To Thies and Back

This morning I went into Thies to run a few errands and meet up with the girl posse. Alyssa and I did some banking and then bought fabric for Matar to turn into chic dresses (I’ll update you on how it turns out). We bought a TON of cheese, bread, and apples then met Jackie, Tamar, and her friend from home at the training center. After a lovely picnic I grabbed my COS packet and headed back to Bambey.

If I haven’t defined it before “COS” means close of service or continuation of service… depending on who you are and how you look at things. Some say that because I will always have fond memories of Peace Corps and I hope to continue spreading my stories of this adventure it’s a “continuation of service” just no in Senegal. In my mind one chapter is ending and another is starting so it’s a “close of service” which, besides, sounds way more exciting and way more like I’m done in 2 months! So today I got my COS packet, it contains all sorts of information about COS: paperwork to do, checklists to fill out, advice from former volunteers, and much, much more! The checklist is definitely my favorite part of the entire packet it makes it look like the 30 or so tasks I have to do before July will be a breeze. The next step is to attend my COS conference which will be in Dakar early next month. It’s three days with my entire stage (or the 40 some of us that are left) where we’ll learn all of the final details about how to get out of Senegal and end these two years.

After reading my entire COS packet on the ride back to Bambey, I dropped it off in my room then went to a meeting at the middle school. Today my scholarship girls met me at the school to write their essays for the application. The questions were simple: what do you want to be when you grow up? and what’s the largest issue facing girls in education in your town? One girl also did her interview and the rest of them picked times for me to visit their house and do the interview. After I’ve done that, I will recommend 6 of the 9 girls. A final committee of volunteers from other sites will pick the 3 girls that win $30 each to buy school supplies. My replacement will take those 3 girls shopping (which, if it’s like last year, will be amazing) and then pay $10 of all 9 of the girls’ enrollment fees for the school (the girls will be left with about $2 to pay themselves).

It’s up to me to figure out who gets to come to the camp from Bambey so I’ve decided that the 9 scholarship girls from this year as well as the 5 girls that went to the camp last year and have been actively participating in the girls’ group are guaranteed spots. For the rest of the spots, I’m inviting everyone that participated last year (but wasn’t part of the girls’ group on their own choosing), the top students from the other two middle schools, and I told this year’s scholarship girls they could each invite a friend, to my house on the 19^th. I’m going to have Salamata and Soukey (another OUTSTANDING camper from last year) present on what the camp was like so the girls get a better idea. Then I’m going to give them each a form to fill out and tell them to return the forms to me by a certain date. The forms won’t be that involved – it’s more of making sure they’re dedicated enough to actually fill out a form and return it. Last year I had to invite random girls at the last minute (which worked out but was unnecessary) because girls weren’t dedicated or excited for the camp. I think giving the girls a little bit of responsibility (writing their information, getting their parents approval or inviting me to talk to their parents, and maybe writing a reason why they want to go to the camp) will give them some responsibility and ownership of the camp. The camp will be the last week of September – so about a month after my replacement gets to Bambey. I’m so excited that my replacement will get to participate in all of these incredible activities at the beginning of their service – I hope it sets the tone for the rest of their two years.

One other awesome thing happened today, I was walking back from the essay writing and had this conversation with a random 8 year old girl:

Girl: How are you?
Me: I’m fine, how are you?
Girl: I’m fine. What’s your name?
Me: Fatou, what’s your name?
Girl: Ndeye. Will you give me 25cfa?
Me: Will you give me 25cfa?
Girl: But you should give me money because you’re so pretty.
Me: You’re also pretty.
Girl: Will you give me your hair?
Me: I can’t do that.
Girl: Look – I live over there. Bye!

The last thing today is just well wishes for my cousin and his fiancée who are getting tomorrow – I hope everyone has a great time at the wedding and I wish I could be there to see it!

KO

And the winner is...

This week I finished teaching the business classes at the middle school and high school! Each group sold their business idea to me as if I was an investor and then answered some questions about the general topics they've learned. Some groups gave mediocre presentations but there were a few groups who really seemed to have learned a lot. In the high school I was particularly impressed by the group who's business idea was to open a pool. I told them to dream big and, without a model business to go on, they came up with a pretty good plan for their pool. They had the most unique idea overall and they seemed to really understand the material from the class.

In the middle school there weren't any ideas that were just leaps and bounds above everyone else but my favorites were: a library, a dairy products factory, a clothing line. Sure not the MOST original ideas in the world but those groups worked really hard and understood the lessons well.

This week I also started teaching at the elementary school my 12 year-old host sister attends. I'm working with 30 students in her grade (including her) on a 5 week program that introduces really basic business and community structure ideas. Last week we did the first two lessons (what are communities/jobs within a community and unit/assembly line production) and I'll be teaching every Tuesday for the next 3 weeks.

The girls' camp is moving along but I'm just the liaison between the University and volunteers running it so I don't know much of their plans. I know it's in the works and I'm sure it's going to be great.

Work with Matar is also coming along - there's a meeting for all of the artists in the Artist Network Tuesday in Thies. The Network also paid for two booths at the big Jazz Fest in St. Louis at the beginning of June.

Oh! How could I forget! I had my first meeting with my scholarship girls yesterday! I'm doing it at a different school from last year (I wanted to spread a wealth a little). One of the girls was in my business class and overall they all seem very pleasant. We're meeting next week so they can write their essays (what do you want to be when you grow up? and what's the largest problem facing girls in education?) then they'll each have a really basic interview with me and I'll visit their houses. They all already won $10 towards their school enrollment fees and 3 of them will win $30 to buy all of their school supplies for next year. I'll be doing all of the paperwork and submitting the applications to the volunteer committee but it'll be my replacements job to go school supply shopping with them and actually distribute the money/certificates. I had such an amazing time last year shopping for school supplies with the winners so I don't think my replacement will mind that I've lined up some work for them already. I'll keep you posted on this new batch of impressive young women!

That's all that's been going on here work-wise. The power outages have been very frequent and long (I think, recently, the longest one was 18 hours). Sure not having power is annoying but not having water (the water cuts about 45 minutes after the power) is HORRIBLE. I have 6 gallons of water stored in my room and my host family has another 20 in huge plastic drums downstairs. We have power this morning, though, so I'm taking full advantage of it.

One final note - congratulations to everyone who just graduated! I have many wonderful friends who finished undergrad or completed classes for their masters - hats off to them! Good luck conquering the world!

Cheers,
KO

Salemata

I haven't been blogging recently because I haven't had much to blog about but I got great news a few days ago:

Last year I did a scholarship for the top female students at one of the middle schools. These girls were invited to the camp. Before the camp one of them, Salemata (who had the 3rd highest grades for the girls), called to ask me to talk to her older brother: her dad didn't want to let her go to the camp but if I could convince her older brother maybe he could convince her dad. A few days after I talked to her older brother she called to tell me she could go to the camp! At the camp participated a lot and was really outgoing during the camp. About halfway through the camp she found me one day and asked to use my phone. She took off running towards the dorms and started crying. I followed her and she explained that another girl had taken her phone and her shoes and hid them. Needless to say I was horribly upset at the bullies and I felt so bad for this amazing girl. We resolved the issue and Salemata's classmates really rallied around her which was great to see.

After the camp Salemata has been the most responsible and participatory girls in the girls' group. She always comes to meetings and she'll call if she can't come. For Tabaski (the big sheep killing holiday) she invited me to visit her house. This sounds pretty mundane but visiting people on holidays is a really huge part of Senegalese culture but I hadn't really felt like there was anyone that I was close enough to not feel like I was being a burden on their holiday celebration. I decided to follow up on Salemata's invitation and I went over to her house to hang out with her family for about half an hour. We just sat and talked, nothing big, but I was really honored that she felt comfortable enough with me to invite me over.

I really don't feel like I'm explaining her well but take my word - she's amazing. She's the girl that I think about when I need motivation to go to a meeting I think might be cancelled or when I had to go back to the University a million times last year while I was organizing the girls' camp.

So for the great news part: I got a call from her a few days ago and we chatted like normal then she told me that she had just received her grades for first semester and she has the highest grades in the class. She doesn't have the highest grades of the girls but of everyone which is huge! I am so unbelievably proud of her and I wish that there was more I could do to continue to encourage her but she seems to really be rocking the world on her own.

That's my good news! In other events I'm finishing my middle school business classes tomorrow and I'm starting classes at the elementary school (including with my 12 year old host sister) Tuesday!

There are also only 66 days left of this adventure!

KO

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:

Girls' Camp Day 3: Our Future

Yesterday was the second full day of the camp, third day overall. The theme was "our future" and involved a career panel. The girls got to ask questions to professional Senegalese women. They rarely, if ever, get a chance to discuss careers so it was a great time to talk about education, professional training, work/life balance, and just see that it is possible to be a Senegalese woman and still have a career. They also had time for art projects and we did a few other games. The power cut around 4pm and didn't come back on until sometime in the middle of the night. We ate dinner by candle light (which is normal for these girls) and stayed up chatting for a while. The Mayor of Bambey even sent a few people to come welcome everyone and encourage them to continue studying and working hard.
Unfortunately teenage girls are teenage girls all over the world and we have had some bullying issues. Yesterday one of my Bambey girls told me she lost her phone (which is cultural for "it was was stolen") and then took off towards the dorms crying. We went upstairs and some girls were sitting in a room laughing at her because they had taken her phone and hidden her shoes. We eventually solved the problem and the girl who was being bullied was in a way better mood today. She was participating and had a lot of support from her group.
The last noteworthy camp thing is that last night Jackie and I had a bat in our room. I noticed it while she was getting ready for bed and I was in bed. The power was out so we only had cellphone light but it was circling the room. Brian came in to try and chase it out (by throwing a towel at it) and eventually all of the noise had attracted all of the other volunteers. Eventually we just went to bed and it was gone by the morning.
I'm off to dinner now! I'll blog again about today if there's power!
KO

Girls' Camp Day 2 or how Alex gained a fan club

Today was the first full day of camp! The entire camp is themed "Our World" and so each day is "our world..." - today was "our world, our health." We discussed clean environments, did some yoga, and talked about general good health practices. In the afternoon Alex had organized "olympics" which were like a field day.

The olympics started out with tug of war which got everyone excited for the rest of the games. Next we limbo'ed and followed that with a long jump. The girl that won the limbo is the only girl from a really small village, so it was great to see her be the center of attention. For the 4th event we played what he called "THE MANGO! THE SPOON! THE RACE!" which was our attempt at a egg on a spoon race (eggs are expensive, mangoes are not). The next event involved the girls having to balance a balloon between 2 people and walk around a baseball diamond shape. The crowning glory of the day was a water balloon toss. By the end all of the girls loved Alex so they chased him around with the extra balloons. Dinner was beans (my favorite!) and now we're watching a French movie.

The girls seemed pretty unsure at the beginning of today but by lunch they were completely hanging out with their teams (and new friends) not staying close by the girls they came with. They had an AMAZING time doing art projects and getting to be creative. We overheard a girl say to her friend, "I didn't have to do laundry today! It was great!" and two counselors had to tell the girls they didn't have to clean the bathrooms. I think they're all having an amazing time - thank you so much to everyone who made this possible. It really is a once in a lifetime week for these girls!

KO

Girls' Camp Day 1

Today was the first actual day of the camp! The morning kicked off with a little more planning before the Senegalese counterparts arrived. We then discussed the week with the counterparts and sent Jackie, Alys, and Erin off to get their girls. Luckily it rained before the girls got here which cooled Bambey down a LOT. Once the car showed up with the first group of girls I took the bus into town and picked up the Bambey girls. Once everyone had arrived the final number was 33 girls ranging from 12-16 years old. We gave everyone their room assignments and told them to meet their new friends. We had worked hard to split everyone up from the girls they came with. The rest of the night was "team" activities like making a banner and explaining the rest of the week. The girls all seem pretty tired/overwhelmed so tonight was an early night.

I'm exhausted already so I'm keeping the blog short. I'll update as much as possible!

KO

Girls' Camp Countdown!

The 1st ever Regional Girls Leadership Camp starts in 2 days! The past week has been non-stop preparations and constant trips to the University. Every time I go to the University the guy organizing the food tries to find a new way to get more money from us. After explaining to him several times that we're working with a budget and can't just add things left and right I finally put my foot down today. Alyssa had created a BEAUTIFUL excel document with the ingredients per meal and total ingredients. For a week of meals we needed 244 pounds of onions. Senegalese people put onions in everything so it's not too surprising a number... except today the guy tried to change it to 266 pounds. He also claims we need 44 (not 33) pounds of fish for one meal. I obviously want to spend money on the camp but had to shut him down from making any other additions. At this point, he has us buying a TON of food, which I don't have a problem with, but I'm worried he might be paying himself a commission. We agreed to buy the original amounts of food and, if come Wednesday, are low on onions to buy more. Alyssa and I will be spending a lot of time in the kitchen next week but I'm sure things will end up working.

Jackie, Alyssa, and I, however, aren't the only people putting work into the camp. Yesterday one of my camper's father called me to ask about the camp. After explaining it to him, he said, "my daughter isn't smart enough to go to your camp." I told him that his daughter had been invited because she has the best grades in her class and he said, "well, I don't think she's smart enough but if you do I would love for her to go to the camp."

Even if they learn nothing from the classes we're teaching, I really believe the camp will give a little self-esteem boost to girls who, frankly, probably don't have any self-esteem.

More camp updates to come!
KO

The end of an era

Every night at 7:30pm everyone, all around Senegal, gathered around their TVs for Marina, the Telemundo soap opera. On Monday there was a commercial for Le Roman de La Vie to start Wednesday at 7:30pm!

Yesterday I made Jiffypop and we all sat down to watch the last episode of Marina (of the series). Not surprisingly, it ended with everyone happy and everything right. There was a great montage of clips spanning in the future showing everyone's happy lives (including new babies and ability to walk restored).

Tonight our TV wasn't working so we couldn't start the new soap! Tragic! Instead my host mom and I just chatted. I very very rarely ever get time with just her. Unasked for (but completely welcomed) she gave me some awesome information about my host family. Who's related to who, who had a kid but isn't married, where the kid is now, etc. Yes it was gossipy but it made up for a good replacement of a soap.

In work news, Alyssa, Jackie, and I went to the University today for some last minute camp things. I'm going back tomorrow to deliver cleaning supplies so the rooms can get cleaned before we come Saturday. I have a few more things to buy and then everyone comes Saturday - the girls Sunday!

More updates to come!

KO

To Turkey and Back

This post is long overdue... sorry about that:

About two weeks ago I packed my backpack and left to go on vacation. As I was leaving the kids across the street said, "is the Toubab going home?" and I responded, "no just on vacation." They all told me to have a good trip and I was off. Before the trip I had to do some office work in Dakar so that's how I spent the day before. My flight was at noon which is an odd time for flights out of Dakar (normally flights leave between 10pm-5am) so the airport was really empty. While waiting to board I met a nice Egyptian man who has a daughter my age. He's working in The Gambia and only gets to go home to Egypt once a year, he had to fly through Istanbul to get home but he was really excited. I also met a nice family from Burkina Faso who lives in Dakar and was going to turkey on vacation. The Dakar-Istanbul flight is the farthest East you can go directly from Dakar so there were a lot of people using it as the first leg of a trip into the Middle East.

When I landed in Turkey I met my parents and we traveled to Ephesus.The ruins at Ephesus are amazing but we were all exhausted from travel. The next day the three of us went to Cappadocia (where the original Star Wars was supposed to be filmed). It was beautiful and the landscape was bizarre and lovely. Made of volcanic rock formations, the entire area seems to be a combination of sandy colored rocks and bright blue sky. Turkish food is AMAZING and in both places we ate really well.

After 4 days of traveling with my parents we flew to Istanbul to meet Alan, Noah, and Tara. It was great to see everyone and so nice to live a somewhat normal life again. Istanbul was beautiful and interesting with the mixing of cultures, religions, and a continents. One evening Noah, Tara, Alan, our tour guide, and I went to the Asia side and just hung out in some local bars. In addition to eating amazingly fresh, well seasoned Turkish food, everyone humored me and we had McDonalds, Starbucks, Italian food, and Mexican food. Coming back to Senegal was really difficult but I forced myself to go straight from the airport to Bambey.

I made it back to Bambey in time for the Korite (or Eid al Fitr in the rest of the world) celebration. My family is tame so it involved eating meat and onion sauce for lunch/dinner then sitting in front of our house in the pitch black waiting for people to walk by. Usually you ask forgiveness from people you've wronged but I was tired and no one was stopping by our house so I went to bed pretty early.

The past week or so since the trip have been a whirlwind. The girls' camp starts 7 days from today and there's a lot of leg work to do. Alyssa came to see the University and the guy who had priced the food told us he had priced it wrong and we were VERY over budget. We were able to redo the entire menu and get back to being on budget but that took a lot of work. I have a meeting with my campers tomorrow to give them the permission slips and tell them final camp details. This next week I'll spend buying all of the supplies, visiting the University again, and preparing any other last minute needs.

As far as host family news goes: Youssou has asked me to teach him English... it all started when he asked me to take him back to the US with me when I leave. I explained that he wouldn't be able to talk to anyone because he doesn't speak English ... now we're doing short "classes." Mostly I just say a sentence in English and give him a written copy too (i.e. "how are you?"). We have a grand-child visiting for the holiday and she's about 3. She was afraid of me the first few days then started to warm up. I let her and another neighborhood girl color the other day and I overheard them talking about me. Last night she sat on my lap while we watched tv. I've recently gotten AMAZING packages from an old roommate, a girl in my sorority, and my parents! It's made days better (work is less difficult when you know there are amazing snacks to follow) and my host family is even enjoying the American treats. My parents sent me a package of oreos that I gave to my host mom who is the gift "banker." It's her job to hand out oreos to the kids and decide who gets how many. Thank you to everyone who's sent stuff! You have no idea how much it makes my day.

I didn't have internet when I got back from the trip but now that it's back I promise I'll be a better blogger!

KO

Under the hot sun

This morning was my last English class and, though the girls acted like I was pulling their teeth, I have to believe they were a little sad it was over. Even though they never once showed it was anything more than a huge chore for them to come all 3 of my girls would be annoyed and kind of sad when I had to cancel classes. At the end of the class I told them I wanted to help them, if they wanted it, during the school year with their English homework because I'm like an English dictionary (at least compared to anyone else in this town) and made them translate one last sentence: when you're not fasting, I will give you candy for completing this class.

After the English class I went to meet the family of a camper (who was actually on vacation). I had called her dad the day before and he told me he lived in the high school which I thought was a misunderstanding because someone else had told me he was a high school teacher... nope. His house is in the high school and he's actually a middle school principal. The meeting went really well and he was all for the camp. Then he invited me to work at his middle school (which is about 10km away from Bambey) next school year. His son even asked me for help with English (when work rains it pours). As I was leaving the awesome meeting I decided to call Tamar.

The walk from the high school to my house is about 20 minutes and, at 12:30pm, the sun was beating down relentlessly. A few minutes into the walk I noticed a group of boys under some trees in front of me.
"There are 7 8-12 year old boys just waiting for me under some trees... two of them are on donkeys," I explained to Tamar. We both agreed I should just keep walking and ignore their "watsyourname?" and "iluuvyou"'s. When I passed the first kid on a donkey the second kid, whose donkey was facing away from me, started to turn his donkey around and as I walked past him he started chasing me.

An 8 year old on a donkey chased me. Lucky for me donkey's walk slower than I do in heat and sun so I didn't have to pick up my pace. So confused by what was going on Tamar and I brainstormed for solutions (while the donkey/kid continued to "chase" me). Finally I turned around and pretended like I was going to smack the donkey and the kid stopped. Then, like clockwork, the oldest kid called me a racial slur which normally would have pissed me off but I was still digesting the whole donkey-chasing.

I feel like once you've been chased by a donkey there really isn't much more you can do that day and I just hung around with my fasting host fam.

Ba suba,
KO

Explaining Myself

Last Thursday I had a meeting in the morning and another in the afternoon with the families of 2 invited campers. The first was with one of my scholarship girls who I've spent a fair amount of time with and have been to her house several times. Her brother (the oldest person in her family and thus the head of the family) was never around so I met him for the first time Thursday. As I came into their house he was sitting on a carpet feeding his son and his sister (the camper) and I sat down. We began to talk about the camp - he was concerned about the subject matter. After I explained everything we were discussing he seemed alright. He then started talking, very broadly, about the "other experiences" (with a negative connotation) that were possible - I explained there would be no boys there (possible 1 or 2 male volunteers but no one else). Then he started in on how smart his sister is and how he wants to protect her future - to which I explain that was the entire reason behind the scholarship she had won AND the camp.
As the conversation progressed it became apparent he really didn't want to be convinced that the camp wasn't going to ruin this girls life but it became blatantly obvious when he started questioning my intentions. As a side note, explaining the peace corps is fairly difficult because volunteers and the US don't get any tangible benefits but usually people understand it's about experience and that it's similar to all NGOs/Development Organizations. So he started asking if I was a University student doing research because he saw some at a Koranic school (that takes in orphans/abandoned kids and often makes them beg on the street) that were trying to change the way this "traditional" school works. (is not exactly traditional but is on Amnesty International's human rights violation watch). I think Daara's aren't great but that has NOTHING to do with my work, so I explained that I was not a university student, I was not doing research, and I worked only with small businesses. Then some obscure mentions (from the brother) of George Bush and all of the US relations with Middle Eastern countries came up and he insinuated that my placement in Senegal was a direct extension of that in the role of propaganda/culture changing. I explained that the Peace Corps was established in 1960 and came to Senegal in 1963 thus could not POSSIBLY be part of anything he was getting at. Then it came to religion. It was obvious that he was conservative and I had tried to respect without giving in to any traditional cultural roles (read: just giving in to whatever he was saying because I'm a woman). He asked me my religion and I told him that I didn't discuss religion and that it didn't matter. He then accused me of trying to convert people away from Islam. After explaining that I always work around people's religious beliefs, regardless of what they are, I tried to explain that it really didn't matter to me because I am (as I had explained a million times to him) a SMALL BUSINESS VOLUNTEER.
Then he rehashed every element of his argument in a cumulative last hit against Peace Corps and me. I had been getting annoyed during the entire conversation but had kept my cool until this "closing statement" of sort. I still didn't yell at him and stayed fairly calm as I defended myself on last time. He could tell, however, that he had offended me and said he would love for his sister to go to the camp, but she can't sleep over - he'll take her to and from every day. At this point I realized there was absolutely nothing I could say to him because he had no interest in thinking of me as anything but an evil American so I said that I would think about it and we could discuss it another time.

Later the same day I met an invited camper from another middle school in Bambey. She hadn't come to the introduction meeting so I'd never met her. On our way to her house she told me she would come to the camp but, through further questioning, I learned she hadn't asked permission of anyone. When we got to her house I had a conversation with her cousin (the head of the household) who, upon learning the subject material and purpose of the camp, wholeheartedly agreed to let her be there. He and I then talked about the importance of girls' education and other things in general. She lives in her dad's village during the summer (and with her cousin to go to school) so I offered to give her a run down of the final meeting we'll be having Sept. 19 because she would be in the village. Her cousin told me it was not necessary because he would make sure she was at that meeting. When I left both she and her cousin agreed to come to my next English club/girls' group meeting.

I know that Peace Corps is hard to explain, and I understand some concern when a stranger shows up offering to take your daughter to a summer camp. But keep in mind, Senegalese culture is very different. And this stranger has been working with the principal and staff at your daughter's school. She lives in the community, has several reputable people who would vouch for her in a second, and stops by your house several times to continue building relationships. More frustrating than the brother's lack of confidence with the camp was his total lack of interest in believing that I was anything but a horrible person trying to brainwash the community. I'm going to have a Senegalese Peace Corps person call him and talk to him about it so we'll see how it goes.

Sorry this was a long blog - in social news: we had a regional meeting and a welcome party for the new Daka