Michelle Sylvester Scholarships and Other Fun Shenanigans

Sorry for the long delay in blog posts.....my month of June has been devoted to the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship! The MS scholarship is a great program that is put on by the SENEGAD branch of Peace Corps Senegal, a sector devoted specifically to gender development and supporting girls' educations.  Please check out the website for more information.
http://senegad.pcsenegal.org/scholarship.html
Me and many of the other volunteers have been collaborating with the local middle schools to choose 9 girls from each school to win the scholarship. The scholarship will be for the next academic school year to help the girls' families pay for inscription fees and school supplies.  It is a great program, and I'm so very happy to be part of the scholarship team!
Unfortunately, as I've mentioned in earlier blog posts, there are many girls who do not get the opportunity to continue with their education. Reasons for such circumstances include but are not limited to: the lack of monetary funds of their families, the fact that these girls are 1 of 10 children (sometimes more or less), the lack of interest in obtaining an education, limited family support, adolescent pregnancy, and forced marriages.  The MS scholarship is great because it gives some girls the opportunity to continue on with school for another year, and almost all of the girls that have been chosen are good students with great grades and a desire to continue with school.  Me, and many other volunteers around the Kounkane area have been working together so that these girls can benefit from this program! So far we have worked closely with 5 middle schools: We've proctored the essay writing, we helped the girls fill out the forms and questionaires, informed their families, and personally interviewed the girls to get better acquainted. I've met so many great girls! It's been a great opportunity to help them out!
Part of the scholarship work that we've been doing is to do home visits. Some of these girls live in villages surrounding the town that has the middle school; therefore, requiring us volunteers to bike out to these places.  It's been a lot of fun! I love to see how each family reacts...are they proud? Excited? Nonchalant? I've seen so many reactions, heard so many different stories, listened to different answers to the interview questions....but what I love the most about going to the villages is all the interesting things we encounter on the way there.  Now that the interviews have come to an end, I'd like to sum up the interesting things we came across during home visits:
-Getting lost and asking people where so-and-so's hut is?
-Flat tires and heat exhaustion (not life threatening)
-Bike collisions and scary buses driving on the wrong side of the road (Bad drivers in general)
-Scrapes and bruises
-Having children chase after your bike, while you're riding it, yelling "WHITE PERSON!!!" at you

They say crocodiles live in this river...what?

-River crossing in a canoe with only enough room for you, your bike, and Sabaly (name of the man who owns the boat)

Waitin for a canoe....

-Gift receiving! (So far, we have collected bags of mangos, peanuts, and a live chicken that we put in a back pack and strapped to the back of Pam's bike)
-Happy families!
-Impromptu dancing
-The opportunity to hang out with some really AMAZING girls :)

It's been a fun month! Check out some of the Happy Families! 

One of the families we visited in Kounkane



Awesome village just outside of Tayel!



Namesake

I probably have received one of the greatest honors humans have ever bestowed on one another: a Namesake. She is beautiful! Born May 21st, 2011 (two days after my bday) so it's fitting that she is named after me. Her name is Salimatou Samantha Boiro, named in honor of, well, me :) She is the second daughter of my counterpart, and I spent all of last saturday with her, holding her, playing with her, and of course napping with her. I love that both of her names are both of my names: My Senegalese name is Salimatou and my real name is Samantha. I feel so honored!

My Tokora!

Here in Senegal, namesakes are so important. Almost everyone here is a namesake of someone else: a grandmother, uncle, mom, best friend, etc.  In fact, I am a namesake of my host mom Salimatou, and when I was living in Mbour under the name of Adama, I was the namesake of my baby sister.  It's a really great feeling to know that someone wanted to name their baby after you, in your honor.  I love that about this culture. I guess the only problem that occurs though with everyone having the same names is the lack of variety, which is totally true...(I feel like there are maybe a handful or two of names for each gender and ethnic group here in Senegal). All the names are recycled.  I can't tell you how many Mamadous, Dembas, Salimatous, Fatimatas, etc. I know. :) But now we've thrown a new name in the mix: Samantha. Maybe my tokora (namesake) will have a tokora later on down the road and she will be Samantha too :)  

Me and my namesake and her family! <3

Nevertheless, I am honored to have a namesake here in Senegal. She is a beautiful baby. Quiet. Peaceful. I will probably spoil her :)  Now I have 2 little people out there running around with my same name (I technically have a namesake in America. My former boss's daughter) I'm feelin the love :) xxx