Kedougou Youth Leadership Camp
Every year the volunteers from the region of Kedougou run a 2-week youth camp for college (middle-school) students from villages around the region. I worked the first week of camp and am headed back to my village soon while the second week of camp is in progress. 25 kids from ten different locations come to the city of Kedougou to spend a couple weeks learning, playing, and making new friends. We partner with a Senegalese organization called CDEPS (I don't know what the acronym stands for, but the organization works with education and youth development) for camp. CDEPS was in charge of the food, nurse, accompanying kids to the bathroom, and some other camper-related logistics.
The camp takes places at a school on the grounds of a Catholic Mission about a 10-minute bike ride away from the Peace Corps house in Kedougou. The days at camp were long, but it was a blast! Every day the volunteers arrived at camp by 8am and stayed until 10pm. After the evening activity ended we then biked back to the house in the dark, often getting sprayed with mud from the road and dirtying our clothes. I ended up with most of my wardrobe at camp so that I could change into my designated "biking clothes" after arriving in the morning and before departing in the evening.
Each day has a theme and was filled with sessions run by volunteers or CDEPS. They were in a mixture of French and local language (Pulaar/Jaxanke) depending on who was teaching the sessions. CDEPS monitors sat in on all the volunteer-led sessions to help translate as needed. Themes for the days included Leadership Day, Environmental Day, Science Day, Health Day, and Gender Day. Sessions covered a wide variety of topics including leadership games, tree nurseries, basic sex-ed, sports, nutrition, science, a campfire, origami, erosion, and lots of singing and dancing. It is hard to pick a favorite of my sessions, but the kids really loved playing Capture the Flag, one of the first sessions I led.
I had a great time on our field trip to the waterfall in Dindefello. It is one of the more accessible waterfalls in Kedougou (though the road is occasionally impassible during heavy rains), about a 2km walk from the village of Dindefello through thick forest that looks nothing like the bush around my village. Vines slung across the shaded path as we climbed up a small incline and forded small streams. The path ends at the waterfall, which falls from the middle of a large circle of cliffs enclosing the five-foot-deep pool at the bottom. The rock formations were incredible, as were the numerous plants sprouting out of the cracks in the tall cliffs trying to find some sunlight. Another volunteer described the view looking up at the cliffs that surround the basin as "like Tarzan," and I agree. The kids loved swimming in the small pool at the base of the falls, some learning to swim and others showing off their existing knowledge of swimming.
After visiting the waterfall, we walked back to the village and went to the Jane Goodall Institute for a guest talk. As you might guess, the Jane Goodall Institute is a research center committed to preserving the small population of chimpanzees (200-400) in Senegal. The speaker gave a very engaging talk about chimpanzees and the institute's work. The speaker, coincidentally, is the younger brother of a health worker I have tea with every Tuesday at my luumo. It's a small world in Kedougou!
Pictures from camp hopefully coming soon--they are on other volunteers' cameras.
The camp takes places at a school on the grounds of a Catholic Mission about a 10-minute bike ride away from the Peace Corps house in Kedougou. The days at camp were long, but it was a blast! Every day the volunteers arrived at camp by 8am and stayed until 10pm. After the evening activity ended we then biked back to the house in the dark, often getting sprayed with mud from the road and dirtying our clothes. I ended up with most of my wardrobe at camp so that I could change into my designated "biking clothes" after arriving in the morning and before departing in the evening.
Each day has a theme and was filled with sessions run by volunteers or CDEPS. They were in a mixture of French and local language (Pulaar/Jaxanke) depending on who was teaching the sessions. CDEPS monitors sat in on all the volunteer-led sessions to help translate as needed. Themes for the days included Leadership Day, Environmental Day, Science Day, Health Day, and Gender Day. Sessions covered a wide variety of topics including leadership games, tree nurseries, basic sex-ed, sports, nutrition, science, a campfire, origami, erosion, and lots of singing and dancing. It is hard to pick a favorite of my sessions, but the kids really loved playing Capture the Flag, one of the first sessions I led.
I had a great time on our field trip to the waterfall in Dindefello. It is one of the more accessible waterfalls in Kedougou (though the road is occasionally impassible during heavy rains), about a 2km walk from the village of Dindefello through thick forest that looks nothing like the bush around my village. Vines slung across the shaded path as we climbed up a small incline and forded small streams. The path ends at the waterfall, which falls from the middle of a large circle of cliffs enclosing the five-foot-deep pool at the bottom. The rock formations were incredible, as were the numerous plants sprouting out of the cracks in the tall cliffs trying to find some sunlight. Another volunteer described the view looking up at the cliffs that surround the basin as "like Tarzan," and I agree. The kids loved swimming in the small pool at the base of the falls, some learning to swim and others showing off their existing knowledge of swimming.
After visiting the waterfall, we walked back to the village and went to the Jane Goodall Institute for a guest talk. As you might guess, the Jane Goodall Institute is a research center committed to preserving the small population of chimpanzees (200-400) in Senegal. The speaker gave a very engaging talk about chimpanzees and the institute's work. The speaker, coincidentally, is the younger brother of a health worker I have tea with every Tuesday at my luumo. It's a small world in Kedougou!
Pictures from camp hopefully coming soon--they are on other volunteers' cameras.
Sounds like fun and a great experience! Take notes of activities that you do like this so you can "fill out" your resume for applying to jobs.
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