French keyboards are LAME

Hallo everybody--

I'm in a cyber cafe and can't figure out how to switch the keyboard to english, so forgive typos and the shortness of the post.

Last weekend in Joal was a nice break from the nitty gritty of village life- I arrived Friday afternoon and spent the evening hanging out with Emma's family and enjoying the ELECTRIC FAN (!!! I know. Hold onto your hats folks.) in the room of the auberge where we slept. Saturday morning Emma and I walked to Fadiouth, the town on an island of shells connected to Joal by a long foot bridge. We also checked out the only mixed Muslim and Christian cemetery in all of Senegal, connected to Fadiouth by another foot bridge. Around lunch time, Claire, Britta, and Elke arrived. In the late afternoon we took a horse cart ride 12 km out to "Le Baobab Sacré"- the biggest baobab in all of Senegal! The tree is 850 years old and 32 m in circumference, and you can climb inside! (Cool in theory, but rather scary to be pooped on by bats you can't see.) It started getting dark right as we started the ride back to Fadiouth, and it was beautiful to ride back across this great big empty sandy space as the stars were coming out.

Though we did have that one adventure, most of the weekend was spent eating things that weren't rice and fish, (Pasta and meat sauce! ICE CREAM!) exhanging stories about the past two weeks and watching Scrubs. Would write more but this keyboard is making things really difficult.

Monday I stayed home from work for the baptism of the new baby! Most exciting part of the day- some guys killed a sheep for the occasion! Much less dramatic than I expected, no blood spurting or sheep screaming, but crazy nonetheless. The marabout announced that Gora Niasse, the baby's father, had chosen the name Pap Malick Niasse. That makes 3 sons in a row that Gora has named Pap Niasse- makes things simpler, I suppose. The rest of the day was spent eating, getting dressed up, and taking pictures- next time I have wireless I'll post them, Inshallah.

Tuesday I went back to work- my first day back I sat at the office all morning, which was extremely disappointing. Wednesday, though, I got to accompany M. Dia to a village 40 minutes on foot from Sessene, where Agrecol is trying out a new garden project. In exchange for the use of a small plot of land, Agrecol splits whatever veggies they grow with the landowner. The aim is to demonstrate methods of organic gardening to the farmer, like crop rotation and organic fertilization, and establish a relationship between Senegalese farmers and the NGO. Gardening is especially important here, because it's possible all year round, unlike cultivating cash crops like millet or peanuts. M. Dia is currently fertilizing and replanting the garden in Ker El Haj, so I got to help him water, fertilize, and plant carrot seeds the last three days of the week! Much much better than getting bedsores from a hard wooden chair in the office.

That's about all I can do right now on this darn clavier. Can't quite believe I'm already half way done with my internship. Hope you are all doing well, I miss you!