Three Month Challenge

Just arrived at site for my 3 month challenge.  Basically I have 3 months to get to know my village and its people and start thinking about possible projects.  Peace Corps has a list of objectives I'm supposed to complete, and I also have some personal goals:

learn people's names
have my own garden in my backyard
come up with some sort of solar food dehydrator (plenty of mangoes to experiment on!)
improve my Mandinka
joke/socialize with the women
learn to dance
learn the roads/villages of Kiang West
have a mortar and pestle made locally
plant a tree in my yard
start beekeeping
fix my back screen door

At present I am pretty much coming to the office in the mornings to sit in on meetings and read project summaries and proposals and such.  I have also been able to see some of the project's herds.  In the evenings I sometimes join the women in the garden, which is so much fun.  It will make my day when I can finally understand all that they are saying.  I have not ventured to the schools yet as I am not sure if I will have the time to really work with them, though I did run into the headmaster of the lower basic school (equivalent to elementary school in the States) and he seems interested in having me work with them.  I am not sure what I want to do there but I figure I'll stop by there at some point and discuss it further.  He has worked with PCVs in the past, so this could be promising.

There is Internet at my office, so hopefully I can keep some regular updates.  That is all for now, I miss everyone!

TIA moment: There is a lizard living in the office (it scampered across the floor during a meeting) and nobody really has a problem with it.  As long as it's not a snake everyone is happy to let it be.