In Africa: March and April

Once again it's been quite some time since my last update and as you can imagine, tons of things happened. However, my photo documentation of these events will be lacking slightly because I forgot to bring my memory card from the camera I most often use, but fear not, I'll get those up soon because I have to be back in Kita (the internet town) soon for work stuff.

I've been trying to spend a lot of time at site to get the villagers excited to start projects, but it's been tough. The average daily temperature is somewhere around 115 or more and there's no escaping it. I thought things were going well in early April when I wasn't too bothered by the heat because there was a fairly constant breeze blowing through the town to cool you, or dry you off enough so you didn't know how much you were actually sweating, and then that stopped. Now frequently the temperature breaches the 120 mark and there's no wind, and when it does come, it feels like you've opened the door to an oven that's coated with a fine layer of dust and it's funneled straight into your eyes. Not only does the heat sting your eyes, but the dust gets in there and irritates everything. It's not all bad though. Hot season so far has consisted of a lot of sitting in the shade because you physically can't do anything else. Finding shade is a little harder than it was during other parts of the year because all of the leaves on the big shade trees have fallen off and died due to the lack of water. I spend most of my time hiding under my gua (bamboo trellis) and shifting my position with the steadily changing angle of the sun. Little by little the shade from my gua is diminishing and I finally figured out why. I woke up in the middle of the night a couple weeks back to the sound of termites chomping on the wood supporting the roof and the roof itself. Not sure what I can do to fix that.

Peanut season is long gone and most families are selling off their reserve stocks to have money for the rest of hot season before the rains come in June. This means that my protein intake has taken a hit, but I've got an ace up my sleave -or rather a sling shot in my back pocket. One of my new favorite pre-dinner activities is going through the brush on the cattle trails with a loaded sling shot looking for pretty much anything that moves. At around 5PM most evenings I make my way into the land surrounding the town and do my best to track pheasants, doves and squirrels. I have yet to get a pheasant, because they're pretty flighty, but squirrels and doves are really dumb and love to watch you as you pull back on the rubber sling (last thing they ever see -imagine a sun burned Dennis the Menace, but bearded, 6 foot 4 and 210 lbs). On occasion, I'll grab some of the other guys around my age and a pack of dogs and we'll walk a couple miles down towards the power cables from the dam leading to Senegal where the larger (and tastier) ground squirrels tend to live. We chase them into their holes and dig them out with the help of the dogs. Ground squirrels are pretty good eating, but I have to say pigeon is my favorite. The villagers keep pigeons as pets and they are surprisingly meaty. Chickens are really expensive, but for the low price of 50 cents you can get yourself a fresh plump pigeon -delivered. However, the delivery is usually from a kid looking to make money to buy bon bons and the bird is always alive so you've got to do the dirty work. I've got a system worked out with my host brother, so when he brings me a pigeon, I give it the old chop and he de-feathers it. I usually give him a wing or a leg for his troubles and he's glad to partake in the feast. Pigeon, as one could imagine, tastes exactly like chicken and it makes me pretty nostalgic for my dad's grilled chicken. On another note, it's quite a resilient bird that doesn't like giving up when you're administering the aforementioned 'chop.' It puts up about 45 seconds of struggle after head removal so I always hold it down. I'm really curious to see if it still possesses the ability to fly sans head. Anyway, I'm sure the pheasant is much better and meatier than the pidgeon, but for not having to do any work to get it, the pidgeon might prove to be a better bird.

Pigeon on the left side of a roof at sunset, hungry?

Due to the heat, I've been sleeping outside, which has been pretty incredible. It still doesn't normally get cold enough to warrant puting on any type of blanket, or shirt for that matter, but there's something pretty nice about falling asleep under the stars every night. The clouds are pretty rare and don't really stick around through the night so you get a good view of the major constellations characteristic of this lattitude (which is great for those nights it's too hot to sleep). One thing that's been making sleeping outside a little frightening is this huge desert spider. There's one living in or around my hut and it comes out every night. It's enormous, about the size of my hand and I've got decent sized mits. It makes noise when it walks around because it has these two really long feelers at the front and they click as it passes over rocks. It's also lightning fast which is the really scary part (a 7" spider that's faster than you). Unfortunately I think it had babies because I saw a miniature version of it in my hut. Time will tell. (I have a picture of it, which is on my other camera...to be posted at a later date)

The animals of Ganfa have been quite a burden recently (aside from the pigeon). The cows dug up my soak pit and tore holes into the plastic sheeting intended to keep rain water out. Since it's dry season right now I wasn't all that worried about fixing it quickly, but then legions of toads started coming out of the pipe leading into it from my negen. I was forced to uncover the plastic, remove all of the rocks, take out the toads, throw the rocks back in and cover it up again. I took out somewhere around 10kg of toads. I had to get a picture of it because its the highest concentration of toads I've ever seen in my life. In addition to the cows and toads, the roosters are still waking me up at 330 in the morning in anticipation of the sunrise. I see absolutely no purpose for chickens because no one eats them, as they're too expensive, and roosters have no concept of time to be of any use as an alarm clock. Just another reason the pigeon is superior. Additionally, cats start their fighting sporadically throughout the night and the dog pack decides to join them creating a symphony of horrific screeches followed by the pre-dawn cattle rush behind my hut. TIA. I'll have more soon, in about two weeks.

The Toad Invasion (that bag got completely filled)

Mohatmadi trying to trade his jellies for my shoes (no deal)

Hot season is also roof replacement season. It's incredible how sturdy the bamboo roofs are. The rope is all palm fronds tied together and everything used to make it is grown locally. My job is to make the rope and lift it in place. Then they put everything together and cover it with a layer of dried grass. It's an incredible process that creates a leak-proof shelter to put on top of mud walls.

Old pictures I meant to post a while back from my trip to Senegal and The Gambia: