Hitchin' a ride with a goat in the Casamance region of Senegal. Starting left front: Jenous, Jill, Anne and me.
After Anne and her supervisor had finished collecting well data, we visited the beautiful countryside.
The driver of the pickup was an affiliate of CRESP who slowed down each time we passed people waiting for rides- at one point, we totalled 11 riding in the back! Seeing as we were driving through villages that were separated by miles and miles of potholed, dirt roads without reliable public transportation, his offer was enthusiastically accepted by all we passed.
The goat was a little nervous at the start but soon warmed to us, only peeing on Anne's foot once. 

Whew! This week and next, we'll be analyzing our survey data on solar oven use. It's been a challenging but satisfying process- inputting rows upon rows of field data into spreadsheets, double checking, and using the magical and awesome powers of SPSS to perform statistical functions. These tasks were made manageable by splitting it up between the three of us on the project. At the same time, I've been trying to take advantage of my last days here (I'll be leaving for NYC on the night of Aug. 27th, early morning the 28th). Our field work in Casamance was topped off with touring and was a nice change of scenery. Now, I'm polishing off my days in front of the computer with nights eating grilled fish on the beach with friends and trying to get healthy amounts of sleep.

I feel sad and happy about leaving. I think it really hit me last night in my sleep that I'll soon be facing the unpleasant but really interesting experience of re-orientation culture shock. I put my mind at ease by imagining myself reunited with the one super-sized American product that I truly miss: soft-serve, chocolate ice cream cones. Oh, America, the beautiful!

Back in a week

Hey all,

Anne and her supervisor Ismael have been planning a trip to the Casamance-the southern, lush area of Senegal- to collect water quality data, and I've luckily been invited along. We leave this afternoon, by ferry from Dakar, arriving in Ziguinchor. The trip will likely last 5 to 7 days, so I'll be back around next Thursday. I'm really looking forward to it since it is supposed to be a 'must see' area of West Africa, with a culture very different from northern Senegal.

Much of this difference has to do with its geographic separation from the rest of Senegal- the Gambia lies between the two. The Casamance has a religiously diverse population and the education standards are better than here. There are several employees at CRESP who grew up in the Casamance, and they claim that once you visit, you won't want to leave. Vegetation and fruit abound, affordable accomodations due to the recent civil unrest and lack of tourists as of late, change of scenery- all sound pretty good to me right now!
I'm pretty sure I'll miss Yoff, though.

successful trip to Mekhe

I'm back in Yoff from a five day trip to Mekhe to conduct a survey to gather household energy use, demographic and solar oven usage information. Now it's all going into a spreadsheet to be analysed over the next couple weeks.

We arrived in Mekhe on Wednesday afternoon, where Marian immediately asked around for individuals who may be interested in helping to conduct the survey. She recruited the nephew of Abdoulaye Touree, the solar oven God of Mekhe and Senegal, after we all had Cee bu gen (fish and rice) at the God's house himelf. Seriously, a small thrill for me! His nephew, named Kara, is a teacher in the village, and offered to recruit a few of his colleagues. A few hours later, we had four enthusiastic, bright Mekhe-ois ready to get going.

The following morning, Marian polished our questionnaire and we were sitting as a group, cutting and pasting parts of the questionnaires together; one type of questionnaire for people with ovens, asking specifically for oven use feedback like frequency of use, which meals it can cook, problems and difficulties of use, etc...) and one for those without ovens (why they have not opted to buy an oven, how much gas, wood and charcoal they use, etc...). We had a list of people in the village who had responded to a previous survey, so we knew in advance who to approach.

The dynamic group of teachers hustled around the village, making our lives a little easier. I worked directly with one named Seynabou. We finished up on Sunday and my partner Bray and I took a public bus home to Dakar that afternoon.

Pictures to come hopefully soon.