Hiatus

Sorry for going a little AWOL on y'all. I've been kinnda busy here lately. First off, we just did a tour of every middle school in the region of Kedougou in order to conduct interviews for a scholarship that the PCVs of Senegal give out every year to girls in financial need. We were promised 11 scholarships for our region (one for every middle school [although later we found out there are actually thirteen]). I was kinnda heading the scholarship part. We conducted interviews, did house visits and proctored essay writing, all for the application process.

Tacked on to this tour of the region, we used this as an opportunity to start our visual aid campaign against AIDS. We painted a mural at every middle school we visitied, below is an example. Still working on trying to get the billboard part of the campaign finished... Also in line with my AIDS work, we just did another training of over 50 health workers on the promotion of the female condom. And hopefully by next week we'll be starting a training on gardening with the association for people living with HIV/AIDS. We actually have a fairly large bit of land for them, so after the training this is going to turn into a great nutritional supplement for the participants.

I don't talk about my personal life that much here, but I've had a lot of people asking questions, so I must give in: I am engaged. I've been dating Ousmane Kante for about 7 months now and we've decided we want to spend the rest of our lives together. I don't know what else to say besides we love each other and we are really excited about our future together. He's of Bambara origin, but has grown up here in Kedougou. Anyway here's a pic of him and I.