Travels with Tavish

Back in March, after I had been at my site a few months, I analyzed the pace at which I was reading books and set an ambitious goal for myself to read 150 books by the end of my 26 months in Senegal. If I kept up my current pace at the time, I would just barely make it to 150 by the end of my service. Since then my reading has ebbed and flowed a bit; I am close to on track. I have also done some reflecting on this goal, thinking about the purpose of chasing a certain number of books. Books obviously come in varying lengths, so the "number of books read" does not necessarily represent the amount of reading one has done. I have so far done a pretty good job of mixing in slow reads with fast reads, fiction with non-fiction. I found myself sometimes thinking about reaching 150 books rather than really concentrating on what I was reading or picking my books consciously. I recently reminded myself that the goal of 150 books was a completely arbitrary number that I chose. Readi...

Question: Do you go to the luumo? (Answer below) Description: It is Tuesday morning around 7am and you have just woken up in your hut in Senegal. It is July, rainy season. Tuesday is luumo (weekly market) day. The luumo is 10km away via bush path. It takes about one hour to bike. When at your site, this is your one chance for the week to go hang out in another village for half the day, get a bean sandwich, and to buy fruit and vegetables. When you go to the luumo during the dry season, you usually bring back some vegetables for your family to cook--so there are vegetables in the bowl one night of the week instead of the usual zero at this time of year. There are guaranteed to be onions at the luumo, and there might be some combination of white sweet potatoes, cabbage, eggplant, jaxatu, okra, and potatoes available. Probably 2-3 of the above vegetables will be available, but sometimes there are surprises. You really like eating fruit in your hut, but fruit has been pretty sca...

Here are some pictures from September: Backyard garden of corn, peanuts, and beans  Fields of tall corn abound in village at this time of year A view down the road during rainy season. It is almost hard to remember what this looked like a few months ago when there was no green My host dad's peanut fields next to the road My host dad cooking corn to lay inside his fish nets as bait. This is the first time I have seen even touch a pot; men do not cook meals in village A flowering baobob tree Look closely in between the rocks and you will see a small cashew tree Rocks temporarily protecting a young cashew tree until my work partner has time to build individual tree fences Another innovative temporary cashew tree protector Yet another cashew tree tucked inside big rocks My favorite of the tree protectors Awesome cloud formations in my village. A storm is brewing More awesome clouds Grazing on beans from my bac...

I have officially been in Senegal for over one year! I moved into my village about 10 months ago--my first couple months were spent in Thies/Mbour learning Jaxanke and learning how to plant trees. Now seems like an obvious time for a post about "reflections on my first year in Senegal." But alas, no incredibly deep revelations came to me the day I passed the one year mark in Senegal (other than my beard's one-year birthday). I have been doing a decent amount of reflecting overall while in Senegal, but it seems to come in fits and spurts as I have time in my village to let my thoughts meander where they will go. At the end of September I spent a few days at the Thies Training Center as a guest trainer for the new agriculture/agroforestry stage that just arrived in Senegal. It is hard to believe that they are already here! They are a huge group--78 arrived here, compared to 61 who arrived in Senegal for my stage one year ago. My role as a guest trainer was to get to know...