On Tuesday we depart for Senegal for two weeks. Great anticipation rules in this house right now.
This will be our home in the village for a week. Years ago, I bought this tent. Bigger is better right?
We only used it a few times and especially now as a lightweight backpacker (my backpacking tent weighs 1.5 lbs.) this tent was put on the shelf for a long time.
We have decided to shake the dust off and bring it to Senegal. We can all fit in here. We will become f-a-m-i-l-y....
We will be in the village starting next Friday and returning the following Thursday.
We are excited to visit them during this time of the year. I have never been there while they prepare their fields and it could possibly rain. It will be the beginning of the rainy season. This also could mean warmer temps and more humidity. But being a northerner and going from winter into this climate in February and going into this climate in June should be easier to take....i hope!
We have many things we are taking with us, including an over flowing abundance of school supplies that Dawn received from her school. The feedback was overwhelming from the faculty and students. We hope to visit the local school that only a handful of kids attend from our village. We hope to tour the school.
We also will be having some 'town hall' meetings with the elders from the village to discuss life in the village. An approach that we want to implement is that we want them to discover how to solve some of their own problems. For example, there is no latrine in this village. I want to understand how this can be. Years ago they did have a 'hole' but that does not exist anymore. Dawn and I have been reading some material that we received from Equip and Hesperian. We hope they can start moving to a solution. In this context, this takes patience and prayers.
We hope to assist them in discovering their own issues and see what we can do in that process.
We hope to help them in the fields and get a better idea of agricultural practices used and how they do things.
I am bringing some irrigation from Chapin Living Waters Foundation and hope to introduce them this simple form of dry season gardening.
We hope to be posting on our trip...be sure to come back a few times or we will give a review of our trip after our return.
Bon Voyage!
