Artisan Expo!

I've been in Dakar for the last few days to the Artisan Exposition. Every year artists, who work with PCVs, travel to Dakar and have a two-day exposition/market. This year Alyssa was the expo chief and I was her runner/helper. She did an AMAZING job putting the expo together. The artists were from all over the country and sold: wood sculptures, silver jewelery, beaded jewelery, cloth bags, clothing, art work, traditional crafts, and a variety of other things. The first day the artists sold from 10am-5pm.
The second day the expo started with a training for the artists while volunteers sold for the artists. During the expo the artists created a network and elected a board to run the network. Theoretically they will be able to start planning and eventually take over the planning for the expo. After the network was created there was an instant increase in comradery and togetherness with the artisans. They started buying things from each other and collaborating on projects. Matar, my tailor/artist, is working with a leather artist to leather handles on some bags.
Another huge success of the expo was in the marketing. Usually notices are sent out by people who work in the office but this year Alyssa and I decided amp it up a little. We put flyers all around downtown Dakar hoping that it would attract some new clients... and it totally did! We had some people fill out surveys and most of the clients said they heard about the expo from our flyers downtown. One woman owns a boutique, heard about the expo from the flyers, and ended up buying a ton of stuff to resell. At the end of the expo we totaled the amount sold and this year we had tripled last year's expo total! Overall it was a HUGE success!
In addition to a great expo, we spent the weekend making delicious meals! The first night we made amazing taco salad, that was followed with bacon mac and cheese (made from Velveeta my mom sent), then Tamar and Alyssa made brisket and latkes, and last night we had pasta with an arrabiata sauce.
I'm at the training center in Thies right now to give a presentation this afternoon and then back to site! After that it's only a few days until I'm off to the US! I'm trying to load up the next few days with things to be busy so they don't drag on. I'll post my pictures from the expo tonight or tomorrow when I'm back at site.

KO

Artisan Expo

I am happily back from Dakar! This weekend was the artisan expo and a series of dentist appointments to deal with 2 chipped teeth (my training family was NOT good at getting rid of the rocks in their rice). I went to Dakar Thursday for my Friday morning appointment and found the house PACKED with people. There are a million people who have been here longer going home for Christmas as well as people going to a party up north. Because of that, there were no beds and I slept on a mattress outside (I had a mosquito net and when it was quiet it wasn't bad at all). Thursday night a 3rd year volunteer was having a party for someone who was COS (close of service)ing.
Friday morning I went to the dentist right on time to find out that the power was off and he didn't have a generator (which seems REALLY WEIRD AND SCARY) but would come back on at noon. I wandered around the big grocery store down there and bought shredded cheese (more on that later) and a sandwich. During my second trip to the dentist (after brushing my teeth from lunch) he told me I would have to come back at 4pm because he had questions for the PC med office. Back at 4, the appointment went fine but he needed to see me Monday again. I decided to take the bus back from downtown to the regional house and aside from the fact it took a while, it was relatively easy and I would absolutely do it again. Friday night Alyssa joined me in Dakar and we dug into the gnocci she had been sent.
Saturday was the Artisan Expo which was mostly sitting around with Matar and the other volunteers. By the end of the first day he had sold all of the hoodies (pictures on my blog) and a few bags. Saturday night was, however, the much awaited pizza dinner. Alyssa's mom (thank you!) had sent her pre-cooked pizza crusts, pizza sauce, canned mushrooms, and pepperoni so with the shredded cheese we made amazing pizzas and had a quiet night watching movies with a few other volunteers. Unfortunately no one else had a quiet night and sleeping outside was pretty difficult because people were all over the place and staying up really late.
Sunday morning started with training on costing for the artisans which I think they all really enjoyed. For lunch Oliver, Alyssa, and I went and got (much awaited) fried chicken and it was AMAZING! It was like real fried chicken. Alyssa left after the expo and I hung around the house with a few more people from my stage. Eventually everyone went to happy hour and then back to the house where I (finally) got a real bed and slept happily! This morning I had the dentist appointment, which went well, and was in the car back to Bambey by 1pm.
It was a tiring weekend and I'm really happy to be back in Bambey. This week I have some tutoring and I'm going to try to catch up with the women's training center as well as continue the search for a women's group to work with. It's slowly cooling off and my hfsisters usually bundle up at night when we sit and watch tv (I'm still in a tank top and capris). Hopefully I'll be able to stay in Bambey until Christmas (minus Thies for lunch this Friday - someone's birthday). Oh and I think I'm going to make pancakes for my hfamily maybe tomorrow. I'm choosing pancakes because they're pretty easy to make with ingredients here and I've heard other volunteers say their families have really liked them.

KO