April 4th, 2010 – Senegal celebrates fifty years of independence. -------------------------------------------------- I’d never been to Easter Vigil, mass on the eve of Easter, but I thought, why not. It is a good thing I went though, because it was there that the announcement was made :Due to tomorrow's parade, Easter Mass will be at nine o’clock instead of ten, so that we don’t have to compete with the noise from the street. And who doesn’t like a parade ? As I walked to mass, I saw the beginnings of the parade, twenty or so students from each primary, secondary and high school lining up in the street. After the school children came the various clubs of both children and adults : Red Cross, Tae Kwon Do, Market Gardeners, Chicken Raisers, Metal Workers,. Mass wasn't anything too out of the ordinary. Easter Vigil mass was where it all went down. We started outside standing in a circle around a small bonfire. Everyone brought candles and the light was passed around the circle. You can't really beat that. The church was packed for the vigil service, but attendance was sparse in the morning. I guess those that went in the evening slept in and well, no one else heard the announcement. On my way home after mass the main street was lined with spectators trying to catch a glimpse of someone or other that they knew in the parade. I saw just about everyone I knew there, kids from the two schools I worked at, neighbors, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, as well as random people who happened to know my name. A parade is a parade is a parade is a parade. I guess somethings are pretty much the same where ever you go. I mean there weren’t any five story high balloons or fire trucks or antique cars, but they had drummers, choreographed dances, military personnel decked out in full uniform, policemen taking control with whistles and wild hand gestures, a grand stand, closed of streets. And of course there were the vendors as well hawking their wares: cold water, frozen juice, donuts, peanuts, etc. Back to the Easter celebration... Celebrating holidays away from friends and family is an interesting thing. So much of what makes a holiday a holiday is tradition. Yes, Easter isn’t about sitting around the dining room table with a bunch of relatives eating honey glazed ham and pineapple with twice baked potatoes and those oh so soft and warm rolls smothered in butter, and yet…It even feels like Easter when it isn't your dining room table or your relatives and your mom didn't make the potatoes so they have different taste to them, but remove all of that and well, for some reason it just doesn’t seem like Easter. Funny how that is. I mean I thought Easter was all about Christ’s Resurrection. Some how that got lost in the mix... Here in Senegal people celebrate Easter with ngalax (the x is pronounced with a throaty « h » like sound). What is ngalax, you might ask. Well let me tell you. It is a peanut butter drink made by mixing peanut butter with monkey bread (the fruit from the baobab tree) juice. Of course there is more to it than that. You mix in millet, bananas, shredded coconut and raisins to give it some texture. Oh and lets not forget the sugar. They really like things sweet here, very sweet. Then for some extra flavor you throw some vanilla flavored sugar (just in case it wasn’t sweet enough all ready), some freshly grated all-spice and some essence of orange flower. I think there is some butter and eggs involved as well. So when in Senegal... Now since I am living with a Muslim family all Christian celebrations are left up to me. If I want to celebrate, I must provide all the materials needed. It was like this at Christmas too. I wanted to eat chicken, so I bought chickens. Luckily my family is more than willing to help me prepare things, they like a good feast just as well as the next person. It just so happens that there are about thirty five odd people living in my court yard and that doesn’t include all the aunts and uncles and cousins and friends and neighbors who would be more than delighted to receive a plastic container of ngalax and a more than little miffed if they found out they didn’t get any. So I sat down with my host mother a few days before Easter and made a list of all the ingredients I would need to purchase : 5 kilos of millet, 4 kilos of peanut butter, 4 kilos of sugar, 3 kilos of monkey bread, 1 kilo of bananas, 2 tablettes of butter, 1 bottle of essence of orange, etc, etc. Upon returning from mass on Easter Sunday, all the ingredients were ready and waiting. Time to make NGALAX!!! With the help of my host mother, my father’s first wife and three or four aunts we were able to produce enormous amount of delicious ngalax, which was enjoyed by all !!! -------------------------------------------------- Fifty years seems like a long time. And Senegal wasn’t the only one celebrating this year. The year 1960 was a big year for independence. In fact 17 countries on the African continent are celebrating fifty years of independence in 2010 : Cameroon, Togo, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Senegal, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Mauritania, Somalia. Can you find all those countries on a map ?

When I was growing up I hated peanuts, especially peanut butter. In fact the smell of peanut butter made me gag. I think part of this was do to the fact that my best friend was allergic to peanuts, but that is neither here nor there... Another thing I couldn't stand as a child was bananas. I just didn't like them. My brothers would eat them all the time, but not me. There were two exceptions to my disdain for bananas though, I would eat them sliced up in a bowl of Rice Krispies and milk, and I would eat them with peanut butter. I know that doesn't make any sense. I didn't like bananas and I didn't like peanut butter, but when you mixed the two together you had a delicious treat! Don't worry, my little brother noticed this discrepancy too and called me out on it as often as he could. I'm still far from all grown up, but my tastes have definitely changed. I'm still not the hugest fan of plain bananas, but peanut butter, I love peanut butter, especially on bananas!!! Now when I say peanut butter, I'm not just any peanut butter, I'm talking about good peanut butter, no sugar, no salt, just ground roasted peanuts!! YUM! Peanuts make up a significant part of Senegal's agricultural production. "Cultivated in the Groundnut Basin region, this cash crop provides 75% of the national agricultural production and employs 50% of the population." (2001) I was introduced to Senegalese peanuts almost immediately upon arriving in country. While living in my training village, they were a much welcomed snack as well as a source of protein. Every day while we sat under the neem tree in front of my house struggling to learn Wolof, one of the women in the neighborhood would stop by on her way to the market and sell us roasted peanuts. And while at the training center in Thiès, I satisfied my cravings by buying peanuts from an old woman who comes to the center almost everyday to sell trainees and volunteers fresh out of the pan, still warm to the touch, perfectly salted, Senegalese grown, roasted peanuts. Delicious! Now it just so happens that for one reason or another, I ended up in the beautiful town of Kaffrine, which just so happens to be located at the heart of Senegal's "Peanut Basin". I arrived in Kaffrine at the end of October, the middle of peanut harvest. Everyday I watched several of the women and young girls that live in my courtyard headed out to the fields. They would come back right before lunch with large bundles of peanut plants on their heads. Then after lunch they would sit under the neem tree next to my house and pull the peanuts off the plants. They then set the peanuts out in the hot African sun to dry for a day before they shelled them. And boy oh boy can those women shell!!! With one in each hand they shell them, left, right, left, right. One after another until all that is left is a pile of debris. Once the peanuts are shelled, the women winnow their piles of debris to separate the shells from the nuts. I really like this part of the process. The women are quite skilled at it, possibly because they've be doing it since they could walk. And if they happen to use a metal bowl for this process, which they usually do, it makes a quite a racket, a good one though, kind of like the sound of a t-post driver pounding in fence posts in the distance. It took quite a lot to convince my family that I wouldn't die from the the long walk, the hard work, the dust and the heat, if I went out to the peanut fields. But after a week or so of constantly pestering them about it, they let me go. And yes it was hot and dusty and far away and bending over to pick up plants is tedious work especially when you do it day after day after day for months on end, but I'm a farmer, right!?! My family doesn't actually own any land, but farmers hire women from the surrounding area to help with the harvest in exchange for peanuts. That's right, they work for peanuts. The farmer plows up the peanuts and then women pick up the plants and put them in piles to dry. Once they are dry, the small piles are collected into bigger piles and the peanuts are separated from the plants my hitting the piles with large sticks. So I spent the morning picking up peanut plants and putting them in a piles. At the end of the morning each of us got a bundle of peanuts in exchange for our labor. Luckily it just so happen that a horse drawn cart was headed our way, so we loaded up our bundles of peanuts. There wasn't enough room for us on the cart though... So what do you do when you have a bundle of peanuts, you make peanut butter! With the help of many different people, namely the young teenage girls in my compound, I started the process. First we picked the peanuts of the plants and set them out to dry. Then we shelled them, winnowed them and set them out to dry again. After a day out in the sun they were ready to roast! Now peanuts roasted for peanut butter are actually processed differently than the roasted, salted peanuts that you buy on the side of the road and at the market. Those peanuts are boiled in salt water before they are roasted, but since I wanted peanut butter, we skipped that step. The roasting itself is a pretty simple process. There is a special pan used for roasting peanuts. You take the pan and sift a few inches of sand into it and set it on the fire. (Dirty sand leads to funky tasting peanuts.) When the sand is heated up, you add the peanuts and stir. Since you have to continually stir for ten or fifteen minutes, you usually roast peanuts with a friend so that you can take a break from stirring every now and again. And at the point when both of you are tired of stirring, you sift out the sand and voila, delicious roasted the peanut!! Now if you are going to make peanut butter with these peanuts there are still a few steps left. After the peanuts cool, you have to take the thin papery coating off of them.. This is done by rolling the peanuts around in you hands. When that is done, you winnow the peanuts more time. The papery layer is so light that if you just pour the peanuts from one bowl to another from the height of a few feet, it all just blows away. And then you are ready to grind the peanuts!! It just so happens that on the corner of my street, just two houses down is a boutique that has a machine that grinds peanuts into peanut butter. So a few of the young girls in my court yard accompanied me to the corner and I got my peanuts ground into peanut butter, the most delicious peanut butter ever!!! And the cost of the whole process: a morning out in the peanut fields, several afternoons of picking peanuts of plants and shelling, a dollar worth of fire wood, an afternoon of roasting and about ten cents to use the peanut butter grinding machine. Now that I had this peanut butter, my "mother" asked me what I was going to do with it. Senegalese you peanut butter to make mafé. I just wanted it to put on bananas. When I told her this, she exclaimed, "That is bad. You shouldn't do that!!" = ) I tried to explain to her that in America that is one of the ways that we eat peanut butter. She decided it was okay, but was still pretty skeptical. Well, I bought a bunch of bananas and cut them into slices, put a little dab of peanut butter on each slice and gave them to all the people in my court yard. They all said they liked it, but I think a lot of them just said it to be nice, because I saw several people spit it out when they thought I wasn't looking. Oh Senegal... So I've become addicted to bananas and peanut butter. I go through a kilo of bananas (2.2 lbs) every three or four days. Fortunately bananas are one of the main fruit crops here in Senegal, so in Kaffrine a kilo sells for 400 CFA, which is approximately 80¢. Sometimes I have three or four bananas with peanut butter a day... I think banana season ends in the not to distant future, but that's okay, because as it winds down, mango season begins!!

So much has happened since my last post... There was Christmas, followed by a trip that took me north to the cities of Linguere and Louga and then out to the city of St. Louis to celebrate the New Year my feet in the chilly Atlantic. And then it was back to Kaffrine for me. And upon my return I got my hands dirty with a bunch of school children as I began gardening at two of the elementary schools in town. What could be better than playing in the dirt with a bunch of kids? But after a month back in Kaffrine it was time to head to Dakar for a week of learning, dancing and softball! And now I'm back in the village, well kind of...I am in Thiès by day at In-Service Training and then in the village, the village where I lived for my first two and and a half months in country, by night. And so I thought I would use this opportunity to post some pictures of my life in the village...

So after five weeks in Kaffrine, it was time for a short reprive. It just so happened that my break coincided with mandatory flu shot(s) and Thanksgiving! So I hopped on my bike and headed for the regional house in Kaolack! The 60 km trip there was pthe best part of the whole ordeal. It was just me, the rising sun, the wind at my back and the open road!!! They are currently redoing the road between Kaffrine and Kaolack, so half of it was freshly paved, the other half was not.... Kaolack was good, a little crowded and loud, but what can be expected when forty some odd volunteers converge to celebrate. There was good food, friendly faces and I even got to watch some "West Wing". Unfortunately the return trip to Kaffrine was not as pleasant. I was a watering can, several books, a bunch of empty glass jars and a litter bottle of olive oil heavier and the wind was in my face. It reminded me of many a bike ride to work in the valley... Back in Kaffrine: Tis the season...Tabaski is known as "The Day of Sacrifice" or the "Feast of the Sheep". It has its roots in Old Testament scripture when God provides Abraham with a ram so that he doesn't have to sacrifice his son. Hence every adult male purchases a large male sheep to sacrfice on the day of Tabaski. Tabaski here in Senegal is like Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. Like Christmas in the United States, it has a whole season leading up to it. They go so far as to have a tv show in which the host goes around visiting people and checking out their sheep. It is like the county fair, but the judges go door to door. They measure the ram, inquire about its diet, etc.. And yet no one could ever over do a holiday like we do in America... The morning of Tabaski the women finish the spring cleaning of the rooms while the men and old women head to the Mosque. Upon returning home, they sacrfice theiur rams. My family had three this year, one for my father, one for his older brother, and one for his younger brother. Like Thanksgiving in the United States, the holiday of Tabaski revolves around food. The women in my family started preparations the night before by peeling cloves and cloves of garlic and dicing up a huge bowl of onions. Food is such a huge part of the day, in fact all the women really do is cook. The first dish is fresh grilled liver and french fries. Suprisingly this was my favorite dish. Maybe it is just because I could feel my body absorbing all that vitamin A and D. The rest of the day included lots of meat, onions and potaotes mixed and matched together in many delight ways! So lets roll Easter into the mix...besides the fact that everyone goes to the mosque, which I'm sure is much more crowded than on a normal day, everybody gets new clothes. A trip down the market on the Eve of Tabaski revealed all of the tailors sewing away in order to get all of their stiches sewn and hems hemmed before dawn. [Not all of them were sucessful!] After lunch the men and children shower and put on their new clothes The men actually wore their new clothes to the mosque in the morning, but I guess they didn't want to get blood on them, because they changed out of them for the slaughtering and buthchering the rams. Now the men in my family kind of disappeared. I'm not really sure where they went, or what they did, but I'm sure it involved visiting friends and family, eatting more food and drinking tea. No I said the men ane the children change, but the women still have work to do. There is meat to process and dinner to prepare. Go figure! So the children, all dressed in their finest attire go door to door in large hordes showing off thier clothing and asking for money. It's like Trick-or-Treating...in a strange conveluted way... So when the sun wasn't so hot (That is actulally a time of day here, and when asking when things are going to happen,"when the sun is not so hot" is a common response!)I showered and changed into my new clothes. Then I went with my "mother" to visit two of my aunts. We had with one of them, lamb, vermicelli, potatoes, and onion sauce. Deliciousness!! And then as we were walking home, we heard some fireworks going of in the distance, so you could throw the Fourth of July into the mix of holidays too, especiually if you factor in that everything is cooked outside on a fire. Like all holidays where lots of food is involved, leftovers come into play. I've never been so happy to see fish in the bowl as I was five days after Tabaski...Ansd let's just rember that refrigeration is a luxury, not shared my most people here in Senegal.

In fact some of it is ten or twelve feet tall. It is very organic looking, a plant here a plant there, this one twelve feet tall this one eight feet tall. Not at all loke the uniform fields of four foot tall sorghum I use to bike by when I lived in the Valley. So I've been in Kaffrine for three weeks now. This is my home for the next two years, the "bustling metropolis" of Kaffrine, population...35,000 to 45,000. It's more of a sprawling village with a daily market really. When you here the word city, whatever it is that comes to mind, this is probably not it. There are no tall buildings or traffic lights, in fact the most common form of transportation is donkey cart. The pace of life is never rushed and sheep and cows and donkeys roam the sandy boulevards at all hours of the day. I live with a large extended family in their ever chaotic compound. The compound itself is surrouned by a nine foot cyndier block wall and has rooms with doors leading out into the courtyard along most of the edges. The courtyard is where life happens here. It's where we eat, where we nap. where the community gatheres to watch D-list american action movies dubbed in french by night (we're the house with the satelitte), where we shell peanuts, where children are bathed, where we wash our laundry by hand, etc. I wonder what happens when it rains? I'll have to wait until June or July when the rains return from their long hiatus to find out. My host mom here is my father's second wife. I'm not really sure how old she is, but if she is in fact older than me, it is only by a year. She has two little girls, my sisters. One will be two on Friday and the other one is nine months old (exactly twelve days younger than my little nephew back in the states...) My father's first wife lives here as well, along with her seven children ages six months to twelve years. Polygamy is a common practice here in Senegal, in fact you are allowed by Koranic Law (I believe...) to have up to five wives; although most men I've met have one, two or three. My father's older brother lives and works in Dakar, but his wife and their four children, ages three to twelve years live in our compound. Then there is my father's younger brother and his wife; they don't have any children, yet. My father works in construction and has two sixteen year old male apprentices also live with us. My grandmother (my father's mother) and her two sisters also reside in our compound. My grandmother watches a slew of children...somewhere between five and ten, of various relations to our family. Some of them are my father's older sister's children. She lives on the edge of the city where there is no electricity, so her children live with us durig the school year, I think. Some of them are friends of the family's kid's. I'm actually not really sure who they all are, and I'm sketical I ever will. They kind of come and go and along with all the neighborhood kids that are around. It could take years to figure it all out; maybe by the time I leave?. In the far back corner of the compound I have my own room and adjoining bathroom/ We have electricity; most of the time; but currently there is no running water in our compound. There is a faucet, and the possibilty exists that water will flow from it once more, but as of know my aunts and cousins get water from a community faucet a few hundred meters away and carry it back to the compound in large plastic tubs and buckets. One of my favorite moments of the day is when my father's first wife returns with a tub of water on her head and a baby on her back and with out spilling a drop pours the water into a bucket on the ground.. Currently my job is to "integrate" into my community. I spend my mornings hanging out at the Agricultural Office here in town, talking to the men that work there and studying Wolof. Three afternoons a week I have a private tutor in Wolof and the the other two afternoons I hang out under a neem tree next to our compound talking with my family and the neighbors... So that is a glimpse of my life here in Senegal. Kaffrine is home to several cybers and I hope to include frequenting one into my ever evolving routine. So hopefully you'll be hearing from me more often... Keep those letters coming... they really brighten my day!

It's Wednesday again. Tomorrow is the day I take my malaria medication...just another part of life here in this beautiful country. I've been here for a over a month now and even though life here is so different, things have become routine. That's how life goes I guess. So want are these things, the ones that have become normal. Well, there's using a Turkish toilet [aka the squatt toilet], a lack of toilet paper, sleeping under a mosquito net, being refered to as toubab [term meaning foreigner and screamed by little children as you walk by..], eatting fish and rice for lunch and dinner almost everyday, communicating in Wolof... Even though things have become "normal" I'm still living out of my suitcases. That's the life of Peace Corps Trainee here in Senegal. I've spent time at the training center in Thies, visiting a volunteer in the coastal city of Mbour, and living with a family in a small village about 20K east of Thies. And of course, as with anywhere, there are problems that come with living in a new place. Here in Senegal I've had a knack of picking up random ailments. Last week everyday I arrived at language class every morning with a new ailment...there were the obvious GI problems, the blister beetle [it pees acid on you leaving behind a beautiful blister, which must be popped under water so as not to produce more blisters], the ring worm [fungus just love the humidity], the pink-eye [oh the joy of conjuctivitis], the dredded cough [yeah you know the one, this is more of a Susan specific problem than one endemic to Africa]... But such is life and you just got to take it and go! But luckily, my days of living out of suitcase and being shuttled from one place to another are soon to be over. On the 16th of October, myself and the other 54 members of my stage will be becoming offical Peace Corps Volunteers, that is if we become proficient in our language, technical, security, and health skills. So after we swear in as volunteers, we will disperse throughout the country. Me, I will be going to the "thriving metropolis" of Kaffrine. I pretty excited about it. Training is definitely exhausting and it will be nice to settle somewhere for an extended period of time. I'll probably even get to cook a little bit for myself!! And having a permant address means I'll have mailbox as well! And if you like getting mail...all you need to do is send me a letter and I'll definitely write you back! So yeah, life is crazy at the moment. But, we had yesterday off and spent the day at the beach! Oh how I love the beach!! Just sitting there, listening to sound of the waves on the shore, writting in my journal... Once I move to Kaffrine I'll try and give ya'll a better idea of my day to day activities and I'll post some picutres. For know it is in constant fluxuation. Sometimes I spend the day sitting [literally six to seven hours] on a mat under a neem tree studing Wolof with the three other trainees in my village. Other days I spend listening to talks on health, security and agriculture surrounded by fifty other trainees at the training center. Anyways, until next time...

So even though I'm in Senegal now, I couldn't not talk about my time in New Jersey! As many of you know, I'm very proud of my home state and frown at all upon all of you out there who talk about it with contempt. Why I like New Jersey so... First and foremost, I have family in New Jersey! Now on to my adventures... At the end of my cross country journey, I spent a few short weeks back in my hometown of Piscataway, perfectly located in the center of New Jersey, just about an hour from the city, the shore, the country side... One day, I took the train into the city to visit my dear friends the Barringhams (public transportation...another one of the many things New Jersey has to offer). I love trains and decided to venture all the way up to Syracuse on the train to visit my friends up in Ithaca for a weekend! It was there I indulged in my love for: cooking and eating in the company of amazing friends, Choco-Mint Chip Ice Cream, cheddar cheese bagels, whiling away the hours wandering around town on foot [This activity not only provides one with fresh air and exercise, but allows one to run errands and visit the planets all while enjoying good company and great conversation!] When I got back to Jersey, I took the train down to Princeton to visit a dear friend and eat delicious ice cream made with only the finest and freshest ingredients, most of them being from the great state that is NJ. A few days I borrowed my mom's mini-van to visit some of the more "remote" places in the area. One day, I headed over to Pennsylvania to visit my dear friends from camp and their precious twins. On this particular journey, I drove through the Delaware Water Gap, one of the beautiful places in NJ (especially as seen from a canoe on the river, where I have most frequently viewed the geologic wonder)... On the way home I stopped by the New Jersey State Welcome Center to pick up a new map for my mom (the one she had from 1976 was a little dated). As I pulled of the interstate a black bear sauntered across the road. That's right, New Jersey has wild life!! I've even seen bald eagles out on the river! On another one of my journeys I found myself out in the country up in north Jersey visiting with more friends from camp and their darling children. The winding roads, hidden street signs and abundance of livestock, reminded me of my days out in rural Pennsylvania. And of course no trip to Jersey would be complete with out a trip down the shore!! I packed my towel and a pair of sunglasses, several delicious freshly baked bagel with cream cheese to spare, hopped in the car with my best friend and headed down the shore... And when it was time to leave my home state, so I did, the best way I knew how. I hoped on a train and "headed down south"...ready for another adventure!

We were up long before the sun and off to the farmer's market. It took us a couple hours to get there, but what an exciting place to be. After the market was over we met up with some of Sarah's friends for lunch before getting back in the car and heading north to the Garden State.

When I came up with this plan to have a bunch of friends drive me from Waco, TX to Piscataway, NJ, people were a little skeptical. I myself was skeptical. So there I was driving into Pennsylvania. Jocelyne was taking a nap in the seat next to me. I was listen to the radio. All of the sudden, it dawned on me. I'm gonna make. ME and my stuff are going to make it Piscataway. WOW!! We arrived at New Morning Farm after night fall. Jocelyne and I were greeted by my dear friend and college roommate, Sarah. After a delicious meal made of farm fresh veggie, we headed to bed. Who knew that twelve hours in the car would be so exhausting? Well we slept in on Friday and woke up just in time for the farms morning meeting. We heard all about late blight and other such issues on the farm. After the meeting, Then Jocelyne and I jumped right in and helped harvest basil! Jocelyne and I were all ready to help out in the afternoon, but the rain made it impossible to do the jobs we were going to do, so we spent the afternoon cooking dinner for all the folks living at the farm. It wasn't until Saturday morning that we got a tour of the farm. It seems to go on forever. The farm has twenty-six generations of head lettuce!! Compared to farm I worked on in Waco, it's GIANORMOUS!! So Jocelyne left us and headed back to Indiana and Sarah and I did some more exploring. It was early to bed for us though. We were headed to DC in the morning for the Farmer's Market.

Now a road trip wouldn't be a road trip without the unexpected. So somewhere en route, Jocelyne's muffler fell off. Ooops! So the drive from Pine Road Farm in Indian to New Morning Farm in Pennsylvania is about 525 miles, so Jocelyne and I decide to break it up a little bit with a picnic lunch at Cayahoga Valley National Park. So I've been to quite a few National Parks and this one was very different then all of the other ones. There was no big sign welcoming us to the park, in fact it's a good thing we had directions to the park, or I don't think we would have found it. But, we did find it and we had a lovely picnic before getting back on the road.

And then we were back on the road headed Indiana. We arrived in Plymouth at the organic dairy farm where Jocelyne lives and works. We spent the afternoon checking out the milking parlor, watching the afternoon milking and feeding the calves. At the World Hunger Relief Farm we had a few cattle, but I only got to hang out with them a few times. Here, I got to hang out with lots and lots of calves and cows. What amazing animals!! So after dinner we headed to bed so we'd be bright eyed and bushy tailed for milking in the morning. The cows at this farm are milked every sixteen hours or one and a half times a day. This makes for an interesting schedule; one day you milk in the afternoon and the next you milk in the morning and then really late at night. The first thing we had to do was go a get the cows. The cows on this particular farm spend their days munching on grass. When they finish the grass in one paddock, they are moved to another and so on and so forth. So at the World Hunger Relif Farm in Waco, one of my favorite thing to do was milk the goats. We only ever milked eight goats at time. Here, they milk about 140 cows. WOW!! Helping milk that many animals was quite an experience!! I loved it! When we finish we were covered with manure splatter and ready for a break, but it was so cool!! I even got to see Phil, the owner of the farm, artificially inseminate of few of the ladies. Quite an interesting process, right TJ. So after an eventful morning it was time for a second breakfast and then a restful day hanging out in Plymouth, Indiana.

Welp, after a our adventures in St. Louis, Jocelyne and I were off to Chicago for more adventures. But before our arriving in the windy city, our journey took us through field after field corn and soy bean, beautiful yet depressing. We arrived in Chicago under cover of night and met up with my dear friend Julie. Julie and I go way back, back to the time when I "still wore those white socks with frills on the top to church", those were the days. Now Julie is the Assistant Entomologist at the Chicago Academy of Sciences' Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, so we started our adventures at the museums collections. Very cool! Very, very cool! So after seeing what there was to see there, we headed downtown to meet Julie's friend Tiffany who was in town for the ALA conference. Now we were four. We started off with a picnic in the park. It was here that I got my first glimpse of tourists on Segways. Oh what a site to behold! Then we took a stroll through Lurie Garden on our way to one of Chicago's finest outdoor exhibits, most commonly known as the bean. If you are ever in Chicago, this is something you should definitely check out. Then headed toward Lake Michigan for a jaunt along the river front. After enjoying a beautiful sunny day, we headed to Pequad's for some Chicago style pizza, before collapsing in a heap on the floor. The next morning before getting back in the car, Jocelyne and I went out with Tiffany and Julie to Ann Sather for an authentic Swedish breakfast! I had "marscarpone-filled cinnamon rolls, battered, grilled and topped with granola and fresh seasonal berries". Like Whoa!

Now I don't know too much about cars, but I must say that the Volkswagen Jetta has a huge trunk. All of my stuff fit in the car and there was no problem fitting all three of us as well. Crazy times! St. Louis is know for many things. It is home of the Gateway Arch, the St. Louis Bread Company, the worlds second largest free zoo, and it was the site of the 2009 All-Star Game (right weekend, no tickets). Upon arriving we headed toward the zoo. I'm not sure how I feel about zoos. Let's see what Pi has to say about them. "I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both." (Life of Pi) So after hitting up the zoo we met my next ride, Jocelyne! Then we headed to the Wachsmuth's house, our gracious hosts for the night. Their lovely daughter and WHRI alumna, Laura, took us out to The Loop for the evening. We got Thai food and rounded the evening out with bubble tea! After a good nights sleep and a scrumptious homemade breakfast, we undertook the task of moving all my stuff from one car to the other before headed off to the arch. Even though it was a cloudy day, we got a beautiful view of the city from up on top of the arch. Then we dodged the rain drops as we ran back to the car. That about sums up our adventures in St. Louis...oh wait, I almost forgot the root beer float at Fitz's!

After a lovely evening in Topeka, Bethel and I said are goodbyes, we got back in the car and headed over to Kansas City to my dear friend Becca's house. Becca and I worked at Camp Aldersgate the summer of 2003 and 2004. Susan And Becca - Camp Aldersgate 2003 So upon arriving in Kansas City, we moved all my belongings from Bethel's car into Becca's car. Then we called it a night and got some sleep. In the morning, Becca and her boyfriend Albert had to work, so Bethel dropped me off at Loose Park before heading back to Waco. And another goodbye... Not having anything to do is an odd thing for me. But there I was with several hours in which I could do whatever I wanted. Well, the first thing I did was curl up next to a tree and take a nap! After my nap I explored the park a little bit and found a bench to do some reading. Then I decided to do some more exploring. It's a lovely city. I took a stroll along Brush Creek. I did find this sign which I found a bit disturbing, but the ducks were having a grand old time. I decided to see if I could find the art museum, and started walk through a neighborhood full of beautiful old houses. Well, I don't have the best sense of direction and never found the art museum, instead I found myself on the Kansas/Missouri state line at a local art gallery. So Kansas City is know for two things, it's Barbecue and it's Jazz. So in order to get the real experience a trip to Oklahoma Joe's Barbeque [according to Anthony Bordain, one of the 13 Places to Eat Before you Die ] and The Blue Room were in order. Then to wrap up the Kansas City experience, Becca and I went go cow tipping.

Thursday morning, more like late morning...Bethel and I were back in the car and on our way. We pulled of the interstate in Wichita and headed in the direction we perceived to be downtown. We found an area with shops lining both sides of the street, so we parked and continued our search on foot. We passed a place that boasted about having the "Best Tacos in Wichita", but we settled on a place called "La Galette" and had soup and salad. We finished the meal off with chocolate covered strawberries and then got back on the road. A couple hours later we arrived in Topeka at Carol's house. Carol and I had been friends in college where we ran cross country together. I hadn't see her in five years, but when I found out she lived in Topeka and that we would be driving through Topeka, it just had to happen! Carol and her husband Jason welcomed us into their lovely home. It turns out that they too have a vegetable garden in their backyard as well as a compost pile AND a rabbit tractor. The garden was beautiful and the compost pile was very cool, but the rabbit tractor was AWESOME!! It was built as a way to rotational graze rabbits which were being grown as a source of meet. The tractor is moved twice a day to give the rabbits fresh grass and clover and spread their nutrient rich pellets around the yard. The rabbits are supplemented with greens as well as pellets. Bethel and I helped Jason fix a most delectable dinner of stuffed squash, while Carol prepared a delicious squash crisp for dessert. We then spent the evening out on the front porch eating delicious food and enjoying each others company.

So I've made it back to New Jersey...now that I have time and access to the internet, I thought I would tell you about my trip.. On Wednesday the 8th, it was time to hit the road. So I loaded up my dear friend Bethel's car with all my belongings and prepared to embark on our journey together. Before heading out, I was lucky to get a taste of the freshly harvested farm honey and one last farm cooked meal. After saying a few last good-byes, we hopped into the car and headed off into the hot noon day sun. Hospitality Having lived in many places and having met many different people is a blessing, especially when traveling across the country. When traveling most people stop and stay at some chain hotel/motel. I find hotels to be sterile and uninviting. Each night of the journey I stayed with friends or friends of friends. Some people think that hospitality is a lost art, but I have seen that this is not true. Over the past few years, I have found that people are extremely hospitable. All you have to do is be willing to ask. So Bethel and I arrived and were welcomed into the cozy abode of our dear friends the Beckers. Our lives crossed for the first time at the World Hunger Relief Farm in Waco. Now we meet again, this time in Oklahoma. We got to meet their beautiful new baby girl, Elise Austin and were treated a delicious dinner, a good nights sleep and a scrumptious breakfast that included duck eggs. And guess who has a lovely garden in their backyard?

There's no place like home... I spent a week working at the World Hunger Relief Farm. I spent the week working mostly with the livestock. I helped build a shade structure for our goats, I help mend some fences for our goats, I milked some goats, I bought feed for our goats, I tracked down our three cattle and fed them molasses... The weirdest experience of the week was getting stung by a caterpillar. I was sitting in the farm truck and put my arm up on the seat. I felt like I had been stung by a bee, but there was no bee in site. I did find a large, fuzzy, gray caterpillar, which I promptly threw out the window. Later that evening when the stinging had not subsided, I did some research on the internets and found out that some caterpillars do in fact sting down in Texas. Who knew? Of course I also got to hang out with some amazing people, both old and new friends. And that is what makes Waco home for me!

I lived been down in the Rio Grande Valley for the past four months. During my time in the Valley, I was worked IDEA Public Schools as the Farmer/Wellness Coordinator at their campus in Donna, TX. I started my days with an eight mile bike ride to school. I can't think of a better way to start the day. Riding past fields of sorghum, corn, onions, cilantro, okra, citrus trees, Winter Texan RV parks, watermelon, watching the seasons change as one crop was harvested and the next was planted. Most days I spent working outside in the garden, harvesting vegetables for the students to eat for lunch. Sometimes classes would come out and visit me in the garden. I'd talk to them about photosynthesis and the parts of a plant. Occasionally I found myself inside, teaching students about wellness and the importance of eating healthy foods. My days out in the garden were always brighten with sound of children screaming, "Farmer Susan!" across the campus. Every afternoon during recess, several third graders would come running over to see me, their school farmer, and talk about plants and pick a carrot or a few tomatoes or get that rare slice of cucumber. And that is what is was all about...getting children excited about healthy food! For a little while, I finished off the school day running around with a bunch of high schoolers. I was the women's soccer coach. What a great way to end the day! It as such privilege to coach these incredible young women. They worked hard and had fun. And I think they might have learned a little bit about playing soccer as well. Of course my day wouldn't have been complete without the bike ride home. If the wind was at my back, as it quite often was, I flew home. If it was in my face, well, let's just say I dreaded those days. All in all, if I could make it home without putting my feet on the ground, my day was just that much better. My evenings and weekends were filled with goat milking, goodie baking, goat kid feeding, ice cream churning, tag playing, music making, kombucha drinking, pizza eating, tandem bike riding, humdingering and oh so much more. I never thought the Valley would become home, but it did. Even though life was hard, it was good. Of course this made it more difficult to leave, but alas, it is time for a new adventure. I left the Valley a little over a week ago. I am headed back from whence I came, New Jersey. Since I don't own a car, I am relying on the kindness of friends to transport my stuff and I across these united states. It is going to take a little longer, but it will be well worth it. View 2009 - San Juan to Piscataway! in a larger map. Upon arriving in New Jersey I'll have a few weeks to spend with family and friends before I start a new adventure, twenty-seven months in Senegal working as an agriculture extension agent with the Peace Corps!