Day 76: Rain

Quite unusually, it rained last night and continued in to this morning. Because we’ve entered the dry season here, I didn’t expect to see rain again until I got back to the US in December. Of all places though, it rained here, a much more arid climate than Dakar. Not having had rain for at least a month, it was nice to have a change.

We had a meeting at 9am between the staff and the student. Each group talked about what they had accomplished so far and what they were planning to do for this coming week. Marian, Ronald, and a few other people will be arriving tomorrow, so it’s important that we know what we’re planning to do, to make sure that we wont get sidetracked. Also in the meeting of the subject of a trip to Rosso, Mauritania – a town right over the Senegalese/Mauritanian border. It was decided after calling embassies and other sources that it wouldn’t be safe for the Americans to cross the border, as there has just recently been a coup d’etat in Mauritania. While the Americans will stay in Rosso, Senegal, the Senegalese students and staff will cross the river to Mauritania to buy all sorts of cool stuff…

It’s unfortunate that we’ll miss out on seeing a small piece of another country here, but it’s really not worth taking the risk.

After the meeting, we took a break until lunch. After lunch, the agriculture group built the second of 2 wooden supports (that we had the materials for). Hopefully, Marian will bring supplies that will enable us to build two more supports, and set up two more drip systems, allowing us to irrigate almost the entire large community garden (which would be over 1000 square meters...huuuge)