Installation

written Wednesday, 16 May 2007

 

Training ended last Thursday, then Friday we had a free day to pack, and Saturday we went to Dakar for the swearing in ceremony, which was conducted jointly with the Japanese and Korean versions of Peace Corps.   The swearing in ceremony itself was pretty boring, but it was fun seeing everyone dressed up in their grand boubous and fancy complets, and they had yummy hors d'ouvres afterwards - mini cheeseburgers, eggrolls, sushi... We all stuffed ourselves!

 

Right after the ceremony was over, I went back to Thies to hang out with my family for a little bit and say good-bye.   My host mom gave me cups, so that I would have something to drink out of when I got to the village.  I thought it was incredibly generous, given that I'm not sure they even have enough cups to have one per person.

 

Sunday we all woke up at about 5 am to load up the "sept places" (stationwagons) we had hired to take us to our regions.   I was a little scared at how rickety the sept places seemed at first - at one point we stopped because a piece of the car had fallen off and the driver wanted to try to stick it back on - but after a while the car situation just seemed funny to me.   I was sitting in the row behind the driver, and all our stuff was piled behind me.  Every time the driver braked, the stuff would shift forward and push the seat back forward so that it forced us to lean over.   At first we would push it back so we could be leaning back comfortably, but since it kept coming forward again eventually we pretty much gave up and rode leaning forward the whole way.

 

We spent Sunday night at the Peace Corps regional house in Tambacounda, and then Monday the PCVs who have already been here for a while helped us go shopping for things we would need for our huts. (I got: a mattress, some buckets, a trunk, rope, some rubber strips for tying things on the back of my bike, a gas stove, a pot, and a teakettle so I can have my tea once in a while when it isnt too hot).

 

Yesterday (Tuesday) was finally the big day - installation (that's what Peace Corps calls moving into the village).   First one of the Peace Corps staff drove us around to meet some government people in Tambacounda, and then finally we were off to our villages.  I was the third (and last) to get installed out of the group in my car, so I got to see the other two volunteers get installed.   The second person to get installed is the first volunteer her village has ever had, so when we drove up to her village the whole village was out to welcome her, with some boys doing some sort of traditional dance and the village chief giving a speech.   (I took pictures of the dancers, which I'll try to post).  It was really touching that the village was so excited to have her come, but I also found it a little intimidating - people here seem to think that we can do so much for them, and I am afraid that they will be disappointed when they discover that we can't solve every problem in two years.

 

Finally it was my turn.  I am the second volunteer (or maybe third, I think there may have been someone here a long time ago), so no big ceremony for me, which was fine with me.   But several old men, who I presume are the village elders, were there to greet me, and some women were there as well, although they stood kind of far away.   They told me my village name will be Khadija Tanjian (which I think is really pretty).  They also said they're going to have a baptism ceremony for me to officially name me, but I'm not sure if they were serious.   Then they said a prayer for me, which I thought was really nice.

 

After all the official stuff was over, I finally got to check out my hut.  It is a palace!   What qualifies a hut as a palace, you ask?  It has two rooms - a "living room" and a bedroom, screen doors, a nice backyard area which will be nice for relaxing in, and the most advanced, sophisticated kind of latrine.   What makes a latrine sophisticated, you wonder?  Well, instead of just being a hole in the ground, it has a tall pole covered with mesh next to the hole that goes down into the latrine, which is supposed to catch flies and vent bad odors away.

 

After unpacking for a little bit, I went over to my family's compound for dinner.  We had "futoo", which was millet with some kind of peanut sauce.   It wasn't bad, but there was definitely a little sand mixed in.  After dinner I sat around with the family for a little bit, and then I said I was tired and going to bed.   My sister insisted on walking me over to my hut since it was dark out, and about five little kids tagged along.  I hadn't unpacked my sheets and made my bed yet, so she insisted on helping me make my bed, and then took my mattress outside to my little backyard, because it's too hot to sleep inside. Then she said something like, hey, you've got a huge bed, how about letting Khadija (my five-year-old niece or cousin or something) sleep with you?   So somehow I ended up with a kid sleeping in bed with me.  It wasn't bad, except that I hadn't planned to go to bed right that minute - I was going to stay up and unpack and write letters and read a little bit.   But my sister wouldn't leave til I was in the bed with Khadija, so finally I gave up and just went to bed.  I think tonight I'm going to try saying that I need to go study or something, and see how that works out.  

 

I don't remember if I mentioned this when I wrote about the village I visited when I first got to Senegal, but showering outside is really nice - especially when the water is cool and the sun is hot.   And sleeping outside is really nice too - without electricity, you can see about a million stars.  Contrary to what you might expect though, it's really loud here at night, which (at least until I get used to it) makes it really difficult to sleep.   I thought I had it bad in D.C. with all the traffic and sirens, but I think I prefer the sirens to the donkey sounds, because the noise they make sounds like they're in incredible pain and about to die.

 

Anyway, after not very much sleep last night, I got up at about 6 am (I figured getting up early was my best chance to get some time by myself - but no such luck, my little shadow/spy Khadija followed me around the whole time, until I finally threw her out so I could use the bathroom.

 

After breakfast ("monoo" - millet porridge - not bad) my counterpart, who is a health education volunteer from the village, came to get me, and we went on a really nice 10 kilometer bike ride on a dirt road through the bush to a village a few towns over where they were holding the "lumoo", the weekly market.  He helped me buy some stuff I needed (soap, a curtain for my front door which doesn't have a screen door) and some food to give to my family, and then we rode back home.  

 

During the bike ride I noticed that there were a lot of trees with raggedy clothes up in them.  I asked Mamadou, my counterpart, if they were being hung up to dry, but he said no, they are old clothes that are being thrown away; old clothes must be thrown into trees because of a taboo, he said, but he couldn't really explain it to me other than to say that it is better for the clothes to go up than down.

 

Back in the village it was lunch time with the family (rice with peanut sauce and a little fish, no vegetables).   After lunch I tried to get away for a while by myself by telling them I was going to go take a nap, but it didn't work very well because apparently it's not rude at all to come up and stare at people (or at least toubabs) through their windows, so they caught me not sleeping and trying to do other things instead (like write for my blog!), so then I got called to go hang out with the family some more.

 

I was warned before I got "installed" that I would probably have a lot of free time and finding things to do to fill it would be a challenge.   So far, though, that hasn't happened.  I feel a little like I'm in prison, with people making my schedule for me and a troop of kids guarding me all the time.   I'm going to just say no to having a kid sleep with me tonight, and hopefully tomorrow will go a little better.  My counterpart says he's going to take me to Dialacoto, a town about 8 kilometers away, where the health post I am associated with is located, so I can greet my other counterpart who works there.