Sanity Check

Hello my dear friends and family,

It is hard to believe I have now been in country for over 6 months! So much has happened, good and bad. I've started writing down the best and worst moments of each day to keep me sane, or keep me insane, we will see... Here are my entries from last week:

Date	Best of the Day	Worst of the Day
3/19	Seriously moved by the progress of the Women’s Garden	Cold dry millet for dinner every night is testing my gag reflex
3/20	New friend and roommate Ender the kitten	Only 10% success rate for latrine $ collection – can be difficult and awk culturally
3/21	Breathtaking hot red sunset against the silhouette of an enormous baobab Lying on mats with my entire fam under the glowing canopy of stars feels like a big sleepover every night	It is so hot that I can no longer enjoy the taste of food My little brother defaced the journal that Dillon gave me and I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want to tell my parents because they might beat him
3/22	My boss Djitte visited my site, was impressed with my projects, and had relevant suggestions for improvement	Massive dust storms + 115 degree weather + no real showers for 70km = hard to imagine ever feeling clean again
3/23	Started working on a food security grant through Obama’s Feed the Future initiative and excited about the potential	The Imam’s wife died today and there is a heavy sadness about the village
3/24	Enjoyed Carl Sagan’s book The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God	I’m pretty sure this is the temperature of Hell
3/25	Mango season is here! And it is so sweet	Sleep struggles: night sweats in an inescapable sauna

Right now I am preparing for my region's Girl's Leadership Camp and I am so excited! 30 middle-school aged girls along with their fathers are coming from villages all over the region for this 4 day women's empowerment camp. We have a panel of working women from the region discussing having a career as a woman in Senegal, along with sessions on sexual health, the importance of education, and fathers working as champions for their daughters. I am in charge of arts & crafts and photo documentation, and will write a blog post on the event when it's complete!

In the Women's Garden

Tambacounda, the hottest place on earth.