Day 87: Last Day in Nder

The day after Thanksgiving didn’t feel like the day after Thanksgiving…no shopping, no sales, no…anything. Except working. We got up in the morning and walked out to the field for the last time. We worked until 1230 planting and finalizing the drip system. Leaving the community garden, we all felt pretty good about what we had set up here. However, so much depends on the sustainability of the project. Now that our work is finished, it will be interesting to see how (or if) the villagers will continue what we’ve have all started together.

We came back to the village for our final lunch, which was truly, tremendous. We had “choo”, rice with a tomato/onion sauce, and I ate more than plenty.

We had a restitution with the villagers in the afternoon. We got together at the chief’s house with all of the people that had been involved with our projects (and many more), and discussed what had been accomplished over the past 2.5 weeks. There were prayers, thanks, and sad partings…but it was good to see how much has really been done here, considering how difficult work can be in developing countries.

After the restitution, I took some pictures of my family, and packed all of my belongings for our departure. There have been a couple things that I’ve learned here that really stand out to me at the moment; the first being the amount of Wolof that I’ve learned. Before coming to Nder, I knew very words in Wolof, because I had been trying to learn more French. However, at the end of our stay here, I realize that I now know basic vocabulary, and I can understand a lot of words when my family speaks to me…

The second thing that really stands out to me is the strength of the relationships that I’ve formed here, without being able to speak to my family. Learning how to communicate without speaking has been a really valuable experience…there’s not really a better way to describe it to someone who hasn’t experienced it…

After taking pictures, I gave out gifts (that I had been saving since coming to Senegal) to the children in my family. They seemed to really like the jump-rope, and hopefully they enjoyed the rest of the toys. I wish I had more gifts to give to the adults in my family, but unfortunately, I didn’t have any…

After dinner, there was a dance was a dance ceremony, which I went to (although most of the other students did not.) The dance circle was similar to that which we had seen in Medina Kouta, although there were more women at the Nder ceremony. I even danced a little bit, which greatly excited my family, who had been asking me to dance for them for quite a while.

After the ceremony, I sat with my family outside on a mat, talking with them (mostly listening of course) really for the last time. The stars were breathtaking, and I took one last good look…