My life these days
I recently went to Mali for spring break. I will at some point, when things become less hectic over here, post on that. But here is an abridged e-mail I sent to a friend that serves as a nice update...I think my favorite part about spring break was the style in which we traveled. It's cool to finally be old enough to travel on another continent on your own. To have a plan and be able to change it. To accept people-you-meet-along-the-way's offers to stay at their house. To see in which new direction your adventure will turn, while all the time discovering a new place, people, and culture. Mali was beautiful too. There's a picture on facebook of me sitting with 2 friends looking out on the landscape below from the top of this huge escarpment in the middle of the desert. It was so grand. It was breath taking, really. The world is soooo sooooo big. But yet so small at the same time. Because two nights later, we met some other Americans at our hotel, in Mopti, Mali, and one of them has known a good friend of mine from Mac since primary school. Crazy right?!?!
Life is going well here. I love my friends and my family. And work is interesting, super interesting. Might I be laying the foundation for a career in carbon offsetting projects? I don't know. It will at least carry me through the summer, I'm hoping. I have a phone interview next Wednesday to determine if I'll stay.
Senegal is still incredible. Yesterday, I was walking home and saw a peacock on someone's fence. Then I had to walk through wet sand that wreaked of sewage, presumably because a pipe burst and made lots of yucky puddles in the sand streets. This morning I took a freezing cold shower because we don't have water heaters. But then I made myself some scrambled eggs for breakfast in the kitchen at work. This is my life. The best is that the other day I saw a man scaling the side of a huge truck with no roof on the trailor. He was hitting something with a long stick. Then I looked to the back of the blue truck and saw a camel's head peering over the top. I think he was going to be sacrificed on Saturday for Mohammed's birthday. But I was shocked to see that camel in that truck. And maybe the funniest part is that none of my friends here were really too surprised when I relayed the story to them. The other day I again, saw a heard of cattle heading down a very busy street in Dakar. Oh Senegal.
So this afternoon, I'm off to Ngueye Mehke, finally, to coordinate the solar oven study down there. 5 Senegalese and I will be interviewing the 100 households that have solar ovens to find out how often they use them, the problems they are having, etc. This will also allow us to calculate the rates of carbon offsetting from the ovens. Then next Monday, I return to the Gambia, to talk with the organizers of the Plymouth-Banjul Challenge car rally about becoming carbon neutral. There is also a potential summer job offer for me down there with a local NGO. So I will talk with that group as well. Pretty exciting!
Hope spring is warming all of your hearts and lungs.
Happy Pesach. (I made charoset for an informal dinner party on Sunday night and it was a hit. I'm planning on making a dinner of matzah brie, charoset, and latkes for my family next weekend, presuming my matzah arrives in the mail.) Okay. That's all from Dakar-Yoff, for the time being. Over and out.
posted by Hannah Gelder @ 11:30 AM
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