Training

So, I'm back in Thies.  I am doing some more training.  Today was cool because I learned a lot about seed saving.  Nothing much is happening.  It is nice to see my whole stage again.  some girls got fat, some guys got really skinny.

I had an Urban Agriculture summit a few weeks back right after thx giving which was alright.  between that and this training session I was in Dakar.  Dakar was pretty wild.  I went to a great chinese food place, and ate Barak Obama flavored ice cream.  A few of us went to Goree Island off the coast, It is a world heritage site.  26 million slaves went through that island before going to the Americas.  It was very interesting to go there.  The food on the island was 7 times more expensive than on the mainland.  a bowl of rice and fish was like 7 dollars when you could have easily found the same food on the mainland for one dollar.  When I went to the chinese place, it was pretty cool because I was able to talk with them in broken english, french, pulaar, and chinese.  it was awesome.

heres a funny story:

So I don't have an ATM card yet, and have to take out money using checks (see nov 13, A Day At The Bank blog post), and because Dakar is a very expensive city compared to the rest of the country, I had to take out some money.  I decided to go to the bank on the last day of no shave november (I don't shave my beard in November) and so I had a full beautiful beard.  I went into the bank not knowing how to speak wolof or french, and wrote out a check.  I went to the cashier and gave her the check (it was kind of a big check for senegal, lots of zerooos!) and my passport.  she looked at the passport and then back at me.  then I was told to wait as she went to a filing cabinet and took out some pictures of what I could make out as other white people.  she then took these pictures and my passport into a back office with a window facing the lobby of the bank where I was sitting.  Her and the bank manager studied the photos one by one, then looked at my passport, then looked at me, then back at the photos for about 10 minutes or so.  eventually I got my money.  They totally thought that I was a terrorist.  soon, I will have an atm card and I will no longer have trouble at the bank. inchallah.


-Mike