Pout Gardening and Malika Language Seminars

In Pout, just a quick trip outside of Thies, I have been working with some other Peace Corps Volunteers in conjunction with Helen Keller International to train 20 women on container and micro-gardening practices.  During the past two weeks we have held two different trainings where we taught: double-digging beds, planting seeds direct and transplant methodologies, container gardening, compost, and the benefits of enriching soil by adding amendments.  The trainings were conducted in French and Wolof at a local pre-school where they have started to work collectively on this school garden.  Later the women will continue improving the community's malnourished by branching off and producing their own, personal micro-gardens.  The goal of the program is to teach self-sustainability regarding food security and health among households.  These women were identified as having malnourished children and are being educated on the benefits of increasing vegetable consumption, as well as basic nutrition/ health education.  I greatly look forward to continuing to work with the women, since they are highly motivated and dedicated to the project!

We met this past week for our language seminar in Malika, just outside of Dakar.  Our fellow PCV, Michael, lives there and graciously decided to host myself, Rita, Sara, and Aysatu (our Wolof language instructor) for the 13, 14, and 15th of December.  Here are the photos of our short stay in Malika.  Included: a walk along the beach, Rita and Sara in "aw" seeing actual grass growing, streets of Malika, a woman harvesting her sweet potato leaves, a man painting a car, myself with a local man on his way to sell his chickens.  Also, below is a picture of a plot of land that intends on having houses built on the property.  The little white houses each represents an actual house to be built later. Finally, inside the sept-place, which is the public mode of transportation here (this equals an old station wagon, where 7 passengers are squeezed into 3 rows, not including the driver).