Hello all. I am back early from Cape Verde. It was beautiful there, but got to be quite expensive on a poor west-african-peace-corps budget. I got to see a lot and it was quite a contrast from Senegal.

On vacation, I made a big decision that I've been thinking about for a while. I've decided to cut my two years short and return home. So this week I will be in Dakar doing paperwork and getting ready to leave. I have already moved out of my site and said my good-byes. "What happened?" you ask... Well, nothing happened, per se. There are many reasons, but they all boil down to I just wasn't happy. I did everything to change the circumstances, but there are too many things out of my control that I just cannot live with here any more. One can sacrifice to do good and noble things in the world, but when the people (for the most part, not all) are ungrateful, disrespectful, and don't want to help themselves, the costs suddenly outweigh the benefits. So the only option was to terminate my service with the Peace Corps.

Here are the pictures both from my time down in Kedougou and also the vacation to Cape Verde.

Also, an update on my tree nursery (which I have given the responsibility to my "brother" Pape Sangone to finish and plant around town). There 190 sacks of local varities(moringa olifera [which the locals call nev-a-die or sap sap], leucaena, baobab, acacia, ziziphus mauratanie, and neem) along with a few well knows like mango and cashew. Turns out it is possible to grow things in the Sahel region of africa.

Kedougou (south-eastern Senegal)

Kedougou Trip

Cape Verde (Island-nation directly west of senegal in the atlantic)

Cape Verde

I'm back from Kedougou. The south part of this country is actually nice. There are trees and mountains and green. The people are actually tolerable (a different ethnic group). I'll have plenty of pictures up soon.

I went for a week-ish. We first biked/climbed a mountain and stayed there in a village on the top. Then came back down and biked to another small town (Segou). From there we hiked back to see a waterfall. Then we hiked up another mountain. On this small, impromptu trip I saw from afar Mali and Guinea. The only cool wildlife I saw were a few monkeys. Nonetheless, still beautiful and I'm glad I went.

We also celebrated the 4th in true style. Most of the volunteers came down to Kedougou for a party, which I why I wanted to go a week early and see everything. We had some fireworks and cooked 2 pigs. I wish these people ate pork here, I've missed it!

Getting ready to leave on actual vacation, out of Senegal. Going to Cape Verde. That should be amazing.

As so, please do not send anymore care packages right now. If they arrive when I'm away, it's quite possible I won't get them, at least get them complete. The postal system here sure isn't American, they take what they want.

I now have my laptop here. So hopefully, I'll be able to stay more in touch, upload pictures more often, and blog more often as well.

It's already happening! ha.

And here are some pictures.

First is Toubab Dialow. A nice resort town down on the Petite Cote.

Toubab Dialow

Second is Foundioune. A quiet town down on the petite cote as well.

Foundioune

Third is more pictures of my *lovely* town, Guinguineo.

Guinguineo part deux

And last, some pictures of my tree nursery. Life can exist in the sand.

trees!

What has been going on here? Not exactly a whole lot. It's been getting hotter by the day and night. Hottest so far about 115 during the day. I tried to go to sleep at 105 one night. That was an impossible feat. On windy days there is another reason I cannot walk around, other than the incredible heat and direct, searing sun: the sand storms. So all in all it's pretty miserable to be here.

There's been no new work related developments. Though they celebrated bob marley's death, so I went to the english club's meeting at the high school. Gag me, right? Quite ridiculous.

I've also planted about 200 tree sacks to do a tree nursery. If you looked through my pictures of my town (Guinguineo) you'll notice a lack of green. I'm hoping to put a splash of color into this desert sand. That's really time intensive, so what I'll probably be doing most of my time. That is most of the time when it's cool and I want to do more than sit in my room. Ha.

This next month looks better though. I'm going to Dakar soon, relax, and to buy tickets to go to Cape Verde. Yep, vacation time the end of July. Jessica and I are going to three of the islands off the coast of Senegal. Have you ever heard of Cape Verde? Probably not. Look them up, they are quite beautiful. Flying into Santiago, then hiking around the amazing mountains of St. Antao, and up the volcano of Fogo. Hopefully I'll be able to put us some amazing photos.

As far as Senegal, I'm hoping to travel down to the National Park in the Southeast, as well as to St. Louis and over to Podor.

After that, who knows what I'll do. It'll be about a year in.

Here are some pictures!

Not doing a lot here. It's entering the hot season. There was a sand storm the other day.

I took a trip down south close to The Gambia.

Karang and Massarinko

Some of my wonderful town of Guinguineo.

Guinguineo

Here are some shots of some Baobab trees.

Baobabs!

So I should probably actually update. I've heard requests.

First. Like I put in the little post right before, my e-mail account got hacked. The results of using internet cafes in a third-world country. I hope and pray everything works out ok. I'm just hoping that no sensitive material was on any e-mails. But the response time from friends asking if I was ok was pretty sweet. About the time I happened to be logging online, my dad called and confirmed why I couldn't log-in using my password. Until I figure something out, send e-mail to kennysenegal at gmail dot com.

2010 Waist and Dakar

So back a month or so ago was W.A.I.S.T. The west african invitational softball tournament. It is held in Dakar (the capital of Senegal, and largest city in west africa) for the various ex-patriots and PCVs in all of west africa. Pretty much we come in from our tiny poor villages and witness amazing big city life on the ocean while playing softball and eating at great restaurants. great time. Also had the All-Volunteer conference from all the PCVs in west africa to talk business for a while.

You may notice in the pictures a very beautiful girl with me in a few pictures. I'm such a lucky guy, huh? =)

Along with the softball, Jessica and I went to a small sampling of some of the best restaurants in Dakar. Yum! We went to Isle N'Gor one day, and that was just amazing! But the few days in dakar went fast, and it was time to go back to Thies for training. Boo! It was about 2 1/2 weeks of so... much... fun.

Back in guinguineo for now. It's hotter, and drier, and worse than ever. ah, home sweet home? We had st. patty's day in kaolack. pretty nice. We found some guiness and it made for a good day. Also, i'm now officially our regional librarian and co-treasurer. something to fill my time! :)

I'm in Dakar now, actually. Having the doctor look at my foot. I must have stepped on something a while back, and it hasn't come out. So i'm going to get it removed. Not a big deal, but affords some "vaca" time back in Dakar for a few days.

Hopefully I can get a new e-mail address. No more using internet cafes here.

Hello, everyone!

I would first like to say, I'm ok! My e-mail was hacked into and an e-mail was sent out to everyone in my address book. I'm not in London (though I might rather be) and I haven't been mugged. Please let anyone else know that I'm ok and to delete the e-mail.

Love

Kenny

Okay, okay. I uploaded beaucoup de pictures. Though I'm not going to caption them all now, so have fun guessing! Rundown: Popenguine beach for swear-in party celebration, couple from Dakar day, my family in Mboro, pics from the final exam day, a few back in Thies before swear-in, Swear-in with some big shots, some of my house and the turkeys we ate for t-giving, Tabaski photos with the soon-to-be-dead guest of honor, a few of the high school boys I hang out with every day, and finally some of Kaolack.

New Folder

One "successful" radio show down in January.

After writing a script all day, then having to translate it into French (Most likely the *worst* grammar of all time); Mollie, Elizabeth, and I hailed a cab and took off for the radio station. We somehow found the worst and rudest driver of all times, which when you think of all the cab drivers you've ever met says a lot, n'est-ce pas? With two other passengers and us (a normalality or saftey hazard, depending on how you look at it) the driver set off with Mollie still stepping into the car. There are two types of cabs here. One is a "direct" cab that you can tell to go anywhere. The other is a "route" taxi that follows a path picking up and lettting off people as they need. Route taxis are much cheaper and easier. Usually. We opted for the route taxi. There currently is a major road construction project enveloping downtown Kaolack, so there is a usual detour route that about 98% of the cabbies make, which is great because that route goes a block away from the radio station. Well of course this guy would take another route, weaving around the road blocks. So we found ourselves just telling the guy to let us out and we'd walk. We know the way, right? Well, sort of. We start treking off in the general direction, thinking it's perhaps only a few blocks. Normally I'm pretty good at directions, but this is the worst layed out city ever. In the US roads go North and South. Africa failed to look at a compass. Or perhaps the French helped. Enough said.

Mollie, who's site is Kaolack and therefore knows the most amongst us, said it was near a blue mosque. Look for a blue mosque. We saw the spiring tower of one, and it was blue. We walked a few blocks over to it, alas, not the right one. We walked some more and started thinking we'd never find it. Another blue mosque! That's the right one. And just down the road I saw I radio tower peering over the top of a building.

Once inside, we sat down at the studio table laying out our stuff in preparation. Laptop with the script. Check. Ipod with music to play between talking. Check. We just needed a cord (which they have) to plug it in to the sound board. Elizabeth explained in her superior french and it seemed the lady had no idea what we were talking about. She then took the ipod and left. Through the glass wall of the studio we saw her walk over to the open window and dangle the ipod out, yelling something down to the guys below in Wolof.

Finally, another man came up who spoke french and knew what was going on. Elizabeth explained the situation, which was finally properly communicated, and we were on our way. He stayed for the first few minutes to man the equipment.

Well we made our introdutions (you're listening to radio such and such, this is so and so) then explained the topic for this weeks's radio show. Then nothing happened. We meant to be playing some music for a break. The iPod was playing, just nothing was being broadcast. After about 8 or 10 seconds of silence until the DJ guy realized he needed to turn on the channel for the music. Apparently he didn't completely understand as we had thought.

Ok, blip number 1.

The next two parts were just between Elizabeth and I. She was playing the part in a 'skit' of the business expert while I was the emcee. It went--fairly well.

Then the next part. Mollie, bless her southern heart. She started well, but then came the nervous laughs. Then more and more laughing. Uncontrolably.

So that we'll call blip number 2.

A few other random funny mistakes here and there. That and all, save two, of the songs we played were that of the soundtrack from the tv show Glee (the choice of Elizabeth), in addition to an Abba and Michael Jackson's Thriller (the complete version).

Other than this event, I've been actually starting to get some work done here and there at site. The first volunteers (2 previous before me) started working with a couple who make "Baye Fall" quilts and other items. I've been working with them, helping to export to the US, and just generally getting to know Babacar Iba and Kine. They are really overly nice. Babacar will sing some classic wholesome american rock songs, saying how much the local senegalese music is just terrible. What can I say, we bond over that.

Also, I just reciently worked in cooperation with an NGO (10,000 Girls) in Kaolack to bring a Reading Room (Salle de Lecture) to Guinguineo. It's like a library, but encourages talking and discussion, to encourage literacy and promote students to stay in school. I'm going to be bringing about 250 books back with me in various languages to site. Hopefully, it will play out nicely.

IST (In-Service Training) starts here the 7th of February. I'll be headed back to Thies for a few days, then to Dakar for All Volunteer Conference and WAIST, then back to Thies until the 4th of March. WAIST is a giant softball tournament in Dakar for all of the PCVs and expats in western africa. It ought to prove to be an enjoyable vacation.

Things in general are just going really well! Thanks for all your messages, letter, cards, and packages!

-Kenny

I spent Christmas this year in Kaolack along with 15 other volunteers. Another volunteer headed up the festivities for Christmas eve: many desserts, spiced cider, and a white elephant exchange. There were around 7 or 8 of us who decided to go to the Catholic vigil. So after the gift exchange, we headed out to the one church in town. In true Senegalese style, it started late with the traditional manger skit, along with some kind of skit about a rainbow. I'm not really sure--it was all in french. At the end when Jesus was born, they let loose a live white dove. That was pretty cool.

Friday morning, we made pancakes, bacon, and hot cocoa. Yummy! For lunch a couple of other volunteers made some tomato soup and grilled cheese, from scratch.

And then dinner. I made a five pound honey glazed baked ham, along with sweet corn, sauteed green beans, mashed potatos, and millet (corn) bread. Everyone said it was good-especially since we had pork twice in a day. Much smaller than Thanksgiving, too (and thus much easier to make the food).

I uploaded a few more pictures (from a long time ago) so click below and check them out:

PST

i'm still here! last week I went into Kaolack to do a radio show. Well really just introduce myself along with two others from my stage on air. Somehow we promised that in January we'd do the show ourselves, since the two who normally do it wouldn't be availiable (i.e. vacationing in the us). Bonne chances to us I suppose.

I haven't been doing much as of lately. Just learning some language, reading some books, and making attaaya (senegalese tea). There are about 10 or 12 high school guys who come over every afternoon now and for around two hours, talk and make tea in their customary elaborate ceremony.

Next week, I'm going to Kaolack againg for Christmas. Should be fun. We're making desserts and having a white elephant exchange Christmas eve. Then for the 25th making a gigantic dinner. yum.

It's apparently incredibly difficult to put up pictures in this country, but here are a few. The turkey is one of the two we ate for thanksgiving. there is one from swear-in at the ambassador's house in dakar, then some from tabaski.

senegal

if it's getting any colder in the usa (and all sources tell me it's true), I really can't tell here. The rains have stopped. I can tell that the baobab trees in my backyard are starting to lose their leaves. People are talking about Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it seems like mid-August. I'll have to get used to this I guess.

To my suprise, I received two big boxes of food from my dad; then another from my sister today. Made my day--no strike that, week. Everyone keeps asking what's ok to send so I'll address that. What makes a good care package? Anything really. Just don't send anything valuable, the postal service has been known in the past to check, (fortunately my boxes weren't opened this time). It costs similarly for me to send back to the us, but keep in mind that a dollar is worth a heck of a lot more here (I give about the equalivent to 2 bucks a day to my family for food). A stamp for a letter is 550 FCFA, you can look up the current exchange rate at xe.com, but it's about 500 per dollar. So what can you send? Anything that will last and not spoil for 2-3 weeks in transit. I suppose that reduces your options. Things like dried fruits, rasins, oatmeal/granola and cereals, nuts of all types (they have cashews and peanuts here, but they arent the same), along those lines PeanutButter (the stuff here is horrible, and I love some creamy PeterPan), any *hard* candy (it's hot here, things melt) (oh, and christmas is coming...candy canes!), dried meat such as jerky or canned tuna, drink mixes, and pens and paper. The last one may come as a suprise, but the paper here is weird and the pens rarely write well. Be sure to tape up any packages well, they are coming a long distance!

Today is my 100th day in country. Seems like a long time yet I'm only 1/8 done.

The wolof is coming along, tutti rekk.

Happy thanksgiving to everyone! We're going to try and fix thanksgiving dinner at the regional house in Kaolack. Then, maybe, I'll go the week after to the north to Ndioun for a christtmas party; Not sure yet.

hello. i know that it's been a while. forgive me! it's difficult to get to a computer, but should be easier now that i live next to a cyber café in Guinguinéo.

it's cooling down a bit here, not sure the temp but it's cooler nonetheless. weather.com says it's 86 right now...ok that made me feel worse.

i realized that i forgot my cable for my camera, so hopefully i can find one in kaolack the next time i go there. i have some pictures of mboro and thies, and the beach south of dakar...but no way of getting them up right now. c'est la vie! speaking of français, my french is getting better. thats good i guess. i've been trying to learn wolof--by myself. that's proved to be difficult! little by little. mangiy jang wolof. (i'm learning wolof) that's pretty much what i've been doing alllll day. and reading a bit. there are two cousin boys living with us and sometimes we xiim attayah (make tea). every morning i eat my french style breakfast--bread-- and some warm sweet milk. that gives me an opportunity to talk to my host-dad, Pape DIOP. he's actually been to university and lived around the country, so that is awesome. he speaks english fairly well, so if i don't understand something in either french or wolof he'll try and tell me in english.

I'll be here until the end of February, at which time I'll go back to Thiès for IST (in service training).

All is well here. Take care everyone.

I visited my permanent site this past week and it's awesome. I'm fairly central in the country in the Kaolack region. Guinguineo has about 30,000 people, but no one would guess it has that many. I feels much smaller than my hometown with a population of 6500. I have many options for work partners ranging from artisan groups, microfinance banks, a brand-new high school, a radio station, several boutiques and tailors, etc etc. Much that can be done. My new house is really nice with a lot of potential. I have a screened in porch, a *probably 15'x15' living room and likewise bedroom, and a bathroom. My host-dad, Pape Diop (though is called Pape Baye Fall or simply Baye Fall), is a butcher and spends a lot of his time grilling meat in his grill/stove. He has one wife who along with being a mom of three and house wife makes and sells soup. His mom also newly lives in the house too. There are three kids: Two girls, Ouly (4) and Soda (3); and one boy: Fallou (1). He is in the Baye Fall brotherhood/sect of Islam; and he doesn't pray 5x/day or fast during Ramadan (which works incredibly to my favor). He is super nice and fairly intelligent, so after I learn French better and Wolof I can have some nice conversations over the next two years without going crazy. All is well, save a day or two of not feeling up to par. Nothing major. I'm back in Thies right now until Saturday. Then it's back to Mboro for more language training for a while. Swearing in is in less than a month! I pick up my boubou (Google it. it's easier than explaining) from the tailor tomorrow (inchallah). It's silver bazin, and only cost 7000 (450 = 1 USD).

As things go in Senegal, (read:slowly) I can update only time to time. I've been in my home-stay village for the past week. It's a wonderful little city/large village about 5km from the ocean. It has sand everywhere and palm tres. The people are super nice, but always insist on wanting to make us learn wolof and not speak in french. My home-stay family is great and huge, thought it's awkward to interact because of the language problem. But we try and it's been going well. There is a 30 year old son Babarcar, and we bond well. I spend most of the day between class either sitting under a tree and trying to chit-chat or making amazing senegalese tea. We're back in Thies for a few days before another two weeks back in the village. All things are going well (Iinchallah).

Please, send me mail!

PCT Kenny Cox

Corps de la Paix

BP 299

Thies, Senegal

West Africa

I arrived safely in Dakar and was greeted by the country director and some current PCVs. We took a nice (nap) bus ride to Thies where the Train Center compound is located. Our group of 50 trainees seem to be really great and motivated; and the staff with PC is amazing. They are very kind and patient. We've immediately begun cultural training (which senegalese culture is AMAZING). We were finally allowed to walk around with 3rd year PCVs outside the walls of our safe little compound yesterday. Thies is eye-opening. talk about extreme poverty. i've never seen anything like it before. hopefully i can get some pictures up, but the people are semi-offended by us taking pictures. they'll ask why we would want to take pictures, it's just their lives. but they are extremely friendly. We've been split up in language groups, and right now i'm learning french. though we've all picked up some Wolof. I travel up with my 4 person group and teacher to a village on the north western coast to live on-and-off for the next 9 weeks to train (traveling between there and Thies). It's a sweet beach resort town, so yea for that. I leave for there tomorrow evening for 10 days.

Asaalam aleikum

I leave Indy on Tuesday (8/11/09) at 7am. US Air Flight #3302. I stage in D.C. and stay at the Washington Plaza Hotel. We fly out Wednesday night, non-stop to Dakar, Senegal on United Flight #4590 @ 5:40pm.