I'm a Traveling Mu(ral)sician

In keeping with my trend of painting a mural on anything that stands still long enough, I recently just wrapped up two more projects with volunteers in different villages. This past week Jen, Mollie and I spent a day in Fasstoucouleur beautifying Ndeye Ba's boutique. Mollie has been working with Ndeye over the past year on accounting and helping her get a $50 loan to increase her inventory. She is the only boutique in town so in order to encourage people to "buy local" instead of shopping at the boutiques in Keur Socce we thought it would be nice to ramp up the visual appeal of her shop. Her previously plain gray cinder block window is now visible from down the street, and don't that coffee cup just make you want to buy some Nescafe?

All the basics; Vitalait, Nescafe, Tea, Bread,
Butter, Biscuits, Macaroni, Potatoes, Onions,
MSG Cubes...

Since the kids cant reach the window most of them come
to the door for their candy

Issatou Ba with her tomar (namesake)

Today I returned from Koungheul where I was following up and putting the finishing touches on a rather ambitious mural project to beautify the house where the wolof reading and writing class and the handicapped women's group meet. Ryan originally organized the project as a way to occupy two study abroad students who were visiting his village for a week, and since we had so much man-power it quickly grew from one mural to six. Mollie and I traveled down last month to get them started, and with the help of the two students, 4 volunteers and several of the handicapped women we made quick work of a wolof alphabet, two maps and two health-themed murals over the course of two days. On this last trip back I painted a third health mural about sleeping under mosquito nets and Ryan filled in all of the food groups on the nutritional pyramid. You could tell the handicapped women were really proud of their work, and the drab white room has been transformed by an explosion of color.

Proudly displaying the finished product

My newest foray into the world of health murals...
sleep under your mosquito net!

The full room, from left to right:
Hand washing, mosquito net, nutrition pyramid, senegal map, africa map,
wolof alphabet