last but not least

Today was my last day in Senegal and it was a really full day. I'm getting ready to go to the airport late tonight, my flight is after midnight, so technically Saturday morning. I really hope that I will be able to sleep some on the plane! It will be about 19 hours of travel, which is long but shorter than if I fly from Bamako because I'll go straight across the ocean from Dakar and not through Paris or Casablanca like from Bamako. I am also pretty close to the airport here, and when I am in Mali the trip would start with a 7 hour bus ride just to get to Bamako. Its weird to think that I'll be in the states at this time tomorrow!

Anyway, here are a few pictures from my day:I went about an hour and a half out of the city and visited "Perspective Senegal", a center for boys that are ex-garibouts. (Garibouts are boys given away to Muslim teachers by their parents when they are little and then they grow up in a horrible system where they are sent out on the street to beg for money and food every day and they are treated as less than human and they must memorize the entire Koran) The center houses and schools and feeds 32 boys from ages 10-22 right now. It is a Christian center but nothing is forced on them; they have been truly liberated. The older boys learn trades such as carpentry (above picture), mechanics, or shoe making. It was really impressive.

I also visited the nearby base. With the base is a small medical clinic. In the above picture you see some white people entering the clinic - there was a youth group from Switzerland spending their spring break on a mission trip to the boys' center that came to see the base and medical clinic with me. There was a class going on at the base when we visited. The clinic is smaller than the one in Dakar, but they said they see 30-60 patients on an average day.

And a final picture: some boys giving a little too much love to this poor donkey.

its hard to decide

This is a basket of bracelets that I saw for sale here in Senegal in the market. They caught my eye and I wanted to buy a few. But there are so many colors and designs, it was hard to choose just 2 or 3. Red, or blue, or yellow... ok, I guess its not that important of a choice.

But in the last few days I have had to make some bigger decisions and it hasn't been so easy. First it was leaving Mali. The other non-African folks from my group were already gone or on their way out, and I was urged to go as well, so knowing that I needed to go was pretty clear. But would I go to Burkina, or try to fly out of Bamako, or go to Senegal and wait and see? And now I am in Senegal waiting and no one knows when it will be safe to go back to Mali. So what to do now? When you are an adult it means making your own decisions, there isn't someone to tell you what to do or make the choices for you like when you were a kid. When I discussed the options with my husband he just encouraged me to do what I thought was best and the only guidance he gave was "well, what would do in Senegal if you stay there?" So I've decided to fly to the states. I'm taking a plane on Saturday to Minnesota. And it will be great to see family and friends there! But I am also asking myself "what will I do in MN, and how long will I be there?"

missing

I've only been away from home for a week now, that isn't really so long. But I think that not knowing when I will return makes me miss everything more than if I were just on a trip for a week knowing I would be home again soon. Mostly I miss my husband. Its good that I can talk with him pretty much everyday on the phone or skype. Modern communication technology is great! I miss my friends and I miss my normal life. And I miss my puppy Teddy.

at the market

I spent some time wandering through the market and taking a few pictures while I was at it. Usually you have to ask before taking pictures even of things, and most people I encountered here didn't want their picture taken - some people are very superstitious and think that getting their picture taken could capture their soul or something weird like that. So I asked and was allowed to take pictures of the baskets (I would have liked to buy a few but they don't pack so well into a suitcase!) and the peppers and the fabric. There is certainly no lack of color in an African market! When I asked one man if I could take a picture of his table covered in chickens (they were alive with feet attached, about 20 of them laying on a table) he asked me for 5000 francs. When I just stared at him he said "ok, make it 2000 francs." So I said nevermind and moved along.

at the sea

Hello ocean! Today I got to dip my toes in the Atlantic. We visited an artisans market (with very pushy vendors) and then walked over to this fish market/boat beach. I love that they don't just have boring wood boats, but each one is super colorful and covered in decorative paintings. In the top picture you can see how they get the boats in and out of the water - with a lot of teamwork and rolling them on logs. Behind the men moving the boat is "Magicland" which is a little amusement park (you can see the ferris wheel in the middle).

the clinic in dakar

I spent the whole day today at the medical clinic in Dakar, Senegal. First I got a tour and then they put me to work! It is called "Keru Yakaar" which means Hope House, I think in Wolof cause it sure doesn't sound like anything to me. It doesn't open until 8am, but when I arrived at 7:30 there were dozens of people lined up waiting already. At 7:45 there was a meeting and prayer time for the staff - around 15 people gathered in the classroom for that. Then they started seeing patients. There are no appointments, its first come first served. For the medical part there were around 120 people seen today. There was just 1 doctor and the rest were nurses. They also have a dental section. Each day they can see 55 people in the dental section, and today they had to turn away another 50. I had a hard time walking through dental because I know that many of the people are there just to get teeth pulled out and the thought of that makes me feel lightheaded.

This is the laboratory at the clinic.

And this is the pharmacy room. They had just gotten in a big lot of pills. I spent an hour or so helping to sort them out. Mostly I was taking little prepacked plastic bags of 30 pills, taking 10 out, and putting 14 into empty plastic bags because they wanted bags of 14 and of 20 of that pill. I also spent a few hours today auditing the books for another project that my host lady runs. It was also tedious, but it was fun to find mistakes! I had to compare 3 binders full of receipts with the printed out financial records for all of 2011 for the ministry that I will go to visit on Friday. It is a home or center for street children, I think mostly its ex-garibout boys, but I will learn more about it on Friday.

big holiday

I went to church on Easter Sunday with the family I'm staying with in Dakar. It was a big A/G church, and extra packed for Easter, with more than 400 people. I didn't have my camera, and this was the only picture they took from in the church. The little kids sand a song, the older kids did a choreography and a skit, and the teens did a song. The service was longer than 3 hours, but thats kind of what I'm used to now. It was in French and someone translated the sermon into English. To be honest I understood the French better than the accented English translation!
During every church service I've ever been to in Africa, there is a time when first time visitors are asked to stand up and introduce themselves. (not the best way to make new people feel comfortable in my opinion!) There were around 25 of us visitors at the church, a few besides me were also people evacuted from Mali. The pastor had everyone stand up and pray for Mali after that and I thought that was very cool.
After the service the visitors were asked to go in a room to meet briefly with the welcome committee. They invited us to various church activities and programs, and we were offered snacks. I was excited to take an orange orange. The oranges we have are always green and not very juicy. In the afternoon I thought about the Easter candy that my mom sent in the mail that I left behind in Mali and that JP is probably eating right now (if he hasn't already finished it all.)