It’s taken me a while update this because every time I came to Ourossogui to use the internet the power was out. Yesterday, we had our first rains of the season! It was really exciting and everyone living in our house stood by the windows and watched the downpour. Now it is hot AND humid and the mosquitoes are out. :)

The last week in May, in order to escape the 120 degree temperatures and to check out the Jazz Festival, the volunteers from the North of Senegal, as well as a number of PCVs from Mauritania, took a trip to the beautiful and cool St. Louis - that’s in Senegal, not to be confused with the one in Missouri. The city is great because it has both a river and an ocean, it is full of energy, not packed with tourists, and is inexpensive - I’d say it’s a cross between Brooklyn, Long Beach, and Venice, and about half the price of all three. Unfortunately, we didn’t listen to much jazz because nobody in St. Louis seemed to know when exactly the festival started and where it was. Nonetheless, I had a lot fun exploring art galleries, the beach, and restaurants.
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Before St. Louis, I was a guest on the Thilogne radio show. Pierre, a volunteer from France volunteering for ADOS (a French NGO), comes to Thilogne once a month to get a copy of the Pulaar radio show that he sends back to the Ardèche region of France, where there is a decent-sized Pulaar community. We were both invited to be on the special show, which was dedicated to Pulaar music on this particular day. I listen to this radio show every night at 5:00 like the rest of Thilogne, and it’s the worst radio program I’ve ever heard. The hour consists of people from the city calling in and saying ‘hello’ to their family and friends. However, the show Pierre and I were on was actually semi-informative and interesting. Trying to speak Pulaar as much as possible, I greeted callers and explained what the Peace Corps is about.  I had a lot of fun with it, and since then, three other PCVs and I have started doing health-related skits for the radio show in Matam twice a month. To see more pictures of St. Louis and life in Thilogne click the link on the right.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, June 13th, 2009 at 6:08 am and is filed under Pre-service training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.