Back early

Hello all. I am back early from Cape Verde. It was beautiful there, but got to be quite expensive on a poor west-african-peace-corps budget. I got to see a lot and it was quite a contrast from Senegal.

On vacation, I made a big decision that I've been thinking about for a while. I've decided to cut my two years short and return home. So this week I will be in Dakar doing paperwork and getting ready to leave. I have already moved out of my site and said my good-byes. "What happened?" you ask... Well, nothing happened, per se. There are many reasons, but they all boil down to I just wasn't happy. I did everything to change the circumstances, but there are too many things out of my control that I just cannot live with here any more. One can sacrifice to do good and noble things in the world, but when the people (for the most part, not all) are ungrateful, disrespectful, and don't want to help themselves, the costs suddenly outweigh the benefits. So the only option was to terminate my service with the Peace Corps.

Here are the pictures both from my time down in Kedougou and also the vacation to Cape Verde.

Also, an update on my tree nursery (which I have given the responsibility to my "brother" Pape Sangone to finish and plant around town). There 190 sacks of local varities(moringa olifera [which the locals call nev-a-die or sap sap], leucaena, baobab, acacia, ziziphus mauratanie, and neem) along with a few well knows like mango and cashew. Turns out it is possible to grow things in the Sahel region of africa.

Kedougou (south-eastern Senegal)

Kedougou Trip

Cape Verde (Island-nation directly west of senegal in the atlantic)

Cape Verde

I'm back, ready to go again

I'm back from Kedougou. The south part of this country is actually nice. There are trees and mountains and green. The people are actually tolerable (a different ethnic group). I'll have plenty of pictures up soon.

I went for a week-ish. We first biked/climbed a mountain and stayed there in a village on the top. Then came back down and biked to another small town (Segou). From there we hiked back to see a waterfall. Then we hiked up another mountain. On this small, impromptu trip I saw from afar Mali and Guinea. The only cool wildlife I saw were a few monkeys. Nonetheless, still beautiful and I'm glad I went.

We also celebrated the 4th in true style. Most of the volunteers came down to Kedougou for a party, which I why I wanted to go a week early and see everything. We had some fireworks and cooked 2 pigs. I wish these people ate pork here, I've missed it!

Getting ready to leave on actual vacation, out of Senegal. Going to Cape Verde. That should be amazing.

As so, please do not send anymore care packages right now. If they arrive when I'm away, it's quite possible I won't get them, at least get them complete. The postal system here sure isn't American, they take what they want.