Girls' Camp Day 4 and 5

Wednesday was environment day and it was a huge hit! Erin and Emily (the ag volunteers in our area) are great in Wolof and the girls really enjoyed them. They started the day with a theoretical discussion about the environment then moved outside. They had hidden a bunch of trash around the yard and had the girls collect it. Afterwards they explained how some of the trash could be used in composting for even for small container gardening. They made a tree nursery and did some small containers of vegetables. Wednesday evening was a trivia night that was mostly questions the girls had written earlier in the week. One of the questions they had written was "name the 5 continents" which we changed to "name the 7 regions of the world" and we had an accompanying map. Sometimes Senegalese schools teach things that just seem wrong/are wrong (like that there are 52 states in the US) and we refused to give in to there being only 5 continents (in case you were wondering, North America and South America are combined and Antarctica doesn't exist).

Thursday was themed "business day" and Brian and Christine did an amazing job. They lead a great discussion about small businesses and then had some hands on projects of things the girls could sell at home. Everyone LOVED the activities and I think learned a lot. Thursday night we had a talent show! Each team was told to prepare a skit and then we had time for individual talents as well. The skits were all about things they had learned that week. After the skits, 2 girls read poems they had written which were AMAZING (they're both from Bambey and I couldn't be more proud)! Another girl sang Halo (the Beyonce song) and a group of girls did a kind of inappropriate dance to Rude Boy. The girl who sang Beyonce asked to sing another song and ended up singing the opening credit song to Marina - the telenovella that just ended. The avid Marina fans in the room (Alyssa, Tamar, and I) lost it - it was so amazing. To end the night the counselors did a silly dance to "forever young" (the remade version). Every day Christine and Alys had lead the girls in the yoga Sun Salute so we did that with the music and then Alex rapped the first verse. While he was rapping we danced in the back. At one point I broke out the really popular dance in Senegal right now and the girls enjoyed my feeble attempt. We then pulled them up and had a little dance party.

Before I continue you need a little back story: one volunteer had brought a counterpart who insisted we called him "red" because he's the head of the communist party in her town. He always had games to play to fill the empty times.

At the end of the talent show we had some crappy fireworks (yes, a bad idea) to signify an end to everything. Alex was lighting them very responsibly - one at a time, far from the girls, and carefully aimed. At some point Red decided he was going to take over the lighting... let's just say we all almost got kicked out of the Peace Corps. The night ended when a fire work went off barely over the girls' heads. I QUICKLY called a stop to it and he didn't seem to understand why.

On the way back to the dorms, I heard some of the girls saying "we aren't going home tomorrow! we don't want to go!"

This morning we ate breakfast, did evaluations, and handed out certificates. I took some more pictures and then the Bambey girls had to get on the bus to leave. Everyone was crying as they left. Eventually the Pout and Mboro girls left and the volunteers did a final wrap-up and cleaned.

I remember driving back from Illini Girls' State one year and having to stop every 20 minutes to buy something with caffeine... I think I might be more tired now. I ate spaghettios for dinner and I'm about to pass out. The picture of everyone is on Alyssa's camera (I'll get it next week) but here's a picture of my Bambey girls: