Monday, February 25, 2013

Road Trip

I just recently returned from a weeklong trip to Senegal.  Myself two staff and 10 other PCVs went to look at PC Senegal’s Master Farmer program.  It’s a great program where you take a counterpart and teach them improved techniques in farmer and gardening and then use their land as an example farm/garden and then bring other host country nationals to their site and let your counterpart explain what they are doing  and the benefits of it all. PC The Gambia is hoping to implement a similar program in the next year, that was the reason for the trip.
From the roof of the Kaolack hotel

A village


Master Farmer Presenting

Chicken Farm

Salt flat
Overall it was a great trip I got to see some parts of Senegal I had never seen and saw some practices they were doing that were very innovative.


Hand pump

On the way home I had mixed feelings because when I came back to The Gambia many of my friends would not be here.   Their time was finished they went different directions, traveling the world and going back to the states.  Nearly every week one or two people will be gone from the group of 30 that arrived over two years ago.  From the 30 that arrived only 6 are staying another year and a couple more are extending for a few extra months.
Garlic

Cabbage
I chose not to participate in the Yawn contest
The end of a long day
Gambian Ferry
One of my friends just came back from a conference in Ghana.  I have started a new hobby of collecting fabric from every place I visit. I was going to give him some money and was talking with one of our staff in the office and she said “NO NO, give him more money they have really nice fabric in Ghana.”  So I gave him some more money and he brought me back six pieces each being about 2 meters long.   
Ghana Fabric