I'm going to use this blog post to answer a lot of the questions I got while I was home.
1. How hot is it?
This is a difficult question to answer since I don't own a thermometer and I don't have regular access to internet, and when I do I like to do other things. Monday, September 28 at 7:00 pm it is 91 degrees Fahrenheit. This week, according to Google, highs will be from 88-95 degrees and lows will be almost consistently 75 degrees. To give this a little perspective, it's not to hot, not too cold, and I don't need a light jacket. Cold season starts around November until February, when hot season picks up again. Hot season is really hot and pretty miserable.
2. What do you do?
My title is Preventative Health Volunteer. The health program in Senegal focuses on preventing malaria, preventing malnutrition, and increasing access to water and sanitation. As a secondary goal we focus on gender equality. We have a board, called SeneGAD (Gender and Development), that facilitates gender based work, including the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship to middle school girls. This also includes the various camps around Senegal, a new Grassroot Soccer curriculum focused on empowering girls, having girls groups, the list goes on and on. If you can't tell by the rambling, I really like Senegad work and this it is one of the best focuses a volunteer can have in country. That being said, I also have a lot of experience doing malaria work and nutrition, which is usually done in conjunction with the brand new school garden.
3. What are living conditions like in your village?
My village is 7km up the road from our regional capital, also confusingly named Kolda. I technically have two villages; the village I live in is called Sanankoro, but there is another village directly across the street, called Sare Koutayel. Sare Koutayel is the capital of the community rural, which is like a county. I'm just going to skip the description of how Senegal is divided up and governed because it's French and confusing. This just means that we have a community building and tend to get more visitors and some of the governmental perks not available in other villages. We have a school, a brand new mosque, and a brand new health hut. We also have one family who runs a cashew transformation business.
We are in the process of getting electricity. This is a sore subject for my compound because they left our section off the map by accident and did not order enough materials. We are one of six compounds that will be left off the initial grid, although they are trying to get more materials.
We have no running water and everything has to be pulled: bathing, laundry, dishes, water for the animals, drinking water, etc. I take care of just myself and I think this is annoying sometimes. Women and teenage girls do most of the pulling, and well as the labor that comes after the pulling. We do not have an abundance of wells in either of my villages. In Sanankoro there are sections of the village that have to walk 50 yards round trip to collect drinking water. The women do usually try to filter their water with a cloth beforehand, catching larger dirt and worms, but disease can still get through.
The Peace Corps volunteer before me focused a lot on water and sanitation, and her big project was bringing latrines to the entirety of both villages. This has increased adult open air defecation, but children still use nature as their bathroom 100% of the time. Soap is not utilized to the fullest, and germs are a major concern.
4. What do you eat?
Please see blog posted circa June 2013.
5. What are you doing after Peace Corps?
Eating.
Any other topical requests, send me an email!
Jam tan,
Aissatou
Any other topical requests, send me an email!
Jam tan,
Aissatou
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