Hello all!

The last six weeks have absolutely flown by! I am right now sitting in a hotel room in Kaolack, waiting for the rest of my family (who came from America last Sunday) to wake up. We will be heading to Dakar later today, and then to Spain on Monday night for an Andalusian week. But I will give you a recap of my activities since my last post.

To start with, I spent the first three weeks of November following up on the objectives of the community action plan we created in October, before heading to Kaolack to spend Thanksgiving with the other area volunteers. I was recruited to bake rolls, though I have no idea why. I have from time to time baked bread in country, but always with the help of other volunteers who actually knew what they were doing. Perhaps thats more experience that some of my peers have. In any case, I decided to make millet rolls to give the Thanksgiving a particularly Senegalese flavor. Had I done some research beforehand, I would've learned that millet does not contain gluten and thus can only be used to make flatbreads. In any case, the rolls were as hard as rocks, and tasted gross. I don't think a single person ate one, and I don't blame any of them. Otherwise, Thanksgiving was an absolute blast.
After Thanksgiving, I went to my village to prepare for the Tabaski feast. Tabaski celebrates the day when Abraham, following the commands of God, went to sacrifice his son (either Isaac or Ismail, depending on whether your Jewish or Muslim) and at the very last moment was given a sheep to substitute for his son. Consequently, everyone in Senegal feels obligated to sacrifice a sheep if they can afford it, and the family has meat for three days. While I have been a vegetarian at various points in my life, I can say that I have absolutely no problem eating meat in Senegal. This is because the whole practice of meat-eating is totally out there. People do not buy their meat in clean plastic containers from the grocery store- they either slaughter and butcher the animal themselves, or they go to the butcher who cuts the meat from the carcass. But I resolved to myself that I would watch the sheep get killed, to experience the cultural event, and to see if it was something I could be comfortable with. I can tell you that it was as merciful as such an act can be, though I came close to fainting when they were butchering the animal. But when we had the feast, I ate the meat, and it was delicious. Go figure.
After Tabaski, I had to take care of a bunch of work so that I'd be completely free before my family came to visit. I did my baby-weighings, along with a workshop on nutrition and I planted vegetable seedlings to put into a garden.
Then, sitting in my village, bored because I'd gotten everything I needed to get done quicker than I'd planned, I got a text message saying that Operation Smile needed translators to help with their mission in Thies. They were giving free cleft-palate and cleft lip surgeries, but given that the doctors weren't from Senegal, there were few that spoke the local languages such as Wolof, Fula, or Serere. I went to Thies, where I served as an Interpreter of Maladies, if you will. I got to sit in on an operation, and helped with recovery. The team was absolutely amazing and I sincerely hope that they'll come back to Senegal again while I'm here.

While in Thies, I also celebrated my 25th birthday, and though I had a lot of fun, I did feel a bit homesick. My family (parents, brother, and aunt) came a couple of days later and I got the chance to show them around. We went to the Sine-Saloum delta in the southwest to see the migrating bird populations, then headed to my village. Now we are en route to Dakar, and then Spain for an Andalucian sojourn.

And so with that, I will sign off.

Hasta luego, and have a wonderful (and safe) New Years!