Sunday, April 8, 2012

Walking through the village these days makes me look like I got a cheap fake spray on tan.  The government came through to re-drag our road which left a lot of loose dirt on the ground to be kicked up by motorcycles and cars.  It seems like you can't even roll a pebble down the road without it creating a dust storm.

I started a basketball and volleyball team in my village which has been quite fun.  I have about 15 guys and 19 girls who regularly come.  I essentially just showed up to the court one day with a basketball and a group of guys showed up.  I've been very surprised at how far they've come in a month's time.  They didn't know how to dribble, what the violations were, how to shoot or even do basic basketball skills.  Now they show up and immediately start the warm-ups, call fouls on each other and know when they've traveled or double-dribbled.  I'm hoping to find some funding so that we can repair the court that we're playing on and repair one of the baskets; it's by far one of the nicest village courts I've seen, but one of the rims is hanging down and the paint all wore off.  I asked each kid to invest 5000 francs into the team and that I would find the rest of the money.  Let's hope I can find some somewhere!

For Easter we all came to the regional capital to all get together and celebrate.  As with all times here, it's a time to re-charge and be around some other Americans.  It's kind of dangerous for me to come because we eat so good and tears my stomach up.  It's like a shock to my system to have a variety of food.  We found a church to go to for Easter service which was quite nice.  It was in French and Pular and only lasted 3 hours so it was quite a treat in this Muslim country.

I really feel at home in my village, I have guys that I would call legitimate friends (the other coach of my team).  I'm currently going around to the tourist sites close to my village and they are gorgeous.  Right now it's the dry season so the rivers and waterfalls aren't a wall of water like they will be come July, but it's still amazing.  I hope I get some visitors to show off this country too; let me know if you wanna come!

We have our in-service training in May and after that I hope to start more intense projects with my village.  For now, I'm content getting to know where I'm living for the next 2 years.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the update. Hope you can post pics of the landscape and new friends!

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