Kaolack

I've been in Kaolack, the main city where I'll based for the next week or so for two days now. After checking the weather in the States and seeing it would be 72/73 and sunny every day in Dakar I thought it would be perfect, but driving just 3-4 hours west towards Mali the temperature went up about 25 degrees, and it is hot! It was 92 at 8:00pm last night. But it's a nice change from the Boston winter, and it's a dry heat, which is much more tolerable. There are a lot of mosquitoes though (so far so no nightmares like in the past from the malaria pills).

Today I took a stroll after "work" and man it was crazy here. There's no big buildings despite the fact that there's almost 200,000 people living here (it's the third biggest city in Senegal) and feels much more like a very very busy town with all of the traffic I saw (I guess it was rush hour) despite the fact that only a few of the roads are paved and there's nothing but dust and sand on many roads even in the center of town (I need to get pictures soon). There were definitely more cars than I remember in Cameroon (in general it doesn't seem quite as "poor" as Cameroon but I really don't know enough to be saying that yet), and lots and lots of moto-taxis and mule drawn rick-shaws along with a few bicyclers. It's pretty sandy/desert-e here and a fair amount of smoginess with not a whole of lot nice things to look at but nevertheless it's still interesting. There was so much activity going on everywhere I looked, peopling hammering away, taking a torch to some mettle, selling some clothing or some small lime by the side of the road, or just generally "stooping." I walked/ran for about 40 minutes until I finally found some people playing soccer, this kind of shocked me (of course the Westerner comes in and thinks there will be soccer everywhere), but there just isn't much green space in Kaolack, and it's been several years since the national team (like the Cameroonian and Moroccan teams they are also called the "Lions) was good. I did see a few kids playing basketball (which is growing in popularity here) as well as some kids boxing and some others doing something that looked like Karate.

I haven't started much work yet but have been preparing some at the NCBA/CLUSA office (the agency I'm working with) to go into the villages to start working with the millet farmers (still haven't had that here - apparently it's the "poor" man's rice). Six of us shared one huge plate (literally we all ate off of it) for lunch and the food was pretty good, a mixture of rice, beef, onions, and some interesting spices I can't quite place my finger on. There was a lively debate about whether kids in Senegal today "owe" their parents anything anymore and what parents "owe" their kids and whether life is really easier on Europe or not. My French is pretty good so I can follow along - which is cool, because I feel like it gives me an entry point into a whole new world that most Americans would not see. The volunteer coordinator (Yaguemar) here told me I was the first volunteer they've had who who really speaks French.

I also have a driver, Paul, who is Christian, which is a little unusual in a country where 97% of the people are Muslims but it's not like I expected. Woman don't really cover up, they can work, drive, play basketball, and although I did hear one woman's cell phone ring was a 10 second clip of a Muslim prayer/chant, Paul told me the Muslims drink more than the Christians in this country. Paul and Yaguemar also both warned me that the woman here were some of the most beautiful in the continent and I should watch out. So going to see some music here now, gotta run, I'll watch my back (white people tend to stand out here)