Outreach 2013

**Outreach weekend happened in January, but let's pretend it's still March. That way I am only two months late telling you about it (instead of three) AND then I haven't failed my resolution to blog once a month. Watch for my April blog coming soon sometime this month.

 Dakar Academy has a long standing tradition of Outreach Weekend. Traditionally high school students and staff, often accompanied by visiting teams from North America, will go to the "bush" (country) for a weekend in November and in January. These weekends are a way for our school to live and show love to our Senegalese neighbours. 

The school partners with missions represented within our school community. Approximately 120 people load onto various forms of transportation at 5am on Friday morning, drive a few hours, unload, divide into work teams and begin our day of serving. Some of the teams include drama and VBS which are traveling teams that drive from village to village with skits, puppets, games, and music to share the message of Jesus' love with the children, and families they meet. Other teams dug a baptisimal tank, painted a church, decorated the church with a mural, set up camp, and dug wells. It is a tiring day, especially with such an early morning, but the day is not finished when the teams arrive back at camp for supper. 

After eating, we all load up and go to a large open area where we host a 'service' for a village. We learn and practice the songs we sing in several languages, the drama team does their mime and puppet presentation, and a Senegalese pastor will share the reason we are there with the crowd.

Arrival at our base camp.

This is called a jeg n jy (phonetic spelling) which is how I got to outreach. I wish you could see the inside. It's definitely not up to North American safety standards, but don't tell my mom ;)

The unloading begins. We travel in caravan with more than 10 vans, trucks, and cars.

Two of my dorm girls ready for their day to begin.

Within 10 minutes of our arrival at the camp site students line up and unpack the vehicles. The whole system is familiar and works like a well-oiled machine. It takes less than an hour from the time we arrive to the time teams are ready to head out to their various work sites.

It gets to a point where everything is so well taken care of that there's nothing left to do, so we sit and wait until it's time to leave. Cori and Keren two of my roommates, Ju Hyung is  a senior this year.

This was Lauren (4th grade teacher) and Angela's (student teacher) first outreach weekend.

The drama team girls have their hair braided and make-up done before heading out to begin their tour.

Apparently Aunt Judy does a very tight (and painful) french braid.

The local kids peak over the fence to get a glimpse of what's going on.

Judy and Shari are the dorm moms that coordinate the food and oversee the kitchen part of the camp crew. Judy will not be here next year, so I have been in training to work as part of the camp crew next year. Two dorm cooks are hired for the weekend to do the cooking, but we do all the prep work, like cutting pounds and pounds of onions and garlic, and other less smelly veggies.

The crew I worked with; Judy, Shari, Lauren, and Angela. It may be hard to see, but we tried the 'match method' to keep us from crying when we were cutting onions. We held a burnt match between our teeth. It seemed to be at least somewhat effective.

The camp crew also consists of students under the direction of Jim Adams (5th grade teacher) who set up tents and a shower area for the guys, dig holes for the outhouses (also for the guys), haul water from the well, and filter well water ALL weekend. The girls have two shower stalls with buckets for "bucket baths". There are also turkish toilets, which are holes in the ground that you squat over. Allison, Hadassah, and Gloria were the girls on the camp crew.

The tent city for the guys.

 

 

 

A view from the roof, where the girls slept in the open air. They love sleeping under the stars! A random donkey under a tree in the distance.

A view from the roof into the courtyard where we worked to cut veggies, and where the food was served.

Local kids.

Local kids checking out the camp set-up.

Another view from the roof. A very typical Senegalese village.

Breakfast at camp is set up buffet style. Hot chocolate, coffee, and tea to drink with bread and jam, peanut butter or chocolate to eat. Simple but yummy. They order bread from a local bakery so it comes in fresh in the morning, sometimes till warm. It's called tappa lappa bread and is a treat.

Mats are set out for meal times. In the evenings we eat around the common bowl. Groups of 8 all share one giant bowl of food, this is the Senegalese tradition. Everyone brings their own spoon and you only eat from your section of the bowl. We imagine it like a pizza slice section.

Some of the kids found an open space and make their own camp fire in the morning. You can also see the well on the right. This is where the camp crew filled buckets and hauled it inside to be filtered for drinking.

These are the two ladies who cooked our food all weekend, Mami and Madeleine. This was their 'kitchen' and the giant pots they use for preparing rice and sauces we eat for our suppers. In the bottom right corner you can see the large silver bowl with a lid that is used for common bowls. The tray/lid that sits on top keeps the food warm and allows the large bowls to be stacked or transported easily.