So I'm back at the Kedougou regional house for a few days now. I faced my fears and confronted the 20some mile bike ride again since it had been such a traumatic experience last time. Apparently, the bike ride is not only possible, but it's actually quite enjoyable when you're not wearing a 20Lb backpack, when it's not the middle of the 95-100 degree afternoon, and when your bike tire isn't flat the entire 20some miles! When you don't feel like you're dying the entire time and the early morning mist is cooling you down, the views of the mountains rising on either side are spectacular. It was a truly wonderful 3 hour bike ride even without an ipod the day after a 9 mile run.
When I went back to my village after Thanksgiving, the first few days were frustrating. I had the very normal and cyclical questioning of my service. Every volunteer goes through it and wonders why they're here. My seedlings hadn't germinated (or so I thought), I couldn't speak Pular (I felt like I had forgotten everything), I missed my privacy and independence and nutrition and I had to get back into running because I had fallen behind a week on my marathon training and the list goes on and on.... but I knew I'd get through it.
I still went through the daily routine and tried to participate in EVERYTHING hoping to push past my homesickness. I went to the Tuesday market, which was fun at first and not so fun when I couldn't leave when I was ready. I was invited to another wedding... this time IN my village, which started to bring me back. It was not nearly as elaborate (nor as long) as the one I had gone to in the neighboring village but I still had some delicious rice and peanut sauce (as opposed to our less spiced and more liquidy daily peanut sauce and rice) and the women all came and sang and danced. There were no instruments this time. We were there for just an hour or two and as usual I was a child magnet. They were all asking me if I knew their names and they all wanted me to play with them, but I didn't have any spontaneous projects at the tips of my fingers so I tried to talk to them and just get to know them a little bit.
I still checked for seedlings every day and my mood lifted when one morning I looked at my tomato seedlings and there were some tiny green sprouts popping through the soil!! It motivated me to plant more seeds. I went to the woods with my bike and my large laundry bucket. I filled the bucket with dirt, loaded it onto my bike rack, and headed back home. I had the kids in my compound help me fill the tree sacks with dirt and wood ash and then they helped me plant tree seeds of all kinds. It was such a fun project and the kids loved it! Now, my strongest seedings are my eggplants which germinated from 4 year-old seed!!!
Later that evening, at around 8, the kids were all so crazy. I heard them all singing and dancing and clapping their hands and laughing. They were all having such a great time. I was tired but, of course, I had to go see what the commotion was about. When I got to the crowd of children, they were so excited that I was there. They asked me if I danced and I told them I did. They started chanting, “Dance! Dance! Dance! Dance!”. They started singing and clapping and they formed a circle around me and I danced. They cheered me on and laughed and it was so so so fun! After I danced, other kids took turns dancing in the middle of the circle. It made me realize how much I love my village.
Just as I was getting tired from singing and dancing, the nearest neighbor called me into their compound. I sat with the adults by the fire for a while and warmed up. It was probably about 70 degrees, but it felt a whole lot colder than that. I had a light sweatshirt on and I was shivering. It's so strange. When I told the adults that I was tired and that I was ready to go to bed, they told me I should wait for the kids to come back. They said something in Pular about leaves and stomach and I had no idea what they were saying. I thought they were maybe talking about eating some leaf sauce (which is another staple sauce) and they said it wasn't. When I asked what this was for, they pointed to a little 8 year old boy named Ibrahima who had been circumcised about a month earlier. The boys here are circumcised between 8 and 11 years old and they are supposed to pray for a month. I figured it was important for me to fight my sleepiness and celebrate the end of Ibrahima's time of prayer and see what this leaf thing is all about.
Soon enough, the kids all came into the compound and lined up along the fence. Ibrahima was sitting on a mat outside the hut. The kids warmed up by the fire first and when they were ready, they began singing and clapping again. The adults told them to sing louder so they were almost shouting and 3 boys who looked to be about 11 or 12 came into the compound and I then understood what they meant about leaves. Each boy was wearing cornstalks on his head and each had essentially a bush of leaves around their bellies that was so wide that they could barely fit through the gate! Whenever the kids would start singing and clapping, the boys in costumes would take turns dancing. Whenever I turned my flashlight on so I could see better, the adults would yell at me to turn off the flashlight. I think it's supposed to be dark and somewhat secretive. It was hysterical and everyone was laughing and having a great time. They said this celebration is called Kalifaafaa. Even the names of things are so wonderful here.
The next night, Kalifaafaa had given me the idea to bring out my ipod and portable speakers and have a dance party of my own. I played all kinds of music and the kids especially loved the swing music. I was spinning them around and we danced for a good 2 hours or so. The mood changed pretty abruptly when one girl fell. She didn't really get hurt but it was enough to end the dance party... and besides, it was dinner time anyway.
Getting back into the swing of things, I was really excited when my family told me I could go with them to harvest rice. The first day I went, I went with all the men. They told me they were going to “beat the rice”. I had no idea what that meant, but I knew it would be at the very least, an important and interesting experience. I walked with all the men after breakfast about a mile through the woods to the rice field. They have a fenced in area next to the field where they temporarily stored the bundles of rice (still attached to the stalks) that they had just harvested a day or two earlier. After watching the process of the men taking bundles of rice and literally beating the grains off the stalks using two sticks, I joined in. We beat rice for 3 or 4 hours until I had blisters all over my hands. When I got back, my Neene and Baaba were really upset and they told me that I have blisters because I was doing a man's job and I shouldn't be doing a man's job. It made me so mad! I told them that if I tried to pound rice all day like the women do (which I try all the time) I would have blisters on my hands too and it's no different than that. In addition to being an ag volunteers, we are all also gender and development volunteers as well. I'm sick of being told that I can or can't do things because I'm a woman and I'm sick of women who see me digging a garden bed telling me that they could never do that kind of work. Grrrr!!!
The next day, the women went to do “their” part of the harvesting. I went with them of course. One of my brother's wives and I went back to the same spot. We carried a bowl of lunch with us to eat there before getting started. We brought lunch with us because there was already a woman there who had already started so we shared lunch with her. The grains of rice were all now in a giant mound in the middle of the fenced in area on a cemented floor. We swept a small area so there was a clear spot on the floor and we took empty bowls and filled them with rice from the giant mound. We would hold the bowls above our heads and when the wind blew we would slowly pour the rice onto the cleared spot on the floor. The rice would fall strait down and the grass and dust would be blown to the side by the wind. It was actually really fun... at first. I was soon completely covered with rice dust, essentially hay particles, and got a mild hives rash. After we had been there about 4 hours, 3 little boys brought us a bunch of 50kg rice sacs and we started loading them with the rice we had just sorted. We filled thirteen of those rice sacks! We had just harvested almost 1450 Lbs of rice! It certainly helped me to appreciate the bland dinners of rice and chili powder a lot.
In addition to all of that, everything else is going well. I'm getting really into the marathon training and I'm proud of my first long run... the 9 mile run I mentioned at the beginning. I always run in the mornings and sometimes even before the sun comes up. I have my headlamp with me but one morning it wasn't enough and I tripped over a rock and scraped up my hands and knees. My family made such a big deal out of it when really it wasn't a big deal at all. MORE GENDER DEVELOPMENT WORK!! When my family told me that I fell because I was a woman and shouldn't be running, I was so proud to be able to tell them that, A) it's not a big deal B) I fell because I couldn't see, not because I'm a woman and C) when my teenage host nephew, Bubakar, had blood gushing out of his leg from playing soccer, no one said anything and that it is no different than that.
Until next time!!
corn over my head!
DISCLAIMER
The contents of this website are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the United States government, the Senegalese government, or the United States Peace Corps.
Please feel free to check out the Peace Corps web page at peacecorps.gov
Please feel free to check out the Peace Corps web page at peacecorps.gov
December 12, 2011
November 23, 2011
Adventures in my village!
Once again, I'm not entirely sure where to begin. My life over the last 2 weeks has been nothing but adventure after adventure. I moved to my village on November 11th and after that all the days blur together. I spent the first day or two going around my village and meeting everyone. The village has no running water or electricity so every night I sit outside with my family and practice my Pular and watch the stars. With literally no light pollution anywhere near by, it's incredible. I've seen shooting stars every single night I've been there. I spent a little bit of time fixing up and organizing my hut and backyard. My backyard has a cashew tree and a mango tree but unfortunately fruit season ended so I won't be seeing any fruit (or precipitation for that matter) for the next several months. Every evening I would help my Neene carry water to her “jaxatu” (bitter tomato) garden. During the day I spent most of my time those first few days playing with the kids (and toads and praying mantids), walking around, meeting people, pounding rice or corn, training for my marathon, and dumping toads out of my shoes.
I knew that the Tuesday weekly market was coming up and I imagined that I was going to be biking there. It is in a village called Chokoy which is about 7K from my tiny village called Matakosi (which has a population of about 200 people)... and thus the adventures really begin. My front bike tire had deflated some how during transport. I looked for a hole and I didn't see one. I went to get my bike pump to fill the tire only to find that it had fallen out in the car when I was moved in. The rest of Monday morning was a field day of teenage boys trying to use their Senegalese bike pumps on american bike tubes... which doesn't work, and despite my explaining WHY it doesn't work (half successfully in Pular) they continued to try it. Eventually they gave up and I followed them to another house and a guy there had a bike pump which worked!! I filled the tire and I thought it was good to go. Faster than I could have even imagined it was already time for the “lumo” as the weekly market is called. Neene and I ended up walking there so I didn't use my bike in the end but it had needed to be fixed anyway so that I could ride it back to Kedougou for Thanksgiving. I trailed behind Neene who is this wonderful, shriveled old lady with so much life and zest and love and walks at a pace so fast that I could barely keep up... all the while she was carrying a bucket on her head with such precision that she didn't hold on to the bucket the entire hour long walk. When we arrived, I found out also that she is sick too and still doing all these crazy things! At the market I was so overwhelmed meeting dozens of people and feeling exhausted. Neene wouldn't let me wander around on my own. She seemed worried about me buying things for elevated prices because I'm American. We stayed at the market until the temperature cooled off and then we went back home. This time we went back in a larger group because there were other Matakosi residents there who had left earlier in the morning to set up stands to sell corn. It was really nice because it meant that I didn't have to speed-walk behind Neene for another hour! As we approached Matakosi, I noticed that the new teacher had finally arrived! I thought it was important to meet him. I spent some time talking to him and practicing language and I told him about some of the projects that I was hoping to do with the kids.
The following morning I had received a text message that another volunteer was coming to stay for a night. I had no cell phone reception so I couldn't respond to her nor did I have any idea why she was coming or if her plans had changed since I hadn't responded to her when she had sent the text initially the day before. I informed my family so they knew and we'd see if she showed up or not. For now, I had other morning plans to keep me busy. Some of the people in my family said that they were going to the field. When I asked what kind of field, they said “tupe”. I looked it up in my dictionary but it wasn't there so it was to be a surprise. I brought my bucket because all the kids were bringing buckets and the men had machetes and hand hoes and we set off for the forest. I had no idea what I was in for. We followed the trail for about 20 minutes or so until we arrived at the river. There was no field there so I was very confused. I thought maybe we were getting water to bring to the field. Instead, the men with their machetes decided that this was the spot to clear for a field. They started chopping down trees and clearing brush. My heart sunk because I hate clearing forest. While most of the men cleared brush, two other men started digging two very large and wide pits in the ground. With my limited language skills I asked what they will be planting there and they said about 8 or 9 mango trees. They also said that they had planted mango trees last year in a different spot near a different river. I couldn't comprehend more details than this. As much as I didn't want to, this is their life and hence also my life, so I decided I'd help clear brush by dragging the cut branches out of the area and then I helped dig the pits. They ended up not clearing a very large area and it turns out that, at least for now, the pits were the primary focus. When the pits were done, the children and I carried our buckets about 100meters down to the river bank to fill them with water to fill the pits. We went back and forth until we were all exhausted. I had figured that they were filling the pits so that the water could slowly penetrate into the ground. Finally we finished filling the pits and I went for a swim with some of the teenagers in the river. We all just jumped in wearing our clothes. It was so refreshing, especially after working so hard. We got out of the river and I thought it was time to go home and once again, I was wrong. Everyone was talking really fast and they said that I need a stick because the cows are coming. I asked what we were doing with the sticks and I thought they said that the cows are going to drink at the river so I thought this meant that we were going to chase them away from the pits that we had just worked so hard to fill with water. About 15 uncomfortable minutes later everyone got so crazy and the guys started banging a metal bowl loudly and calling the cows to come. I was a little frightened as the cows came charging towards these pits and instead of guiding the cows away from the pits, we were guiding them towards the pit to drink and graze in that area. It was so crazy.
As the cows were all happily grazing, the women were guiding the cows with their sticks, the men were working on catching the bulls and tying them up. One at a time, they would take the bull, they would tie up all four of his legs and force him on his back. Two men held the cows legs and a third was holding the bull's head while a fourth had the most dangerous job of all. He would put a stick on one side of the bull's testicles and use another stick to whack the other side of the testicles. I tried to figure out the purpose of this seemingly torturous venture but my language is not good enough to understand the answer. I presume it is their very dangerous method of castration. It seems that making a tourniquet as they do the U.S. would be not only less dangerous, but it would be faster and less painful for the bull.
That evening, my friend Jackie did arrive! It was so refreshing to have some English time and to compare our experiences. It turns out that she was heading to Chokoy to meet two other volunteers to continue on to a waterfall. I hadn't known about this adventure and I don't have camping equipment (yet) so I decided I'd take Jackie to Chokoy and return home. Since my bike was fixed (at least so I thought), I thought it would all be a non-issue and all would go well. As we were starting out to Chokoy in the morning, I realized that all the air leaked out of the tire. I was only going 7K to Chokoy where I could get a new tube for my tire. I was struggling even to pedal and I didn't realize how much of that was due to the flat tire as opposed to just me being out of shape. I was frustrated with myself thinking it was just me especially since I'm running all the time but I kept going. As we approached the just over half way point I see this black thing flying out from the wheel and so I immediately stopped my bike and the inner tube from the tire wrapped itself around the bike. It's actually amazing that I didn't flip over my handlebars. I untangled the tube from the bike and took the tire off and left my bike on the side of the bike path. While Jackie rode on a head, I walked behind and she would pause once in a while so I could catch up while carrying the wheel with me. Finally we made it to Chokoy where I was able to buy a new tube for my tire and they also filled it up for me and it was good to go!! Jackie and I enjoyed a nice snack of fresh bread and sprite and water until Rob and Allan arrived. After Jackie took off with Rob and Allan on their adventure to the waterfall, I walked back to my bike, put it back together and I was good to go!
That afternoon and for the next day or two I spent a lot of time double digging a rather large 3X3meter garden bed in my back yard. My family and other villagers would come in to see what I was working on and I told them that I was making a vegetable garden. I learned that one in my village seems to have ever heard of eggplant!! It was such hard work because the ground was so compacted and there are so many trees in my backyard that it was littered with roots. I added ash and luceana leaves to my double dug bed to add some nitrogen and potassium. I think my family thought I was crazy for working so hard on my garden and for adding what seems to them random crap... I don't know how to say, “It adds nitrogen and potassium to the soil” in Pular so I just said, “it's good for the earth”. I found some large bowls that had been littered throughout the fields with no bottoms. I filled them with dirt and I planted seeds in there for my plant nursery. I'm not sure if any of the seeds will germinate since they are all 2-4 years old seeds that I brought from the U.S. Even if I get a few plants I'll be thrilled!
Sometimes the things that are mysteries to the people here astound me. The evening that I finished double digging my garden, I sat with my host dad who I can still barely understand and we were talking about how the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. He then said to me, “I know that the sun does this but I don't understand why.” So I'm trying to use my hands and broken Pular to try to demonstrate but my hands don't spin 360 degrees and all I can say is, “the world spins... like this”. I think he has no idea what I was talking about and to make things even more confusing, the word for “spin” is the same as the word for “swing”, but it was fun and the ridiculousness of the situation amused me to no end.
Around 4:00 that day as the temperature started to cool off, the women, children, and I put all our dirty clothes into buckets with our laundry soap, a towel and a clean change of clothes and we walked about 10 minutes to the river to do laundry! The novelty of how much I hated the inconvenience of bringing my clothes to the laundromat in the U.S. amused me. Inconvenience of doing laundry has a whole new meaning when you have to carry all your clothes on your head in a bucket and walk for 10 minutes to hand wash clothes in a river... That being said, what is more fun than going with a bunch of women and children to the river to wash clothes and play in the water and smack wet, soapy clothes against rocks to splash the nearest unsuspecting naked, bathing child? It was so much fun and everyone was laughing and having a great time and then we all bathed in the water before heading back. As fun as it was and as relatively clean as our clothes get, it made me contemplate how my standards of “clean” have changed so drastically. If I haven't worn an outfit 3 times, it's still clean so clean river clothes are the equivalent of spotless.
The following morning I went with some of the women in my family to harvest peanuts. We walked about 20 minutes to the field. It turns out to harvest peanuts you just manually pull up all the plants by hand. Peanuts are strange looking plants. It's hard work but it was actually a lot of fun! We all worked so hard. When I got back, I checked on my plant nursery and some baobab seeds that I had planted a few days earlier germinated!! I'm going to make a baobab bonsai tree for fun. My Neene came out to see my yard and she asked me if I wanted to go to a wedding the next day. Of course I did! I was all ready to go the following morning only to find out that Neene had left at 4 in the morning to go to a funeral of a man who had drowned in a somewhat far away village. We ended up going to the wedding the next day.
After a disgusting and unfilling breakfast of liquid corn, we walked about 40 minutes to a nearby village. I brought my nice Tabaski clothes with me so that I could change into them later. All the men were sitting around drinking tea and people were walking in from far and wide. The women were all in the cooking area with giant pots and bowls of water everywhere. All the women started cooking and I helped to chop onions. I was snacking on onions the entire time and it seemed like the most delicious thing I had ever eaten because I felt so nutrient deprived! Snacking on those onions was the most satisfied I had felt since moving to my village. After everything was finally cooking up, I was walking around village and suddenly there was a crowd of 30some kids surrounding me. I started talking to them and asking them their names and they started following me around. Some of them were eating oranges and I had them all give me their seeds. Throughout the next few hours kids would periodically bring me orange seeds and I left with 30 or 40 orange seeds to plant. Since I couldn't have an in-depth conversation with the kids, and they were awkwardly following me around, I started an impromptu project. I found a large plastic bag (which is never hard to find because people litter throughout their fields... it's gross) and I started going around collecting batteries to throw into the douche. I explained that batteries are poison and shouldn't be in the field because it's bad for health and bad for the field and soon all the kids were running around collecting batteries for me! I ended up throwing about 50 batteries in the douche that day. That was my first successful project and it was actually fun.
Soon enough it was time to change into our festive clothes and two men were playing small home made string instruments and a third was using brass finger things to use a gourd bowl as a drum. All the women paraded behind them through the village and everyone was dancing and having a blast. Some women were throwing scarves down in front of the women who they felt looked particularly beautiful... I guess in a strange way it was kind of like the throwing the bouquet tradition. We paraded and danced until we got to the hut of the couple. The couple kneeled in front of the door of their hut, the woman in a white veil, and the Imam stood in front of them and said some blessings and the couple entered the room. We had to leave right after that because it was dark already and we had a 40 minute walk back through the woods.
I was supposed to go to a rice field with my counterpart the following morning and then leave for my 20some mile bike ride back to Kedougou. My counterpart never came to get me in the morning so at about 10:00 I decided I would just leave. Unfortunately, my family wouldn't let me leave without eating so I didn't end up leaving until 11:30 so I would end up biking in the heat of the day. I biked the first 5k or so to the main road and had gone a little ways further to realize - surprise surprise - my tire was flat again! I got through the first hour and a half with no problems... but then the heat picked up, my backpack was starting to feel heavy, my dehydration started to kick in (despite drinking water), the flat tire got worse, there was no shade, and the hills started to get really bad. After that, I had to keep stopping every 10-15 minutes and push the bike up the hills. It was AWFUL!!!
I kept going; I was determined to make it. At about 2:15 or so I stopped at a nearby village to refill my water bottle at the forage and I chatted with the villagers for a little bit. They invited me to eat, but I knew that eating would definitely prevent me from finishing the massively awful bike ride. They told me I was about 15K from Kedougou. I continued on my way and passed a 4ft long metalic dark green monitor lizard and that itself made my journey all worth it and just another few minutes later I passed another volunteer who was waiting for a vehicle to Kedougou with the women from his village. He was taking them to the ciy to sell the goods that they make. It was refreshing to see someone I knew and he said that I was only 12k from the regional house. I was hoping that would give me a second wind to make it the last hour but alas.... it just wasn't happening. I made it another few kilometers and I started walking my bike. I figured that if I needed to, I could walk the rest of the way but with the flat tire situation I couldn't ride anymore. A giant yellow truck passed by and asked me if I needed a ride. At this point I was only 7-10k away from Kedougou but I took them up on their offer. They loaded my bike into the back and they took me the rest of the way where I got to see all the other volunteers and share stories and rehydrate. Now we are working on prepping our piturducken and the “pig” portion just arrived.
So that's my update. For now things are so new and so exciting. I imagine I will continue to have adventures and stories to tell... “Si Allah Jaabi” (if God agrees).
I hope all is well. I love receiving e-mails and letters so feel free to write!
E-mail: Kriegerilana@gmail.com
Mailing Address: Alexandra Ilana Krieger
B.P. 37
Kedougou, Senegal
West Africa
I knew that the Tuesday weekly market was coming up and I imagined that I was going to be biking there. It is in a village called Chokoy which is about 7K from my tiny village called Matakosi (which has a population of about 200 people)... and thus the adventures really begin. My front bike tire had deflated some how during transport. I looked for a hole and I didn't see one. I went to get my bike pump to fill the tire only to find that it had fallen out in the car when I was moved in. The rest of Monday morning was a field day of teenage boys trying to use their Senegalese bike pumps on american bike tubes... which doesn't work, and despite my explaining WHY it doesn't work (half successfully in Pular) they continued to try it. Eventually they gave up and I followed them to another house and a guy there had a bike pump which worked!! I filled the tire and I thought it was good to go. Faster than I could have even imagined it was already time for the “lumo” as the weekly market is called. Neene and I ended up walking there so I didn't use my bike in the end but it had needed to be fixed anyway so that I could ride it back to Kedougou for Thanksgiving. I trailed behind Neene who is this wonderful, shriveled old lady with so much life and zest and love and walks at a pace so fast that I could barely keep up... all the while she was carrying a bucket on her head with such precision that she didn't hold on to the bucket the entire hour long walk. When we arrived, I found out also that she is sick too and still doing all these crazy things! At the market I was so overwhelmed meeting dozens of people and feeling exhausted. Neene wouldn't let me wander around on my own. She seemed worried about me buying things for elevated prices because I'm American. We stayed at the market until the temperature cooled off and then we went back home. This time we went back in a larger group because there were other Matakosi residents there who had left earlier in the morning to set up stands to sell corn. It was really nice because it meant that I didn't have to speed-walk behind Neene for another hour! As we approached Matakosi, I noticed that the new teacher had finally arrived! I thought it was important to meet him. I spent some time talking to him and practicing language and I told him about some of the projects that I was hoping to do with the kids.
The following morning I had received a text message that another volunteer was coming to stay for a night. I had no cell phone reception so I couldn't respond to her nor did I have any idea why she was coming or if her plans had changed since I hadn't responded to her when she had sent the text initially the day before. I informed my family so they knew and we'd see if she showed up or not. For now, I had other morning plans to keep me busy. Some of the people in my family said that they were going to the field. When I asked what kind of field, they said “tupe”. I looked it up in my dictionary but it wasn't there so it was to be a surprise. I brought my bucket because all the kids were bringing buckets and the men had machetes and hand hoes and we set off for the forest. I had no idea what I was in for. We followed the trail for about 20 minutes or so until we arrived at the river. There was no field there so I was very confused. I thought maybe we were getting water to bring to the field. Instead, the men with their machetes decided that this was the spot to clear for a field. They started chopping down trees and clearing brush. My heart sunk because I hate clearing forest. While most of the men cleared brush, two other men started digging two very large and wide pits in the ground. With my limited language skills I asked what they will be planting there and they said about 8 or 9 mango trees. They also said that they had planted mango trees last year in a different spot near a different river. I couldn't comprehend more details than this. As much as I didn't want to, this is their life and hence also my life, so I decided I'd help clear brush by dragging the cut branches out of the area and then I helped dig the pits. They ended up not clearing a very large area and it turns out that, at least for now, the pits were the primary focus. When the pits were done, the children and I carried our buckets about 100meters down to the river bank to fill them with water to fill the pits. We went back and forth until we were all exhausted. I had figured that they were filling the pits so that the water could slowly penetrate into the ground. Finally we finished filling the pits and I went for a swim with some of the teenagers in the river. We all just jumped in wearing our clothes. It was so refreshing, especially after working so hard. We got out of the river and I thought it was time to go home and once again, I was wrong. Everyone was talking really fast and they said that I need a stick because the cows are coming. I asked what we were doing with the sticks and I thought they said that the cows are going to drink at the river so I thought this meant that we were going to chase them away from the pits that we had just worked so hard to fill with water. About 15 uncomfortable minutes later everyone got so crazy and the guys started banging a metal bowl loudly and calling the cows to come. I was a little frightened as the cows came charging towards these pits and instead of guiding the cows away from the pits, we were guiding them towards the pit to drink and graze in that area. It was so crazy.
As the cows were all happily grazing, the women were guiding the cows with their sticks, the men were working on catching the bulls and tying them up. One at a time, they would take the bull, they would tie up all four of his legs and force him on his back. Two men held the cows legs and a third was holding the bull's head while a fourth had the most dangerous job of all. He would put a stick on one side of the bull's testicles and use another stick to whack the other side of the testicles. I tried to figure out the purpose of this seemingly torturous venture but my language is not good enough to understand the answer. I presume it is their very dangerous method of castration. It seems that making a tourniquet as they do the U.S. would be not only less dangerous, but it would be faster and less painful for the bull.
That evening, my friend Jackie did arrive! It was so refreshing to have some English time and to compare our experiences. It turns out that she was heading to Chokoy to meet two other volunteers to continue on to a waterfall. I hadn't known about this adventure and I don't have camping equipment (yet) so I decided I'd take Jackie to Chokoy and return home. Since my bike was fixed (at least so I thought), I thought it would all be a non-issue and all would go well. As we were starting out to Chokoy in the morning, I realized that all the air leaked out of the tire. I was only going 7K to Chokoy where I could get a new tube for my tire. I was struggling even to pedal and I didn't realize how much of that was due to the flat tire as opposed to just me being out of shape. I was frustrated with myself thinking it was just me especially since I'm running all the time but I kept going. As we approached the just over half way point I see this black thing flying out from the wheel and so I immediately stopped my bike and the inner tube from the tire wrapped itself around the bike. It's actually amazing that I didn't flip over my handlebars. I untangled the tube from the bike and took the tire off and left my bike on the side of the bike path. While Jackie rode on a head, I walked behind and she would pause once in a while so I could catch up while carrying the wheel with me. Finally we made it to Chokoy where I was able to buy a new tube for my tire and they also filled it up for me and it was good to go!! Jackie and I enjoyed a nice snack of fresh bread and sprite and water until Rob and Allan arrived. After Jackie took off with Rob and Allan on their adventure to the waterfall, I walked back to my bike, put it back together and I was good to go!
That afternoon and for the next day or two I spent a lot of time double digging a rather large 3X3meter garden bed in my back yard. My family and other villagers would come in to see what I was working on and I told them that I was making a vegetable garden. I learned that one in my village seems to have ever heard of eggplant!! It was such hard work because the ground was so compacted and there are so many trees in my backyard that it was littered with roots. I added ash and luceana leaves to my double dug bed to add some nitrogen and potassium. I think my family thought I was crazy for working so hard on my garden and for adding what seems to them random crap... I don't know how to say, “It adds nitrogen and potassium to the soil” in Pular so I just said, “it's good for the earth”. I found some large bowls that had been littered throughout the fields with no bottoms. I filled them with dirt and I planted seeds in there for my plant nursery. I'm not sure if any of the seeds will germinate since they are all 2-4 years old seeds that I brought from the U.S. Even if I get a few plants I'll be thrilled!
Sometimes the things that are mysteries to the people here astound me. The evening that I finished double digging my garden, I sat with my host dad who I can still barely understand and we were talking about how the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. He then said to me, “I know that the sun does this but I don't understand why.” So I'm trying to use my hands and broken Pular to try to demonstrate but my hands don't spin 360 degrees and all I can say is, “the world spins... like this”. I think he has no idea what I was talking about and to make things even more confusing, the word for “spin” is the same as the word for “swing”, but it was fun and the ridiculousness of the situation amused me to no end.
Around 4:00 that day as the temperature started to cool off, the women, children, and I put all our dirty clothes into buckets with our laundry soap, a towel and a clean change of clothes and we walked about 10 minutes to the river to do laundry! The novelty of how much I hated the inconvenience of bringing my clothes to the laundromat in the U.S. amused me. Inconvenience of doing laundry has a whole new meaning when you have to carry all your clothes on your head in a bucket and walk for 10 minutes to hand wash clothes in a river... That being said, what is more fun than going with a bunch of women and children to the river to wash clothes and play in the water and smack wet, soapy clothes against rocks to splash the nearest unsuspecting naked, bathing child? It was so much fun and everyone was laughing and having a great time and then we all bathed in the water before heading back. As fun as it was and as relatively clean as our clothes get, it made me contemplate how my standards of “clean” have changed so drastically. If I haven't worn an outfit 3 times, it's still clean so clean river clothes are the equivalent of spotless.
The following morning I went with some of the women in my family to harvest peanuts. We walked about 20 minutes to the field. It turns out to harvest peanuts you just manually pull up all the plants by hand. Peanuts are strange looking plants. It's hard work but it was actually a lot of fun! We all worked so hard. When I got back, I checked on my plant nursery and some baobab seeds that I had planted a few days earlier germinated!! I'm going to make a baobab bonsai tree for fun. My Neene came out to see my yard and she asked me if I wanted to go to a wedding the next day. Of course I did! I was all ready to go the following morning only to find out that Neene had left at 4 in the morning to go to a funeral of a man who had drowned in a somewhat far away village. We ended up going to the wedding the next day.
After a disgusting and unfilling breakfast of liquid corn, we walked about 40 minutes to a nearby village. I brought my nice Tabaski clothes with me so that I could change into them later. All the men were sitting around drinking tea and people were walking in from far and wide. The women were all in the cooking area with giant pots and bowls of water everywhere. All the women started cooking and I helped to chop onions. I was snacking on onions the entire time and it seemed like the most delicious thing I had ever eaten because I felt so nutrient deprived! Snacking on those onions was the most satisfied I had felt since moving to my village. After everything was finally cooking up, I was walking around village and suddenly there was a crowd of 30some kids surrounding me. I started talking to them and asking them their names and they started following me around. Some of them were eating oranges and I had them all give me their seeds. Throughout the next few hours kids would periodically bring me orange seeds and I left with 30 or 40 orange seeds to plant. Since I couldn't have an in-depth conversation with the kids, and they were awkwardly following me around, I started an impromptu project. I found a large plastic bag (which is never hard to find because people litter throughout their fields... it's gross) and I started going around collecting batteries to throw into the douche. I explained that batteries are poison and shouldn't be in the field because it's bad for health and bad for the field and soon all the kids were running around collecting batteries for me! I ended up throwing about 50 batteries in the douche that day. That was my first successful project and it was actually fun.
Soon enough it was time to change into our festive clothes and two men were playing small home made string instruments and a third was using brass finger things to use a gourd bowl as a drum. All the women paraded behind them through the village and everyone was dancing and having a blast. Some women were throwing scarves down in front of the women who they felt looked particularly beautiful... I guess in a strange way it was kind of like the throwing the bouquet tradition. We paraded and danced until we got to the hut of the couple. The couple kneeled in front of the door of their hut, the woman in a white veil, and the Imam stood in front of them and said some blessings and the couple entered the room. We had to leave right after that because it was dark already and we had a 40 minute walk back through the woods.
I was supposed to go to a rice field with my counterpart the following morning and then leave for my 20some mile bike ride back to Kedougou. My counterpart never came to get me in the morning so at about 10:00 I decided I would just leave. Unfortunately, my family wouldn't let me leave without eating so I didn't end up leaving until 11:30 so I would end up biking in the heat of the day. I biked the first 5k or so to the main road and had gone a little ways further to realize - surprise surprise - my tire was flat again! I got through the first hour and a half with no problems... but then the heat picked up, my backpack was starting to feel heavy, my dehydration started to kick in (despite drinking water), the flat tire got worse, there was no shade, and the hills started to get really bad. After that, I had to keep stopping every 10-15 minutes and push the bike up the hills. It was AWFUL!!!
I kept going; I was determined to make it. At about 2:15 or so I stopped at a nearby village to refill my water bottle at the forage and I chatted with the villagers for a little bit. They invited me to eat, but I knew that eating would definitely prevent me from finishing the massively awful bike ride. They told me I was about 15K from Kedougou. I continued on my way and passed a 4ft long metalic dark green monitor lizard and that itself made my journey all worth it and just another few minutes later I passed another volunteer who was waiting for a vehicle to Kedougou with the women from his village. He was taking them to the ciy to sell the goods that they make. It was refreshing to see someone I knew and he said that I was only 12k from the regional house. I was hoping that would give me a second wind to make it the last hour but alas.... it just wasn't happening. I made it another few kilometers and I started walking my bike. I figured that if I needed to, I could walk the rest of the way but with the flat tire situation I couldn't ride anymore. A giant yellow truck passed by and asked me if I needed a ride. At this point I was only 7-10k away from Kedougou but I took them up on their offer. They loaded my bike into the back and they took me the rest of the way where I got to see all the other volunteers and share stories and rehydrate. Now we are working on prepping our piturducken and the “pig” portion just arrived.
So that's my update. For now things are so new and so exciting. I imagine I will continue to have adventures and stories to tell... “Si Allah Jaabi” (if God agrees).
I hope all is well. I love receiving e-mails and letters so feel free to write!
E-mail: Kriegerilana@gmail.com
Mailing Address: Alexandra Ilana Krieger
B.P. 37
Kedougou, Senegal
West Africa
November 03, 2011
swearing-in!
Blog 5
So it's been a little while since I've written a blog. The last couple weeks have been crazy and I'm so ready to be done with training. Two months is a really long time to be living out of a suitcase. We've had to pack up and move our things more times than I care to count. Time is moving so fast and so slow at the same time and I'm using my mefloquine to try to keep track of the number of weeks we've been here... it's hard to tell some times.
Anyway, about two weeks ago we had our second language test. I was feeling really good about my language and I knew I had improved and when I learned that I tested at intermediate low for a second time it really brought me down. It upset me a lot and it was at the same time that we had our counterparts from our final villages visiting. It was so stressful and we had to move around from place to place and room to room and speak with our counterparts in our languages about villages that we hardly know anything about yet. I had a bit of a breakdown and I was feeling homesick and it all just snowballed into this crazy awfulness. The two days that the counterparts were here felt like an entire week. The same day that the counterparts left we all had a very rushed and very busy day trip to Dakar. We had a very rushed 30 minute tour of the area and then met many important people who spoke about mostly uninteresting things. It would have been fun if we had had some free time, but alas... The next day we had our first real weekend. We all ventured out to the beach and had a blast swimming in the ocean for a day and just bonding with each other and all the while dreading our return to our homestays for our last week.
Our last week of homestay was bitter sweet. I feel like I'm finally a part of my family and I am going to miss them a lot. They have started calling me Neene Adama, which means mother Adama... not in a Catholic Monastery kind of way though. In this polygamous society the children call the other wives Neene insert name here. The children have really started to see me as a mother figure and I love it. It wasn't the most eventful week because I spent so much time studying and practicing Pulafuta so that I could pass my test at intermediate mid but I did have a few adventures. One day I cooked pasta and tomato sauce for my family and they LOOVVEDDD it! While this is a dish that would take 20 minutes in the U.S., it took me 2 hours here! The pasta itself took half an hour because we cook “camp-out” style over hot coals and I was cooking a quantity that would feed 15 people. Simple meals are not simple here. Even tea is a long 2-3 hour long process. They cook the tea over coals with so much sugar it's disgusting. They only have two shot glass size cups that everyone shares and they have to make this foam by pouring the tea back and forth from glass to glass and it's rude to leave early and not drink it. It's awful when I feel like I'm in a rush to get somewhere and I'm being held back to drink the most sugary tea any American has ever had. I had another adventure with another volunteer on a different day. We had the afternoon off and we ventured a kilometer down the road to the “Tortoise Village”. It's a rehabilitation/breeding/tourist site for sulcata Tortoises. I love sulcatas and it was so nice to see them!!! They had different enclosures for different ages. I learned a really fun fact about Baobabs trees. There are two types of Baobab trees.... there's the Baobab Digitalis which has branches that look like fingers and there's the second type which is called the Baobab Sulcata. The Baobab Sulcata as it gets older has a hollowed out trunk like a sulcata tortoise shell. Senegalse burry important people in the hollows of the baobab trees. It's amazing to me!
Well anyway, this week is it! We're all back at the training center and we had our final language and tech exams yesterday. We're done with the hard part and next week we move to our villages!!! OFFICIALLY!! On Friday we have our swearing-in ceremony in Dakar where we are sworn in as official volunteers. It's going to be televised nationally. We all had special clothes made for the ceremony and my host dad made mine for me. There is SO MUCH EMBROIDERY that it's so crazy and so tacky and so perfectly Senegalese!
November 11th I will be moving to my village where I will have no electricity or running water. I will be 45kilometers from Kedegou City where the post office is. Letters are welcomed and expected. I will update my address on Facebook when I can this week. For the first month and a half after I move to my village I will be out of commission because we are not allowed to leave our villages for 5 weeks. I miss all of you.
Look out for my mailing address!!
Ilana
So it's been a little while since I've written a blog. The last couple weeks have been crazy and I'm so ready to be done with training. Two months is a really long time to be living out of a suitcase. We've had to pack up and move our things more times than I care to count. Time is moving so fast and so slow at the same time and I'm using my mefloquine to try to keep track of the number of weeks we've been here... it's hard to tell some times.
Anyway, about two weeks ago we had our second language test. I was feeling really good about my language and I knew I had improved and when I learned that I tested at intermediate low for a second time it really brought me down. It upset me a lot and it was at the same time that we had our counterparts from our final villages visiting. It was so stressful and we had to move around from place to place and room to room and speak with our counterparts in our languages about villages that we hardly know anything about yet. I had a bit of a breakdown and I was feeling homesick and it all just snowballed into this crazy awfulness. The two days that the counterparts were here felt like an entire week. The same day that the counterparts left we all had a very rushed and very busy day trip to Dakar. We had a very rushed 30 minute tour of the area and then met many important people who spoke about mostly uninteresting things. It would have been fun if we had had some free time, but alas... The next day we had our first real weekend. We all ventured out to the beach and had a blast swimming in the ocean for a day and just bonding with each other and all the while dreading our return to our homestays for our last week.
Our last week of homestay was bitter sweet. I feel like I'm finally a part of my family and I am going to miss them a lot. They have started calling me Neene Adama, which means mother Adama... not in a Catholic Monastery kind of way though. In this polygamous society the children call the other wives Neene insert name here. The children have really started to see me as a mother figure and I love it. It wasn't the most eventful week because I spent so much time studying and practicing Pulafuta so that I could pass my test at intermediate mid but I did have a few adventures. One day I cooked pasta and tomato sauce for my family and they LOOVVEDDD it! While this is a dish that would take 20 minutes in the U.S., it took me 2 hours here! The pasta itself took half an hour because we cook “camp-out” style over hot coals and I was cooking a quantity that would feed 15 people. Simple meals are not simple here. Even tea is a long 2-3 hour long process. They cook the tea over coals with so much sugar it's disgusting. They only have two shot glass size cups that everyone shares and they have to make this foam by pouring the tea back and forth from glass to glass and it's rude to leave early and not drink it. It's awful when I feel like I'm in a rush to get somewhere and I'm being held back to drink the most sugary tea any American has ever had. I had another adventure with another volunteer on a different day. We had the afternoon off and we ventured a kilometer down the road to the “Tortoise Village”. It's a rehabilitation/breeding/tourist site for sulcata Tortoises. I love sulcatas and it was so nice to see them!!! They had different enclosures for different ages. I learned a really fun fact about Baobabs trees. There are two types of Baobab trees.... there's the Baobab Digitalis which has branches that look like fingers and there's the second type which is called the Baobab Sulcata. The Baobab Sulcata as it gets older has a hollowed out trunk like a sulcata tortoise shell. Senegalse burry important people in the hollows of the baobab trees. It's amazing to me!
Well anyway, this week is it! We're all back at the training center and we had our final language and tech exams yesterday. We're done with the hard part and next week we move to our villages!!! OFFICIALLY!! On Friday we have our swearing-in ceremony in Dakar where we are sworn in as official volunteers. It's going to be televised nationally. We all had special clothes made for the ceremony and my host dad made mine for me. There is SO MUCH EMBROIDERY that it's so crazy and so tacky and so perfectly Senegalese!
November 11th I will be moving to my village where I will have no electricity or running water. I will be 45kilometers from Kedegou City where the post office is. Letters are welcomed and expected. I will update my address on Facebook when I can this week. For the first month and a half after I move to my village I will be out of commission because we are not allowed to leave our villages for 5 weeks. I miss all of you.
Look out for my mailing address!!
Ilana
October 07, 2011
Demyst (the weeks are starting to blur together - Week 5ish?)
Hey everyone. It's been another long and yet amazing week. So as I mentioned before we all found out our final sites and were were prepping to leave for our regions for a few days. This process is called Demystification. Kedougou has been so talked up as the best region to go to (and it truly lives up to its reputation). We knew we had a long drive ahead of us. We were all ready to leave by 6:00 Monday morning but the driver was late (in typical senegalese fashion) so we didn't leave until 6:30. One of my region mates commented on the amusement of us all driving to Kedougou for 10-13ish hours facing each other. The sunrise was fantastic as we headed west in the back of a landcruiser with benches facing each other in the back of the car. There were 10 of us in the car... nice and cozy. We made a few short stops on the way and as we got closer and closer to Kedougou the scenery became more and more green and the grasses kept getting taller. It is currently the rainy season so right now it is green everywhere but everyone says that in the dry season there is NOTHING and then we will get to the “starving season” (towards the end of the rainy season when there is basically no food left but meanwhile it is fantastic).
We drove on the main road through Nokolokoba(?) park. In addition to seeing small children herding giant herds of cows, goats, and sheep, we saw monkeys and warthogs running across the road. There were also lots of beautiful birds too (including Gunea Hens). After we got to the other side of the park we saw a sign that said we were 50k away so it was only 3:00 or so when we got there. We approached the “city” of Kedougou. The sign for the “Kedougou Regional Compound” stared us in the face and the landcruiser pulled into the compound.
A lot of the other Kedougou volunteers were there to greet us, most of them in bathing suits or spandex shorts. They were sitting in buckets with cold water and beers in their hands. They all loudly welcomed us. Some were more willing to emerge from their buckets than others (due to their level of comfort in the buckets). We greeted every one and shook every one's hands and it was great. I thought it would take me forever to remember everyone's names. It was so exciting and so overwhelming and I immediately fell in love with the regional compound. It's basically a glorified camping site.
After our stuff was loaded off of the roof of the bus, we brought our things into the “Pepiniere” as they call it. There were many full sized mattresses set up with mosquito nets. We were told to choose a side of the bed and it didn't matter which or where. The Pepiniere was a semi enclosed area with a thatched roof which does a fantastic job of keeping things dry. I explored the compound and we have our own Kedougou disco hut. This place is magical and green and overgrown (for now) with hidden paths that don't even seem to lead anywhere. The volunteers also cooked all of us tacos for dinner and the various musicians were jamming out on their instruments. One guy can play the fiddle and harmonica at the same time. It was crazy!
My situation visiting Kedougou was a little strange because I did not have a set person I was really supposed to be staying with. The current volunteers found a volunteer who would be willing to host me but she is a health volunteer and was arranging a training that was going on all week every day on how to scan for cervical cancer (in French). I didn't have a lot of interest in attending that since it doesn't particularly pertain to my service as an ag volunteer and my French is not that good.
The first night we all stayed at the regional house. The next day, the other volunteers from my stage went with their volunteer “anciens” (those who are being replaced) and I got to hang out at the regional house and I got to hang out with the other volunteers who were in the middle of their service. In the afternoon I went with Melanie and Rob to their homestay because it was right down the road and it would allow me to see a site and practice my Pulafuta. Their host family fed us lunch and we all hung out in their family compound for a while. After that, we went back to the regional house and I put a few things together and I waited for Meera to get back from her cervical cancer training session so we could go to her homestay. It was dark by the time she was ready to go to her homestay. I borrowed one of the extra bikes at the compound and we rode about 10 minutes to her place and I had my bag on my back and the bike was falling apart. It was pretty awesome. I've missed biking and biking in the dark was certainly a new experience for me.
In the morning, we went early back to the compound so I could shower because two of the Peace Corps staff members were coming to pick me up for a day trip. We went to a site that was about 60K away and they all spoke Melinke in their village. We went to a master farmer site. A master farmer is supposed to be the model farmer for the area he is in. The volunteers who work with them create demo plots that use specific guidelines to demonstrate effective farming techniques. Every few months or so, each master farmer will have “open field days” where local farmers come from all over for a demonstration of these techniques and some of the atendees might be chosen as potential future master farmers. It would have been far more interesting for me if people at least spoke a little Pulafuta but they all spoke Melinke only. After the session we all met up for lunch at the farmer's village and ate a feast of rice, meat, and onion sauce. It was delicious. After lunch I went around the village talking to the volunteers and the few Senegalese who spoke Pulafuta (mostly just greetings) and collected Shea Tree seeds (because seeds are fantastic).
After getting back to Kedougou city I was exhausted from having been in the sun all day and the hour or two long drive each direction. Meera was also still really busy and had a lot of work to do after her cervical cancer training session that day so I decided to stay at the compound that evening. I felt guilty not practicing Pulafuta so one of the other volunteers (who started in March) invited me to go with him to Abdulai's restaurant and I got to practice conversing. It was hysterical and they were all laughing at me and it was quite fun. Senegalese men have a habit of asking me about my kele (which means boyfriend) or “gorko” which means husband. I try to tell them that I have a boyfriend in the U.S. just to get them off my case and they usually ask why I don't also take a Senegalese boyfriend. Some of the other girls suggested learning how to tell them they are ugly and that they don't find this offensive. They get the point and think it's funny. I think if I were in their situation, I'd find a white person telling me they are ugly pretty funny too.
I left again the next morning, this time to go to my village! We were supposed to leave early in the morning, but in typical Senegalese fashion the driver changed his schedule and we didn't leave until 11. I thought it wouldn't be enough time but it turned out to be more than enough time of super awkward “sitting around”. We had a quick 45K drive to Matakosi. From the main road, to get to my village we turned onto this tiny little path that looked more like a bush path than a road. It was barely wide enough to fit the car and it was a little worrisome but we fit. We had about 3K worth of driving on this path and as we got closer the weeds along the fences were taller than the fences themselves. It was some type of mint and the smell just permeated the car. It was so nice. The green was everywhere and the corn was everywhere.
The Meera asked a little boy near by to take us to the family of Ibrahima (my ancien's house... Frank is his American name). We got there and were greeted by everyone who was there. They seemed confused about me being there but they were still very welcoming. I just started asking everyone their names and it was crazy and overwhelming and I can't remember anyone's names. My host mom arrived a bit later after someone went to tell her that I was there. I asked her her name and she replied, “Neene” (which means mother) as a very matter of factly. I would not have known she was my host mom until she told me. So I met “Neene” and then someone went to get “Baaba” who showed up later in a green senegalese outfit and a machete tied to a string around his waist. He had just come back from the fields. He greeted me and then went to change into nicer clothes. Neene asked me and Meera if we wanted corn and they insisted that we have corn. They roasted a cob for each of us and then they kept roasting more corn and they insisted (over a course of time) that we eat 4 cobs of corn each! I felt quite full after that and we weren't sure if we were going to have time to eat REAL lunch there because we had no idea what time the car was coming back to pick us up. Senegalese tend to eat late lunches and we didn't want them to cook food we weren't going to eat. They did bring us a bowl of rice with okra sauce and it was a gross texture but tasted a bit like split pea soup. After eating we insisted that we were full and they insisted that we eat more and then we insisted that we couldn't eat another bite... (our very familiar pattern of insistence). Eventually the only thing we can do is put the spoon down and walk away from the bowl politely. We sat around a while longer and my Neene cooked an oatmeal type of dish that was salty and a little sweet and she insisted that we eat even more.
In the middle of all this, the Senegalese counterparts with whom I will be working arrived. I felt unsure of what to ask them so it was awkward and uncomfortable (in typical Peace Corps fashion). Meera is a health volunteer and was therefore also unsure of how she could help. I asked about the gardens and she said that the gardens are too far but eventually it turned out that they have a garden at the school which is right near by. I asked if we could go see it. Because it is the rainy season, they have not been working on their gardens; they have been working on their fieldcrops ONLY (because they are too busy apparently). It makes no sense to me at all. I insisted that they at least show me where the garden is.
We got there and the entire back yard of the school was completely overgrown. It was literally a field of grass. As we walked further back, one of my counterparts pointed out a baby banana tree that Frank had planted. They also pointed out a large cement basin filled with water. I think it was some attempt at some kind of well but it seems like a recipe for mosquitos to me. I had no way to ask Frank about it but I will get to talk to him later.
That night we all got back to the regional compound and stayed there for one last night before returning to Thies. It was hard to leave knowing that we have to head back to the sand for another month before returning to Kedougou but at least it sparked a renewed vigor.
Well anyway... this is dragging on. More next time.
We drove on the main road through Nokolokoba(?) park. In addition to seeing small children herding giant herds of cows, goats, and sheep, we saw monkeys and warthogs running across the road. There were also lots of beautiful birds too (including Gunea Hens). After we got to the other side of the park we saw a sign that said we were 50k away so it was only 3:00 or so when we got there. We approached the “city” of Kedougou. The sign for the “Kedougou Regional Compound” stared us in the face and the landcruiser pulled into the compound.
A lot of the other Kedougou volunteers were there to greet us, most of them in bathing suits or spandex shorts. They were sitting in buckets with cold water and beers in their hands. They all loudly welcomed us. Some were more willing to emerge from their buckets than others (due to their level of comfort in the buckets). We greeted every one and shook every one's hands and it was great. I thought it would take me forever to remember everyone's names. It was so exciting and so overwhelming and I immediately fell in love with the regional compound. It's basically a glorified camping site.
After our stuff was loaded off of the roof of the bus, we brought our things into the “Pepiniere” as they call it. There were many full sized mattresses set up with mosquito nets. We were told to choose a side of the bed and it didn't matter which or where. The Pepiniere was a semi enclosed area with a thatched roof which does a fantastic job of keeping things dry. I explored the compound and we have our own Kedougou disco hut. This place is magical and green and overgrown (for now) with hidden paths that don't even seem to lead anywhere. The volunteers also cooked all of us tacos for dinner and the various musicians were jamming out on their instruments. One guy can play the fiddle and harmonica at the same time. It was crazy!
My situation visiting Kedougou was a little strange because I did not have a set person I was really supposed to be staying with. The current volunteers found a volunteer who would be willing to host me but she is a health volunteer and was arranging a training that was going on all week every day on how to scan for cervical cancer (in French). I didn't have a lot of interest in attending that since it doesn't particularly pertain to my service as an ag volunteer and my French is not that good.
The first night we all stayed at the regional house. The next day, the other volunteers from my stage went with their volunteer “anciens” (those who are being replaced) and I got to hang out at the regional house and I got to hang out with the other volunteers who were in the middle of their service. In the afternoon I went with Melanie and Rob to their homestay because it was right down the road and it would allow me to see a site and practice my Pulafuta. Their host family fed us lunch and we all hung out in their family compound for a while. After that, we went back to the regional house and I put a few things together and I waited for Meera to get back from her cervical cancer training session so we could go to her homestay. It was dark by the time she was ready to go to her homestay. I borrowed one of the extra bikes at the compound and we rode about 10 minutes to her place and I had my bag on my back and the bike was falling apart. It was pretty awesome. I've missed biking and biking in the dark was certainly a new experience for me.
In the morning, we went early back to the compound so I could shower because two of the Peace Corps staff members were coming to pick me up for a day trip. We went to a site that was about 60K away and they all spoke Melinke in their village. We went to a master farmer site. A master farmer is supposed to be the model farmer for the area he is in. The volunteers who work with them create demo plots that use specific guidelines to demonstrate effective farming techniques. Every few months or so, each master farmer will have “open field days” where local farmers come from all over for a demonstration of these techniques and some of the atendees might be chosen as potential future master farmers. It would have been far more interesting for me if people at least spoke a little Pulafuta but they all spoke Melinke only. After the session we all met up for lunch at the farmer's village and ate a feast of rice, meat, and onion sauce. It was delicious. After lunch I went around the village talking to the volunteers and the few Senegalese who spoke Pulafuta (mostly just greetings) and collected Shea Tree seeds (because seeds are fantastic).
After getting back to Kedougou city I was exhausted from having been in the sun all day and the hour or two long drive each direction. Meera was also still really busy and had a lot of work to do after her cervical cancer training session that day so I decided to stay at the compound that evening. I felt guilty not practicing Pulafuta so one of the other volunteers (who started in March) invited me to go with him to Abdulai's restaurant and I got to practice conversing. It was hysterical and they were all laughing at me and it was quite fun. Senegalese men have a habit of asking me about my kele (which means boyfriend) or “gorko” which means husband. I try to tell them that I have a boyfriend in the U.S. just to get them off my case and they usually ask why I don't also take a Senegalese boyfriend. Some of the other girls suggested learning how to tell them they are ugly and that they don't find this offensive. They get the point and think it's funny. I think if I were in their situation, I'd find a white person telling me they are ugly pretty funny too.
I left again the next morning, this time to go to my village! We were supposed to leave early in the morning, but in typical Senegalese fashion the driver changed his schedule and we didn't leave until 11. I thought it wouldn't be enough time but it turned out to be more than enough time of super awkward “sitting around”. We had a quick 45K drive to Matakosi. From the main road, to get to my village we turned onto this tiny little path that looked more like a bush path than a road. It was barely wide enough to fit the car and it was a little worrisome but we fit. We had about 3K worth of driving on this path and as we got closer the weeds along the fences were taller than the fences themselves. It was some type of mint and the smell just permeated the car. It was so nice. The green was everywhere and the corn was everywhere.
The Meera asked a little boy near by to take us to the family of Ibrahima (my ancien's house... Frank is his American name). We got there and were greeted by everyone who was there. They seemed confused about me being there but they were still very welcoming. I just started asking everyone their names and it was crazy and overwhelming and I can't remember anyone's names. My host mom arrived a bit later after someone went to tell her that I was there. I asked her her name and she replied, “Neene” (which means mother) as a very matter of factly. I would not have known she was my host mom until she told me. So I met “Neene” and then someone went to get “Baaba” who showed up later in a green senegalese outfit and a machete tied to a string around his waist. He had just come back from the fields. He greeted me and then went to change into nicer clothes. Neene asked me and Meera if we wanted corn and they insisted that we have corn. They roasted a cob for each of us and then they kept roasting more corn and they insisted (over a course of time) that we eat 4 cobs of corn each! I felt quite full after that and we weren't sure if we were going to have time to eat REAL lunch there because we had no idea what time the car was coming back to pick us up. Senegalese tend to eat late lunches and we didn't want them to cook food we weren't going to eat. They did bring us a bowl of rice with okra sauce and it was a gross texture but tasted a bit like split pea soup. After eating we insisted that we were full and they insisted that we eat more and then we insisted that we couldn't eat another bite... (our very familiar pattern of insistence). Eventually the only thing we can do is put the spoon down and walk away from the bowl politely. We sat around a while longer and my Neene cooked an oatmeal type of dish that was salty and a little sweet and she insisted that we eat even more.
In the middle of all this, the Senegalese counterparts with whom I will be working arrived. I felt unsure of what to ask them so it was awkward and uncomfortable (in typical Peace Corps fashion). Meera is a health volunteer and was therefore also unsure of how she could help. I asked about the gardens and she said that the gardens are too far but eventually it turned out that they have a garden at the school which is right near by. I asked if we could go see it. Because it is the rainy season, they have not been working on their gardens; they have been working on their fieldcrops ONLY (because they are too busy apparently). It makes no sense to me at all. I insisted that they at least show me where the garden is.
We got there and the entire back yard of the school was completely overgrown. It was literally a field of grass. As we walked further back, one of my counterparts pointed out a baby banana tree that Frank had planted. They also pointed out a large cement basin filled with water. I think it was some attempt at some kind of well but it seems like a recipe for mosquitos to me. I had no way to ask Frank about it but I will get to talk to him later.
That night we all got back to the regional compound and stayed there for one last night before returning to Thies. It was hard to leave knowing that we have to head back to the sand for another month before returning to Kedougou but at least it sparked a renewed vigor.
Well anyway... this is dragging on. More next time.
Demyst (the weeks are starting to blur together - Week 5ish?)
Blog 4 Demyst
Hey everyone. It's been another long and yet amazing week. So as I mentioned before we all found out our final sites and were were prepping to leave for our regions for a few days. Kedougou has been so talked up as the best region to go to (and it truly lives up to its reputation). We knew we had a long drive ahead of us. We were all ready to leave by 6:00 Monday morning but the driver was late (in typical senegalese fashion) so we didn't leave until 6:30. One of my region mates commented on the amusement of us all driving to Kedougou for 10-13ish hours facing each other. The sunrise was fantastic as we headed west in the back of a landcruiser with benches facing each other in the back of the car. There were 10 of us in the car... nice and cozy. We made a few short stops on the way and as we got closer and closer to Kedougou the scenery became more and more green and the grasses kept getting taller. It is currently the rainy season so right now it is green everywhere but everyone says that in the dry season there is NOTHING and then we will get to the “starving season” (towards the end of the rainy season when there is basically no food left but meanwhile it is fantastic).
We drove on the main road through Nokolokoba(?) park. In addition to seeing small children herding giant herds of cows, goats, and sheep, we saw monkeys and warthogs running across the road. There were also lots of beautiful birds too (including Gunea Hens). After we got to the other side of the park we saw a sign that said we were 50k away so it was only 3:00 or so when we got there. We approached the “city” of Kedougou. The sign for the “Kedougou Regional Compound” stared us in the face and the landcruiser pulled into the compound.
A lot of the other Kedougou volunteers were there to greet us, most of them in bathing suits or spandex shorts. They were sitting in buckets with cold water and beers in their hands. They all loudly welcomed us. Some were more willing to emerge from their buckets than others (due to their level of comfort in the buckets). We greeted every one and shook every one's hands and it was great. I thought it would take me forever to remember everyone's names. It was so exciting and so overwhelming and I immediately fell in love with the regional compound. It's basically a glorified camping site.
After our stuff was loaded off of the roof of the bus, we brought our things into the “Pepiniere” as they call it. There were many full sized mattresses set up with mosquito nets. We were told to choose a side of the bed and it didn't matter which or where. The Pepiniere was a semi enclosed area with a thatched roof which does a fantastic job of keeping things dry. I explored the compound and we have our own Kedougou disco hut. This place is magical and green and overgrown (for now) with hidden paths that don't even seem to lead anywhere. The volunteers also cooked all of us tacos for dinner and the various musicians were jamming out on their instruments. One guy can play the fiddle and harmonica at the same time. It was crazy!
My situation visiting Kedougou was a little strange because I did not have a set person I was really supposed to be staying with. The current volunteers found a volunteer who would be willing to host me but she is a health volunteer and was arranging a training that was going on all week every day on how to scan for cervical cancer (in French). I didn't have a lot of interest in attending that since it doesn't particularly pertain to my service as an ag volunteer and my French is not that good.
The first night we all stayed at the regional house. The next day, the other volunteers from my stage went with their volunteer “anciens” (those who are being replaced) and I got to hang out at the regional house and I got to hang out with the other volunteers who were in the middle of their service. In the afternoon I went with Melanie and Rob to their homestay because it was right down the road and it would allow me to see a site and practice my Pulafuta. Their host family fed us lunch and we all hung out in their family compound for a while. After that, we went back to the regional house and I put a few things together and I waited for Meera to get back from her cervical cancer training session so we could go to her homestay. It was dark by the time she was ready to go to her homestay. I borrowed one of the extra bikes at the compound and we rode about 10 minutes to her place and I had my bag on my back and the bike was falling apart. It was pretty awesome. I've missed biking and biking in the dark was certainly a new experience for me.
In the morning, we went early back to the compound so I could shower because two of the Peace Corps staff members were coming to pick me up for a day trip. We went to a site that was about 60K away and they all spoke Melinke in their village. We went to a master farmer site. A master farmer is supposed to be the model farmer for the area he is in. The volunteers who work with them create demo plots that use specific guidelines to demonstrate effective farming techniques. Every few months or so, each master farmer will have “open field days” where local farmers come from all over for a demonstration of these techniques and some of the atendees might be chosen as potential future master farmers. It would have been far more interesting for me if people at least spoke a little Pulafuta but they all spoke Melinke only. After the session we all met up for lunch at the farmer's village and ate a feast of rice, meat, and onion sauce. It was delicious. After lunch I went around the village talking to the volunteers and the few Senegalese who spoke Pulafuta (mostly just greetings) and collected Shea Tree seeds (because seeds are fantastic).
After getting back to Kedougou city I was exhausted from having been in the sun all day and the hour or two long drive each direction. Meera was also still really busy and had a lot of work to do after her cervical cancer training session that day so I decided to stay at the compound that evening. I felt guilty not practicing Pulafuta so one of the other volunteers (who started in March) invited me to go with him to Abdulai's restaurant and I got to practice conversing. It was hysterical and they were all laughing at me and it was quite fun. Senegalese men have a habit of asking me about my kele (which means boyfriend) or “gorko” which means husband. I try to tell them that I have a boyfriend in the U.S. just to get them off my case and they usually ask why I don't also take a Senegalese boyfriend. Some of the other girls suggested learning how to tell them they are ugly and that they don't find this offensive. They get the point and think it's funny. I think if I were in their situation, I'd find a white person telling me they are ugly pretty funny too.
I left again the next morning, this time to go to my village! We were supposed to leave early in the morning, but in typical Senegalese fashion the driver changed his schedule and we didn't leave until 11. I thought it wouldn't be enough time but it turned out to be more than enough time of super awkward “sitting around”. We had a quick 45K drive to Matakosi. From the main road, to get to my village we turned onto this tiny little path that looked more like a bush path than a road. It was barely wide enough to fit the car and it was a little worrisome but we fit. We had about 3K worth of driving on this path and as we got closer the weeds along the fences were taller than the fences themselves. It was some type of mint and the smell just permeated the car. It was so nice. The green was everywhere and the corn was everywhere.
The Meera asked a little boy near by to take us to the family of Ibrahima (my ancien's house... Frank is his American name). We got there and were greeted by everyone who was there. They seemed confused about me being there but they were still very welcoming. I just started asking everyone their names and it was crazy and overwhelming and I can't remember anyone's names. My host mom arrived a bit later after someone went to tell her that I was there. I asked her her name and she replied, “Neene” (which means mother) as a very matter of factly. I would not have known she was my host mom until she told me. So I met “Neene” and then someone went to get “Baaba” who showed up later in a green senegalese outfit and a machete tied to a string around his waist. He had just come back from the fields. He greeted me and then went to change into nicer clothes. Neene asked me and Meera if we wanted corn and they insisted that we have corn. They roasted a cob for each of us and then they kept roasting more corn and they insisted (over a course of time) that we eat 4 cobs of corn each! I felt quite full after that and we weren't sure if we were going to have time to eat REAL lunch there because we had no idea what time the car was coming back to pick us up. Senegalese tend to eat late lunches and we didn't want them to cook food we weren't going to eat. They did bring us a bowl of rice with okra sauce and it was a gross texture but tasted a bit like split pea soup. After eating we insisted that we were full and they insisted that we eat more and then we insisted that we couldn't eat another bite... (our very familiar pattern of insistence). Eventually the only thing we can do is put the spoon down and walk away from the bowl politely. We sat around a while longer and my Neene cooked an oatmeal type of dish that was salty and a little sweet and she insisted that we eat even more.
In the middle of all this, the Senegalese counterparts with whom I will be working arrived. I felt unsure of what to ask them so it was awkward and uncomfortable (in typical Peace Corps fashion). Meera is a health volunteer and was therefore also unsure of how she could help. I asked about the gardens and she said that the gardens are too far but eventually it turned out that they have a garden at the school which is right near by. I asked if we could go see it. Because it is the rainy season, they have not been working on their gardens; they have been working on their fieldcrops ONLY (because they are too busy apparently). It makes no sense to me at all. I insisted that they at least show me where the garden is.
We got there and the entire back yard of the school was completely overgrown. It was literally a field of grass. As we walked further back, one of my counterparts pointed out a baby banana tree that Frank had planted. They also pointed out a large cement basin filled with water. I think it was some attempt at some kind of well but it seems like a recipe for mosquitos to me. I had no way to ask Frank about it but I will get to talk to him later.
That night we all got back to the regional compound and stayed there for one last night before returning to Thies. It was hard to leave knowing that we have to head back to the sand for another month before returning to Kedougou but at least it sparked a renewed vigor.
Well anyway... this is dragging on. More next time.
Hey everyone. It's been another long and yet amazing week. So as I mentioned before we all found out our final sites and were were prepping to leave for our regions for a few days. Kedougou has been so talked up as the best region to go to (and it truly lives up to its reputation). We knew we had a long drive ahead of us. We were all ready to leave by 6:00 Monday morning but the driver was late (in typical senegalese fashion) so we didn't leave until 6:30. One of my region mates commented on the amusement of us all driving to Kedougou for 10-13ish hours facing each other. The sunrise was fantastic as we headed west in the back of a landcruiser with benches facing each other in the back of the car. There were 10 of us in the car... nice and cozy. We made a few short stops on the way and as we got closer and closer to Kedougou the scenery became more and more green and the grasses kept getting taller. It is currently the rainy season so right now it is green everywhere but everyone says that in the dry season there is NOTHING and then we will get to the “starving season” (towards the end of the rainy season when there is basically no food left but meanwhile it is fantastic).
We drove on the main road through Nokolokoba(?) park. In addition to seeing small children herding giant herds of cows, goats, and sheep, we saw monkeys and warthogs running across the road. There were also lots of beautiful birds too (including Gunea Hens). After we got to the other side of the park we saw a sign that said we were 50k away so it was only 3:00 or so when we got there. We approached the “city” of Kedougou. The sign for the “Kedougou Regional Compound” stared us in the face and the landcruiser pulled into the compound.
A lot of the other Kedougou volunteers were there to greet us, most of them in bathing suits or spandex shorts. They were sitting in buckets with cold water and beers in their hands. They all loudly welcomed us. Some were more willing to emerge from their buckets than others (due to their level of comfort in the buckets). We greeted every one and shook every one's hands and it was great. I thought it would take me forever to remember everyone's names. It was so exciting and so overwhelming and I immediately fell in love with the regional compound. It's basically a glorified camping site.
After our stuff was loaded off of the roof of the bus, we brought our things into the “Pepiniere” as they call it. There were many full sized mattresses set up with mosquito nets. We were told to choose a side of the bed and it didn't matter which or where. The Pepiniere was a semi enclosed area with a thatched roof which does a fantastic job of keeping things dry. I explored the compound and we have our own Kedougou disco hut. This place is magical and green and overgrown (for now) with hidden paths that don't even seem to lead anywhere. The volunteers also cooked all of us tacos for dinner and the various musicians were jamming out on their instruments. One guy can play the fiddle and harmonica at the same time. It was crazy!
My situation visiting Kedougou was a little strange because I did not have a set person I was really supposed to be staying with. The current volunteers found a volunteer who would be willing to host me but she is a health volunteer and was arranging a training that was going on all week every day on how to scan for cervical cancer (in French). I didn't have a lot of interest in attending that since it doesn't particularly pertain to my service as an ag volunteer and my French is not that good.
The first night we all stayed at the regional house. The next day, the other volunteers from my stage went with their volunteer “anciens” (those who are being replaced) and I got to hang out at the regional house and I got to hang out with the other volunteers who were in the middle of their service. In the afternoon I went with Melanie and Rob to their homestay because it was right down the road and it would allow me to see a site and practice my Pulafuta. Their host family fed us lunch and we all hung out in their family compound for a while. After that, we went back to the regional house and I put a few things together and I waited for Meera to get back from her cervical cancer training session so we could go to her homestay. It was dark by the time she was ready to go to her homestay. I borrowed one of the extra bikes at the compound and we rode about 10 minutes to her place and I had my bag on my back and the bike was falling apart. It was pretty awesome. I've missed biking and biking in the dark was certainly a new experience for me.
In the morning, we went early back to the compound so I could shower because two of the Peace Corps staff members were coming to pick me up for a day trip. We went to a site that was about 60K away and they all spoke Melinke in their village. We went to a master farmer site. A master farmer is supposed to be the model farmer for the area he is in. The volunteers who work with them create demo plots that use specific guidelines to demonstrate effective farming techniques. Every few months or so, each master farmer will have “open field days” where local farmers come from all over for a demonstration of these techniques and some of the atendees might be chosen as potential future master farmers. It would have been far more interesting for me if people at least spoke a little Pulafuta but they all spoke Melinke only. After the session we all met up for lunch at the farmer's village and ate a feast of rice, meat, and onion sauce. It was delicious. After lunch I went around the village talking to the volunteers and the few Senegalese who spoke Pulafuta (mostly just greetings) and collected Shea Tree seeds (because seeds are fantastic).
After getting back to Kedougou city I was exhausted from having been in the sun all day and the hour or two long drive each direction. Meera was also still really busy and had a lot of work to do after her cervical cancer training session that day so I decided to stay at the compound that evening. I felt guilty not practicing Pulafuta so one of the other volunteers (who started in March) invited me to go with him to Abdulai's restaurant and I got to practice conversing. It was hysterical and they were all laughing at me and it was quite fun. Senegalese men have a habit of asking me about my kele (which means boyfriend) or “gorko” which means husband. I try to tell them that I have a boyfriend in the U.S. just to get them off my case and they usually ask why I don't also take a Senegalese boyfriend. Some of the other girls suggested learning how to tell them they are ugly and that they don't find this offensive. They get the point and think it's funny. I think if I were in their situation, I'd find a white person telling me they are ugly pretty funny too.
I left again the next morning, this time to go to my village! We were supposed to leave early in the morning, but in typical Senegalese fashion the driver changed his schedule and we didn't leave until 11. I thought it wouldn't be enough time but it turned out to be more than enough time of super awkward “sitting around”. We had a quick 45K drive to Matakosi. From the main road, to get to my village we turned onto this tiny little path that looked more like a bush path than a road. It was barely wide enough to fit the car and it was a little worrisome but we fit. We had about 3K worth of driving on this path and as we got closer the weeds along the fences were taller than the fences themselves. It was some type of mint and the smell just permeated the car. It was so nice. The green was everywhere and the corn was everywhere.
The Meera asked a little boy near by to take us to the family of Ibrahima (my ancien's house... Frank is his American name). We got there and were greeted by everyone who was there. They seemed confused about me being there but they were still very welcoming. I just started asking everyone their names and it was crazy and overwhelming and I can't remember anyone's names. My host mom arrived a bit later after someone went to tell her that I was there. I asked her her name and she replied, “Neene” (which means mother) as a very matter of factly. I would not have known she was my host mom until she told me. So I met “Neene” and then someone went to get “Baaba” who showed up later in a green senegalese outfit and a machete tied to a string around his waist. He had just come back from the fields. He greeted me and then went to change into nicer clothes. Neene asked me and Meera if we wanted corn and they insisted that we have corn. They roasted a cob for each of us and then they kept roasting more corn and they insisted (over a course of time) that we eat 4 cobs of corn each! I felt quite full after that and we weren't sure if we were going to have time to eat REAL lunch there because we had no idea what time the car was coming back to pick us up. Senegalese tend to eat late lunches and we didn't want them to cook food we weren't going to eat. They did bring us a bowl of rice with okra sauce and it was a gross texture but tasted a bit like split pea soup. After eating we insisted that we were full and they insisted that we eat more and then we insisted that we couldn't eat another bite... (our very familiar pattern of insistence). Eventually the only thing we can do is put the spoon down and walk away from the bowl politely. We sat around a while longer and my Neene cooked an oatmeal type of dish that was salty and a little sweet and she insisted that we eat even more.
In the middle of all this, the Senegalese counterparts with whom I will be working arrived. I felt unsure of what to ask them so it was awkward and uncomfortable (in typical Peace Corps fashion). Meera is a health volunteer and was therefore also unsure of how she could help. I asked about the gardens and she said that the gardens are too far but eventually it turned out that they have a garden at the school which is right near by. I asked if we could go see it. Because it is the rainy season, they have not been working on their gardens; they have been working on their fieldcrops ONLY (because they are too busy apparently). It makes no sense to me at all. I insisted that they at least show me where the garden is.
We got there and the entire back yard of the school was completely overgrown. It was literally a field of grass. As we walked further back, one of my counterparts pointed out a baby banana tree that Frank had planted. They also pointed out a large cement basin filled with water. I think it was some attempt at some kind of well but it seems like a recipe for mosquitos to me. I had no way to ask Frank about it but I will get to talk to him later.
That night we all got back to the regional compound and stayed there for one last night before returning to Thies. It was hard to leave knowing that we have to head back to the sand for another month before returning to Kedougou but at least it sparked a renewed vigor.
Well anyway... this is dragging on. More next time.
September 28, 2011
Weeks 3 and 4 The longest weeks.
Blog 3
Hey guys. These last two weeks have been crazy at the homestay. For the most part, we had a very basic and honestly, somewhat boring, schedule.... until the last few days. We had language class twice a day every day and then we spend the afternoons and nights with our families, struggling to communicate. Our conversations are pretty basic, “I like this food”, “Tomorrow I have class at 9:30” etc. The only difference from day to day, generally, is that I understand what they are saying faster and I can respond more quickly. I have a few new words each day that stick. It's coming along slowly.
My baby sister is no longer sick and I'm feeling more comfortable sharing out of the communal bowl. Every day it's still rice and more rice and usually fish. The fish is not filleted like it is in the U.S. so I end up swallowing bones sometimes. The few bites of fish that I end up getting are pretty much my only source of protein so I can't just not eat it. I miss vegetables and I miss variety of food but at least we have a little variety of sauces which makes me feel a little healthier.
So, anyway... on to the fun “atypical” days. About half way into our two week homestay stretch I started to bond more with my family. Now that I understand more, it's easier to have conversations and more importantly, “interesting” conversations. One evening, my host dad asked me to go for a walk with him and he took me to his sister's house and we watched the sunset on the roof (not in a romantic way...). It was so beautiful. After sunset we went back home for dinner and then we picked up another volunteer afterwards and we went back to the roof. We sat up the mats and rested under the stars. From the roof we can see the lights of Dakar and the lights from the hotels at Lac Rose. The roof is one of my favorite places I have been so far.
The next night the other volunteers and I and our language teacher and our host fathers and my host mother all went to the roof. Our language teacher and the other Senegalese were having a very long Pulafuta conversation about cannibalism and shooting stars. Apparently the Pulafuta word for shooting star is cannibal. Our teacher was trying to translate for us and we had no idea what she was talking about. The whole situation was very amusing.
After that our next few days were rather uneventful until our first real day off this past Sunday. Saturday evening my Baba said, (in Pulafuta) “Hey, tomorrow, you have the day off. Let's go to Gendouf. There are cows and goats and I'll show you some fields. Oh... and the town is on a mountain.” When I asked him how far the village is, he said that it's 2kilometers away... I was dying to find out how there was a “mountain” 2K away. We had a whole fun miscommunication about how we were going to get there. He said we could walk or take a donkey cart. When he said to walk, I thought he meant “bike”. I told him what I thought was “I don't have a thing with which to bike.” when in reality I told him that, “I don't have a thing with which to walk” (basically telling him I don't have legs). There was a lot of laughing and confusion and then everything was cleared up and all better.
The next morning after breakfast, we picked up two of the other volunteers at my site and started walking to Gendouf. It was so beautiful and so green and we walked past half a dozen baobabs and my host dad was showing me all kinds of different seeds and things and identifying plants. I'm surprised he knows so much about plants since he's a taylor and doesn't have a field. It was really hot that morning so the walk felt longer than it was. We got to the tiny village. I don't thing Gendouf has more than 500 people. Only one or two of the people spoke Pulafuta but we were still somehow able to communicate. I'm also pretty certain that we were the only “Tubabs” (white people) that this village has ever seen. They brought out benches for us to sit under a tree. We sat there awkwardly with all the kids standing in a circle around us staring at us. It occurred to me that this is what my village would be like. I had been hoping to go to Kedougou but if I end up anywhere in a small green village like Gendouf, I'd be more than thrilled. I could live in that village for 2 years and we're not even 2 hours from Dakar. It really helped open my mind.
So, after sitting around, my Baba said, “let's go to the field”. We passed herds of cattle and goats on our way to the field. We got to the field and it was a lemon/lime orchard. The smell of citrus was incredible. A few older ladies were sorting and bagging hundreds of lemons. An old man was also suddenly dropped and the wind picked up. We decided to pack up and head back to thethere helping them. He brought over a mat for us to sit on in the shade of the lemon trees. He and who I presume to be his grandson brought over a kettle and a gas stove to make some tea. They were about to set it up but they seemed hesitant. When I looked at the sky I understood. The sky on one side was bright blue with pretty white fluffy clouds and looking the other way, the sky looked black. These dark clouds were fast approaching and it looked as though it were about to pour forever. The temperature in the village dropped significantly.
The village has a lean-to so we crowded underneath it. The storm was underwhelming but it was so beautiful. It didn't storm as we expected, but we had a wonderful sun-shower for about 20 minutes and then it cleared up. The wind was so refreshing especially after walking 2k in the ridiculous heat. As the rain calmed down the villagers came out and sat with us. They made tea and roasted peanuts on the gas burner. We sat around talking for quite a while. Eventually the women went to go start cooking lunch and I sat with the men and we talked and drank tea. My Baba told us that Lac Rose was only 4km from where we were and we asked if we could go. He said, “it's possible” and he asked our friend from the orchard if he could take us on his donkey cart. He agreed. The village invited us to have lunch there so we would eat lunch and then go to the Lac.
After over an hour we were getting really restless and the rain had completely stopped. While we were waiting for lunch the guy who was cooking the tea (which is a very lengthy and involved process) was chatting with us in English. We learned that he is a Chemistry student in Dakar. He invited us to see his field and we welcomed any idea that would get us out of the chairs that we had been sitting in for hours at this point. As we walked through his amazing orchard filled with fruit trees of every kind of amazing fruit you could think of in addition to countless types of vegetables and beans and Hibiscus. We passed by a grapefruit tree and he picked one and gave it to us to eat later. We walked to this one tree that was unlike any I had ever seen before in my life. It had a yellowish-redish fruit and this giant funny looking seed looked like it was growing out of the top of the fruit. I picked the giant funny looking seed off the top of the fruit and kept it (and I also picked up a few more of the funny seeds from the ground) and we would try the funny fruit later. I'm excited to have the seeds to plant later at my final site. When we finished the garden tour we sat down in the village again and shared the funny fruit which was so delicious and so juicy but had the weirdest texture (almost like a cross between a sponge and a plum). It made our mouths feel really dry despite being extremely juicy. Needless to say we didn't eat very much of it. I think in the future I can see myself eating this fruit more often now that I know what to expect.
We sat around a little more (which seems to be a lot of what we do here) and FINALLY lunch was ready. We had rice and beans. It was nice to have the protein mixed into the rice as opposed to just a whole fish on top of the pile of rice. It was delicious and we went through our very familiar charade of, “Eat! Eat!” …. “but I'm full! Really! I'm full!” We were stuffed and my host father finished eating and we thought we were ready to go and he said, “we have to go have lunch”. We were confused but we obediently followed him to another family's house where we had to politely stuff a few more bites of rice and beans into our mouths before we hit the wall of WAYYYY too much food.
We followed my host dad and the old farmer back to his lemon orchard where the donkey was grazing and the cart was laying around. We watched as the old man struggled to tie the stubborn ass to the cart. The donkey was kicking and fighting and it occurred to me that it might not be the most pleasant ride. He finally got the donkey tied to the cart and the donkey tried to kick the cart off once and ended up with a giant gash on the back of one of his legs. It certainly stopped the donkey from kicking. The cart was ready to go and we all piled on. It was a much smoother ride than I anticipated. It was also quite beautiful. We passed through so many small towns and we waved at and greeted every one we passed on the way along the sandy road. It was such a great way to see what Senegal is like.
As we got to the lake, we didn't understand why it was called the pink lake. It wasn't very pink at all. I was surprised how big it was. It was much bigger than I expected. All along the lake were giant piles of salt that people were collecting. It occurred to me how ridiculous we must have looked; a bunch of tubabs and two Senegaleses men riding on a donkey cart along the lake. We got to the end of the lake and we passed a whole lot of tourists. They were all in groups on tour busses and walking from their overpriced hotels. I wonder what they thought of us tubabs riding on a donkey cart. We walked through one hotel that was lined with so many vendors. In my entire month here, I never felt like tourist until I started walking through the hotel. The vendors all tried to sell their sob stories about how their families were broke and I tried to speak to them in Pulafuta but they all spoke Wolof and none of them knew of or understood Peace Corps or the fact that I'm living as a Senegalese with a Senegalese family. My Baba laughed at me watching me try to tell these “fake” fruit and jewelry vendors in Pulafuta that I don't want that mango or necklace. On the other side of the hotel there were “sand dunes” and “camel rides” on imported camels. The whole thing seemed so ridiculous.
We got sick of being tourists and left pretty quickly. It was only about 4k back to Sangal Kam so we decided to walk back. It took a few hours. I thought we were going to walk back on the main road but we walked back on these quiet little sand roads through these little villages. We rested at one village about half way where my Baba had family. We were all starting to get tired by this point having had walked for hours and spent hours in the sun in many fields and on donkey carts but we trundled on. We walked through several mud pits and peanut fields and baobab orchards. My Baba pointed out a monkey that ran across the road and then we approached this one tree where a dozen children were climbing the branches like monkeys and a few women were sitting there roasting cashews. They called us over and shared freshly picked and roasted cashews with us. I looked at the tree and at the shells from the nuts and I realized that that strange fruit I had eaten earlier was a cashew tree fruit! And the seeds that I had were cashew seeds! I can't wait to have some cashew trees growing. Completely and utterly exhausted we trudged on and we finally arrived back in Sangal Kam.
After showering and unwinding back at the house, my Baba was sitting in the yard looking upset. I asked him if he was tired. He said his mother was very sick. I didn't quite know to what extent because she had been sick since I arrived. I rarely ever saw her because she was in her room the entire time. My Neene and my Baba's sister were her primary care takers and they bathed her and fed her in her room. She had only come out of the house for the first time a few days ago to sit under the tree. The children were playing around her and bringing her serees (which is a type of really sour fruit that resembles unripe green grapes). That evening (after the walk), I could barely stay awake until dinner which is never until 9:00-9:30 here. I went to bed as soon as I finished dinner. I woke up several times throughout the night and it was completely crazy at the house all night. My host grandmother was throwing up all night, people were in and out refilling buckets of water from the tap, and early in the morning they called a taxi to take her to the hospital in Dakar which is about an hour or so from Sangal Kam. All her sisters came from far away (near Mauritania) and all her children came from other parts of Sangal Kam and Dale Fore to pray for her and help take care of the house while she was sick. There were so many people visiting from out of town.
I had language class as usual and our first language test in the morning and in the afternoon I spent time talking with the family that was visiting. After dinner my Baba and I picked up the other volunteers and we went to the roof for a while and watched the stars. When we got back to the house all the mats and two mattresses on top of them were set up in the middle of the yard. It was like big sleepover. My Baba told me that Pati was coming back from the hospital around midnight and we were all anxiously awaiting her return. I went to bed and I woke up several times throughout the night with commotion and chaos again taking care of this woman. The following afternoon they had a taxi take her back to the hospital. At around 4:15, everyone started sobbing hysterically and I knew this meant that she has died. I was so upset and so confused and had no way of knowing for sure what was going on or what was happening but I knew she had passed away. I went to my language teacher and explained the situation and we all (the volunteers and my language teacher and I) went to the funeral at my house that night. The women all pray from home while the men go to the mosque. They Imam announced her death over the loud speaker and it seemed like the entire town of Sangal Kam showed up for the funeral. The women were sitting on mats around the courtyard of the house and the men were at the mosque except for Jubal and Cameron who were with us. Everyone was waiting for the body to come back from Dakar. Houssey (our language teacher) explained that normally if a woman dies, the women will wash the body at the house and if a man dies the men will wash the body. They decided for some reason not to bring the body to the house this time for some reason that I couldn't understand and I began for the first time to feel the deep inequality between men and women. The women are then not allowed the same closure that the men are when it comes to death. I am having a hard time processing this. Women are outright not allowed in cemeteries. The women were still expected to provide dinner for their husbands despite the fact that everyone was grieving and could barely function.
I had to leave for Thies early the next morning to meet up with all the other volunteers and I could barely stay awake. I waited until the entire town of Sangal Kam (except for family) had left and I fell asleep on the mats outside. Before my host grandmother died I had told everyone in my family that I would be leaving early in the morning for Thies and that we would have breakfast there and I was very clear that I did not want breakfast before leaving. When I woke up in the morning, I finished packing and was ready to leave for the bus and my family literally blocked the door because I had not yet eaten. They insisted that I could not leave because I had not eaten. I reminded her patiently that I would be eating in Thies but that didn't mean anything to her... “Just eat a little”. I was unable to leave until I had eaten. I am having so much trouble processing the fact that my host mom's mother-in-law had just died and she's worried about me eating before I leave for a place where I am going to be eating AGAIN when she should be thinking about her family and herself and figuring out how to cope. It's really frustrating and really hard for me to understand and there is so little I can do to help because of my limited knowledge of language and hugging is not a part of Senegalese culture.
We finally arrived at the training center in Thies and I was able to have some time away from my family to write about all of this and to try to process the last few days but as with most of our days, our schedules are jam packed with language and technical training and today was supposed to be the most exciting day of our pre-service training because we found out where we will be placed for our final placements. I've been feeling a bit subdued trying to process everything that had just happened with my host family but it was still very exciting. There is a large outline of Senegal painted on the basketball court at the compound. They blindfolded all of us and put us on the map where we will be going. I am going to Kedougou which I have only heard good things about. It is supposed to be amazing. It is the region “with mountains and forests and waterfalls and happy children” as one current volunteer told me. I'm pretty excited about it. We will all be going to our sites for a week in just a few days.
Well, anyway... I'll be sure to keep you updated when I have some more crazy stories.
Hey guys. These last two weeks have been crazy at the homestay. For the most part, we had a very basic and honestly, somewhat boring, schedule.... until the last few days. We had language class twice a day every day and then we spend the afternoons and nights with our families, struggling to communicate. Our conversations are pretty basic, “I like this food”, “Tomorrow I have class at 9:30” etc. The only difference from day to day, generally, is that I understand what they are saying faster and I can respond more quickly. I have a few new words each day that stick. It's coming along slowly.
My baby sister is no longer sick and I'm feeling more comfortable sharing out of the communal bowl. Every day it's still rice and more rice and usually fish. The fish is not filleted like it is in the U.S. so I end up swallowing bones sometimes. The few bites of fish that I end up getting are pretty much my only source of protein so I can't just not eat it. I miss vegetables and I miss variety of food but at least we have a little variety of sauces which makes me feel a little healthier.
So, anyway... on to the fun “atypical” days. About half way into our two week homestay stretch I started to bond more with my family. Now that I understand more, it's easier to have conversations and more importantly, “interesting” conversations. One evening, my host dad asked me to go for a walk with him and he took me to his sister's house and we watched the sunset on the roof (not in a romantic way...). It was so beautiful. After sunset we went back home for dinner and then we picked up another volunteer afterwards and we went back to the roof. We sat up the mats and rested under the stars. From the roof we can see the lights of Dakar and the lights from the hotels at Lac Rose. The roof is one of my favorite places I have been so far.
The next night the other volunteers and I and our language teacher and our host fathers and my host mother all went to the roof. Our language teacher and the other Senegalese were having a very long Pulafuta conversation about cannibalism and shooting stars. Apparently the Pulafuta word for shooting star is cannibal. Our teacher was trying to translate for us and we had no idea what she was talking about. The whole situation was very amusing.
After that our next few days were rather uneventful until our first real day off this past Sunday. Saturday evening my Baba said, (in Pulafuta) “Hey, tomorrow, you have the day off. Let's go to Gendouf. There are cows and goats and I'll show you some fields. Oh... and the town is on a mountain.” When I asked him how far the village is, he said that it's 2kilometers away... I was dying to find out how there was a “mountain” 2K away. We had a whole fun miscommunication about how we were going to get there. He said we could walk or take a donkey cart. When he said to walk, I thought he meant “bike”. I told him what I thought was “I don't have a thing with which to bike.” when in reality I told him that, “I don't have a thing with which to walk” (basically telling him I don't have legs). There was a lot of laughing and confusion and then everything was cleared up and all better.
The next morning after breakfast, we picked up two of the other volunteers at my site and started walking to Gendouf. It was so beautiful and so green and we walked past half a dozen baobabs and my host dad was showing me all kinds of different seeds and things and identifying plants. I'm surprised he knows so much about plants since he's a taylor and doesn't have a field. It was really hot that morning so the walk felt longer than it was. We got to the tiny village. I don't thing Gendouf has more than 500 people. Only one or two of the people spoke Pulafuta but we were still somehow able to communicate. I'm also pretty certain that we were the only “Tubabs” (white people) that this village has ever seen. They brought out benches for us to sit under a tree. We sat there awkwardly with all the kids standing in a circle around us staring at us. It occurred to me that this is what my village would be like. I had been hoping to go to Kedougou but if I end up anywhere in a small green village like Gendouf, I'd be more than thrilled. I could live in that village for 2 years and we're not even 2 hours from Dakar. It really helped open my mind.
So, after sitting around, my Baba said, “let's go to the field”. We passed herds of cattle and goats on our way to the field. We got to the field and it was a lemon/lime orchard. The smell of citrus was incredible. A few older ladies were sorting and bagging hundreds of lemons. An old man was also suddenly dropped and the wind picked up. We decided to pack up and head back to thethere helping them. He brought over a mat for us to sit on in the shade of the lemon trees. He and who I presume to be his grandson brought over a kettle and a gas stove to make some tea. They were about to set it up but they seemed hesitant. When I looked at the sky I understood. The sky on one side was bright blue with pretty white fluffy clouds and looking the other way, the sky looked black. These dark clouds were fast approaching and it looked as though it were about to pour forever. The temperature in the village dropped significantly.
The village has a lean-to so we crowded underneath it. The storm was underwhelming but it was so beautiful. It didn't storm as we expected, but we had a wonderful sun-shower for about 20 minutes and then it cleared up. The wind was so refreshing especially after walking 2k in the ridiculous heat. As the rain calmed down the villagers came out and sat with us. They made tea and roasted peanuts on the gas burner. We sat around talking for quite a while. Eventually the women went to go start cooking lunch and I sat with the men and we talked and drank tea. My Baba told us that Lac Rose was only 4km from where we were and we asked if we could go. He said, “it's possible” and he asked our friend from the orchard if he could take us on his donkey cart. He agreed. The village invited us to have lunch there so we would eat lunch and then go to the Lac.
After over an hour we were getting really restless and the rain had completely stopped. While we were waiting for lunch the guy who was cooking the tea (which is a very lengthy and involved process) was chatting with us in English. We learned that he is a Chemistry student in Dakar. He invited us to see his field and we welcomed any idea that would get us out of the chairs that we had been sitting in for hours at this point. As we walked through his amazing orchard filled with fruit trees of every kind of amazing fruit you could think of in addition to countless types of vegetables and beans and Hibiscus. We passed by a grapefruit tree and he picked one and gave it to us to eat later. We walked to this one tree that was unlike any I had ever seen before in my life. It had a yellowish-redish fruit and this giant funny looking seed looked like it was growing out of the top of the fruit. I picked the giant funny looking seed off the top of the fruit and kept it (and I also picked up a few more of the funny seeds from the ground) and we would try the funny fruit later. I'm excited to have the seeds to plant later at my final site. When we finished the garden tour we sat down in the village again and shared the funny fruit which was so delicious and so juicy but had the weirdest texture (almost like a cross between a sponge and a plum). It made our mouths feel really dry despite being extremely juicy. Needless to say we didn't eat very much of it. I think in the future I can see myself eating this fruit more often now that I know what to expect.
We sat around a little more (which seems to be a lot of what we do here) and FINALLY lunch was ready. We had rice and beans. It was nice to have the protein mixed into the rice as opposed to just a whole fish on top of the pile of rice. It was delicious and we went through our very familiar charade of, “Eat! Eat!” …. “but I'm full! Really! I'm full!” We were stuffed and my host father finished eating and we thought we were ready to go and he said, “we have to go have lunch”. We were confused but we obediently followed him to another family's house where we had to politely stuff a few more bites of rice and beans into our mouths before we hit the wall of WAYYYY too much food.
We followed my host dad and the old farmer back to his lemon orchard where the donkey was grazing and the cart was laying around. We watched as the old man struggled to tie the stubborn ass to the cart. The donkey was kicking and fighting and it occurred to me that it might not be the most pleasant ride. He finally got the donkey tied to the cart and the donkey tried to kick the cart off once and ended up with a giant gash on the back of one of his legs. It certainly stopped the donkey from kicking. The cart was ready to go and we all piled on. It was a much smoother ride than I anticipated. It was also quite beautiful. We passed through so many small towns and we waved at and greeted every one we passed on the way along the sandy road. It was such a great way to see what Senegal is like.
As we got to the lake, we didn't understand why it was called the pink lake. It wasn't very pink at all. I was surprised how big it was. It was much bigger than I expected. All along the lake were giant piles of salt that people were collecting. It occurred to me how ridiculous we must have looked; a bunch of tubabs and two Senegaleses men riding on a donkey cart along the lake. We got to the end of the lake and we passed a whole lot of tourists. They were all in groups on tour busses and walking from their overpriced hotels. I wonder what they thought of us tubabs riding on a donkey cart. We walked through one hotel that was lined with so many vendors. In my entire month here, I never felt like tourist until I started walking through the hotel. The vendors all tried to sell their sob stories about how their families were broke and I tried to speak to them in Pulafuta but they all spoke Wolof and none of them knew of or understood Peace Corps or the fact that I'm living as a Senegalese with a Senegalese family. My Baba laughed at me watching me try to tell these “fake” fruit and jewelry vendors in Pulafuta that I don't want that mango or necklace. On the other side of the hotel there were “sand dunes” and “camel rides” on imported camels. The whole thing seemed so ridiculous.
We got sick of being tourists and left pretty quickly. It was only about 4k back to Sangal Kam so we decided to walk back. It took a few hours. I thought we were going to walk back on the main road but we walked back on these quiet little sand roads through these little villages. We rested at one village about half way where my Baba had family. We were all starting to get tired by this point having had walked for hours and spent hours in the sun in many fields and on donkey carts but we trundled on. We walked through several mud pits and peanut fields and baobab orchards. My Baba pointed out a monkey that ran across the road and then we approached this one tree where a dozen children were climbing the branches like monkeys and a few women were sitting there roasting cashews. They called us over and shared freshly picked and roasted cashews with us. I looked at the tree and at the shells from the nuts and I realized that that strange fruit I had eaten earlier was a cashew tree fruit! And the seeds that I had were cashew seeds! I can't wait to have some cashew trees growing. Completely and utterly exhausted we trudged on and we finally arrived back in Sangal Kam.
After showering and unwinding back at the house, my Baba was sitting in the yard looking upset. I asked him if he was tired. He said his mother was very sick. I didn't quite know to what extent because she had been sick since I arrived. I rarely ever saw her because she was in her room the entire time. My Neene and my Baba's sister were her primary care takers and they bathed her and fed her in her room. She had only come out of the house for the first time a few days ago to sit under the tree. The children were playing around her and bringing her serees (which is a type of really sour fruit that resembles unripe green grapes). That evening (after the walk), I could barely stay awake until dinner which is never until 9:00-9:30 here. I went to bed as soon as I finished dinner. I woke up several times throughout the night and it was completely crazy at the house all night. My host grandmother was throwing up all night, people were in and out refilling buckets of water from the tap, and early in the morning they called a taxi to take her to the hospital in Dakar which is about an hour or so from Sangal Kam. All her sisters came from far away (near Mauritania) and all her children came from other parts of Sangal Kam and Dale Fore to pray for her and help take care of the house while she was sick. There were so many people visiting from out of town.
I had language class as usual and our first language test in the morning and in the afternoon I spent time talking with the family that was visiting. After dinner my Baba and I picked up the other volunteers and we went to the roof for a while and watched the stars. When we got back to the house all the mats and two mattresses on top of them were set up in the middle of the yard. It was like big sleepover. My Baba told me that Pati was coming back from the hospital around midnight and we were all anxiously awaiting her return. I went to bed and I woke up several times throughout the night with commotion and chaos again taking care of this woman. The following afternoon they had a taxi take her back to the hospital. At around 4:15, everyone started sobbing hysterically and I knew this meant that she has died. I was so upset and so confused and had no way of knowing for sure what was going on or what was happening but I knew she had passed away. I went to my language teacher and explained the situation and we all (the volunteers and my language teacher and I) went to the funeral at my house that night. The women all pray from home while the men go to the mosque. They Imam announced her death over the loud speaker and it seemed like the entire town of Sangal Kam showed up for the funeral. The women were sitting on mats around the courtyard of the house and the men were at the mosque except for Jubal and Cameron who were with us. Everyone was waiting for the body to come back from Dakar. Houssey (our language teacher) explained that normally if a woman dies, the women will wash the body at the house and if a man dies the men will wash the body. They decided for some reason not to bring the body to the house this time for some reason that I couldn't understand and I began for the first time to feel the deep inequality between men and women. The women are then not allowed the same closure that the men are when it comes to death. I am having a hard time processing this. Women are outright not allowed in cemeteries. The women were still expected to provide dinner for their husbands despite the fact that everyone was grieving and could barely function.
I had to leave for Thies early the next morning to meet up with all the other volunteers and I could barely stay awake. I waited until the entire town of Sangal Kam (except for family) had left and I fell asleep on the mats outside. Before my host grandmother died I had told everyone in my family that I would be leaving early in the morning for Thies and that we would have breakfast there and I was very clear that I did not want breakfast before leaving. When I woke up in the morning, I finished packing and was ready to leave for the bus and my family literally blocked the door because I had not yet eaten. They insisted that I could not leave because I had not eaten. I reminded her patiently that I would be eating in Thies but that didn't mean anything to her... “Just eat a little”. I was unable to leave until I had eaten. I am having so much trouble processing the fact that my host mom's mother-in-law had just died and she's worried about me eating before I leave for a place where I am going to be eating AGAIN when she should be thinking about her family and herself and figuring out how to cope. It's really frustrating and really hard for me to understand and there is so little I can do to help because of my limited knowledge of language and hugging is not a part of Senegalese culture.
We finally arrived at the training center in Thies and I was able to have some time away from my family to write about all of this and to try to process the last few days but as with most of our days, our schedules are jam packed with language and technical training and today was supposed to be the most exciting day of our pre-service training because we found out where we will be placed for our final placements. I've been feeling a bit subdued trying to process everything that had just happened with my host family but it was still very exciting. There is a large outline of Senegal painted on the basketball court at the compound. They blindfolded all of us and put us on the map where we will be going. I am going to Kedougou which I have only heard good things about. It is supposed to be amazing. It is the region “with mountains and forests and waterfalls and happy children” as one current volunteer told me. I'm pretty excited about it. We will all be going to our sites for a week in just a few days.
Well, anyway... I'll be sure to keep you updated when I have some more crazy stories.
September 13, 2011
Week 2 The first Homestay
Blog 2
I am so so happy here all the time. I am also really sweaty here. I haven't stopped sweating since we landed in Dakar. Showers at the center have become my best friend and I miss them tremendously. Last week we spent our first week at our first homestays. So far it has been great and exciting and difficult. We have such a limited language base but it's improving every day and very quickly. I have been purposely trying to forget my Wolof because I'm already mixing it up too much with my limited Hindi and Tibetan and French. My homestay is an interesting can of worms. Each volunteer lives with a different family that speaks their respective languages and everyone's living conditions are so different. My household is more of a compound with a few homes and a courtyard and my host family and the extended family all live there. There are a ton of kids in my family but it is hard for me to know which kids belong to MY Neenee (Mother) specifically. They named me Adama, after Adam from the Garden of Eden but half the time they call me Adalai. (I find it amusing that I have two Hebrew names that are so similar in nature... Ilana = Tree and Adama = Earth). The kids are raised communally and the women of the households share the responsibility of bathing and caring for them. One of the things I love about Senegalese communities is this sense of shared... umm.... everything.... even food. For our meals, they are pretty much all rice based dishes with sauces and maybe fish and usually some vegetables. We all sit on the floor around a giant metal bowl and we all just dig in. Most of the women in my family use their hands but my family gives me a spoon to use. I'm very glad of this for several reasons... I'm sure you can use your imagination to understand why (hint... we don't have toilet paper). Two of my baby siblings are sick with fevers but luckily, I'm strong and healthy and I can supplement my diet with multivitamins (and medicine if necessary). Unfortunately, my baby siblings cannot so I'm very worried about them.
I have not had problems living with the culture and family nor have I had (too many) issues with homesickness... yet.... but I had a bit of a breakdown about language. I have to keep reminding myself that no one speaks a new language after only one week but it's hard to take it to heart when your Neenee is yelling at you about something and you have no idea what she's saying and there is no french or english to translate. It's really difficult. I spoke to my language teacher (our LCF whose name is Hussey) and she is going to have some one on one sessions with me. Languages have always been easy for me and I'm emotionally having a hard time swallowing how difficult this language has been. I think if there weren't pressure to master it in 2 months, I think it would be different. But I'm determined and I'm going to do what it takes!
A few days into our homestay the 3 other volunteers in my village and I had a really amazing experience. There was a street that was blocked off and there was music and all kinds of craziness. Hussey asked us in the evening after our language class if we wanted to go. Of course we had to go! Who would turn down music and a fun new experience!!??? The wide and sandy street where the event was taking place was blocked off on either side with a large curtain. It was 200 CFAs to get in (about 50cents). We paid and went in and sat in the plastic chairs that lined the street. There were mats on the ground too on which people would sit. There was a group of around 7 men standing at the tom-tom drums banging away. There were two guys with mics singing as well. It was so fantastic. After about 10 minutes or so of watching this music, there was a very tall man dressed in a crazy traditional costume with feathers and loin cloth and bright crazy colors and I have no idea how else to describe it. His entire face was covered in black and red facepaint, he had sharp pointy costume teeth and had his tongue sticking out with a leaf on it. He walked very slowly and intimidatingly with scary knives in each hand. As he walked by, he would turn his head slowly back and forth staring people down then leave. Soon I realized that there were four men in similar costumes to his and they would walk back and forth patrolling the audience. As time went on, the audience grew and it was almost entirely comprised of young kids most without parents there. (Senegalese raise free range children). The men in scary costumes gradually increased the frequency of their visits and would stay in the "arena" for longer and longer periods of time. They also began dancing in spurts interchanging dance and scaring and hissing at the kids and getting them (the kids) all riled up. There were two mounds of sand in the middle and a bucket of water. Someone splashed a little water out of the bucket near the mounds and the guys in costumes took their knives and stuck them into the mounds. Soon they were all dancing and it was so beautiful and amazing and the guys would go around to the different groups of kids and dance and get them to shout and clap and cheer. There was also a man on stilts dressed in the shiniest brightest clothes you could imagine and was walking and dancing on stilts over and through the crowd. It was truly amazing. I had 3 Senegalese children literally sitting on my lap and another little girl was playing with my hair. The girl who was playing with my hair was chewing on a stick (which is a very common thing here.... they call them chew sticks) and one of the guys came up to her, hissed and glared at her, grabbed the stick out of her mouth and put it in the sand mounds. It was really very funny. A little bit later, another one of the guys in costume was parading a little boy around the arena. He looked about 8 or 9 years old. The “actor” was making him shake everyone's hand an apologize to everyone individually. They took him over to where the bucket of water is and pretended to beat him and then made him dance in front of everyone. Afterwards they made him wash his head in the bucket of water. Then they let him go. I asked Hussey what was going on and she said that this is what they do when children don't pay the 200CFA to get in. It was so fun and such a great event for the kids of the village. Everyone was laughing and having a great time and then everything just stopped very suddenly. It was prayer time. After about 5 minutes, they resumed their dancing and singing and drumming and this time there were 4 more really tall Senegalese men dressed as women. They were dancing too and it was so fun and so great. It ended finally around 8:45.
Until next time...
I am so so happy here all the time. I am also really sweaty here. I haven't stopped sweating since we landed in Dakar. Showers at the center have become my best friend and I miss them tremendously. Last week we spent our first week at our first homestays. So far it has been great and exciting and difficult. We have such a limited language base but it's improving every day and very quickly. I have been purposely trying to forget my Wolof because I'm already mixing it up too much with my limited Hindi and Tibetan and French. My homestay is an interesting can of worms. Each volunteer lives with a different family that speaks their respective languages and everyone's living conditions are so different. My household is more of a compound with a few homes and a courtyard and my host family and the extended family all live there. There are a ton of kids in my family but it is hard for me to know which kids belong to MY Neenee (Mother) specifically. They named me Adama, after Adam from the Garden of Eden but half the time they call me Adalai. (I find it amusing that I have two Hebrew names that are so similar in nature... Ilana = Tree and Adama = Earth). The kids are raised communally and the women of the households share the responsibility of bathing and caring for them. One of the things I love about Senegalese communities is this sense of shared... umm.... everything.... even food. For our meals, they are pretty much all rice based dishes with sauces and maybe fish and usually some vegetables. We all sit on the floor around a giant metal bowl and we all just dig in. Most of the women in my family use their hands but my family gives me a spoon to use. I'm very glad of this for several reasons... I'm sure you can use your imagination to understand why (hint... we don't have toilet paper). Two of my baby siblings are sick with fevers but luckily, I'm strong and healthy and I can supplement my diet with multivitamins (and medicine if necessary). Unfortunately, my baby siblings cannot so I'm very worried about them.
I have not had problems living with the culture and family nor have I had (too many) issues with homesickness... yet.... but I had a bit of a breakdown about language. I have to keep reminding myself that no one speaks a new language after only one week but it's hard to take it to heart when your Neenee is yelling at you about something and you have no idea what she's saying and there is no french or english to translate. It's really difficult. I spoke to my language teacher (our LCF whose name is Hussey) and she is going to have some one on one sessions with me. Languages have always been easy for me and I'm emotionally having a hard time swallowing how difficult this language has been. I think if there weren't pressure to master it in 2 months, I think it would be different. But I'm determined and I'm going to do what it takes!
A few days into our homestay the 3 other volunteers in my village and I had a really amazing experience. There was a street that was blocked off and there was music and all kinds of craziness. Hussey asked us in the evening after our language class if we wanted to go. Of course we had to go! Who would turn down music and a fun new experience!!??? The wide and sandy street where the event was taking place was blocked off on either side with a large curtain. It was 200 CFAs to get in (about 50cents). We paid and went in and sat in the plastic chairs that lined the street. There were mats on the ground too on which people would sit. There was a group of around 7 men standing at the tom-tom drums banging away. There were two guys with mics singing as well. It was so fantastic. After about 10 minutes or so of watching this music, there was a very tall man dressed in a crazy traditional costume with feathers and loin cloth and bright crazy colors and I have no idea how else to describe it. His entire face was covered in black and red facepaint, he had sharp pointy costume teeth and had his tongue sticking out with a leaf on it. He walked very slowly and intimidatingly with scary knives in each hand. As he walked by, he would turn his head slowly back and forth staring people down then leave. Soon I realized that there were four men in similar costumes to his and they would walk back and forth patrolling the audience. As time went on, the audience grew and it was almost entirely comprised of young kids most without parents there. (Senegalese raise free range children). The men in scary costumes gradually increased the frequency of their visits and would stay in the "arena" for longer and longer periods of time. They also began dancing in spurts interchanging dance and scaring and hissing at the kids and getting them (the kids) all riled up. There were two mounds of sand in the middle and a bucket of water. Someone splashed a little water out of the bucket near the mounds and the guys in costumes took their knives and stuck them into the mounds. Soon they were all dancing and it was so beautiful and amazing and the guys would go around to the different groups of kids and dance and get them to shout and clap and cheer. There was also a man on stilts dressed in the shiniest brightest clothes you could imagine and was walking and dancing on stilts over and through the crowd. It was truly amazing. I had 3 Senegalese children literally sitting on my lap and another little girl was playing with my hair. The girl who was playing with my hair was chewing on a stick (which is a very common thing here.... they call them chew sticks) and one of the guys came up to her, hissed and glared at her, grabbed the stick out of her mouth and put it in the sand mounds. It was really very funny. A little bit later, another one of the guys in costume was parading a little boy around the arena. He looked about 8 or 9 years old. The “actor” was making him shake everyone's hand an apologize to everyone individually. They took him over to where the bucket of water is and pretended to beat him and then made him dance in front of everyone. Afterwards they made him wash his head in the bucket of water. Then they let him go. I asked Hussey what was going on and she said that this is what they do when children don't pay the 200CFA to get in. It was so fun and such a great event for the kids of the village. Everyone was laughing and having a great time and then everything just stopped very suddenly. It was prayer time. After about 5 minutes, they resumed their dancing and singing and drumming and this time there were 4 more really tall Senegalese men dressed as women. They were dancing too and it was so fun and so great. It ended finally around 8:45.
Until next time...
Week 1 The Compound.
We all arrived in Washington DC on August 29th. Many of us had been communicating through facebook and making plans to share rides from the airport to the hotel. The situation became more complicated because the hurricane shut down several of the airports and so everything seemed quite chaotic. I was pretty lucky that my flight had not been canceled from Laguardia so I made it in on time. When I landed I got a phone call from Missy saying that a group of them had arrived at the airport and were at baggage claim. I met up with Missy, Jubal, and Adrian. When we got to the hotel there were many people already there. Everyone was introducing themselves to everyone else. It was a Peace Corps frenzy.
We went through “staging” in D.C., as it is called, which basically included speeches by people who work at the Peace Corps D.C. Headquarters, activities where we would discuss our fears and aspirations about going, and most importantly a lot of Stagier bonding. Before we even left D.C. we knew it would be a good group. We only stayed one night in D.C. But it felt like a week! In the morning we all checked out of our rooms and split into our groups and drove in two buses to the health clinic where we all got our yellow fever shots.... there was a lot of walking around D.C., more bonding and then our uneventful journey to the airport where all 55 checked in, ate our last U.S. Meal for 2 years, and then boarded the South African Airlines airplane.
The plane was scheduled to land at 5:45AM. We got off our flight in the capital of Senegal in Dakar. As soon as I got to customs, I already had to deal with what we now discuss as, “unwanted attention”. The customs official gave me some compliments that were both flattering and creepy at the same time. When I got through customs, I was immediately approached by a porter who wanted money from me to take my luggage to wherever we were going. I told him no and was then greeted warmly by a tall blond man named Chris Hedrick. He is the Peace Corps Senegal program director. At 6AM we all loaded our stuff into a large truck and then ourselves into two peace corps buses and drove for about an hour and a half to the training center compound.
So far, I can tell you am am LOVING this place. I was welcomed by the mosquitos and the Peace Corps staff members. We arrived here on the Muslim holiday called Korite... (from what I understand is the end of Ramadan) so all the staff members except for the Peace Corps Staging coordinator (Mike) were on vacation. There were other 3rd year volunteers here though to help Mike out with everything that needed to be done.
Over the last few days we have been getting to know each other and we have had many survival Wolof lessons and we have begun our cultural and technical training. All the Peace Corps trainees have had interviews with the staff members to determine where we will ultimately be placed and we will find out our “permanent site” languages on Monday. While Wolof and French are the national languages, most of us will be placed in rural areas where we will learn smaller local dialects (but of course we are currently taking survival Wolof lessons because most of the country still knows Wolof). My Wolof is already getting pretty good but I keep mixing it up with Tibetan... strangely enough. The other volunteers and I like to practice our Wolof with each other and with the Senegalese staff members. One of my favorite expressions is "Amulsolo" which means, "ne pas de probleme". It turns out we won't be getting training in French at all but the little that I know will probably come in handy.
On Tuesday, once we know which language we will be learning ultimately, we will be going to our training villages. We will each have our own host family who speaks our language and there will be 4-8 volunteers in each training village. We will be living with these families for 2 months and 90% of our training is going to be mastering the language. The other 10% is going to be agriculture and cultural training. We are all so excited for Monday to find out what languages we will be learning which will also give us a general idea of which region we will be in.
Tomorrow we are going to leave the compound for the first time. It is not a very big compound so our entertainment is somewhat limited but we've been having fun just hanging out, training and learning, talking with the Senegalese staff, having jam sessions, playing frisbee or volleyball, observing the stars and wildlife etc. It has been a blast. Speaking of, the wildlife here, even just in the compound is so fantastic. We have doves that fly around everywhere and nest in the roof of the gazebo which we call the disco hut (which amusingly enough actually has a disco ball). At night we like to hang out in the gazebo and there are some bats that come to visit us and hang from the rafters. Giant flocks of bats fly over us every single evening and it's so amazing to watch. Of course, I also enjoy looking at the lizards and giant caterpillars that infest this place. http://a6.idata.over-blog.com/500x375/3/04/96/63/s-n-gal-avril-mai-2009-868.jpg This guy is my favorite kind. Tomorrow the staff and the 3rd year volunteers will FINALLY be taking us all on a tour of Thies so we will be let out of our very cushy prison.
We went through “staging” in D.C., as it is called, which basically included speeches by people who work at the Peace Corps D.C. Headquarters, activities where we would discuss our fears and aspirations about going, and most importantly a lot of Stagier bonding. Before we even left D.C. we knew it would be a good group. We only stayed one night in D.C. But it felt like a week! In the morning we all checked out of our rooms and split into our groups and drove in two buses to the health clinic where we all got our yellow fever shots.... there was a lot of walking around D.C., more bonding and then our uneventful journey to the airport where all 55 checked in, ate our last U.S. Meal for 2 years, and then boarded the South African Airlines airplane.
The plane was scheduled to land at 5:45AM. We got off our flight in the capital of Senegal in Dakar. As soon as I got to customs, I already had to deal with what we now discuss as, “unwanted attention”. The customs official gave me some compliments that were both flattering and creepy at the same time. When I got through customs, I was immediately approached by a porter who wanted money from me to take my luggage to wherever we were going. I told him no and was then greeted warmly by a tall blond man named Chris Hedrick. He is the Peace Corps Senegal program director. At 6AM we all loaded our stuff into a large truck and then ourselves into two peace corps buses and drove for about an hour and a half to the training center compound.
So far, I can tell you am am LOVING this place. I was welcomed by the mosquitos and the Peace Corps staff members. We arrived here on the Muslim holiday called Korite... (from what I understand is the end of Ramadan) so all the staff members except for the Peace Corps Staging coordinator (Mike) were on vacation. There were other 3rd year volunteers here though to help Mike out with everything that needed to be done.
Over the last few days we have been getting to know each other and we have had many survival Wolof lessons and we have begun our cultural and technical training. All the Peace Corps trainees have had interviews with the staff members to determine where we will ultimately be placed and we will find out our “permanent site” languages on Monday. While Wolof and French are the national languages, most of us will be placed in rural areas where we will learn smaller local dialects (but of course we are currently taking survival Wolof lessons because most of the country still knows Wolof). My Wolof is already getting pretty good but I keep mixing it up with Tibetan... strangely enough. The other volunteers and I like to practice our Wolof with each other and with the Senegalese staff members. One of my favorite expressions is "Amulsolo" which means, "ne pas de probleme". It turns out we won't be getting training in French at all but the little that I know will probably come in handy.
On Tuesday, once we know which language we will be learning ultimately, we will be going to our training villages. We will each have our own host family who speaks our language and there will be 4-8 volunteers in each training village. We will be living with these families for 2 months and 90% of our training is going to be mastering the language. The other 10% is going to be agriculture and cultural training. We are all so excited for Monday to find out what languages we will be learning which will also give us a general idea of which region we will be in.
Tomorrow we are going to leave the compound for the first time. It is not a very big compound so our entertainment is somewhat limited but we've been having fun just hanging out, training and learning, talking with the Senegalese staff, having jam sessions, playing frisbee or volleyball, observing the stars and wildlife etc. It has been a blast. Speaking of, the wildlife here, even just in the compound is so fantastic. We have doves that fly around everywhere and nest in the roof of the gazebo which we call the disco hut (which amusingly enough actually has a disco ball). At night we like to hang out in the gazebo and there are some bats that come to visit us and hang from the rafters. Giant flocks of bats fly over us every single evening and it's so amazing to watch. Of course, I also enjoy looking at the lizards and giant caterpillars that infest this place. http://a6.idata.over-blog.com/500x375/3/04/96/63/s-n-gal-avril-mai-2009-868.jpg This guy is my favorite kind. Tomorrow the staff and the 3rd year volunteers will FINALLY be taking us all on a tour of Thies so we will be let out of our very cushy prison.
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