The travelblog website is murdering the video quality of the videos i post. This is an attempt to put some old flicks through third party hosting. [View Full Entry]

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I’d been looking at this baobab tree for two days now. I have to admit I still carry with me a childhood desires to climb just about everything I see and since I’ve been here I’ve sought after no greater prize has than the massive Baobabs that dot the landscape. What caught my eye about this tree specifically, other than its immense size is I thought I could actually make it up. A little bit about baobab legend and anatomy: The back story goes that the baobab was the most boastful of trees. As punishment for its vanity God placed [View Full Entry]

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It feels as though it would have been a disservice to the world if I were to pass my time here failing to mention a little something about the SANIESERIGNESALIOU MBACKE. What does that mean you ask…..Truth is I have no idea! However, to me it has come to signify the potential of man’s resourcefulness and a machines endurance. Born of Japanese engineering and Senegalese soldering, her big black (not permitted) eyes are a sweet sight for sore feet. She lumbers along the dirt roads and dry salt flats carrying the loads and livelihood of a hard working people asking only [View Full Entry]

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This is a video I took way back when we left our training villages. Six months later i finally found some high speed internet to upload it. Its the send off party the village put together on our last day. Hope you like it. Also the file is too big to upload here, but here is a link to another video for a video pen pal project a friend in the states and I are working on. https://download.yousendit.com/TTZuRE9oZEs3N0EwTVE9PQ Best, Chirs [View Full Entry]

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Hey guys sorry for the long delay. Things can move slowly out here and by “things” I mean me. I’m so excited to hear you are interested in learning about Senegal and communicating with Senegalese students your age. So here is where we are at. I visited a school in the village of Pambal. It may be hard to find on a map but it’s pretty close to Thies, which is one of the bigger cities in Senegal. Pambal is pretty rural so most of the families there raise crops like peanuts, beans and millet. The head master of the school, [View Full Entry]

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Today I ate oats in both cereal and bar form. I live for raisins in my cereal and today they were there. I snacked on home made cookies even though home was five hundred miles away. I was cleaner than usual thanks to a new lufa and extra time spent relishing under the warm waters of a solar shower. I was a hero today to a dozen well dressed semi well behaved Mardi Gras reveling children, as I passed out candy to wanting hands, twice to the sneaky ones. My heroics didn’t end there. The women oohed and ahhed as I [View Full Entry]

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Since I have last written many of the most important Senegalese holidays have come and gone. The first was the Muslim holiday of Tabaski. My basic understanding of the religious premise behind the holiday is the prophet Muhammad was asked by god to sacrifice is first born. He obliged but just before the knife came down god switched out his son for a sheep. I’m missing a lot of the details of course but the idea was to test the prophet. Weather he passed or not is up to interpretation. Theological discussion aside the market that revolves around the holiday is [View Full Entry]

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My family here is composed of Mama Arriette, my brother Michel and my sister Anne-Marie. There are two other sisters in the family, one in France and another who lives in a monastery in Dakar, either of which I have yet to meet. Although I don’t know much about Mama Arriette and never seem to pronounce her name just quite right I can tell that she is a mover and shaker in the community. There have been many incidences where her name has come up in conversation elsewhere on the peninsula. Everyone seems to know her. Other than that she is [View Full Entry]

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My living arrangements in Diakhanor are composed of two 3x3 meter rooms and a private toilet. In addition, there is a walled off porch area which adds nearly 30% to my living space. It also increases my quality of life by giving additional privacy and keeping kids out who are two short too reach the latch. The structure is encompassed in a larger walled off area owned by the family from whom I’m renting. But a simple rental agreement doesn’t do justice to our relationship, for all general purposes they are my adopted Senegalese family. My brother Michel a mason [View Full Entry]

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If you want to integrate into the culture of Senegal I recommend you coupent les herbes with your community. In the days before I arrived the village counsel sold off a five acre plot of land south of Diakhanor to a French investor intending to build a campament, or rustic lodge for tourists, at the site. Part of the negotiations as I understand them was to mow down the grass in the field and the easement to the area from the road. A little bit about cutting grass in rural Senegal. I have yet to see a single tractor or [View Full Entry]

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