So This is the New Year...

2009.

My first (and possibly only) visitor has returned to the UK, and so I am still in Senegal trying to figure out my work for the next eight months. Only, when I start to think about it, I get a little panicked at only having eight months left in Africa and my mind starts to wander.

My counterpart, Ousmane, and I submitted an application for a grant to put on two weeks of entrepreneurship trainings with a local youth organization the weeks of January 12 & 19. Our application was approved and the money was put in my account the first week in January, but when I went to finish up planning with Ousmane and buy the materials, he hadn't actually notified the ASC (the group we're doing the trainings for) of the dates and Friday was too short of notice to begin on Monday. Ipso facto: the trainings have been pushed back. I should have seen this coming, I really should have. I should have checked up on him more often to make sure that he had gotten ahold of the necessary people. There are a million things I should have done but didn't. Oh well. We will still have the week of trainings the 19, but then the second will have to wait until February 23 as I am heading off to Mali at the end of this month and then WAIST is upon us.

So this week, which I had planned on being super busy and productive, is turning out to be just another week of sitting around, checking up on my work partners and making plans for after WAIST in the hopes that I will contribute something to thie community before leaving it.

Sorry, I suppose this entry isn't very optimistic, but it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes amid all the frustration that goes hand in hand with development work.

In more exciting news: I received a donation of 40 books for my youth library that I get to drop off this week! Hurrah for the new english section language of the Pout Library!!!