Turkey Day

Thanksgiving turned out far better than I expected. I planned on too little food and more aggravation than it's worth, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Sunday afternoon the Peace Corps volunteer who lives about 23 kilometers south of me on a dirt road came up and spent the night and on Monday morning, at 5 am, we were picked up by our sept place. We are lucky, as I know a driver and can get front door service, which is monumental when considering I would otherwise have a 15 minuteswalk in the dark to get to the garage. The trip to the regional house in Kaolack took the regular, dusty 3 hours, but was aggravated by my iPod freezing 10 minutes into the trip. So to pass the time, I played "Counted the Dead Things" and racked up five dead goats, one dead bull, one dog, and three indefinable animals.

We got to the regional house and immediately I searched for a bed, knowing that the population of the house would swell enormously and that there weren’t enough sleeping apparatuses to go around. Luckily, I found a bed. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and just socializing. That afternoon one of the Peace Corps doctors showed up to administer Swine Flu and regular flu shots. Those of us under 24 years received the Swine Flu shot and those over were just SOL. No reactions or side effects. Thank God!

On Tuesday, we formed a "pricing party" and four of us, myself included, headed to the market to find out how much everything would cost for dinner. This involved asking multiple stands for the price on one item, but it's necessary so as not to be ripped off. We did get some looks when we said we were just pricing, and not buying. There is no "shopping" here and people walk into stores and know exactly what they want. Browsing is unheard of. Thanks to this adventure, we did learn that the further one travels into the market (or the abyss and I call it) the better the produce becomes. I guess the produces at the entrance is picked off pretty quickly, but in the back we found scallions and parsley! I couldn't stop sniffing the parsley.

By tuesday night, food committees were formed and the work was divided. I am often amazed at how volunteers often accomplish tasks. Maybe it's the level of ingenuity and drive that is necessary in all voluteers to survive here. For example, we all wanted cornbread but couldn't determine how to make it until one volunteer suggested we use millet. The idea was reflected on and we decided to try it, and it worked. My experience in the States would be to have forgotten it altogether.

My responsibility was dicing and chopping. I seemed to be the only one who know how to do it and I was happy to, seeing as how I didn't want anyone to lose a finger. And I did try to pass on my skills. Thank you Food Network. I started dicing about 8 am, but I had to leave before 10 am, because I was meeting with some people from an NGO, which I will explain further on,

Everything pulled together around 5pm and we had a heap of food. There were three turkeys, millet bread, mashed potatoes, gravy, soup, cucumber salad, deviled eggs, dinner rolls, cupcakes, pineapple upside down cake, and apple crisp. I ate till I was about to explode. I wish I could have eaten more, but I'm not used to stuffing myself anymore.

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In Koungheul, there is a group of young girls that are a part of an NGO called 10,000 Girls, and the headquarters is based in Kaolack. The founder and current leader of the NGO is an African American woman who lives here in Kaolack and one of her assistants is a volunteer who decided to work for the NGO for 6 months after her service was finished. The aim of the NGO is to empower young girls to stay in school and work; both are required to be enrolled with the NGO. The division of girls here in Koungheul own and operate a restaurant and are very shortly moving into the couture and fabric business, for which I am very excited to be involved.

Saturday evening, I received a message from the assistant saying that on Tuesday she along with some British nationals would be in Koungheul for the day visiting the girls who own the restaurant. I declined to accompany them, as I wanted and was required to be in Kaolack at the time. Luckily, they were all to be back in Kaolack on Wednesday, and I said I would stop by and say hello and get their opinion on what they saw.

10am Wednesday. I rolled up into 10,000 Girls office, which is just a 10 minute walk from the regional house and quickly found the Brits and introduced myself and what I was doing. We talked for a while and I discovered that they are apart of some larger organization that wants to become and NGO and works with restaurant businesses. I didn't understand everything, and was more focused on their opinions than what they actually did.

I found out they had gone to Koungheul and had done and action plan with the group of girls, and gather other information. An action plan just maps out what they wanted to do over a specified period of time. Well, the girls didn't know much about their business, and so the Brits decided to do on it English and it was suggested that I would help translate into French or Wolof. They only issue is that they are doing an extensive business plan and it won’t relate well to the girls. Although, I am extremely excited to have it because it will be over 5 years and include purchasing a building, meaning it will be extensive and will save me much foot work and research when grant writing time comes.

Next, one girl told me that they would like to see the girls do a costing analysis to better understand their costs and she then gave me some technical term. What she said would allow any company to operate efficiently, but it isn't that practical to teach a overhead per unit cost to these girls. But it is important that they learn all their costs. The Brits want a costing report, but the girls have no idea and the restaurant is closed until at least January due to the construction of the highway through downtown Koungheul. My counterpart and I haven't figured out what we are going to tell the Brits, but my guess is that they will have to wait.