Fatick and Beer Sheba

We continue to marvel at the greening of Senegal, an amazing transformation that has come with the rains.  As we traveled to Fatick to visit Zach and Lukas, we saw  fields that were producing crops throughout the  countryside and trees that are sprouting leaves.

Lukas and Zach are meeting patients daily at a mental health center that is on the outskirts of the city of Fatick.  They spend their mornings interacting informally with people who are long term patients. They are frequently the only people from the outside world who talk to them during a typical day. They have discovered that music and singing is enjoyed by many of the patients.

We had a delightful visit with Zach’s host mother and Lukas’s host family and ate two large meals!!   Each family insisted that we eat with them.

 

Beer Sheba is an experimental agricultural site designed to teach new farming techniques that increase yields and are friendly to the environment.  Ethan and Alex have been involved with agricultural work in many different ways.  This week they have been helping the students lay the foundation for a new chicken coop and a building for hogs.

They are living in a dorm room where the students/workers/interns live.  All meals are cooked on an open fire.  Interns prepare some meals and others are prepared by local village women.  They described their healthy diet and have had almost no sugar in three weeks!!

The area surrounding Beer Sheba is going green and farmers were out cultivating their fields that were planted before the rains arrived.  Leaves are abundant on trees and monkeys are out looking for the fruit of the Baobab trees.