I've spent many hours at this spot waiting for a car to take me to Tamba or Kolda. This is the final wait.

This was what the people in our region wrote for us the night of our COS party in Tamba. Who's gonna try to argue the Tamba doesn't have the best people?!

A Tale of Lovers

Erika Berg

They may call you the Iceberg, but you’re not so cold.

Indeed, at our demyst party, you slow-ground your way into the table, into the wall, (really all

animante and inanimate objects) but especially into our hearts.

Camille Hogan

Your local name is Fanta, and you are just as sweet and bubbly. Diamonds are forever. Be all you

can be. Float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.

Melissa Hunt

Manifest Destiny

Energetic

Loquacious

Introspective

Superficial

Super-woman

Articulate

May All bless your travels

Kathryn Sterba

You are our team leader and friend, though at times in a Machiavellian sense. On your thick

shoulders you have carried us through trials galore. You leave big shoes to fill, because of your large

feet. No, but seriously. Compare your feet to Camille’s. They are big as shit. Not Camille’s feet.

Yours. Your feet are fucking huge. You make me feel like a child. Are you a WNBA player? Don’t

get me wrong. You keep them really clean.

Peace be the journey.

Love,

THE OTHERS

My Aunt Fatou. She had cataract surgery performed on both eyes in January and is doing quite well now!

Tigi Tigi Haa Hee at the river. It was a hard decision, but I decided to leave her in the village because she does so well there and it was very complicated and expensive to bring her home.

Tokuru and Buba, all dressed up for Independance Day.

Celebrating Senegal's Independance Day on the 4th of April. The middle school student march across the village and then recount Senegal's journey toward independance. In my village they follow it by a skit about HIV/AIDS education, not sure why, but it's informative!

Watering miles and miles of bananas all by hand!

The women also set up a garden at the banana plantation and they get to use the hose that pumps water from the river.

Mike Toso brought his theatre group to my village. They did hilarious skits on HIV/AIDS and early marriage, it really made people listen.

The women's garden I helped establish. There's now fencing, trees along the perimeter, and a garden that just keeps on growing. It's far from perfect, but they've worked hard to make it into something.

Bees have decided to set up camp in one of my cashew trees!

Two years have come and gone and it is such a sad good bye. I fly out of Senegal on Tuesday night, and as much as I’ve wanted this day to come, I’m sad that this is the end. Last week I left my village for the last time. I spent about 5 days wrapping everything up and saying my good byes. The night before I left I said my thank yous and good byes to the family and spent one last night chatting with everyone on stick beds under the stars and rocking Buba to sleep. They said very sweet things and it was emotional, but dark out so no one saw my weeping. It was a quiet, peaceful way to leave. The next morning I planned on leaving early so we wouldn’t have to say good bye again. It is common in Senegal to not officially say good bye to someone and tell them that you will see them in the morning, and then that person leaves really early so no one has to deal with a sad emotional good bye. Though, I planned to leave before everyone awoke, it didn’t quite work out. I received a faint knock on my door, by my host mom, Hawa, right before I was leaving. I opened the door and she said she came to check to see if I had left already and to say good bye. Then slowly, one by one, about half my family came out to say farewell. They went and woke Makhan up and he turned his head all choked up, trying to hid his tears, and shook my hand, saying thank you. Then the family escorted me to the path that leads to the road and stood in a line. I shook everyone’s hands (we were all unable to fight back tears) and then mounted my bike and road out of the village just before sunrise. The moment I cleared the village I instantly began to sob uncontrollably.

I never thought I would be the type of volunteer to completely fall apart when having to say good bye. All the volunteers talk about how emotional it is to leave the village, but I just didn’t expect it to be so sad. I can’t believe I may never see the people in my community again and I won’t be there when certain kids start school, or get married, or know what kind of job or spouse they get, or know what happens to everyone. After having them in my life for two years and becoming a part of the family, I can’t believe it is all coming to a sudden stop.

I stayed in Tamba for a few days and we had our second annual Girls’ Leadership Conference. About 18 girls and their fathers attended the event and they came from all over the region. It was a bit stressful trying to organize everything and work out the logistics, but it all worked out and went really well. My friend, Katy, and I packed up all of belongings and left Tamba for the last time and headed to Thies. In Thies we led a maternal and reproductive health training for the new stage of volunteers. It was a bit strange meeting our replacement stage. They were all so nice, eager, and new. It is always refreshing to meet a new group of volunteers that are enthusiastic about starting their service and full of optimism. It was weird for Katy and I to see how far we’ve come from beginning to end. We joked about coming full circle, ending our service in Thies, where it all began.

The past few days I’ve been in Dakar, wrapping everything up. I’ve seen all the doctors for medical clearance and have been trying to turn in all my final reports and equipment, and have my exit interviews with my bosses so I can be cleared to go. A large group of people are coming into town tomorrow and we’re having a big party Tuesday night to say good bye. After that, it’s Europe, Europe, Europe with 3 other volunteers and then home sweet home at the end of May. And who knows what will happen after that...

Our Good bye St. Patrick's Day Party in Tamba.

Last week I had the chance to go visit my friend Mary's Sereer village for her wedding. Mary is in my stage and is moving home to America with her new husband in a few months. A whole group of Peace Corps Volunteers came down to her village in an alhum "bus." We managed to cram in about 29 people, packed full of toubabs in Senegalese formal attire. Most of us whipped out our old swear-in outfits from 2 years ago for the event.

The wedding was really fun, full of great drumming and delicious food. Mary looked absolutely beautiful in her Senegalese completes. She had two outfits. One was a traditional white complete with embroidery. The other was a "Soiree" outfit for night, which was a long white dress loaded with sequins. She had her hair braided, henna on, and she looked wonderful. We stayed until about midnight, then headed back to the regional house in Kaolack. It was great to see people from my stage one last time before we leave and so fun to share Mary's wedding with her.

We crammed 29 toubabs in this "alhum" bus on our way to Mary's wedding in her village.

I've spent the last month trying to begin to wrap my mind around the fact that my two years in Senegal is coming to an end and it's time to start saying good bye. This is something I have been eagerly anticipating and now that it is finally here, I'm really hesitant to have it all come to an end. I've made some great friendships with people here in Senegal and with the American PCVs I've met along the way. Though I'm ready to go home, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic over the thought of leaving for good.

In February I wrapped up the HEARTH model in my village and headed southwest to visit my fellow stage mates Olivia and Amanda in the Kolda region. First stop was biking 30 km to my middle school to pick up the scholarship winners and take them shopping for school supplies in Velingara. Then I biked 20 km to Olivia's village. We spent the night, had some great laughs and biked the 20 km back to Velingara the next morning. We took an incredibly inconsistent and unreliable car to Dabo and biked the 18km to Amanda's village, through the bush, at the hottest part of the day. Had some more great laughs and good times, then biked the 18km back out to the road the next day and headed to Kolda. In total close to 90 km of biking in 3 days. I haven't biked in a while, so I was pretty wiped. We had a blast together and it was nice to see my fellow stage mates' sites. Amanda and I were in the same Mandinka language class, and it was my first time visiting a Mandinka village. It was refreshing to be able to greet and talk to people in my local language instead of always being in Pulaar villages.

After Kolda we headed up to Dakar for the infamous WAIST (West Africa International Softball Tournament). Peace Corps Volunteers came from Mali, Cape Verde, The Gambia, and Niger. The softball fields were loaded with expats from Dakar and Peace Corps Volunteers running amuck. Tambacounda and Kedougou always pair up every year to form the "Tambagou" team. This year our team's them was "Peace Cops and Robbers." There was a lot of dancing, cops chasing robbers, and chaos on the field...not so much softball though. It was hilarious and so much fun.

Following WAIST my Spring 2009 Stage mates and I headed to fancy little hotel in Dakar for our 3 day Closing of Service Conference(COS). They informed us of the 1000s of documents/paperwork/final reports that need to be completed before we leave, etc. We also had a chance to see each other and have one last hoorah before we all leave. It was a great way to wrap up WAIST and our last few months of service because we are all spread out across the country and don't get to see each other very often.

After about 3 weeks of indecisiveness and about 5 date changes, I've finally settled on my COS date! So far the plan is to leave my village on April 5th with Tigi Tigi Haa Hee. We will be in Tamba through April 9th to do Tamba's Girls' Leadership Conference with middle schoolers. On April 10th we head to Thies to assist with the new stages' training. On April 12th we head to Dakar and at some point I ship Tigi off to California...inchallah. Then I stay in Dakar to finalize all the paperwork and get medical clearance. I officially fly out of Senegal on April 20th and head to Strasbourg, France for a few days to visit my friend Ilana. Then I am meeting up with fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and doing a Europe trip through Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, and Greece. Then on May 27th I fly to home sweet home California. It's a bit complex, but will hopefully be the trip of a lifetime. I can't wait to finally tour around Europe (in the company of some wonderful people) and explore a bit before my much extended stay at home.

Go to Peace Corps Senegal's website to see what kind of work we do and where:

Here are some links to projects I have helped work on:

The final baby weighing days... We weighed each particpant before and after the program.

Lots of little girls like to tie toys to their backs so they can play "mom." So cute!

Discussing the "healthy food pyramid." They said it makes more sense if the traingle is upside-down.

My host cousin, Gansire, and her 11 month old baby, Koumba. She was the youngest of the HEARTH participants.

I’m happy to report that I’ve completed the 12 day porridge making program, HEARTH, and it went extremely well. I was so nervous going into the project because I am about to leave next month and I was worried that women might not show interest or take the program seriously, and I really didn’t want to leave on a bad not. Fortunately, the participants really took the program to heart and it went very well. Each day we made the same porridge, which consisted of:

1½ kg of millet powder

½ kg of peanut powder

½ kg of bean powder

½ kg of sugar

7 liters of water

Some tamarind (to make it keep longer)

Salt to taste

and moringa leaf powder (which is like a miracle tree, full of vitamins!)

Three women were trained to be “Mamans Lumières” but one had to drop out after the 4th day due to personal reasons. The “Mamans Lumières” that stayed did an amazing job. Their responsibilities included motivating the women, ensuring that they came each day, and running each lesson of the day. 10 different lessons were presented with 2 review days. The different lessons included:

1. Hand Washing and Hygiene

2. Diarrhea and Oral Rehydration Salts

3. Prenatal Health and Danger Signs during Pregnancy

4. Breastfeeding and Weaning

5. Signs of Malnutrition

6. Nutrition/Health Pyramid

7. Moringa and its Uses

8. Malaria Education and Making Neem Lotion (homemade mosquito repellent)

9. Proper Wound Care

10. Vaccinations

At first there were a few babies that did not like the porridge and they took a while to adjust. They generally aren’t too fond of the moringa powder at first, but it is so nutritious and can literally be life changing for them (as cheesy as it sounds) that I pushed it. After a few days, all the kids were enjoying the porridge and gulping it down. It was pretty incredible. We were laughing and having a great time with the lessons too. The “Mamans Lumières” were so animated they kept everyone engaged in the subject matter. I was so proud of the women at the end of the program. Though they were sometimes shy, they did a great job reviewing the lessons and most of them took the program to heart.

Ideally I had wanted the babies to be between 18 and 24 months old. It is best to have the babies be around the same age because they can eat similar foods and grow at the same rate. However, it was difficult finding the right mothers who volunteered to participate. In the end we had quite a range of ages, 11 months to 31 months. It was a bit of a stretch, but worked out. All the babies are in the “yellow zone” on the weight chart, meaning they are showing signs of malnourishment, but not severely. My host cousin’s baby was the young 11 month old. She had the baby at age 15 and has really been struggling to keep the baby healthy. I honestly think she is just too young and makes mistakes because she doesn’t know any better. For example, she would give the baby dirty drinking water when it was 4 months old and ask me why it had diarrhea. Sometimes mothers here do that because they don’t know they are not supposed to or don’t really understand the consequences that go with it. I really wanted my cousin to participate in HEARTH because I felt like she and the baby could truly benefit. I was glad to see her show up on time for every meeting before and during the program. She came with a huge smile on her face and was so proud to be included amongst the other women. It was great to see the baby do so well during the program.

It is common to not see significant results immediately after the first 12 days. It often takes 1 to 2 months to see real weight gain in the babies and change. I was very excited to see that after the first 12 days nearly all 12 babies were already showing signs of improvement and some were very significant already. I’m so proud of all the mothers who participated and really hope that they continue to practice the healthy habits at home.

Working at the Eye Clinic in Tambacounda. Me and Anna posing with the glasses.