Answers to my mom's questions

written Tuesday, 10 April 2007


1. Is my host family paid?

My host family is paid by Peace Corps to give me my own room, to feed me dinner every night, plus breakfast and lunch on Sundays, and to do my laundry (except underwear, which I have to do myself). I'm not sure exactly how much they get paid, but Peace Corps says "not a lot" and the families take us because they want the cultural interaction of having an American live with them. My family certainly has never made me feel like they're taking volunteers for any other reason than because they like to, but for many families it seems that the motivation is a hope that one of their children will end up marrying the volunteer living with them and get a green card to go to the US.

Once I get to the village, though, Peace Corps does not pay the families we will be living with there, and we are expected to contribute to the family, either through money or buying food, out of our Peace Corps stipend.

2. Where does concrete for the houses come from?

I'm not sure, I'm sure it's made somewhere and brought into town just like in the US. But in the villages the buildings are made with homemade bricks, which you can see being made out in fields.

3. Do peoople own their land?

In cities I think people own land just like in the US or Europe, but in the villages there is communal ownership of the land. It is up to the village chief to give permission for people to use the land, for example if a family is growing and a new hut needs to be built.

The village chief is a hereditary position (not democratically elected).

4. How do they earn money?

My host father is a teacher of agricultural engineering, employed by the government. My host mom is a housewife.

More generally, though, Senegal has a very high unemployment rate, which has led many young people to try to go to Europe as illegal immigrants. In the villages people are essentially subsistence farmers.

5. Is there a place to go swimming?

There are swimming pools in some cities, mainly at tourist hotels, but the water isn't treated with chlorine or anything, so Peace Corps recommends not swimming in them because you can catch parasites and other nasty things there.

I am hoping to go to the beach this weekend though...

6. What vaccinations have I had?

I have had about a million vaccines, including: rabies, Hepatitis, flu, MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), tetanus, and yellow fever. Every week it seems we get two or three more shots.

The only vaccination required to enter Senegal, though, is yellow fever. Plus it is recommended to take anti-malarial drugs (I am on mefloquine, which gives crazy dreams, as I have written about before).

7. How does bathing work?

At the training center we had showers, but both in the village I visited and now at my host family's house the system is bucket bathing - fill up a bucket with water, carry it into the shower area, and use a cup or something to scoop water out of the bucket and pour it onto your head. You end up using a lot less water this way (cause you have to carry it yourself, potentially a fairly long way if you are in a village and have to go to the village well), so it's probably good for the environment, but I don't feel like I get nearly as clean as with a real shower.

8. What kind of music do they have?

The traditional music I have heard has been either drums (tam-tams) or the balaphone (xylophone) which was played at the baptism I went to. But American pop music and rap are pretty popular here (my family is a big fan of Shakira).

9. Have I been bitten by mosquitoes yet?

I get bitten by mosquitoes every day, usually after it gets dark but before I go to sleep under my mosquito net. I've been averaging about three a night, and the mosquitoes seem to prefer biting my ankles for some reason.

According to the Peace Corps doctor, even with the anti-malaria drugs you can get infected with malaria, and the drugs just keep the little malaria animals from being able to multiply in your body, until you stop taking the drug (which is why they give us extra anti-malaria drugs when we finish service and go back to the US).

So it is possible that I have little malaria monsters hanging out in my liver. But I'm over it. I just add it to the list of tapeworms and other parasites I've been exposed to and may now be harboring. As long as I don't feel sick and no monsters are popping out of my body, I'm not worrying about it.