Korite

Yesterday was my 2nd Korite in Senegal. While the names and faces were completely different from my previous Korite, the day was spent much in the same way. In the morning, we ate breakfast like we normally do (outside of the month of Ramadan, of course), and then the men went off to the mosque to pray. From around 11am to 6pm, we basically sat around all day, enjoying the shade from trees and eating great food throughout the course of the day. Chicken, beef, lemonade, soda, popsicles, and dates were on the menu, and I can't say that I was complaining too much. In the evening, everyone got dressed up and took pictures, as well as walked around town visiting other families. To be honest, Korite is quite boring. We all sat for 7 hours talking about the same stuff we usually talk about, such as the ever popular question "Gallas, where are your girlfriends? And why aren't they here?" (They still ask me this, even though I've told them many times that I am not hiding a stash of girls in Dakar). That said, it's apparent that this is an important holiday for my family and the community, so I did my best to act like I was having the time of my life. Next on the agenda will be Tabaski, which is an even bigger deal than Korite, and promises to be quite the feast.
That's all I really have to say for now, just wanted to upload some pictures of Korite. My buddy John is flying in Saturday night, and I'm happy to say that I've planned what I deem to be a pretty awesome trip full of danger and adventure. Anyways, hope all is well on the home front. Ba ci kanaam!



Pictures are as follows --> 1)My namesake, Fallou Gallas and I (he is a complete clown, and my nickname for him is Golo, aka monkey)
2)Family members lounging about and making tea during the day
3)Me and my baby brother, Ahmet (notice my awesome Boubou outfit)
4)A light near my room. Yes, we have a lot of bugs...

365 Days later...

Exactly one year ago, the adventure we've come to call "Peace Corps" began in earnest. On September 11th, 2008, 40 toubabs arrived in Dakar, not knowing in the least what they were in store for. In truth, it's incredibly hard to believe that an entire year has flown by since that fateful morning. But in these past 365 days, my peers and I made new friends, learned new languages, acquired new "family" members, and of course, lowered our hygienic standards by a substantial amount. Together, we've shared some incredible experiences, and some awful ones that I somehow remember fondly, solely because of the company I was in. We've all had our highs and lows in this country, and it's safe to say that other volunteers are the greatest source of support when having a bad day. My greatest concern coming into this experience was what the other volunteers would be like. Having moved around my whole life, I knew how much harder these two years would be if I didn't have some friends to rely on. Thankfully, I've gotten to know some amazing people out here that have defined my service thus far. The good times were made even better due to having friends around, and the bad times were easier to handle with said company present. It's also important to understand that these are the only people in the world that can truly understand where we're coming from on many issues. When someone barges into a regional house saying "I wish this country would sink into the ocean and never be spoken of again!", you understand. When you sit on the beach, eating a mango the size of your head while watching a breathtaking sunset over the Atlantic, those next to you understand when you say "I never want to go home". With one year down, I'm making a mental note to enjoy this next year as much as possible, because all good things come to an end. As expected, this has been the most defining year of my life, and I cannot wait to see what the next 365 days have in store for me.

I spent the last few days in Dakar celebrating a friend's birthday, and just got back to Ngaye today. Combining the birthday with our one year anniversary, we had a blast. After a whole day of enjoying the pool and sun, we went off to a fantastic restaurant (where I had an actual Tex-Mex burrito), We're going to visit my leather workers a few times, as well as take a day trip out to the villages to get a first hand look at the production line. It should a be good experience and I'm looking forward to meeting my new neighbors for the upcoming year. Also, as some of you may know, my buddy John Anhalt will be flying in for 2 weeks on the 26th, which will be awesome to say the least. Well, I'm off to get some work done/clean up my room, but I hope everyone is doing well back home. I should note that today should not be a particularly uplifting day, as it is the 8th year anniversary of 9/11, so take my optimism with a grain of salt. So, for now, ba 11 Septembre bidi new! (until the next 11th of September).



Pictures are from N'Ice Cream (location of the 23 minute all-you-can-eat fest), and of Dakar at dusk from a friends balcony.

A Tale of Two Landscapes

When I left in early July for vacation, the landscape here was just starting to change. After no rain for about 9 months, the scenery was about as barren as could be, with only some shrubs and the occasional tree providing any color. When the rains finally started, I was just about to leave, so things looked quite the same. Upon my return, I was confused. Had I landed in Central Africa? What was this place with greenery flowing from all ends? Everywhere I looked, everything was green and lush. In fact, when I finally rolled back into Ngaye Mekhe, I had a hard time recognizing the town. Since the dry season is so long, literally the second that rain starts falling, the plants start to grow furiously. Obviously, there is still lots of sand, and for those missing the desert, it's still not too far away. Here are two pictures (the first of which I took during the dry season, the second a few minutes ago) to illustrate the change.












In other news, work is going well. It's looking like we'll have yet another basket order later this fall, which is great. Also, I'm going to start filling out some applications with our work partner in order to get a storage unit built for the village. Currently, our work partner stores ALL of the baskets in his home once they are finished. This last order, having 2600 baskets created quite a few problems for our work partner, as he had to give up a good majority of his compound when the rains started. Having a legitimate place to store baskets is essential for this association, and hopefully we'll be able to start constructing one in the near future. Also, I'll be making a catalog with my leather workers over the next few weeks so we can have all their models presented in an easy to access file that could increase their chances of securing an overseas buyer. That's all for now, I'm off to go run in the 100 degree sun...Ba ci kanaam!

The vacation to end all vacations

After a lengthy and fantastic vacation, I have successfully returned to Senegal. I wasn't in desperate need for a vacation, but the opportunity to visit Eastern Europe (with someone who knows quite a bit about the area) is one I couldn't pass up. Ever since my brother moved out to Serbia in the fall of 2006, I have been trying to find time to visit him. Three years later, there I was, sitting on an Airbus A320, grinning from ear to ear as the jet rocketed down the runway of Leopold Senghor International Airport. Upon arrival in Serbia, our little trio (my mother, my brother and I) spent a few days walking around Belgrade and eating amazing food. Then, thanks to the support of both our parents, Elliott and I ventured off on a tour of the Balkans. In a 10 day span, we saw various parts of Montenegro (including the beautiful Durmitor National Park, where we camped), Bosnia (including Jahorina, the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics), Sarajevo, and Dubrovnik (Croatia).


Simply put, I could not have asked for a better vacation. Not only did I get to enjoy the thing I miss the most as a volunteer (Western food), but I also got to spend time with my family and have a crazy adventure to top it off. Now, having returned to my "real" life, I'm ready and excited for the upcoming year here in Senegal. Even though the timing of my trip was unfortunate in respect to our basket order, the first container of baskets was sent to Dakar and shipped off with no problems that we know of. We will, however, have to set up a 2nd container to send the remainder of the order. As far as my leather workers, we'll be working on making a full fledged catalog over the next few weeks, as well as hopefully editing their video footage into a movie. In exactly one month, my stage and I will celebrate the one year anniversary since we arrived in Senegal. The fact that we've almost finished one whole year here is very strange indeed, and I will probably spend quite a bit of time over the next few weeks pondering how fast time flies. Anyway, I'm putting up a Picasa album with pictures from the trip so people can see all of them. Hope everyone is doing well and I'm glad to hear you're doing better Grandma! Ba ci kanaam!

PCV Gaines is M.I.A

No updates in awhile. If you didn't know by now, I am on vacation. I will be in Eastern Europe until early August. Internet is somewhat inconsistent in my current location, so updates will be short. Upon returning to Senegal, I'll write something more substantial. For now, I hope my PCV friends are enjoying the great scenery and weather that Senegal offers, and I'll see you all in August. Mangiy noos REKK!

Goree!

I've just retired to my room for the night. After watching a stunning (and needless to say, AWESOME) victory for the U.S soccer team over Spain, I decided to be awesome myself by buying some sodas for the family. To my extremely conservative Muslim family, buying 2 big bottles of Sprite is the social equivalent of buying everyone a drink at the bar, and thus it was a small party at my house tonight. Despite having no power for most the night, we sat there drinking soda by cell phone light, laughing about how happy I was that the U.S won ("Gallas kontan na!" they kept on saying). Tomorrow it's back to work, as now my leather workers have been getting interest from foreign buyers. We have to essentially prepare an online catalog and make some spreadsheets outlining all of their product line in order to advance in this process. That will definitely keep us all busy until I head off to Kedougou and then (gasp!) Eastern Europe for vacation. This is in addition to the basket order that continues to progress (they're almost done with production!).

This past weekend was once again spent in Dakar, but this time I actually had some work, meeting with the head of my leather workers about getting the online catalog set up. It was also my last chance to see one of my friends before he went home so we took a trip out to Goree island on Saturday. For those in the dark, Goree was a very popular stop-off point for slave traders back in the day, and thus has some fairly significant historical relevance. The island has kept its colonial charm and preserved the historical buildings that made it famous, and thus is a big attraction for tourists and Senegalese alike (there are often school trips going there). There is a well maintained boat (anything well maintained in this country is worth taking note of) that runs every hour or so to the island and back. Being the cool Peace Corps volunteers that we are, we very slightly impressed the other toubabs there by getting the "resident" price. After walking around for awhile, we took a visit through the museum (which still has its original cannons in place), and also visited the famous "maison des esclaves" (slave house), which was quite sobering. Pictures were not allowed inside the house, so the door sign is all you get (see bottom). All in all it was really a great trip. We spend so much time in this country experiencing the frustrating parts of it (namely local transportation) that we seldom get to appreciate its more attractive features. Goree as one of those times where I was really able to see that Senegal CAN be a incredible place to visit. I also really enjoyed seeing school children out there. I think it's extremely important for kids to have some pride in their country and its history, and Goree is a fantastic place to instill some of those values. In a country where the youth is often forgotten, it was encouraging to see kids running around the island, learning about their country while having the time of their life. Especially when many of these kids are coming from families that may never even have SEEN Dakar, let alone Goree. It's for this exact reason that I was alright with paying $10 (don't laugh, I make $90 a week here...) for my host brother to go on his school trip to Goree back in May. Having now seen it for myself, I'm very pleased he got to have the experience. I'm off to bed, as the next week promises to be pretty busy. Hope people back home are doing well and that everyone will watch the U.S play the final of the Confederation Cup on Sunday! Etats-Unis laa faral!!!

Work Updates

Earlier today I returned from a productive, yet very fun week-long stay in Dakar. Around 40 volunteers (or more) gathered in Dakar to help out with the 3rd artisanal exposition at the American club. This time, we combined forces with the Eco-Tourism volunteers to make it a joint artisanal/Eco-T expo. In preparation, I had transported some baskets around and also made a nice brochure for my leather workers (see attached PDFs. Can you spot the typo?). The expo itself went pretty well, despite the fact that we didn't sell as much as we did time. Many of the artisans there did, however, gain valuable experience and feedback on their products that will help them improve their ventures. Unfortunately, I left the battery to my camera in its charger here in Ngaye and thus was not able to snap any pictures. Obviously, we did manage to sneak in a few mandatory games of volleyball during the expo, prompting one artisan to comment "So...after lunch is done, all Senegalese people drink tea. Do all Americans play volleyball after lunch?"...

Before the expo, I had taken a few field trips to our basket villages to measure baskets and hand out salaries based on the number of baskets succesfully completed. Even though I'll be going back several times in the coming weeks, I don't particularly like doing it, since the image of a white man strolling into a village with $1,600 in his pocket is not what I like to call development. Obviously, someone has to do it, and it's the end goal of the project (to increase the salaries of the women making the baskets). That said, we're working very hard on making one of our counterparts do this, so that the women don't just start associating the white men with money (since everyone else in this country does that already). The last picture is of one of the villages I visited a few weeks ago (notice how the woman in blue seems very happy...she happens to be holding over $1000 in her hand...). Anyways, for now I'm back to working with the baskets, and am counting down the days until Eastern Europe (Peace Corps offically approved me for my vacation today!) Dafa Neex koi!