On Est Ensemble

Ok so I found that for my week in Sokone, I couldn't write a good entry, so this is more like a photo album.  We spent our third week in Senegal in Sokone, a village just north of the Gambia, on vacances citoyennes with about 50-60 students from the university.  After a 5-7 hour bus ride through the Senegalese country side - literally through the country side, because at times the bus driver opted to navigate through the fields rather than around the pot-holes scattered throughout the road - we arrived at our home for the next two weeks, a building/compound thing.  There was a canopy-covered patio between the building and the front gate, and a tall cement wall surrounded the grounds, probably about an acre, complete with two grazing bulls, destined to the glory of our future dinner plates.  The building was made up of one big, central room, a bathroom with two stalls, and four smaller rooms.  The rooms were very bare, with the exception of the piles of 3-4 inch thick old foam mattresses that would be our beds.  The girls took the big room, and the boys divided themselves into the smaller rooms. 

The bus ride there.  This is Seydou,
 I think this picture says it all.

The reason we were there was for vacances citoyennes, or to help the local community.  We ran a medical clinic (about 1/4 of the 50-60 students with us weremed/pharmacy students), reforested local farms/forests, and educated people in alphabetization and information technologies.  I did the med clinic one day and reforestation the rest of the week.

Tying up mosquito nets

 Funny story.  So we had to use mosquito nets.  This picture is clearly one of us hanging up the nets sans string, nails, posts, and anything else that you could think of as necessary material.  But the really funny part actually happened both before and after this.  So we got our mosquito nets, and before we started hanging them, Alex and I decided to have some fun.  and reenacted Madonna music videos and scenes from Lord of the Rings, using the mosquito nets as props.  Unfortunately and unbeknownst to us, the mosquito nets were treated with bug-killing chemicals.  Needless to say, we both woke up after a few short and restless hours of sleep to burning sensations all over my face and Alex's arms and neck.  We suffered the consequences of the chemical burns for about the next 48 hours (explaining my red eyes in some of the pictures). In this picture, left to right: Waly, Adama (maybe?), Bity, Fatou, Korka.

This one's better 

(except that my eyes are blatantly 

battling the chemicals 

from the mosquito nets)

Some of the kids who lived down the street and visited often, also some of our first friends.  Left to Right: Basidi, friend (don't know his name), Me, Adama.  You can't tell from this picture but Basidi loved me.

BLOOD.  Or BLOOT, pronounced buh-lutt.  This card game is how i made a lot of friends.  The guys would play literally all day and into the night once we got back from our work in the morning.  The first day I thought I recognized it, so I ended up spending hours watching, asking, learning how to play, and meeting people.  After 

a day of learning and hours of playing with the help of onlookers, I finally had my first winning streak in the middle of the day on Tuesday.  

Getting my hair braided.
 This is Mamy, who is actually my cousin (I think),
 but most of it was actually braided by Fatou.

One night we went to a dance, a combination of traditional and more modern styles, organized for us by the village.

On est ensemble.  

Left to Right: Alex, Christian, Me, Assane.  

We were fast friends with Christian and Assane, as well as the other card players.