Progress report

written Saturday, 1 December 2007

 

Today in have been in Senegal 8 1/2 mnths, and in my village 6 1/2 months.  My first quarterly report to Peace Corps on the work I've been doing is due in a few days.  And a few days ago, my "ancienne" - the volunteer who lived in my village before me - came to visit, so we were able to talk about the work she did and what I'm doing, and the challenges we've faced.

 

All of which has gotten me thinking about what progress I've made here and where I am now.  First of all, language: after months of struggle and despairing that I would never be able to learn Mandinka/Jaxanke well enough to actually have conversations with people (because I learn best from books, and those are hard to come by in Mandinka), I have finally gotten to the point where I feel confident that I will be able to understand people and they will be able to understand me (although this may still require me asking people to repeat themselves several times, and a lot of bad grammar and ridiculous exaggerated charades on my part).  I still have a long way to go, but at least now I feel pretty confident that eventually I will get there.  And soon I want to start focusing more on learning Pulaar.

 

Second, cultural integration: my ancienne asked me what my biggest challenge has been since coming to the village, and it's definitely related to getting used to the village here (not living without electricity or running water, like I might have thoughts, or getting used to incredible poverty, because people mostly have enough of the basics here).  I'm still getting used to the Senegalese version of hospitality, where apparently it's not rude to put your guest on the spot and make them feel uncomfortable ("Your Jaxanke is really terrible." or "Do you know everyone's names? What's her name? How can you not know her name?") - not like Southern hospitality that I'm used to.  And I'm still getting used to being asked for money and presents all the time, from my host family, friends, and people I barely know.  It still makes me uncomfortable when I have to refuse, but I've been telling myself that if they're not embarrassed to ask, then I shouldn't be embarrassed to say no.  In general it's been a big surprise to me that people here don't seem to have much desire to be independent and to stand on their own two feet, unlike Americans.  Instead they want to find someone to take care of them, to take them to America or to send them a monthly remittance check.  (Of course I am just speaking in generalities here, and this doesn't apply to everyone).  The roughness with kids also took a lot of getting used to - how hard parents will hit kids who misbehave, how much kids fight between themselves, sometimes egged on by their parents, and how even small babies are sometimes smacked.  I've gotten used to most of it now though, since no one ever seems to really get hurt, and I mostly just ignore it.  I've still got a long way to go on this whole cultural integration thing, but I am getting more comfortable here, slowly.

 

Finally, work: I've done 15 health classes/plays/porridge demonstrations since I got here, plus gone to lots of meetings about health stuff in Dialacoto.  I don't know if any of it is making a difference, but we were told in training to expect that, so I'm going to just keep plugging along.  I'm still teaching my English class, which is fun and helps me to feel like I'm being productive when nothing else is going well here.  I'm down to two students right now, but some of my dropouts said they're coming back when harvest time is over, and the two village schoolteachers have said they want to join.  (Have I mentioned we finally got a second schoolteacher? And she's a woman, too!  I'm really happy about it.)  I am still working on getting a midwife trained for the village, but that involves dealing with Tamba bureaucracy and I can't get anything done while I"m in the village, so it's a slow process.  And I just got a scale for weighing babies from Africare (an American NGO), so in January we're going to start weighing all the children under five every month, to help mothers keep track of their kids' nutritional/health status, and to spot and deal with any malnutrition problems.

 

So everything here is going pretty well and seems to be on track, except for one thing: my own health.  I expected to be sicker than usual when I first got here because of the different food, climate, and general environment.  It didn't really happen, though.  The first couple of months I was hardly sick at all, and I felt great.  I even started to think maybe my body is better suited to an African climate than to America (especially because I hate cold weather).  But the last three months or so my good luck has run out, and I have been sick with various minor illnesses about every two weeks, for two or three days at a time.  Hopefully this has just been some sort of belated adjustment period for me, and I will go back to being healthy almost all the time.  If not, I'm not sure if I'll be able to stay here.  I don't think I can take two years of getting sick every two weeks.  But right now I am healthy, so I am feeling optimistic that it will all work out.