I have spent the last two months working at a local preschool. It's a bit of an odd thing, a preschool program here in the middle of a tiny rural province in the north of Senegal. Many of the highschool teachers deride its presence, a testament to more wasted funding. They wonder whether the money wouldn't be better spent on filling out the understaffed and overtaxed high school and university system. Ah, but UNICEF only wants to fund primary numeracy and literacy right now, so take what you can get.

I for one am in support of the programs for very selfish reasons, mostly that they serve my purposes here very well. The teachers are, feeling overwhelmed by ther limited training in working with three and five years olds, only too happy to have a know-it-all white guy show up with a wealth of experience from his own preschool days who knows that the magic of little minds can make mountains from mounds of beans, a little glue, construction paper, and a working knowledge of the alphabet.

But more than that, this is the perfect place to begin my health indoctrination and nutrition intervention schemes. The three-to-five year old window of childhood development is one subject to particular nutritional vulnerability, and current thinking suggests nutritional neglect during this widow can negatively impact the child's maximum acheivable mental and physical potential, permanently.

I have been spending most of my mornings there, planning and playing. There are two teachers, both women of my age. Two assistants are also on hand to help with custodial and supervisory tasks. We have made flour and salt paste into beaded necklaces, used soda can orchestras, yoga/viewpoints physcial education, and I can't walk anywhere in the village anymore with out being greeted by children singing the abcs or frere jacaues (i changed the words to emphasize wise, whole foods decisions - morning bells don't really fit the social reality here as well as bananas do). A little research and i have come across some preschool literacy curriculum that would complement the programming already in place at the school very well.

The school year last week just ended and they have a big presentation for the parents were they sing songs and recite poetry in pulaar, wolof, and french and the teachers hand out collections of all the work they have collected throughout the year. Dieynaba, the teacher pictured here, came over to the Regional House and we made cake enough for all the kids and their family to give out at the presentation. The kids all get dressed up in traditional tie dyed outfits for the last day, and I went a little nuts with the camera. I am including a few photos here. Sooo cute.

I am really looking to next year, though. Now that the relationship groundwork has been layed, I hope to continue more explicitly my work with the teachers on the children's nutrition, education and otherwise. I would like to start a growth monitoring and promotion program, with monthly weighings and height measurements and nutitional supplementation for those among the children that are need. This along side with trainings for the teachers, visits from the local health establishment, and eductional activities in the evenings for parents to come and learn new and better ways to feed their children so as to promote growth and healthy development. I am also looking to involve the Koranic school, which is next door to the preschool, in these efforts as those children appear phototed in the dictionary next to the definiation of Malnourished... that is going to take a little fast foot work and some cultural juggling, so we'll see if it doesn't all blow up in my face.