So my laptop stopped working... Village Life!!!

So I bet you're all dying to know about my fun times in the village. I was in Lahel and Lahel is so far north in Senegal that's it's about 12 hours away from the coast and Dakar. To get there we road in a sept-place for 8 hours to a village called Guede. Guede is the "bougie" village. One of the interns traveling with us actually stayed there to work on a project. The host family had air conditioning-I didn't even have that in Dakar. Guede was like an oasis in the desert. It was so green and beautiful and just happy. It's truly a great example of what can be done when people are the given the tools to sustainably provide for themselves.

We rested in Guede for days and after that we left for Lahel. To get there we rode in a canoe across one river-kinda scary especially since we were carrying all our crap which included 40 Liters of water. After that we got on a chariot( horse or donkey drawn cart) and we rode in the sun for about 2-3 hours before we got to Lahel. It was kind of tiresome but not really too bad. Lahel was seriously tiny. There was a total of 13 different households but a butload of kids running around. When we got there we found out that everyone in the town had tried to wait and meet us but soem of them had to go to work. But still, everyone who was around came to greet us and welcome us to the village.

Next was a blur of being followed aroudn incessantly, I mean we were probably the most entertainment they've had in a very long time. The worst part of the village had to be the sand-well really dust. It was everywhere!!! For about two weeks we had to deal with dust in all of our clothes, on every little crevice of our body, in our lungs, in the food we ate and even in the water from the well and from the river. I HATE DUST!!!

But the village was really beautiful. You had to look deeper to find it but it was there. It was in the adorable baby kittens that just happened to be staying with us. It was in the abundance of stars which we were so lucky to sleep under every night. It was in every tickle match that I had with the kids since that was our only form of communication, and it was in the way that the family cared for the 105 year old woman we were staying with. You don't always get that in the states!