Tales of a Thirty-Something

Well, my last post was over 8 years ago. Should we start from the beginning?...just kidding. I'm bringing this blog thing back, as I've signed off the social media circuit. Here is where I'll update whomever, wherever what life is looking like. Read it, or not. The posts will probably be less exciting than the ones I wrote 8 years ago when I was living in a foreign country, having adventures in a culture as different as a camel on a pogo stick. Covid and winter time has been HARD. It's been cold and wet, but not much snow, so really it's just been the hard parts of winter. We have been able to have some fire-side chats with friends. To do that, I need the kind of fire that's so hot, you don't even want a jacket on when it's freezing out. I'll usually start building it an hour or two before anyone comes over to get it that hot. Really, it's become an artform. Aside from these once-in-awhile social "events," we've been home with the d

So...I'm home. I'm done. I've succeeded in developing a small, poor, African village in the small, poor African country of Senegal. Ok, so that's not entirely true, but I've had a lifetime of experiences along the way. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. I laughed, I cried. I saw birth, I saw death. I loved it, I hated it. Needless to say, it was a whirlwind.  Considering the fact that I seem to have forgotten about blogging for the past 6 months, there is much to discuss. The months of February and March were planked by the national election. The (now former) president, Abdoulaye Wade had been in power for a very long time (as he is approximately 86 years old). As in the Arab Spring, masses of young Senegalese wanted him out. He, however, chose a different route and ran for re-election. There was much talk of political and civil eruption. Things were definitely on edge, as the candidates travelled from town to town to buy votes. Truthful

WATCH THIS...

Ok, so I know I've been all about asking ya'll for money lately, but I thought I would try one more time with my last big project here.  Here, let me paint you the picture: Girls here have it hard. Much harder than the boys.  Cooking, drawing water, washing, math, science... you name it and they do it.  Most don't ever get the option to go to school- in fact many times they're married off by the time they become teenagers.  Most of us at that age were bratty and awkward looking; whereas, these girls are running households and breastfeeding.  It's a sad reality here.  As I've said before there is a direct link to girls' education/female empowerment and the level of development of a country. Trust me, I've seen charts...in college (a place 99.9999% of my girls will never see). Who is that .0001% you ask? Let me tell you about one of my best friends here. Her name is Rougy. She's a 15ish year old girl in middle school who lives in the village next to

So, I’m back in Senegal after maybe the most amazing vacation ever.   The weather was perfect, the leaves were changing, I got to eat all my favorite dips, drink all my favorite beers.   It was nothing but awesome.   My most heartfelt thanks goes to my parents who helped make it happen, and everyone else who helped to entertain me. I really couldn’t have asked for a better time.   All that said, many of you have asked for ways on how you can be involved in my projects.   For all my non-funded projects, positive thoughts and prayers are always helpful.   And, while I don’t do many projects that require funding, I do have 2 projects out right now. SUPPORT GIRLS EDUCATION   The first is one of my most passionate subjects. It’s a collaborative effort with many other Peace Corps Senegal volunteers to help keep girls in school.   The cultural practice here is for girls to quit school outrageously early to help with household duties in order to prepare them for marriage when they

They    came. They saw. And they conquered. Jenn and Margaret just left the land o’ Pulaar for the land o’ plenty.    They gave up three weeks of their real-world lives to see what encompasses my semi-real-world life here. It was three weeks that sped by too fast for sure.    We laughed. We cried. We drank. We ate. We declined marriage proposals.    We WERE Senegal.    They did it all, and to be perfectly honest, I definitely didn’t make it easy for them.    To call them troopers, isn’t even close to enough.    In short, they faced not only culture shock, but also cases of the African stomach, threats of gangrene, intense sunburn, broken-down transportation, midnight goat and donkey calls, and among other things, the craziness of the 4 th  of July annual Peace Corps Senegal party. We started the trip in Dakar. They arrived early in the morning, fresh-eyed and energized for all Senegal’s opportunities.    That lasted about 30 minutes until the jetlag caught up with them. So our first