First let me say: cold season, WTF?? Sorry to use that language. My skin is PARCHED, I’m starting to wake up chilled under my SLEEPING BAG, it’s almost impossible to shower, and people are going to bed early to escape the cold. Just when I adjust… Anyway, there are some serious positives to this. Like, mostly it’s positive. Curling up in bed under a sleeping bag is like… o******c (awesome). Hot coffee, wonderful. Sweater and scarf (THANKS JOSIE!!!!), yes please. Doing yoga again makes sweating feel like a gift. Lower electricity bill. MUCH fewer bugs. Gardening has become a possibility in my mind, because being in the sunshine doesn’t feel like death anymore. So, yeah, yay for cold season! But, just for a point of reference, last time I went to Saint-Louis I showed up in the AM in a sweater and scarf. By noon I pulled the sweater off, checked the temp online, and saw that it was 86 degrees…

Here’s something I know you guys want to know about: WORK! Things are starting to move. At least one of you (thanks Zach) wants to hear more about the library opening. Well, it was an amazing event. Have I mentioned how much I adore kids? Here’s a cultural difference for you: In school here, when the teacher calls out for an answer from the class, everyone responds. Even if they don’t know the answer, it’s better to appear ready to participate than to not respond. So, when trying to do anything with the kids, everything is like a bum-rush. Which is … overwhelming… but awesome. Thankfully Madame Fadima Fall is not only an awesome work partner for this project, but has become a good friend. The teachers are authority figures. Me, not so much, though they get a kick out of it when I put on my “I’m serious!” face. Well, so the opening day was two weeks ago now. I read a book to the kids, Madame Fall laid out a whole plan for management of the library, featuring one representative per class to keep records of the lending, and then it was a free-for-all. Everyone wanted a book, and everyone scrambled to get one. I ended up on sentry duty making sure no one took a book out without having their name written in the notebook, and standing on the front porch pulling one after another of the small kids up from the ground to the 2.5 foot high step. Over and over and over. Bonding. Sweet, fun, exhausting.

So, we’re still going on the library. I made a set of library cards for the kids that will hopefully be an effective record-keeping system. We’re encouraging the kids to write a simple book report for each book they read, and encouraging them to do so with the promise of gifts. Amazingly, Madame Fall has a partner school in the states who sent her a whole big Rubbermaid Tupperware full of American notebooks, ruler, scissors, crayola markers and crayons, Elmer’s glue. So, perfect gifts there. Hopeful that this will encourage literacy in the younger generations and nurture a passion to read.

I’ve also just gotten started working with the women’s group to re-start their garden (I was repeatedly told to wait until the work in the rainy-season fields was over.) So, we all gathered there the other night to clear the land, get rid of all the dried tall grasses. It was amazing fun watching the women work, tease each other, laugh, and work along-side them playing in the dirt-I mean sand. After we got about half-way across the field digging and raking, someone was like, “Hey, let’s just set it on fire!” Well, I wasn’t so into the idea… not sure environmentally friendly… but it was one against about 40. So, we cleared a three foot path on all sides of what was left, and then lit it up. So, imagine a rectangle of dry brush, enclosed on three sides by a wire fence. Now, the leader of the women’s group grabbed some burning brush and started walking down one side, into the fenced in area. So, by the time she got to the first back corner, the fire had spread half way across the front end. There was a lot of shouting and laughing as her face turned to amused shock and she broke into a run to get out the other side before getting trapped in there. We slowly exited the fenced area and stood downwind of the fire to watch it burn. Oh my, my, my. Here’s a chance for a sensibilization waaxtaan (an educational conversation).

Good stuff. Buying seeds today before heading home, hopefully getting it all planted in the immediate future. Then just watering and watching it grow.

In personal matters, I’ve been here for nine and half months. Which just… is unbelievable to me. But I’m already having trouble distinguishing between stuff that I’m long-term habituated to (like, before I got here), and what’s really uniquely Senegalese and would be new to any of you who haven’t lived here. Yesterday I told my family about making Fattaya in village and was genuinely shocked for a second that they didn’t know what I was talking about. (It’s a fish-filled fried dumpling with onion sauce. Yum). But, frankly I now recall my first glimpse of fattaya in Mboro… Even names here, I can’t distinguish between which ones are new to my life here and which ones I knew in the states. Did I really never know a Seynabou or a Fatou before I got here? Really? And my sense of style… well, I’ve always been willing to be a little off-beat on that one, but the color here was once kind of “WOW” almost overwhelming to me, in an enchanting way. And now it’s all just the norm. So, hmm. ::shrug:: not much to say there, just interesting. I still love blue-jeans like nothing else, and frankly thing the young men here look better in them than traditional Senegalese pants. So, that’s not new.

Yesterday was Christmas. Had a lovely pizza dinner with friends, skyped for a long time with my family in the states, mostly my dad, but otherwise it was just another day in Saint-Louis. I almost wanted to grab people on the streets and be like, “Why aren’t you celebrating? It’s Jesus’ birthday!!” But, that’s irrational…

Everything is lovely. I kinda like it here… If only there were free teleporters so I could be here AND be close to my family and other loved ones in the states…