The country of Senegal owes me candy

Somehow months went by without my posting... well here are the highlights:

In January my friends Liza and Sarah came to visit.

After they left, I spent a few weeks in my village working on a proposal for a well repair project. My village is a large one (about 2200), but lacks a functioning pump. There is one pump that is always broken -- the few times it's been repaired since I've been there, it broke again within a few weeks.

Even if it were functional, it would not be a sufficient source of drinking water for so many people. In any event, my village is fed up with the idea of pumps. The mayor's office was interested in building a large-diameter well (basically a big well that can have various improvements over a traditional well) and asked for my help.

I didn't think it was the best solution; it's very expensive, and one water source of any type is not going to solve the problem. Even if it could provide enough water, people from all over the village aren't going to walk farther to get water when they have a tarditional well close by. I proposed the alternate solution of improving existing wells by installing metal covers and repairing the concrete area at the mouth of each well.

Everyone seemed to like the idea, so we went forward with planning the details. We were applying to a fund called Small Project Assistance, which is provided by USAID to Peace Corps. The community had to provide a third of the cost of the project, but that can be contributed "in kind" -- i.e. by providing labor and materials.

But because this is Mali, finalizing the proposal dragged out until the last moment before I was going on vacation in February.

I went to the ex-pat softball tournament in Dakar (WAIST) that I went to last year, then flew to Accra, the capital of Ghana, with Ben. We worked our way west along the coast, finally hitting Cote D'Ivoire, and flew back to Bamako from Abidjan.

I was back for less than two weeks when my grandfather became seriously ill, so I ended up taking a last-minute trip to the U.S. so I could visit him. It was great to see my family and friends!

The surprising thing is, even after 20 months in West Africa, I didn't really exprience any reverse culture shock. Yes, I had a hard time believing that an empty bus was still gonig to leave as scheduled, and really couldn't grasp that the post office wouldn't close for lunch, but most things I just took into stride. (I ran the post office thing by some other volunteers when I returned, and the reaction was, "wait, the post office doesn't close for lunch? Are you sure?")

On Sunday I went for a walk in the brousse near my village, and it struck me as very strange that a week before, I had been in Target with my mom and there was snow outside, and now I was walking through desiccated fields in 100-degree heat, and neither felt that odd.

My baggage got lost on my trip back. I thought it might be lost forever, but Ben got it for me at the Bamako airport after I'd been back for a few days. But it had beeen broken into...and guess what had been stolen?

ALL THE CANDY I'D BOUGHT IN AMERICA. Easter candy, M&Ms, jolly ranchers for the chief of my village -- all gone. And where had my bag been sittnig for two days? Dakar.

Senegal owes me candy!