The first game we hosted drew every single resident of Ngaraff to the dusty field across the road from the village. They banged on metal bowls, danced, stormed the field when our boys scored a goal, and showed off an impressive collection of aggressive/melodic French/Wolof cheers.
It was an altogether stirring performance by both the players and fans. Midway through the game, however, the afternoon heat suddenly started to turn on us, and before we knew it there was a dark thundercloud looming on the horizon . . . followed not far behind by an enormous cloud of dust. But in Ngaraff, apparently, the show must go on! The men of Ngaraff and their opponents played on as a sandstorm in the distance got closer and then covered us all in dust as it moved through . . .
. . . And the sky got increasingly dark and grimacing . . .
. . . And most of the fans picked up their plastic chairs and headed home . . .
. . . But the diehards stayed on . . . 
Including my sister and my little buddy Pop Ibra . . . 
And my BFF Joxal (look how cute she is!):
A few days later, most of the men and many of the young, unmarried women climbed aboard a caravan of horse-drawn charettes and shipped off for a neighboring village to watch our team compete. The rickety wooden charette, combined with fierce speeds and bad roads, made for a harrowing ride -- my 11-year-old Koumba and I clung to each other and the splintered wooden planks, especially when the charette drivers (teenage boys from the village) decided to race with one another. The caravan:
Everyone was happy and excited, though, and the game was worth it.
The team (I painted numbers on the backs of all their jerseys!):
Victorious smiles, and happy to be home alive:
In other sporting news, Ngaraff hosted a wrestling competition with big, beefy participants from all over the bush. They wrestled in traditional Senegalese style, which is nothing like you've ever seen: an odd spectacle of two men circling each other in the ring, staring each other down, swinging their arms like feral felines while bent over at the waist, until at some point they go in for the tackle and then -- it's over! Quickly and anticlimactically, they're done, and the ref gravely raises the hands of one of the wrestlers. Also, they wear the most uncomfortable-looking, non-stretchy, tightly-tied diaper-like things as their only uniform. The whole thing is quite a display, and these people LOVE it.
Now, you probably think its been all fun and games around these parts, but we have found time to fit in some serious work. April, our PC Volunteer Leader in Linguere, organized a girls' leadership seminar as a culmination to an annual scholarship competition for middle school girls in the region. We involved the girls in activities and lessons regarding both AIDS education and "stay in school" messages. Awa, one of the most dynamic women in Senegal -- and, bless her heart -- a Peace Corps administrator, came to help us lead it. Awa has a remarkable and unique ability to address important issues that we would be hard-pressed to tackle on our own, including incest, early marriage, and condom use.
A typical "choose one side of the room based on whether or not you agree with my statements" game:
Women's empowerment, one teenager at a time:
Amazing Awa, doing her thing:
The following day, I hosted a smaller-scale event in Ngaraff with a small collection of preteen/ teen girls and their parents that I gathered in my village. Awa talked about the hazards that can prevent girls from continuing their education through to university -- everything from parents that demanding constant help pounding millet to early, unwanted pregnancy.
My young ladies:
Also: the urban agriculture volunteer in Linguere hosted a perma-garden training with her PC boss that turned out to be a smashing success:
And back in the village, the women have been working on weeding and cleaning various communal areas, such as the school and - at my suggestion - the area around the health hut! Look at them go!
Plus, intensive harvesting of the field crops has begun. I've helped pick beans 'til my fingers were raw, and I accompanied my buddy Usman on a millet stalk harvesting expedition the other day:
Harvesting millet means that the long cycle of processing it will begin -- Millet needs to be pounded several times to prepare it to be eaten in the way we eat it. This is my mom and, um, other mom working on the first pound:
The kids like to roast millet stalks and then scrape off the seeds and eat 'em hot. I think it's delicious!
I'm also still working on my little garden plot, though it's mostly dead. I've harvested loads of beans and I'm working on a compost pile in preparation for "cold season" planting. I'm basically going to start over, this time with a somewhat more premeditated approach -- I'll try to include some sort of perma-culture techniques and integrate pest management, but optimism at this stage would be premature; I'm still gardening in sand. Weeds grow great, though! Here's the somewhat photogenic cow that came by while I was weeding the other day; in a seredipitously symbiotic affair, she seemed to find my most annoying and invasive weed to be the most delicious! :-)
That's a sampling of what's going on in these parts. I'm continuing to plug away at my big health structure re-structuring -- I've started with convening the village health committee that has been defunct for years; Now I'm helping the committee put together a budget for their dream health hut compound and focusing on small-scale preventative health education.
I've spent the last week or so making my way around the country a little bit: to the beach, to a volunteer summit, to Dakar to get some work done. I'm ready to go home to my village . . but not before answering to one more very important call-of-duty: Food. Justin and Kourtney, fellow Korean food addicts, joined me in stuffing my face on my last night in Dakr:
If I look devilishly happy, I am -- Kimchee noodle tofu soup has that effect on me. 
See why?
See you soon!
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