We hit the ground running!

We have had a busy couple of days since arriving here in Senegal. We came into town on Friday were met at the airport by one of the helpers here and we travelled to our house. We were picked up for dinner by our supervisors and ate some of Senegal's delicious fish. We hung out at their house and played games until late!

Saturday afternoon our supervisors took us to one of the Lebou villages along with a visiting volunteer medical team. While there, we stopped at a courtyard of a Talibe school. This is where 150+ boys who have been given by their families to an Islamic teacher are schooled. They are taught the Koran - basically a rote memory thing, they really don't understand what they are learning, as it is in Arabic. After a morning lesson, the boys go out all day and beg and then bring back the money to the teacher. This provides for their food. The boys come back for some sort of dinner and then they sleep huddled into 2 rooms. We went there because they currently have an outbreak of scabies (skin lice). It was very sad to see these boys suffering and cared for so poorly. The scabies spread easily now (cool season) because they huddle so close together to keep warm and they sleep with their hands down in their pants to keep their hands warm. So the scabies are extremely bad in their genital areas. They are very sore and itchy. There is no running water in the courtyard either. Cal, our supervisor, is going over there to do treatments - which means putting the boys into tubs and bathing them with special soap. The medical team visiting from the States went and dropped off vitamins and creme. Their courtyard is probably smaller than the house we are living in.

After we left the Talibe, we went to the home of one of the fishermen Cal works with. He fed us lunch - a rice, vegetable and fish dish called Tiebou-Dienn (cheeb-oo-jenn) served from a common bowl. We then shared attaya - which is an event more than a drink. It consists of three rounds of tea. Each round is made with the same tea leaves and sugar is added - so the tea is weaker and sweeter. It is delicious. Luke and Faith weren't crazy about it - the tea is a little bitter, especially in the first round. They add so much mint, vanilla sugar and euculyptus drops - it is a sweet, minty concoction. It is truly an art which is learned. It was fun to watch.

Saturday night found us back at our supervisors house watching the Baltimore Ravens win their game on satellite TV until around 1 a.m. It was a great day.