This is what I have come to

Written Wednesday, 14 November 2007

 

 

Before I joined Peace Corps, I met quite a few returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and several of them assured me that after I had been in Peace Corps for a while, bugs would no longer bother me.   Supposedly, when they get in my food I will eat them happily, glad for the extra protein.

 

Well, I haven't gotten there yet.   But today I got a little closer to that level of "integration" as I was digging through my stash of toubab food and discovered that a mouse had nibbled into a bag of Riesens (chewy chocolatey deliciousness) that my mom sent me.   If this were pre-Peace Corps, I would have thrown the whole bag away immediately (and possibly screamed, if I thought the mouse might still be around).   But this is Africa, and I am in Peace Corps, and I have gotten used to seeing mice running around all over the Peace Corps house in Tamba (which I am pretty sure is where my candy got nibbled – I must just not have noticed it before).   Plus, if I throw away my bag of Riesens, I can't exactly walk to the village boutique to buy another one.

 

So I didn't throw it away.  Instead, I opened the bag and inspected each piece of candy, and discovered that only one piece had actually been nibbled into.  So all the non-nibbled pieces I saved.   Now what to do with the nibbled piece?  Chewy chocolatey deliciousness that has been nibbled by a mouse: is it more delicious, or more gross?

 

Finally I decided to pinch off and throw away the end that the mouse nibbled on, and then I ate the rest.   Delicious.  So this is what I have come to: I am willing to eat mouse leftovers.

Written Wednesday, 14 November 2007

This is what I have come to

 

Before I joined Peace Corps, I met quite a few returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and several of them assured me that after I had been in Peace Corps for a while, bugs would no longer bother me.   Supposedly, when they get in my food I will eat them happily, glad for the extra protein.

 

Well, I haven't gotten there yet.   But today I got a little closer to that level of "integration" as I was digging through my stash of toubab food and discovered that a mouse had nibbled into a bag of Riesens (chewy chocolatey deliciousness) that my mom sent me.   If this were pre-Peace Corps, I would have thrown the whole bag away immediately (and possibly screamed, if I thought the mouse might still be around).   But this is Africa, and I am in Peace Corps, and I have gotten used to seeing mice running around all over the Peace Corps house in Tamba (which I am pretty sure is where my candy got nibbled – I must just not have noticed it before).   Plus, if I throw away my bag of Riesens, I can't exactly walk to the village boutique to buy another one.

 

So I didn't throw it away.  Instead, I opened the bag and inspected each piece of candy, and discovered that only one piece had actually been nibbled into.  So all the non-nibbled pieces I saved.   Now what to do with the nibbled piece?  Chewy chocolatey deliciousness that has been nibbled by a mouse: is it more delicious, or more gross?

 

Finally I decided to pinch off and throw away the end that the mouse nibbled on, and then I ate the rest.   Delicious.  So this is what I have come to: I am willing to eat mouse leftovers.

Tapa-lappa

There are two kinds of bread in Senegal (not counting Dakar, where they have French bakeries and pastry shops) - French baguettes, and village bread.  Village bread is a lot better, in my opinion, because it is chewy instead of having the hard crumbly crust of French bread, and also it is more dense and filling.  And just generally tastes better.

 

Anyway, I just recently learned from other volunteers that the village bread is also called "tapa-lappa", to distinguish it from baguettes.  (In my village, the village bread is just called "bread", because there is no French bread to compare it to, but in Tamba, you have to choose between "baguettes" and "pain du village", or "tapa-lappa").  I had never heard a Senegalese person refer to the bread as tapa-lappa, so I asked about it, and learned that tapa-lappa is a Pulaar word that means "hit it and beat it".  So for breakfast this morning, I bought two small "hit-it-and-beat-its" from the bread man who stops by the Peace Corps house on his bike every morning.

A busy week

Written Thursday, November 8, 2007

 

 

It's been a really busy week and a half or so.   Monday last week, just after I came back from a trip to Tamba, there was a big ceremony in a neighboring village to celebrate the reconstruction of their primary school by the French army.   So I spent the day at the party, where they had lots of speeches (by government people, French army people, and a local school teacher), traditional dancing (some of the French soldiers danced, and the villagers thought their dance moves were hilarious), and tons of food, including more meat per person than I have ever seen in Senegal.

 

Just after that, a couple of American college students who are studying abroad in Dakar came to stay with me for a few days so they could experience village life.   I had a lot of fun showing them around.  I have to say they were much less overwhelmed by the whole experience than I was when I went on my "demyst" trip when I first arrived in Senegal; but then, they have already been in country for two months, whereas I had been here only about two days.   We spent a lot of time at the river trying to spot hippos (which I still haven't seen this whole time I've been here), but the hippos didn't cooperate.   Some monkeys did come out on the other side of the river and chase each other around for a while, keeping us entertained while we waited for the hippos that never showed up.

 

After the college students left, it was time for me to get back to real work.   So my village counterpart and I have restarted holding health classes for women, and we are also going to start going around to each compound to talk with women individually about their health concerns.   And now I am in Tamba for a few days seeing if we can finally make some progress on getting a matron (like a midwife, but with less training than a real midwife) trained for our village.  

 

And after what a nice new school the neighboring village has, my village chief (who is also my host dad) has asked me to check into getting the French army, or an NGO or someone, to fix up our school as well.   Our school is not in terrible shape, but currently not all the children in the village are able to go to school because there is not enough classroom space (or so they tell me – my first step is going to be to verify this), and there is only one teacher to teach all the primary grades.   So next week I'm going to try to check into what our school really needs, whether it's more classroom space, or just a second teacher (which we are supposed to have, but the last teacher got sick and left and never got replaced, leaving us with just one).

 

Before moving to the village, I heard from so many volunteers that I needed to be prepared to have lots of free time on my hands – that I would be reading a lot, and sleeping a lot, and would need to make a lot of effort to come up with activities to keep myself busy.   Well, I've been living in the village almost six months now, and that hasn't happened yet.  I am feeling a little cheated.   I could really use a nap.

A baboon! ...or a sorcerer?

Written Thursday, November 08, 2007

 

 

A few days ago I woke up at about 3 am to the sound of men running around and yelling.   Usually the village is pretty quiet around then (except for the usual racket of dogs fighting, and donkeys braying, and sheep baa'ing…), so I was pretty curious about what was going on.   But not curious enough to get out of bed.  The village can be kind of scary at night time. 

 

So I stayed in bed and got back to sleep eventually, and in the morning I asked about what all the racket had been about.   My sister told me that a baboon had come into the village, and was climbing around on the roofs of my host family's huts.  So the men had come out to try to kill it, but it had escaped.

 

Baboons are pretty big – about three feet tall when they're squatting, and probably weigh around 50 lbs.   So I was glad I had stayed in bed, and not gotten in the way of a scared baboon being attacked by men with slingshots.

 

Later in the day I asked again about the baboon, because I was wondering if it's really safe for me to be sleeping outside in my backyard.   Am I in danger of getting attacked by wild animals?  But this time I was told that it wasn't really a baboon that came into the village, it just looked like a baboon.   It was really a sorcerer who had turned himself (or herself) into a baboon to attack people in the village.  Much more dangerous than a baboon.  

 

The people I was talking to made sure to explain to me that most Muslim religious leaders in the area say that this sort of belief is false (clearly it is something left over from the traditional animist religion), but most people still believe in it anyway.

 

Whether it's a baboon or a sorcerer, I'm glad it's cool enough right now for me to sleep inside my hut with the door locked.

New pictures!

I've uploaded new pictures to http://picasaweb.google.com/aidworkr/SeptOct2007. 

NaggeBanks

Written Tuesday, 23 October 2007

 

 

While I was visiting the Pulaar village with my volunteer friend, we got to talking about cows and money.   My friend doesn't like all the cows around – he says they eat all the vegetation and ruin the land.  I am such a fan of nono, though, that I am not about to advocate people getting rid of their cows (it's hard enough for me to get my hands on nono as it is – I can't buy it in my village).   Anyway, I think the damage to the land is just bad herd management – if the herders would move the cows more often, before they've eaten absolutely all the vegetation in one area, the land would recover a lot faster.

 

The reason people here keep cows, besides herding being a traditional lifestyle for some ethnic groups, and besides for milk and the delicious nono, is that they function as a savings account.   People say that if they kept the money at home or even in a bank, they would "eat" the money – that is, they would constantly be dipping into it – twenty cents here for tea, three cents there for a cigarette – and it would quickly be gone.   But if they buy a cow with their money, then they can't dip into it.  They either keep the cow, or they sell it.   And selling a cow is a big deal, reserved for important occasions like paying for a doctor when you might die otherwise, or for a wedding.  So it makes sense to invest in cows, but only up to a point – after all, you have to spend time herding and taking care of a cow or else pay someone else to do it for you, and then there is a possibility that it could die, leaving you with nothing.

 

So my friend and I were discussing ways that people could save their money more efficiently and safely, and with less damage to the environment, than with cows.   I thought that if savings accounts are no good because it is too easy to dip into them, then maybe savings bonds or CDs, where you can't dip into them but have to cash it in all at once (like selling a cow) and maybe even have to pay a penalty if you cash it in too soon, would work better.   But then we came up with a simpler idea: piggybanks.  The old-fashioned ceramic kind where you put your money in a slot and then can't get it back out unless you smash it.   Maybe that could be a good way for people to save their money without being too tempted to dip into it, especially if the banks were pretty.  Of course, this being primarily a Muslim country, a pig shape is no good.  And since people are used to investing their money in cows, a cow shape makes sense.   So this is our idea: NaggeBanks (nagge is the Pulaar word for cow).  I don't know if the idea will ever go anywhere, but I'm going to keep thinking about it.

Visit to another village

Written Tuesday, 23 October 2007

 

 

The local health volunteers association (whose members are villagers, but I participate too) was supposed to have a "health day" on Sunday in a village about 45 km away.   For the health days, which is an activity they've just started recently, all the association members go to the chosen village and hold health education classes and demonstrations.   Since the village is far away, it was decided that the members would all meet on Saturday in Dialacoto, take a hired car to the village, and spend the night there.  There is a Peace Corps volunteer in a neighboring village, so instead of taking the car with everyone else, I decided to bike down and stay with my friend.

 

I arrived in the village about noon on Saturday.   The village is much farther off the road than mine is, and right on the edge of the Niokolo-Koba national park.  It felt very isolated and quiet and was very pretty.   I spent the day Saturday just talking with my friend and his villagers.  His village speaks Tandonke, which is a dialect or language related to Mandinka, and which I find easier to understand than Jaxanke.   So it was nice to feel as if my language skills had magically improved overnight.

 

On Sunday my volunteer friend, the health association member from his village, and I biked over to the neighboring village where the health day was supposed to happen.   Only to find out that the health day had been cancelled and none of the other association members were coming.  Such is life in the land of no cell phone reception.

 

The village was Pulaar, and keeping with their traditions, these Pulaars had a lot of cows.   So they gave us a bowl of "nono" ("keedam" in Pulaar, which I am trying to learn), which is curdled milk (basically yoghurt).  It was the best I've had, and I decided the whole trip was worth it just for that.   I wish I could get it in the US.  Right now I am fantasizing about getting them to teach me how to make it, and then buying a milk cow when I go back to the US.  (And where would I keep the cow?  On my apartment balcony?  That's why this is just a fantasy.)

 

After our nono snack, we went around the village to greet the chief and other villagers.   We couldn't talk to them much since we don't speak Pulaar, but everyone was really nice and friendly.  One nice old woman took a liking to me for some reason and asked my volunteer friend if the village could keep me.   I wanted to say sure, if they would teach me Pulaar and feed me nono every day, but my volunteer friend told her that my own villagers won't agree to give me up.   Poo.  The villagers did end up asking to make a formal request to get their own Peace Corps volunteer, though, so my friend is going to do the paperwork and see if they can get one.

 

They fed us lunch – rice with squash.   It was the first time I've had squash here – it was delicious.  And then when it got a little cooler we biked back to my friend's village, with a live chicken they gave us as a present hanging upside-down from the handlebars.

 

Yesterday (Monday) morning I biked back to my village, and along the way got to see a troop of monkeys crossing the road, and then just a little farther on a family of warthogs.   Unfortunately they all ran away too fast when they heard me coming for me to get a picture of them.

 

So it turned out to be a great trip, even though the health day, which was the reason I'd gone down there in the first place, didn't happen.

Sacrifice

Written Friday, 19 October 2007

Today my family sacrificed a sheep, so that my brother will do well when he goes back to school next week (he is studying to be an electrician).

I don't really understand why it counts as a sacrifice when the family still gets to eat the animal – it isn't burned like sacrifices in the Bible, or given away to the poor, which would also make sense to me – but they still call it a sacrifice.

Now little kids are running around waving pieces of intestines like streamers, and they are roasting the sheep's head on the fire.

Korite

Written Monday, 15 October 2007

 

Yesterday was Korite, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. (I think it is also called Eid Al-Fitr, from Arabic. Korite I think is the French name.) It was originally supposed to be celebrated the day before, on the 13 ^th, but the night of the 12^th was cloudy so the moon couldn't be seen, so everyone had to fast an extra day.

 

People in the village had been talking for weeks about Korite coming up – telling me that I should get a new outfit, and that we would eat so well, and that there would be dancing and so much fun. So I was really looking forward to it, thinking it would be quite the event. So maybe it was only inevitable that I was a little disappointed.

 

Korite preparations started about two days before, with the women all braiding each other's hair extra fancy for the occasion. Then yesterday morning Korite finally arrived. We had breakfast (just the usual porridge), and then about 9:30 all the men and boys and older women (pre-menopausal women aren't allowed, but I was specially invited) went to a field to do Korite prayers. It was really hot and there wasn't any shade, so I was glad it didn't take long.

Then after the prayers everyone just sat around (with the women still braiding each other's hair) until lunchtime. For lunch we went over to a neighboring compound and ate with them, so we could have a little of what they made and a little of what we made. They made couscous with a meat and potato sauce, and we brought yassa – rice with an onion and meat sauce. Both delicious, and we only get to eat them for holidays and special occasions. That was the best part of the day for me, except that my sisters said I wasn't eating fast enough, so they gave me a separate bowl to eat from. I know they were just trying to make sure I got enough to eat, but I couldn't help but feel a little excluded.

After lunch was more relaxing time (and more getting ready time for the women). I kept wondering when the big event was going to happen that the women were getting all fancy for. I had thought it was for the religious ceremony and the lunch, but the women didn't go to the prayers and they were just in their regular clothes for lunch. Finally I found out: about 4:00 was "greet the neighbors" time. The women, finally dressed and ready, walked around to everyone else's compounds to greet and show off their fancy new outfits. (I found out later that this was when everyone was supposed to be asking forgiveness from everyone else for anything bad they might have done over the last year, but I didn't notice my family doing anything besides the normal greetings).

After a couple of hours of greeting, it was time for dinner – just regular porridge, and then some pasta that was so oily I couldn't eat it. After dinner there was dancing at the other end of the village, but my sisters weren't going, so I didn't either.

So that was Korite, and the end of Ramadan, and now we are back to our regular schedule. I'm going to miss my 7 pm bowl of porridge before dinner.

We have lost a friend

Written Monday, 8 October 2007

 

 

Yesterday Lamine Ndongo, the safety and security officer for Peace Corps Senegal, was killed in a car accident.

 

I didn't know Lamine very well, but he was a wonderfully nice guy who cared about us volunteers and did his best to keep us safe and get us out of sticky situations when they happened.   He was a friend to all of us.  Peace Corps Senegal will not be the same without him.

 

Our hearts go out to his family.

A few things about being sick

Written Sunday, 7 October 2007

 

 

Last week I had a stomachache and my host mom made me a traditional medicine tea out of tree bark.   It tasted just like chicken broth – delicious.  My stomach was already feeling mostly better by then though, so I can't say whether it had much effect.

 

After recovering from my minor stomachache, a few days ago I woke up with a terrible headache and a fever.   After lying in my hut miserable for two days, and upon the advice of the Peace Corps nurse (who I called on my cell phone), I decided I needed to get up to Tamba, so it would be easier for me to get to a doctor if I needed to.   Plus my cell phone battery was almost dead, and I didn't want to be stuck in my village with no way to get in touch with Peace Corps in case I got even sicker.

 

So it was time to evacuate.  But there was a problem: I was definitely not feeling up to biking ten kilometers over the mountain to get to the main road, where I could get a car to Tamba.  I had been wondering about what would happen in this situation pretty much since I moved to the village – how was I going to get out if I couldn't bike or walk myself out?  

 

So I went and told my counterpart I needed to get to Tamba and that I didn't feel well enough to bike out of the village. So then he started running around for me trying to figure out my transport.   First option was to see if the Park Service guys could give me a ride out in their car, the one car in my village.  But no, their car was broken down.   So option two was to try to find someone with a motorcycle who could drive me out, with me riding on the back (this is against Peace Corps policy and grounds for being sent back to the US, but I was too sick to care at this point – I just wanted to get out).   But this time it was bad timing – it was Friday at 2:00, which meant everyone was at the mosque for the long Friday sermon and wouldn't be done for at least an hour, by which time I would have missed the last car going up to Tamba.   Riding out on a donkey cart was another theoretical option, except it would take at least two hours to go the ten kilometers, and by then again I would have missed the last car.  

 

Finally one of my friends offered to ride me out on the back of his bicycle.   So I sat on the luggage rack on the back of his bike, and he biked me over the mountain to the road. 

 

People ride people around on their luggage racks all the time here, so I guess it is not that big of a deal, but I still sort of feel like he saved my life (not that I was that sick, but I was pretty miserable).   And it is comforting to know that when it becomes really necessary my villagers will take care of me and get me out of the village and to a doctor.

 

Now I am feeling better and trying to think of a good thank-you present to take back to my friend.

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).