Geming Sama Bopp in preparation for Camp Gem sa Bopp

Arriving at your favorite cafe in Saint Louis directly from village with your pants still wet from getting water from the well.... fabulous.

Okay! Just want to give you guys a little peek into the preparations for Camp Gem Sa Bopp (Camp Believe in Yourself), because I'm frickin' exhausted, but having a great time getting ready.  Joy of joys, this year I will be bringing three bright young women from my village to participate in the camp. And in order to make that possible, I had to test some serious boundaries of trust. First, my counterpart--who has yet to help me with a single project beyond brewing tea while I work--told me that she had to be invited in order for any of the families there to allow their children to go away with me for a week. I can absolutely understand her point, but she's not exactly the ideal camp counselor. See the lack of help working comment. Plus, we already have all the counselors we need, coming from other villages. And the directrice is a Wolof woman as well, so it's not like these girls are going to be with toubabs rekk. But, beautiful silver lining, my good friend's little sister is a college student, and helped me immensely in finding the girls who have now been invited to camp. She wrote me a list of names, then taught me about their grading system.

Over the course of three days, I went to each family, explained the camp and asked to see the girls' grades. Finally, I found the three candidates. One girl, the youngest of the three, had incredibly high scores, and her father was immediately happy to have his daughter participate. The mothers, however, mentioned briefly that a week was a long time to have one of the household workers absent. I held my ground and argued that the benefits to the entire household of sending a girl to this camp would, in the long run, far outweigh the damage of missing a week of chores. And hey, Papa agreed with me! Awesome.

Fortunately, the girl who helped me also had the highest scores in her class, and her mother and I get along really well. Her father passed away several months ago. It is with great pleasure that I was able to invite her to the camp, both because she's family friends and because of her help and automatic support in the process.

The third girl is the daughter of our village cheif. He is regularly absent from village, working in various other cities. She's the daughter of his first wife, who is a lovely woman and the sister of one of my best friends there. Plus one day she came to a tour with butt padded underwear on, extending her already sizeable bottom to ridiculous proportions. Plus at another tour she taught me to dance. Aaaanyway, we had to call the father to get his permission (sure, mutual parental concent is important, but this was clearly a "man gets the last word situation.) So, here is my best work moment so far in Peace Corps: On the phone for the 2nd time in one day because the first time he said "the problem is she won't be around to work in the feild," and then I ran out of credit. Ready to make the case, so much more so because of the BEAUTY of the barely restrained shaking in the mothers voice as she told me YES she wants her daughter to be able to go so she can have a good life, and here's what I needed to tell her husband to make sure he agrees.  So I spit it out, conscious of my slowed, extra clear articulation to mask MY internal quivering, and he says "It's no problem. When are you guys leaving?" And I turn to the girl as I pass the phone to the mother, and we just smile and laugh, and, man I almost did a happy dance.

Lot's of work left to do. By writing the grant, I agreed to be in charge of all the money, which means reviewing all the budgets and buying things and writing checks and stuff. And then I agreed to be co-in-charge of a day of the camp, which means preparing events, writing a schedule, and then writing my own budget for them. And meanwhile, my program director is coming to my village on thursday to explain to my village that, yeah, she's telling you the truth when she says she's here to work along side you guys, not for you, and she can't write a grant for anything without you guys contributing. ... Long story about how they still don't get that... But man, I love them. And now, I finally feel like I've been able to do something substantial that will (inch'allah) actually help my village.

Camp starts Sunday, so stay tuned for camp stories and pictures! And once again, HUGE thank yous to all of you who donated!!! I can't tell you how excited these girls are and how excited we volunteers are!