Bowl manners

Written Tuesday, 2 October 2007

 

 

(I would have said table manners, but there are no tables here.   Meals mean just sitting around a big bowl on the ground).  These are the rules of good bowl manners in Senegal:

 

1. Always eat with your right hand; never touch communal food with your left.

2. Take as big a bite as possible.

3. Eat as quickly as possible.

4. When eating with your hands, stick out your tongue and lick your hand as if it were an ice cream cone.

5. When you are done eating, you must immediately get up and leave the bowl area to make room for other people.

 

I have pretty bad bowl manners here, just because I don't like to take big bites or eat quickly.   I am always being told that all the food will be gone before I am finished, but I always get enough.

Babies and fasting

Written Tuesday, 2 October 2007

 

 

Yesterday one of the village women came to my hut and asked me to buy milk for her baby; she said she didn't have enough breastmilk and the baby was hungry.   Her baby is one of the chubbiest in the village, and we had a conversation before about it and she said it's because she has tons of breastmilk.  So I was suspicious, and I asked her if she is fasting for Ramadan.  She said yes.

 

I am realizing that this is a big problem here – it seems that a lot of the nursing mothers are fasting, even though it means not having breastmilk for their babies, and even though Islam does not require pregnant or nursing women to fast (I think it may even be forbidden, but I'm not positive).   Anyway, I don't know why these women are fasting when it is putting their babies' health at risk, but it is making me really mad.

 

So I told the woman that I wasn't going to buy milk for her baby, that it is not as good as breastmilk and that she should stop fasting so her body can produce milk for the baby.   She went away mad, thinking I was just being stingy (or maybe that I shouldn't be telling her how to practice her religion and care for her family), and I am still mad about it too.   It's been a rough couple of days.

English class

Written Friday, 28 September 2007

 

 

I taught my first English class yesterday.   Like just about everything here, it didn't go quite as planned.  When I got back from Thies and decided I was ready to start the class, I talked to my counterpart and he picked the date and time for the first class – yesterday at 3 pm.  So after that I went around and told everyone who had told me they wanted to learn English that the first class would be on the 27^th at 3 pm.

 

But yesterday morning my counterpart showed up and said 3 pm is no good, he'll be too tired from fasting all day and some of the men go out to work in the fields around then.   So we should do it at 10 am (it was 9:30 when we were having this conversation).  I was a little annoyed with him – after all, he had picked the original time and he had had two weeks to change his mind about it.   I suspect that he wanted to change the time so that the women wouldn't be able to come to the class – in the morning they are all busy doing chores.

 

But in the end I decided it wasn't worth arguing about, so I taught the class at 10:00, just to my counterpart and one other guy who lives in his compound, since it was too short notice to round everyone else up.  But I am still hoping to teach some of the women (in a separate class now), and hopefully more men will be able to come for the next men's class.

Success!

Written Wednesday, 26 September 2007

 

 

We did the malaria skit in my village yesterday.   It was a little bit crazy getting ready for it because I biked down from Tamba that same morning, so I was exhausted and only had about three hours to shower, eat lunch, tell my villagers we were doing the play, and get costumes and props ready.

 

But it turned out really well.   The villagers loved me buzzing around as the mosquito and saying "konkoo be nna" (I'm hungry), and all day today people have been greeting me by saying "Konkoo be nna!" in my mosquito voice.   But best of all, when the skit was over we asked my villagers some questions about malaria to make sure they had learned what they were supposed to from the skit, and they got all the answers right, and even had some more questions about malaria to ask us.   And then last night after dinner the women in my family were telling the kids, "Didn't you see the play? Go get under the mosquito nets before the mosquitoes bite you!"

 

So I am happy.  We can't do the skit in any more villages because one of the other volunteers/actors is going on vacation for a month, and by then the rainy/mosquito season will be over.   But we're going to try to write more skits on other topics to perform when she gets back, and we'll probably do this skit again for next year's rainy season.

 

Now we just need to figure out a fun name for our little acting troupe…

I love Ramadan

Written Thursday, 20 September 2007

 

 

Before Ramadan started, I thought it would be a tough month to get through, with everyone fasting.   I thought I would have to do a lot of secret eating of snacks in my hut to survive – I've heard that in some primarily Muslim countries, even though non-Muslims don't have to fast, that it's rude to eat or drink in front of people who are fasting.

 

But as it turns out, since I gave up fasting I've been eating really well.   I've been making oatmeal in my hut for breakfast in the mornings, just because I want to.  My family still cooks lunch for me, since they are already making lunch for other people who aren't fasting – kids, sick people, people who aren't fasting because they have to work in the fields and don't want to be tired.   So I'm far from being the only non-faster.

 

So the only big difference Ramadan makes for me is dinner – and it's gotten better.   Instead of starving until 8:30 and then barely getting enough to eat, we have tea and porridge at 7:00, then roasted corn or watermelon for a snack, then regular dinner food around 7:30.  So except for my bean sandwich ladies at the market not having beans, I'm really going to miss Ramadan when it's over.

A walk in the fields

Written Thursday, 20 September 2007

 

 

Today I went for a walk in the fields with my counterpart.   I wanted him to show me the kinkeliba plant they make the delicious tea from – I had only ever seen the dried leaves, not the live plant.  It grows wild out in the bush, and I wanted to know how to look for it so I can make the tea myself.   Plus I'd love to take some back to the US when I go back, maybe even try to plant one, but that's probably illegal.  I wonder if kinkeliba is already sold in the US, with another name (like rooibos or honeybush, which are both grown in South Africa, I think)…

 

Anyway, after showing me the kinkeliba bush, my counterpart took me out to the fields to see all the crops.   I had no idea they were growing so many different kinds of grains here, since all we eat is rice (imported), corn, and a little millet.  But some people are also growing sorghum, which my counterpart said has more vitamins and a higher market value than corn.   Sounds like a win-win situation, I thought – so why isn't everyone growing it?  Apparently it's a lot more work for the women to pound and makes an itchy dust which gets on their skin, so they don't like it.   They could get a machine to grind it, but that's only cost effective if lots of sorghum is being grown.  So we're sticking with corn as the main crop.

 

Besides the sorghum there are a couple of other grains being cultivated, which I don't know what they are called in English, if they are known in the West.   One is called "ñoo musoo" or "women's millet" because it is very easy for the women to pound and turn into food, so they like it.   They are also growing okra, squash, and watermelon (which tastes about a million times better than the watermelon in the US).

LolooBucks

written Thursday, 20 September 2007

 

 

Yesterday I went to the weekly market, where I always buy some food supplies for my family (onions, garlic, spices), but where the exciting part for me is the chance to eat street food from the vendors there, just because it provides a change from the routine of the village diet.   I look forward to the market food all week - kinkeliba tea with condensed milk, bean sandwiches, fried doughballs with onioon sauce inside, yogurt with millet balls, frozen kool aid...

 

So it was very disappointing yesterday to discover that none of the bean sandwich ladies had beans, only bread and butter.   I guess they figured that since it's Ramadan almost everyone would be fasting and it's not worth it to cook the beans.

 

Which brought me and my volunteer friends back to our common topic of all the businesses we would open here if we had the money.   First on my list, of course, is an internet cafe closer to my village; and then I'd like to have a chain of boutiques (that's what the little village stores that just sell a few basic items are called) in every village, so that I could sell at lower wholesale prices like Wal-Mart, and of course they would have an expanded inventory compared to waht the boutiques usually sell.   But my idea this time was to compete with the bean sandwich ladies at the market by offering menu options, instead of just bean (or only butter) sandwiches and tea, to also offer coffee and omelette sandwiches (also popular in Senegal but not available at my market), and maybe some toubab-y food - juice, croissants, grilled cheese sandwiches... Oh, I can dream.   I decided that I would call my little restaurant LolooBucks (loloo is the Mandinka word for star.  I thought it was pretty clever, but it took my friends forever to figure it out, so I guess it's just dumb).

 

Anyway, so I've decided that this is what I will do if I ever win a millioon dollars (after I pay off my student loans, of course) - I will start lots of small businesses in villages in Senegal.  They will almost definitely lose money, but it would be a lot of fun.  And then if any of them did actually make money, I would turn the business over to a Senegalese person, and then slowly Senegal would become developed (that is, if you consider "development" to mean having a LolooBucks and a Toubab-Mart in every village). 

 

I am in a bit of a silly mood, if you can't tell....

Malaria skit

Written Thursday, 20 September 2007

 

 

Tuesday I went to a neighboring volunteer's village to put on a skit about malaria prevention.   I was supposed to play the malaria-carrying mosquito, buzzing around and trying to bite people and being unable to bite people who had mosquito nets – definitely the most fun part, I think.   We ended up not having enough volunteers show up to play all the parts (because of a miscommunication about what day we were doing the skit – such is life in the pre-Instant Communication age), so I also ended up playing the parts of doctor and narrator.   It was a lot of fun, at least for us volunteers.  I think the audience liked it too.  Their favorite part was when the doctor gives the malaria patient a shot in the butt – bathroom humor is very popular in Senegal.

 

We're going to try to do the skit in my village next week.   Wish us luck!

Monster in my latrine

Written Sunday, 16 September 2007

 

 

Yesterday while I was showering I heard a squawking sound that sounded like it was coming from inside my latrine (down the hole, I mean).   I thought at first I must have heard wrong – the sound was probably coming from the other side of the fence or from up in a tree.  But then I heard the sound again several times, and it was definitely coming from the latrine hole.   It sounded like a bird.  Or maybe it could be a frog?  But I've never heard of a frog sounding like that.   Whatever it is, if it's living in my latrine it's probably not fuzzy and cute.  So I have a monster in my latrine.

 

I feel like there is such a fine line here between things making me want to cry and run home to the US, and things making me laugh hysterically and feel so glad to be here having such crazy adventures.   Cockroach in my bed: cry.  Monster in my latrine: hilarious.

No more fasting

Written Sunday, 16 September 2007

 

 

My little Ramadan fasting experiment ended yesterday around lunchtime.   When I got really hungry I started asking myself, Why am I doing this again?  And I decided that if my only motivation was to have a cultural experience and to prove to myself that I could do it, then I'd already done that the day before.   And fasting was making me feel so tired that I didn't feel like doing anything besides reading and napping in my hut, and I felt like I should be being more productive.   So I gave up my fast, and hopefully today I will have the energy to get some stuff done.

One day of Ramadan down

Written Saturday, 15 September 2007

 

 

So I've survived one whole day of Ramadan fasting.   It wasn't that hard, actually, as long as I stayed busy so I wasn't just thinking about food and how hungry I was.  And it helped that it was a really cool day yesterday (73 degrees in the morning – I was freezing!), so I didn't really get thirsty.

 

After the 7 pm prayers we finally got to eat.   First we had hot tea, which they said is important so your stomach doesn't cramp when you start stuffing yourself after not eating all day.  Then everyone had a sip of holy water – they write Koranic verses on a board with ink made out of a special plant, and then pour water over the board to wash the ink off.   Then the wash water with ink in it is considered to be holy and to have medicinal properties, and they drink it.  To me it was just dirty water, and I would have preferred to skip participating in that particular cultural practice, but everyone was looking at me and I didn't want to be rude, so I took a tiny sip.

 

After tea and holy water we had moono, our standard breakfast porridge.   I was surprised to be full after eating just a little bit, after being so hungry all day, but I guess my stomach had shrunk.  A little while later we had rice with peanut sauce, with palm oil in the sauce as a special holiday treat.   Then everyone went off to the mosque to pray, and I went back to my hut.  And that was my first day of Ramadan.

 

I'm fasting again today, but I'm not really planning to stick it out the whole month.   I guess I just want to see how long I can last.  And I get tired of being treated like a wussy Westerner all the time (although in most cases it's true – I definitely can't work as hard as the women here work, carrying buckets of water on their heads, cooking over hot fires, hand-washing laundry, and farming). We'll see how it goes.

Ramadan and a cow’s head

Written Friday, 14 September 2007

 

 

An update on the cow's head: it didn't appear in my dinner last night, so I am hoping that means someone else ate it.   But I guess it could still appear today.  We'll see.

 

Today is the first day of Ramadan, as observed by my village anyway.   Ramadan is supposed to start the day after the new moon appears; some people wait until they have actually seen the new moon, and some go by when the calendar says it should appear.   So according to the calendar, we should have started Ramadan yesterday, but most of my villagers are going by when they actually saw the moon, which was last night because the night before was too cloudy.

 

So starting today, for 30 days Muslims are not supposed to eat or drink anything from sunrise to sunset.   Which means getting up at 5 am for some breakfast, then going back to bed for a while if you want, and then nothing for the rest of the day until about 7 pm, when the fast is broken with some porridge and then real dinner (or at least that's the way it is in my village – I'm sure they eat other things in other places).   And then when Ramadan ends there is a big party, with a feast and dancing and everyone wearing new clothes (except in the north of Senegal, and I'm sure in other countries, where the religion is practiced more conservatively and dancing is forbidden).

 

I told my villagers I would fast with them, or at least try.   I'm not making any promises to stick with it, though, because I don't want to make myself sick from not drinking enough water if it's hot out.  It's just a cultural experience for me since I'm not Muslim, but I think it will be fun to try.   Or torture.  We'll see.

Something I am definitely not okay with:

Written Friday, 14 September 2007

 

 

waking up to see a giant cockroach on my bed, staring back at me.

 

It happened this morning.  I was lying in bed, half asleep, half awake, planning to try to sleep another hour, when I heard something thump on my bed.  I'm used to weird noises around my hut, from birds and lizards on the roof, and donkeys and sheep outside, but since my bed is covered by a mosquito net it's pretty safe from intruders.   Or was.  So after the thump I sat up and grabbed my flashlight, which was conveniently lying right next to my pillow because almost every night there are weird sounds I need to investigate, but up until today they always turned out to be nothing, either my imagination or something outside.   But today I turned on my flashlight and there was a giant cockroach, six inches from where I had been lying, staring back at me.  It didn't even run away when I turned the light on, so I had to shoo at it with my cell phone (also conveniently lying right next to my pillow).   So I got rid of the cockroach and tried to go back to sleep.  But I kept thinking I was hearing it coming back onto my bed, and having to turn on my flashlight and investigate.   So no more sleep for me.  And I don't know how I'm going to sleep tonight.  I thought my bed was already bug-proof with the mosquito net, but it seems I'm going to have to take more drastic measures.   Maybe I can get some nice strong insecticide that's banned in the US because it's so terrible for the environment.  That sounds pretty good.

Roasted corn and a cow head

Written Thursday, 13 September 2007

 

 

Since I have come back from Thies, the corn has started becoming ripe, so we have been eating ears of corn roasted in the fire for a snack.   The corn here is denser, starchier, and less sweet than American corn – and not so good for American-style corn on the cob.  We tried making it at the Peace Corps house in Tamba recently, and despite boiling it for over an hour, the corn was still hard.   Of course we ate it anyway.  The village roasted corn isn't buttered or salted because they don't have the money for that, so we just eat it plain.   But it's still pretty delicious.

 

And now on to the part of the story you're really waiting for: the cow's head.   I walked over to my host family's compound today for lunch, and I saw what looked like a cow's head sitting in the fire.  But I thought it must be a piece of wood that was shaped like a cow's head.   I looked more closely, and saw that sure enough, it's a cow's head.  To double check, I asked one of the little kids running around: "Is that a cow's head?"   "Yep," he says, as if we have cow heads in the fire every day.  So I asked my sister, "What's the cow head for?", hoping that the answer wasn't what I was thinking.   But it is.  "To eat," she says.  Duh.

 

So I might be having cow head with dinner tonight.   I just hope it's cut up into small enough pieces that I can tell myself it's the usual mystery meat and no big deal.  I don't think I'm up for reaching into the skull and scooping out a spoonful of brains.

Baby porridge demonstration

Written Thursday, 13 September 2007

 

 

Tuesday I did my first official health activity in the village as a Peace Corps volunteer (the 2 ½ months I was in the village before I went back to Thies I was supposed to be working on learning the language and "integrating", not doing health activities) – I taught some women how to make a simple baby porridge out of corn meal, peanut butter, and bananas.

 

Malnutrition is a big problem here for babies, mainly because they aren't fed the right foods during weaning, rather than because of not getting fed enough food.   (They tend to get a lot of carbohydrates like corn meal and rice, and not enough proteins or fruits and vegetables).

 

The meeting for my porridge demonstration was, as meetings always seem to be here, a little chaotic.   We had planned to start the meeting at 3:00, but at 2:30 my counterpart showed up and said it looked like it was going to rain and we should start the meeting now (we were going to have the meeting under a tree in front of my hut).   So I grabbed my gas stove and other cooking supplies and rushed out.  Amazingly, the women were already there – usually we have to wait around for people to show up, and meetings start about an hour after they're scheduled.  

 

I was a little nervous about how the porridge would turn out, since I hadn't actually made it before – I was going off a recipe from Peace Corps.   It was too watery at first, but after cooking it a while longer it thickened up and actually turned out pretty well, except that the women inevitably said that it wasn't sugary enough.   But the women seemed to understand the recipe, and the babies seemed to like it, so I'm counting my first activity as a success, as far as successes go in Peace Corps anyway – I don't know yet if any of the women will actually make it for their kids.   But I'm hoping they will.

Back to the village

Written Friday, 7 September 2007

 

 

Wednesday it was finally time for me to go back to the village, after being gone for over a month.   Around 5 pm I went to the garage in Tamba to catch an Alham (it's not safe to bike the road toward my village in the afternoons – apparently there are bandits – and anyway I had a lot of stuff).   Even though the car was almost full when I got there, we didn't leave til almost 6:00.  Then there were the usual stops at the gas station and at the police checkpoint for the driver to have his papers checked.   Then it seemed we were finally on our way.

 

But no.  After driving for only about ten minutes, one of the tires blew out.   (I for some reason immediately thought we had been shot at and jumped.  All the Senegalese in the car had a good time laughing at me for that one).   So we pulled over and everyone piled out, and they put on the spare tire.  Finally we got going again, but by the time we made it to Missira – about halfway to my village – it was after 7:00 and already getting dark.  I didn't want to make the thirty minute bike ride from the main road to my village in pitch blackness, so I decided to stay in Missira and spend the night at another volunteer's hut.

 

So Thursday morning I loaded up my bike and rode to my village, finally arriving about 18 hours after I'd originally planned to.   I feel like that's pretty typical of life here.  I was really happy to see my host family and other villagers, which was a relief because I wasn't entirely sure if I'd be happy to come back or if I'd feel like I was going back to prison.   Probably some of the feelings of being in prison will come back in time (hopefully not until it's about time to go to Tamba again), but for now I'm really happy to be back.

I really hope it doesn't happen to me...

One of the annoying things about the rainy season, besides all the mosquitoes and flies, is how difficult it is to do laundry.  You do your laundry on a sunny morning, thinking maybe it won't rain today, or at least maybe your clothes will be dry before it rains.  But inevitably, it will begin pouring with no warning while your clothes are still hanging on the line.

 

Leaving you with a choice: leave them hanging on the line, waiting for the sun to come out and give them a second chance at drying again, or bring them inside and hang them up, where they won't dry very well, but at least they won't get any wetter.

 

Sounds like just one of the many challenges of simple daily living here.  But there is an evil twist: mango flies!  They will lay eggs in your clothes while they are hanging up to dry.  If the sun is out, it kills the eggs, which are too small to see, so you will never know and it will never matter.  But during the rainy season, lacking that bright hot sun to dry your clothes, the eggs don't die.  They lie in wait for you to put on your clothes, and then they hatch and the little maggots burrow into your skin to continue growing, creating giant painful bumps that they will eventually pop out of.  Or that you will pop yourself, thinking it is a boil or something, only to discover a little maggot wriggling around inside you that you must pull out with tweezers.

 

Such has been the sad, sad (disgusting!) fate of a fellow volunteer, who shall remain anonymous to protect his privacy (although I think he has written about it on his own blog). 

 

Just when we were all starting to calm down about our fears about parasites and malaria.  Now I am freaking out about mango fly larvae popping out of me.  EW!

A short update

written 1 September 2007

 

The training in Thies ended last Saturday, so Sunday morning I took a "sept-place" (a station wagon that holds seven passengers) back to Tamba.   That meant waking up at 5:00, getting to the Thies garage by 5:30, haggling with the sept-place driver about how much I had to pay for my luggage (the ticket for the seat is a fixed price, but you always have to haggle over the luggage charge).   Then we had to sit there until the car filled up, which in this case wasn't until 7 am.

 

Finally at 7:00 we left, but only made it about an hour and a half until the tire went flat.   Then we had to wait for about 45 minutes for the driver to change the tire.  Finally we were on our way again, but a few hours later, something went wrong with the engine.   The driver pulled us over, got out and looked under the hood, and then discovered that the engine wouldn't start.

 

We were in the middle of nowhere, and I wondered what would happen if he couldn't get the car going again.   It's not like there are lots of tow trucks and emergency services available here.  But no one else was panicking, so I just sat and waited too.  

 

Finally the driver decided that maybe the car would start if it was moving, so he got the men passengers to push the car back onto the road and then get it rolling a bit.   Sure enough, the engine caught, and then the men had to chase after the car and jump in it while it was moving.  It felt like a scene out of Little Miss Sunshine.

 

When we got to the next town, the driver decided he wanted to stop and tinker with the engine again.   So we stopped again.  For over an hour.  I don't think he really managed to fix anything, but finally we were on our way again (starting normally this time, instead of Little Miss Sunshine style), and this time we made it all the way to the outskirts of Tamba, where we had to stop so the driver could show his papers to the police at a checkpoint. (I don't understand this checkpoint system inside the country – sometimes the drivers have to stop, and sometimes they don't.   And it's not at all clear to me what the point is.  But anyway…) The checkpoints only take a minute, but when our driver came back to the car he discovered that the car wouldn't start.   I was so tired and frustrated (and feeling sick with the beginnings of a sinus infection) at this point that I could have just cried – we were so close to finally getting there! 

 

But after only a few minutes, we finally got a rolling start again, and then soon arrived at the Tamba garage, only eleven hours after leaving Tamba (the trip should have taken five or six hours).   I took a taxi to the Peace Corps house in Tamba, where I pretty much just collapsed, and where I have been holed up ever since with a sinus infection.   Hopefully I'll be heading back to my village in a few days.

 

Oh, and PS: my host family in Thies is doing well, but they haven't had any luck in finding a new house to move to.   So now they are planning go ahead and move to Mbour, where they had planned to move in a few years when my host father retires.  (My host father will have to find a place for himself in Thies for his job, and then he will go to Mbour on the weekends to see his family).   The kids aren't very happy about the move, because they like Thies and all their friends are there, but hopefully they will adjust quickly.  (I will admit that I am a little bit excited about the plan, because Mbour is on the beach, and I have a standing invitation to go stay with my host family anytime).

pictures and update on my host family

I have been able to post some pictures from the flood on picasaweb: http://picasaweb.google.com/aidworkr/Flood.

 

My host family is slowly getting their house cleaned up and getting back to normal.  They spent about four or five days this week just washing clothes and other items (by hand, because that's how it's done here, so it's really hard work).  They called a mason to their house to look at the collapsed outer wall and the giant crack in the living room wall.  The mason will rebuild the outer wall, and he said that the crack indicates some structural damage, so he will have to knock out that whole section of wall, insert some steel beams for support, and then rebuild the wall.  Luckily (at least for my host family) the house is rented, so my host family doesn't have to pay for those repairs.  But it sounds like it will be quite a while before the house is in pre-flood conditions.  They are continuing to search for a new house to move into, since my host mother feels that the current house is just not safe enough anymore, but since many families have been flooded and are now looking to move, they haven't been able to find a new house to move to yet.

 

Many, many thanks to all of you who have so generously contributed to help my family.  So far your contributions have enabled them to re-supply themselves with food and to buy new mats to cover the concrete floors, replacing those that were ruined.  I still have another installment of your contributions to give them (as soon as I can get to the bank - hopefully tomorrow), which will help them to replace their bed mattresses. (I hate that all week they have had to choose between sleeping on the hard concrete floor and sleeping on damp, stinky mattresses).

 

My host family has asked me to tell everyone how grateful they are, and to say that they wish everyone long lives and lots of money (and for me, they told me they are also praying for me to get a good husband!).

Flooded!

written Monday, 13 August 2007

 

 

I am currently in Thies for a few weeks of training.  Since it is farther north in the country than my site in Tamba, the rainy season hasn't really started here (the rains start earliest in the south and move north).   So it has been really hot here, hotter even than my village is right now, which I was surprised by.

 

But yesterday evening it finally rained a bit here, just for about an hour in the late afternoon.   Everyone was so happy to have some rain to cool things off a bit, even though it does make the mosquitoes worse.

 

I went to bed last night just a little after 9 pm, happy that for once it was cool enough to get a good night's sleep - the two nights before that I hardly slept because it was just so hot.

 

But the lovely cooling rain soon turned into a downpour.  Around 1 or 2 am (I looked at my watch, but with all the excitement later I've forgotten what it said) my host family came banging on my door to wake me up.   When I stood up to answer the door, my feet stepped into two or three inches of water.  I opened my bedroom door and saw that the rest of the house was flooded too.

 

My host family immediately rushed into my room and started trying to move my things to higher places to save them.   I grabbed my purse and various electronic items (camera, cell phone, a laptop I had borrowed from another volunteer for the weekend and was horrified at the possibility that it might be destroyed by the water), and then I urged my family to leave my stuff and go take care of their own stuff.   But they insisted on trying to rescue the rest of my stuff (just clothes, toiletry items, and some books) which by now were floating around in the rising water in my room.  

 

When my family was finally satisfied that my stuff was protected as much as possible, we went into the living room and stacked tables on top of chairs (the chairs were actually sturdier than the tables, so it made sense to do it in that order) to try to have a dry place to sit.

 

Within an hour the water had risen almost to my hips, and looking out the window at the street, it looked like it was even deeper there.   The water was moving fast, carrying lots of random objects, like a refrigerator.  My host mother wanted to send one of her boys out to try to get a taxi to take me to the Peace Corps center, but I insisted that it was too dangerous to go out and that I would stay with them.  

 

I worried that soon the water would be so deep that we would have to swim out of the house and climb up onto the roof.   And I worried that we could be electrocuted sitting in all that water (I was sitting on a metal table with my feet in the water), since I could see streetlights not too far away, meaning that the city hadn't cut off electricity to our neighborhood, even though the power was out in our house.

 

And I felt terrible for my family, sitting there and watching everything they owned floating (or sinking) in the dirty brown water.   But my host family continued to amaze me with their kindness and selflessness - all night long, they just kept telling me how sorry they were that my stuff had gotten wet and that I wasn't getting any sleep.   As if their only concern in the world was their duties as hosts. 

 

After a few hours the water finally began to recede, so that at about 5 am we could go out onto the porch and look at the yard. My host brothers went over to the door to the compound and started bailing water into the street.   We discovered that one of the walls separating my family's compound from the neighbors had collapsed, blocking the door to the latrine (rather an urgent priority of mine at the time, having been up all night - where do you go to the bathroom when you are standing in standing water? I figured out the answer, but I will spare you the details).

 

Around 6 am I called Peace Corps and was told that they would send a driver to pick me up at 7:00, and since I obviously could not continue to stay at my host family's flooded house, I will stay at the Peace Corps training center, until other arrangements can be made.  

 

So at 7:00 I left my host family, who continued to be amazingly selfless, refusing to give me my filthy, soaked clothes, insisting that they would wash them - even though I insisted that I could do it myself, knowing that they certainly have enough other work to do.

 

So I am fine, having suffered little more than the inconvenience of a night of no sleep, lots of mosquito bites, and no clean clothes of my own to change into (a friend brought me clothes to wear).   But my poor host family's house is ruined - aside from the collapsed outer wall, there are now some ominous cracks in the walls of the house.  And of course all their stuff is soaked and filthy.

 

I know they will salvage everything they possibly can - they were talking optimistically about putting the bed mattresses in the sun to dry, but given how filthy the water was, I doubt they will ever be usable again.   My host family rents their house, and my host mother is hoping to find a new house to move to, since this one doesn't seem safe anymore.  But moving will be expensive, and they don't have any insurance to help with the cost of replacing their belongings (when I asked if they had insurance, they laughed and said 'This is Africa').   And all their neighbors are in the same boat, so the African tradition of solidarity and helping each other out won't help much here.

 

So please, if you feel inclined to help, get in touch with my mom (if you know me) or email me at aidworkr@gmail.com .  I know that my host family would really appreciate the help.  And being the kind of people they are, I know they will share any assistance they receive with their neighbors.

new pictures!

New pictures up at http://picasaweb.google.com/aidworkr - in the album called July 2007.

Beach and more training

written Wednesday, 8 August 2007

 

 

This month I am back in Thies for more training, but before coming here I went to the beach for a few days for a little relaxing time with the other volunteers.   Unfortunately, during the rainy season apparently the ocean gets really rough, so it was too dangerous to do much more than get my feet wet.  And I felt really anxious and antsy the whole weekend for no reason, which I am blaming on my malaria medicine.  So it didn't turn out to be a very relaxing weekend, but it was still fun.

 

Now back in Thies I am really happy to see my old host family again.  It was a bit of a shock seeing the 2 year old girl again - she is so much bigger than the 2 year olds in my village.   I hadn't realized I was getting used to children being underweight and malnourished.

 

I have started learning Pulafuuta this week, which is a dialect of Pulaar and is spoken by the majority of people in my village.   The Pulaar people are nomadic herders and can be found in just about every country in Africa, so if I continue to work in Africa after Peace Corps it might come in handy.  But aside from practicality, it is a very pretty and funny language (the way some of the words are pronounced sounds like they have a hiccup in the middle of them), and I am having fun learning it.   And I can't wait to go back to my village at the end of the month and impress my villagers with my new skills.

A scary moment and some hard questions

written Thursday, 2 August 2007

 

 

One of the children in my village, whose parents I am good friends with, had a fever and other malaria symptoms for several days.   I knew he was sick, but I didn't push his family to take him to the health post because I figured they know better than I do how seriously to take malaria. 

 

But then Tuesday night the dad asked me to come over and look at his child.  He was covered with a sheet to keep flies from bothering him while he slept, and when I pulled the sheet down I saw that he was covered in blood.   I couldn't tell at first where the blood was coming from, but it turned out it was from a bloody nose. 

 

I hadn't heard of nosebleeds as a symptom of malaria before, but it really scared me.  (Plus I embarrassed myself from becoming very close to fainting from seeing all that blood - I had to sit down and put my head down for a minute).   I wondered if it meant that his fever had gotten so high it was popping his blood vessels somehow, or if it meant he had something worse than malaria, and might have internal bleeding.   (I have a tendency to imagine the worse-case scenario).   I told his dad the boy should be taken to the health post immediately, but his dad said they would have to wait til the morning - it was already getting dark, and there was no way to get him there except by donkey cart, which would be a really difficult trip to make at night.

 

Besides being terrified that the boy wouldn't make it til morning (it seemed like he had lost an awful lot of blood, and he was very weak), I couldn't help but think what if I were the person who was so sick - would I be stranded like this?   But no, I wouldn't - because the gendarmes would come in their truck to get me, or Peace Corps would find another way to get me help.  And because I have money.

 

The unfairness and wrongness of my life, as an American, being valued more highly than this little Senegalese boy's, is not something that hasn't occurred to me before, and you could even say that that has something to do with why I am in Peace Corps.   But that day the wrongness of it was staring me in the face, as I sat with the little boy and wondered if he was going to make it til morning. 

 

I feel like I should do something about it, but I don't know what.  How does one protest such a situation? Refuse to get medical care when I need it? That won't help any.   I can't trade my health care coverage or situation in life with anyone else.  So for now, I am just sitting here, feeling powerless and guilty.

 

Luckily this story has a happy ending: the family finally got the boy to the health post, where he was given medicine and is on his way to a full recovery.

An NGO comes to the village

written Thursday, 2 August 2007

 

 

On Monday a woman from a Belgian NGO came to my village and held a meeting.  The NGO wants to give the women's group in my village two machines, one that will produce a bio-diesel fuel out of a plant that the NGO wants my village to start growing, and a second machine that is basically a generator that will run on the bio-fuel that the first machine produces and which can then be used to power a grinder or water pump.

 

After explaining what the NGO was offering to do, the woman asked my villagers if they were interested in the project.   Of course they said yes - to them, this is like presents falling from the sky, and they risk nothing if the project doesn't work out.

 

I thought it was a rather strange way to operate - coming to the village and telling them what present they could have, and asking them if they wanted it, rather than having a real discussion with the village about what they need.   But the machines sound like they could be useful - my village could certainly use a water pump.

 

Unfortunately, though, the plant which the NGO wants my village to grow for bio-fuel is believed by the villagers to house evil spirits.   It is said that anyone who grows such a plant will soon find themselves forced to leave their home and village.  But no one told the toubab NGO woman this, because she just wouldn't understand.   (I got told about it, because I am "integrated" in the village.  This sort of insider information is exactly why I was interested in doing Peace Corps).

 

So there is a good chance the project will fail, because of the NGO's failure to understand local beliefs.   This seems typical to me of aid to Africa - good intentions, but not quite on the mark.  But there is hope - the villagers are discussing whether it will be okay to grow the plant, as long as they plant it far enough away from the village so that the evil spirits will not reach the village.   So we'll see.

Working in the fields

written Sunday, 29 July 2007

 

 

Yesterday for the first time I went and worked in the fields with one of my sisters, weeding around the peanut plants.   It was really hard work - I only lasted about two hours and my entire body hurts today - but it was fun.  I'm going back again today.

 

It made me think of my grandpa who just died - he used to grow peanuts (and other things) before he switched to raising cattle.   I wonder if he would have been happy to know that I'm learning how to farm.

Milk

written Sunday, 29 July 2007

 

 

We have had a lot of rain in the past week, which is really making things grow.  Which means that the cows are now able to get enough to eat so they can be milked.   So we have started having sour milk in our porridge some mornings.  Can't say I like it very much - the sour flavor makes me worry it will make me sick - I don't know what they do to make it sour, unless it's just from leaving it sitting around in the heat for a day or two, but it's definitely not pasteurized or refrigerated.   But I guess it's a good addition to the corn and peanuts diet.

Traveling adventures

written Thursday, 26 July 2007

 

 

I decided to go up to Tamba on Monday so I could check my mail and email and just have a break from the village.   But since I will be leaving next week to go up to Thies for another month of training, I didn't want to stay in Tamba for very long.  So I decided to take an "Alham" car instead of doing my usual four hour bike ride each way so that I could go up to Tamba and come back to the village all in one day.

 

So Monday morning I woke up early and biked the 8 km from my village to the main road.  I had been told that the first car should come by around 7 am, and it was only a little after 6:00 (I'd woken up earlier than I meant to - just couldn't sleep), so I decided to bike another 30 minutes down the road and wait for the car in front of the hospital.

 

When I got to the hospital I pulled over, leaned my bike against a tree, and waited for a car to come by.   Sure enough, right around 7:00, an Alham came by.  I waved it down, and the ticket/loading man asked me where I was going.

 

"Tamba," I said.

 

"That'll be keme fula," - two hundred - which, of course, according to the completely logical rule that all numbers must be multiplied by 5 when referring to money, meant that it cost 1000 CFA, about $2.   It's a fixed price (unless they try to charge you the higher toubab price, but this guy didn't), so I didn't have to haggle.  I said okay, and he tossed my bike on top of the van and told me where to sit - a middle row (the safest place to be in case of a wreck) with only women (which I assumed was to preevent any potential shenanigans by the men passengers and which I appreciated).

 

I tried to pay him as soon as we got going, but he wouldn't accept it.  Then about 20 minutes later he tapped me on the shoulder, which meant I was supposed to pay.   I'm not sure why they don't want to be paid right away, but my theory for now is that it is in case the car breaks down, that you don't pay until they've taken you far enough that they wouldn't have to deal with giving you a refund.   Or maybe he just needed to find change.

 

The rest of the trip to Tamba was quiet and uneventful, except for when a passenger got on carrying a live chicken (held upside down by its feet), so for a few seconds there was a chicken squawking and flapping around my head.

 

In the afternoon, around 3 pm, I went to the "garage" where all the cars leaving Tamba depart from, to try to get a ride back to my village.   As soon as I got into the garage parking lot area, several men ran up and tried to take my bike and bags for me, asking me where I wanted to go.  I think they get paid some kind of commission by the car owners for finding them passengers, but I made sure to keep a careful eye on my stuff so it wouldn't disappear.  I told the men where I was going, and they took me over to a car going that way.   I bought a ticket (a scrap of paper with "1000 CFA" and the date scribbled on it by the ticket boy), and they tossed my bike up on top of the car.   Now I just had to wait - we'd be leaving just as soon as there were enough passengers to fill the car.

 

- Which took a really long time.  I sat on a bench and talked to a nice old man who told me he drives an Alham to Kedougou (he was waiting for his car to fill up too).   He also told me he is a former soldier, having fought for the French army in Algeria during its war for independence.  I wanted to ask him what it felt like to be from a colonized country, fighting to prevent the independence of another colonized country, but I didn't get the chance.   Maybe next time I am at the garage I will ask him.

 

I did ask him about his pension, though, since I had read before coming to Senegal that there is discussion of increasing the pension paid to former French army soldiers from Senegal and other former colonies so that it is equal to the pension paid to French soldiers. (The argument, of course, is that soldiers from the colonies did the same jobs and took the same risks, and therefore should be paid the same.   The counterargument from the French government is that the cost of living is lower in countries such as Senegal, so an equal pension isn't necessary).   The man told me that his pension from the French government is very good, but that they haven't raised it yet to match French soldiers' pensions.

 

While I was talking to the former soldier, another old man came over and pretended to be interested in talking to me, but pretty soon he was just asking for things:

 

"Give me your sunglasses."

 

"No."

 

"Then give me your flip-flops."

 

"No."

 

"Then give me your change purse."

 

"No."

 

"Then give me your tote bag."

 

"No."

 

"Then buy me some kola nuts."

 

"No."

 

These conversations still make me feel awkward and uncomfortable, even though I keep telling myself to get over it since the other person never seems to be embarrassed or uncomfortable at all.   Anyway, eventually he gave up and went away, and soon after that my car finally had enough passengers so we could leave.

 

It was already 5:30, and I needed to be home by 8:00 at the very latest in order to be home before dark and in time for dinner.   Luckily there weren't any major delays along the way, so I got dropped off at the turnoff to my village just before 7:00.  I still had a 30 minute bike ride up the dirt road to my village, though, and it was starting to look like rain.

 

I told myself not to worry, though, since it has been looking like rain for a week and not raining, and anyway if it did start to rain there was nothing I could do, I still had to make it home that night.   As fate would have it, the long-awaited rain finally came after I had been biking for only a few minutes.  I was soaked almost immediately, which was actually pretty nice - I haven't been that completely weet for months, including when I take bucket baths (the heat just evaporates the water right off me, so I never manage to have more than one arm or leg wet at a time).   The dirt road quickly turned into a creek which I couldn't see the bottom of.  So the rest of the ride back was a lot more exciting than usual, although I worried about the books I was carrying getting wet.

 

But the books stayed dry, and I made it home in time for a nice hot meal of futoo nin sosoo (cornmeal with bean sauce - one of my favorite dishes).   I missed taking a nice warm shower though, since my "shower" is an open air latrine and any attempts to wash out there would have just meant getting rained on some more.   So I just wiped off the mud with a dirty t-shirt and changed into dry clothes.

 

And then I went to bed, feeling happy that I had had a "real Peace Corps experience" adventure that day.