she was crying frequently for no apparent reason. They decided to act as best as they could and sought council from the Director of Education in the rural community, my own work counterpart and Coumba Diouma native, Diery Signate. After the first fail, students are allowed to repeat the year. However, this was not an option for Ado. She refused to go back to the same school. Her school is one of two middle schools in the surrounding area, the other has an equally poor reputation. Other middle schools in the department of Velingara where Coumba Diouma is located are over 40k away, an unrealistic option since commuting is unpredictable, expensive and time-consuming. Ado seemingly had no options.

After much struggle and fighting with the regional school board, Signate managed place her into a private school in Velingara - the town about 15k away from Coumba Diouma, and arranged for a safe homestay. But January rolled around and she still wasn't going to class. At the time, not knowing her circumstances, I couldnt understand why. It appeared to me that she did not take her education seriously and was waisting this incredible opportunity of private school education. To the same effect, her parents seemed not to push her to start school which I interpreted as indifference. I was very, very wrong. A year and a half later, now considered to be one of the family, I understand what transpired.

After talking with Nene the other night about girls education, she brought up Ado's experience and explained everything to me. At that time, Ado was still too frightened to return back to school. Her trust had been violated and the avenue to her future had been horribly tainted. In addition, Ado's intended husband, a formerly wealthier neighbor her own father's age with a long-time wife and several children who recently lost all his money after investing in cows that quickly died, was demanding that she take up with him and refused to give consent for her return to school. Nene and Baba fought this as best they could but it further delayed Ado's enrollment. Penny-pinching any chance they had, Nene and Baba eventually bought back their daughter and sent her to private school.

Ado is now free from the betrothal. She is also back in school studying hard to try to pass her final year of middle school. Watching her with this new understanding, she seems to be moving forward with poise. But the feeling of powerlessness and hurt is heartbreaking.

Unfortunately Ado's story is not uncommon. In fact that same teacher targeted two other girls in Ado's class the same year. They, too, refused to be taken advantage of and were failed. Both girls are no longer in school and have returned to their villages to cook for their family and wait to be married off.

Girls Scholarship and Education

Girls Scholarship and a Chicken
Dept of Velingara
June/July 2010


During the last week of June and fist week of July, a neighboring volunteer, Camille, and I biked to Mballo Counda, a village about 10K away from my village in the bush (aka no where near a main road in the middle of no where) to talk to a girl named Djenabo Bioro (prn: Jenna-bo) about possibly winning a Peace Corps scholarship, called the Michelle Sylvester Girls Scholarship Program, to attend school for the next year. We biked from my village through bush paths stopping and asking directions from pullar farmers tilling their land with donkeys dragging plows. It rained the night before so the paths were muddy and dotted with puddles. It was a beautiful bike ride and we got to see a part of Kolda that is rarely seen by foreigners since it is fairly out of the way. The rains have come to Senegal and everything is green and lush and the trees are filled with fruit and birds. It took us about an hour to get to Djenabo's village since the paths are eroded. When we finally arrived, Camille and I were drenched in sweat and blanketed in mud. We went to Djenabo's house to talk to her family and conduct an formal interview with Djenabo to find out what kind of student and person she is.

Djenabo is about 13 or 14 and she will be entering 5iem (I believe the equivalent of 7th grade) in the fall after the harvest. Since the Pullars are farmers, school starts in October after the farming is done and the harvest has been collected. She is one of the top students, including boys and girls, in her class with what we would call around a C – average. She is very shy, soft-spoken and slightly uncomfortable with two white women giving her so much attention which manifests itself through fidgeting with her bracelets.

I spoke in Pulaar with Djenabo's family and explained why we were there. I told them that their daughter was very smart and doing so well in school that she was in contention to win a scholarship to pay for her schooling for the following year. There is almost no communication between the parents and the teachers and Djenabo's parents had no idea how their daughter was fairing in school. They were amazed to hear that their daughter was in the top of her class and were so proud that she was doing so well that these two white women had biked all the way to their home to offer to pay for her schooling (which is the equivalent of $10 for the entire year, this includes school supplies like notebooks and pens and covers the cost of tuition).

We told the family that we were very proud of her and that she is incredibly special for working hard in her studies. We interviewed Djenabo and asked her standard "American" questions: what subject do you like the best, what do you do for fun - which is a very different concept since leisure time doesnt really exist here, what she wants to become when she grows up and what the biggest challenge she faces is.

To be considered for the MS scholarship, the girls must be in middle school and in the top end of their class. They also must write a short essay discussing what subjects they like the best in school, where they see themselves in 5 years and what they want to be when they finish school. Most of the girls in Senegal, especially in more remote villages like mine, are married off by their families at young ages, 14 or 15 years old, the average age of a middle school girl. As a result, the scholarship work that peace corps does serves as an incentive to keep the girl motivated to do well and and work hard in order to stay in school and educates parents to help them understand the value of education and want to keep their daughters in school. Moreover, most girls are never confronted with these types of questions and it is very interesting to see how they approach answering the essay.

For Djenabo, her dad is very sick and cannot work. I think he may be suffering from polio and is very ill (we met him and he couldnt even stand to greet us). As a result, the family struggles to make ends meet and everyone in the family must farm the land and pick up the extra slack so they can eat and earn money to survive at the end of the harvest. Another main challenge Djenabo faces is that she lives about 15k away from the school and must stay at a family friends house during the school year just to make sure she can go to school every day. This was a common answer we received during the week of interviews with other scholarship candidates as there are only two middle schools for the entire department of Velingara and villages are very spread out.

She was a little shy at first but her love for school clearly showed through. We could tell she believed it was important for her to do well in school so that when she gets older she can help support her family by other means than farming. She is also a very young 14 year old and, if I may say so, certainly not ready to be married yet.

After the one-on-one interview with Djenabo, we went back and talked with the family, at this point it was all women from her family and a few from the neighbors house, and I reiterated the importance of keeping Jebo (her nickname) in school, how proud we were of her and how proud they should be of her. The public recognition of her success is an important component to the scholarship work to get her family and community rallying around her and to realize the importance of education.

As I was explaining this to the family and praising Jebo, an older man walked up and said Jebo should be married off because she was getting old and that she wouldnt make it to University anyway – man, did he walk in at the wrong time! I stood up and, in the best Pulaar i could muster, told him that I was 25 and that when I was 15 I had worked hard in school, gone to college and was now here working and was still not married because I had different priorities and will marry when I am ready and want to my self. All the women started cheering and saying "o hali gonga" which means "she speaks the truth" and he was incredibly embarrassed and sheepishly walked away.

It was a pretty fascinating moment for me as i got to share a different side of life that most women are not exposed to in rural Senegal. It was also a great moment to hear how excited women my age are about acknowledging what their rights should be and how they would have liked the same opportunity for themselves. However, while it is good to have the women's support in that situation, traditionalist views, like that of the older man, are prevalent in this area and it will take a very long time to shift those ideas. We finished explaining the rules of the scholarship and said one more time how proud we were of Jebo and her accomplishments. The family was so happy to hear us say this and very appreciative that we had come and their door was open any time we wanted to come back and visit.

As we were getting on our bikes to leave, we filled up our water bottles from a pump well-do not ever do this! I now have giardiah :( and one of the women shouted my name. We turned around and a big crowd of people walking out of Jebo's compound. Jebo ran over to me carrying a young rooster and handed it to me as a thank you gift, feathers ruffled and flapping, squawking in protest. As she held the rooster out for one of us to take it Camille gave me the "that's NOT coming with ME!" look. So i reached out to grab the gift. As she handed the rooster to me her mother said, "no hewi fii audi" which literally translates to "he's full of seeds" and she went on to explain that he is a good, strong cock that will bring me lots of baby chickens!

Now, because he was a live rooster and i only had a bike to transport myself, they tied him by his feet and hung him upside down from my bike handle bars. Needless to say, my new pet rooster was not happy about biking 10K on a bumpy road dangling upside down from my bike handles. The ride back to my village was filled with more flapping and squawking. And about half way through the ride he peed on me. I showered in purell later that night! So, I now have a rooster that crows every morning and tries to mount every hen in my family compound. I still have not named him and will take any and all suggestions.
I came home the other night from Velingara and asked my dad, Amadou, where my rooster was. He shouted something to my little brother Soulaye and Soulaye ran around to the back of the compound. After about a minute, Soulaye returned walking my rooster toward me by a leash. I looked at Soulaye, then at the rooster, who seemed alright walking and pecking his way toward me with a leash tied around his neck, and noticed something was a little off about him. I thought my rooster was white but to my surprise he had magically turned blue since the last time i saw him. I started laughing and my dad said, "oh ya, we painted him blue so we could remember which one was yours." And Soulaye then leashed him to the outside of my hut. i'm not kidding. I have a pet rooster that is painted blue and has his very own leash so we can go for walks.

Environmental Education - at least that what I think I taught

Teaching at the School
Coumba Diouma, Senegal
June 4-10, 2010

Since I am now officially sick of cracking peanuts and itching to get some “real” work started, I walked over to the school the other day to check it out, talk to the students, and see what the teachers there were like (wishing and praying they were better than the ones I experienced during PST in Sangalkam). I walked into the equivalent of what would be the 2nd grade class (ages range from 7-10 years old) and saw there was no teacher around. I walked in, all the kids standing and shouting in excitement, “Toulaye!!!!”, especially my two new little sisters, Houlaye and Hawa, who are in class together. When I got them to calm back down a little, I asked where the teacher was. They told me she had gone to Velingara for the day which is about 15k away and has electricity, wifi, and cold beer! I asked when she was coming back or if there was a “substitute teacher”, by substitute I mean someone at least watching over the kids while they sit at their desks waiting to learn. They said she’d be back tomorrow, inshallah, and that they were just sitting waiting for school to end because they didn’t know what else to do.

Since the teacher was gone, and I was there, I shrugged my shoulders, rolled up my sleeves, and said, “well, why not”, and began talking. I started off by asking the kids if they knew who I was, what my name is and why I am here (it’s rare for a toubab to live in a Senegalese village so thought I’d make sure they understood). I got a very cute round of snaps and hisses (this is how they raise their hands in school, by snapping, hissing, standing up and even shouting Madam to get the teachers attention, even if they don’t know the answer) called on a kid I knew I hadn’t met yet and got a lovely blank stare from a girl with enchanting dimples. When I called on a few others, the responses were, “you’re here to study Pullar!” or “you’re here to farm!” or “I don’t remember your name. Are you Aminata?” (the volunteer I replaced).

After a few guesses, I did my best in my horrible pullar who I was and what I was doing there. Since most of them didn’t really know what the Peace Corps is, I ended up giving an impromptu lesson on what the Peace Corps does and why I am here to try and help. And since I was there, I figured I’d just jump right into it and tell them about environmental education and ended up doing a short but sweet lesson on what the environment is and why it’s important to take care of it. Since I can’t explain biodiversity or the web of life yet in pullar, I kept it simple: The environment includes all the trees, the grasses, gardens, fields, dirt and land. And if the trees die and go away then when the rains come, the fields and all the crops will go away too and we won’t have anything to eat and then we will get sick and be hungry. And that’s why it’s important to have trees and take care of them and plant new ones. That was the best I could pull of having not prepared anything before hand and not having a dictionary. Bu for the younger kids it was effective and worked. I then had them draw a picture of what they thought the environment was and they drew a bunch of Mango trees, gardens, and cornfields. I had each of them hold their drawing up in front of the class and had everyone look at it and admire the work. At the end of the class, I also gave a recap of what I had said and even gave then a little oral quiz to see if they understood and remembered what we had talked about. They all gave me huge grins and repeated the information. Then quickly ran out of the classroom to go and play.

The next day I decided to follow up at the school and went back in to the 2nd grade class. The teacher, thankfully, had come back from doing whatever it was she was doing in Velingara, and invited me in to the classroom to chat some more with the kids. I asked a few questions about what I had taught the day before and the kids remembered! I also told them that if they wanted to help the environment that I was going to be planting trees in the afternoon and if anyone wanted to help to come. I taught them another little lesson about the environment – this time, the specific importance of trees – and the teacher was great helping me understand what some of the kids were saying helped me out with pullar as well. Later that afternoon, a big group of kids, myself and a few teachers went outside and planted over 200 trees. Most of this was all impromptu and I’m amazed that it worked out as well as it did.

The teacher, her name is Hadi Maaday, and I talked for a long while after school ended and she said that I could come back and talk/teach the kids whatever I wanted. So the next day was hand washing! I explained what bacteria is, why it’s bad, why it makes you sick and how to prevent bacteria from making you sick – WASH YOUR HANDS! I then told them that you have to wash your hands for 30 seconds to make sure all the bad bacteria goes away so I started singing the alphabet song. Only problem is most of the kids can’t get past D. Guess what tomorrow’s lesson is?

Teaching has been great and it seems to come quite naturally, aside from the language difference. I am so happy I stumbled in the other day and I will continue to teach until summer vacation starts. I will be working throughout the summer to get together an environmental education club at the school, probably once a month to start or once every two weeks, depending on how it goes. I also want to start discussing with the teachers the creation of an after school program from kids who are struggling and need extra help. Inshallah, they will like this idea and be onboard and want to take responsibility to coordinate the program. There is a lot of work ahead for me to do, and a lot still seems vague, but I am happy to have discovered at least a bit of direction for my service.

Polio Vaccinations

My First Real Work:
Manda Dar Salaam (a.k.a. Manda Crossmonte “cross roads”)
May 30, 2010


I went to Manda, a road town about 25k away from Coumba Diouma, with my community counterpart, Mbarro Camara, to visit another volunteer serving there. Mbarro is a health relay in the greater Velingara area and brought me along to do some health work. Me, the other volunteer, Mike Toso, one of his counterparts and Mbarro met up to give out polio vaccinations, deworming medicine and vitamin A.

Manda is a road town of about 5,000 people. We walked door-to-door asking if there were children under the age of 5 in the household, how many and if they were around. Since there is no official census of the area, this served as one. We then got all the children in the household together and administered the polio vaccination, vitamin A and the deworming pill. After we were done, we marked each child’s left pinky with permanent marker so we didn’t give them two doses by accident; after a while I started drawing smiley faces on the older kids’ hands to get them to smile. For the most part, the vaccinations went fairly smoothly however you’d be surprised with how many children are scared to death of white people. I’m not talking about shyness. This was kicking and screaming, clawing their way to free themselves of these scary “whities” making them take icky medicine while forcing their mouths open. It was actually pretty comical.

After schlepping around Manda in the hot sun for 8 hours we managed to get around to most of the households that were on the list for that day. We picked up where we left off the next morning and continued until late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we ran out of medicine and the health supervisor ran out of refills as well. That is a common problem here. There is not enough money to supply medical workers with enough resources needed. This is especially true in hospitals and in schools where resources are needed the most. Even though we didn’t have enough medicine to complete the job it was a good experience for me to have. I really enjoyed trying my hand in medical work and it felt good to do something tangible.

Welcome to Coumba Diouma, Toulaye

The First Few Days:
Coumba Diouma, Senegal
May 19 – 25, 2010

I am not kidding when I say that all I did for the first week at my new home was crack peanuts. I cracked peanuts with my mom and grandmother, cracked peanuts with my neighbors, the women’s group two compounds down, with the school teachers, and with a group of men while drinking ataaya and talking about how hot the sun was that day. I have cracked and de-shelled over a baseball season’s worth of peanuts and have not eaten a single one of them.

In case you didn’t guess, it is peanut season right now in Kolda. Known as the peanut basin, peanut production accounts for about 40% of cultivated land in southern Senegal and is the main source of income and employment for rural farmers in the region. Peanuts are the main cash crop for farmers in the Casamance (the area of Senegal below the Gambia) and comprise around 60% of Senegal’s agricultural exports, 75% of which is in non-refined peanut oil. Yes, that was a mouthful. Having said that, we crack and de-shell a LOT of peanuts.

Early every morning, the women in the village walk to their peanut fields, pick peanuts from the plant and walk back home with a giant overflowing basket on their head. They dump the peanuts on a mat, usually in the center of the compound, and get to work cracking and de-shelling. Cracking peanuts here is an actual art form. They don’t crack them in their hands like we do at a ball game. Instead, they pop them on a wood block or the cement and they crack open easily if hit in the right spot. I haven’t mastered this quite yet but am getting closer. Every now and then I manage to make the same popping sound but it is rare. Something to look forward to over the next two years…

While cracking peanuts I did my best to chat in broken pullar to get to know people in my new home. I addressed the usual questions: where are you from, why are you here, and where is your man? I explained that I am from the US and that I am a Peace Corps volunteer and that I am here to help with environmental health education. Their response was “ah, just like Aminata?!” (the volunteer I replaced). And after a few bad jokes in terrible pullar people started warming up to me. I slowly started to talk about other topics outside of the weather, which is actually only consists of saying that the ‘sun is hot’, “nange no wuuli”.
I’m slowly meeting new people and my new neighbors and hopefully soon enough I will start to form real relationships with them. I have been playing with the kids and running every night with a large following. I feel like Forrest Gump a lot of the time. I’ll start out running by myself and slowly, kids will see me running, drop what they’re doing and chase after me. By the time I hit the road, I have about 20 little village kids in a clump panting and trotting about 20 yards behind me. It’s adorable.

Honestly, that’s about it. I’ve been trying to get some sleep these last few nights as I am still exhausted from PST and the emotions from moving in and starting my life in Coumba Diouma. While it may not sound like much of a way to begin work and life in my village, the important thing is that, so far, I am happy.

Sleeping Under the Stars

My First Night
Coumba Diouma, Senegal
May 19, 2010

Well, I didn’t cry once today. Thought I was about to earlier this afternoon, but got it together. I’m exhausted and looking forward to getting my first good night sleep since I got here. It’s quiet and the stars are mesmerizing. It is a crescent moon laying low on the western horizon shining bright perfectly through my hut window.

The last two nights I was in a city called Kounkane, located about 40K south of my village with a group of volunteers installing in this area. This morning, we took three volunteers to their respective villages and watched as a huge celebration took place to welcome them in to the community and family. Drums, dancing, and a sacrificial lamb were in order and the volunteers received in this fashion seemed excited, their nervousness waning.

I was the last person to be installed in village out of the Kounkane group. We drove into Coumba Diouma with the white Peace Corps truck, my entire life packed tightly into backpacks and trunks strapped to the bed of the pick-up. As we drove past the school kids started running out, waving and shouting my new name, “Toulaye! Toulaye!”. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered stronger as we turned into my new family compound. My arrival was much less dramatic that the slitting of a goats throat. I was welcomed warmly and with probing eyes by some members of my new family; others seemed to trickle in unaware that I was to arrive that day. My dad, Chief Amadou Camara, reintroduced himself to me. One by one he pointed to each member of my family that was present, sitting under the shade structure in the middle of the compound, and said their name as I smiled nervously, thinking, “How am I going to remember all these names? Everyone looks the same!” After the brief introduction the Peace Corps driver, Pap, took off and I was left alone. The kids helped me put my things into my hut and life went on as per usual.

“Well, at least that’s over,” I thought to myself as I walked into my hut. When I walked in, there was a huge welcome note from Annicka, the volunteer I replaced, saying “Good Luck”, and “Bismillah”, and “Welcome, Rachael!” in big bubble letters on the chalk board painted on my crumbling wall. It was very thoughtful and comforted my nerves. I looked over my new digs for the next two years, took a deep breath, and said, “ok, this is home”. I started unpacking my things in my new hut and slowly my new brothers and sisters started trickling in, cautiously curious to see what this new volunteer was like. I tried the best I could to chat through terrible pullar. They were sweet and did their best to try to make me feel welcome and help with my things. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much to unpack nor any furniture to rearrange so that took about 10 minutes. Now, I was left with the rest of the day with nothing on the agenda. I walked out of the hut did my best to walk around the village greet people until dinnertime where we ate millet and leaf sauce. I have a feeling that dish will become a staple in my life over the next two years.

Anyway, it is bedtime and still no tears. My mom called me as well as veteran volunteer living in the region of Kedougou so that made me feel less alone. I am viciously tucked in to my mosquito net and will be sleeping, for the first time, outside under the stars in Africa.