I'm not going to write about what I eat here anymore, unless it changes, because it seems that it is always going to be the same: millet porridge for breakfast, rice with peanut sauce for lunch, and millet with peanut sauce for dinner, with the occasional mango or banana for a snack.
written Friday, 18 May 2007
Yesterday before dinner my counterpart took me around the village to introduce me to the villagers. We went to 15 or 20 compounds, where I had to speak a combination of: Jaxanke, Mandinka, French, Wolof, Pulaar, and Serrer (okay, I don't know any Serrer at all, so at the Serrer house I just smiled while Mamadou talked). I think I improved my greeting skills a lot during the couple of hours we were out, and hopefully made a good first impression with the villagers. I definitely need to learn some more local languages, though!
written Thursday, 17 May 2007
Yesterday I hung around with my host family for a while after dinner (dry, sandy millet, but it actually wasn't bad), so my five-year-old jailer was asleep before I went back to my hut, which saved me from having to refuse to let her sleep with me.
I got up at 5:30 this morning, when the muezzin started (the mosque is right across from my hut) so that I would be sure to have some time to myself before my jailers showed up. Which they did, promptly at 7:00, to tell me to come eat breakfast (millet porridge again - it will probably be that every single day). That hour and a half of free time really helped me, so today I'm not feeling like I'm in prison anymore and I'm just enjoying myself.
After brerakfast my counterpart Mamadou came to get me, and we biked to Dialacoto, a small town about 10 km away, where we greeted my other counterpart at the health post there and then went to meet the gendarmes (regional police, kind of like a sheriff or state police) and the commisariat rurale (I have no idea what they do, but apparently they're important). I was also supposed to meet the Dialacoto village chief, but apparently he's out of town, so I'll have to try to meet him next time I go to Dialacoto. Anyway, everyone gave the standard speeches to welcome me and wish me a good stay in Senegal, and the gendarmes promised to look out for me and protect me from any potential bad guys.
After greeting everyone we headed back to my village, and along the way we passed through a village where Mamadou said my host family used to live; they moved to the village where they're living now because there wasn't enough land to cultivate in the first village. There was a funeral going on in the village as we passed through; Mamadou said it was a relative of my host family's (and therefore my relative) and they were holding the ceremony for the seventh day after the death (funeral ceremonies are held the first day after a death, the third day, the seventh day, and I forget what after that, up to 40 days). So we stopped in the village a while to show respect, and we gave a little money to the family because that is the custom - because they have to provide food for all the people who show up and who can stay for as long as they want during the 40 days of mourning. I gave 1000 francs, which is about $2.
Back at home, I had lunch with my family (rice with "maffe" sauce, and a little piece of meat). When I first got here, my family gave me a spoon to eat with since I was a special guest, but now apparently that period is over, so I'm supposed to start eating with my hands like everyone else. Which is fine with me, but it's a lot harder than you might think - try eating rice with your hands sometime, and see how much ends up in your mouth and how much on the floor. Anyway, so I ate lunch with my hands, with my host sisters laughing at me and trying to show me how to scoop up the rice and squish it into a ball so it's easier to get in your mouth.
After lunch I managed to wash some clothes - in a bucket, by hand, but I left them to soak in the soapy water overnight, so they came out pretty clean in spite of my bad clothes-washing skills. Then one of my host brothers came to get me to teach me some Jaxanke - I think it's really cute how they're always asking me where my notebook is so I can write things down.
Speaking of Jaxanke, here is the actual language situation in my village: my host family speaks Jaxanke, as do a lot of other people, and then a bunch of people speak Pulaar. I don't know enough people here yet to have a feel for the proportions of who speaks what. Some people also speak Mandinka, but it's definitely a minority language. So it looks like I'll mainly be learning Jaxanke and Pulaar from now on.
written Thursday, 17 May 2007
Some things I can already tell I will really miss when I leave here:
written Wednesday, 16 May 2007
Training ended last Thursday, then Friday we had a free day to pack, and Saturday we went to Dakar for the swearing in ceremony, which was conducted jointly with the Japanese and Korean versions of Peace Corps. The swearing in ceremony itself was pretty boring, but it was fun seeing everyone dressed up in their grand boubous and fancy complets, and they had yummy hors d'ouvres afterwards - mini cheeseburgers, eggrolls, sushi... We all stuffed ourselves!
Right after the ceremony was over, I went back to Thies to hang out with my family for a little bit and say good-bye. My host mom gave me cups, so that I would have something to drink out of when I got to the village. I thought it was incredibly generous, given that I'm not sure they even have enough cups to have one per person.
Sunday we all woke up at about 5 am to load up the "sept places" (stationwagons) we had hired to take us to our regions. I was a little scared at how rickety the sept places seemed at first - at one point we stopped because a piece of the car had fallen off and the driver wanted to try to stick it back on - but after a while the car situation just seemed funny to me. I was sitting in the row behind the driver, and all our stuff was piled behind me. Every time the driver braked, the stuff would shift forward and push the seat back forward so that it forced us to lean over. At first we would push it back so we could be leaning back comfortably, but since it kept coming forward again eventually we pretty much gave up and rode leaning forward the whole way.
We spent Sunday night at the Peace Corps regional house in Tambacounda, and then Monday the PCVs who have already been here for a while helped us go shopping for things we would need for our huts. (I got: a mattress, some buckets, a trunk, rope, some rubber strips for tying things on the back of my bike, a gas stove, a pot, and a teakettle so I can have my tea once in a while when it isnt too hot).
Yesterday (Tuesday) was finally the big day - installation (that's what Peace Corps calls moving into the village). First one of the Peace Corps staff drove us around to meet some government people in Tambacounda, and then finally we were off to our villages. I was the third (and last) to get installed out of the group in my car, so I got to see the other two volunteers get installed. The second person to get installed is the first volunteer her village has ever had, so when we drove up to her village the whole village was out to welcome her, with some boys doing some sort of traditional dance and the village chief giving a speech. (I took pictures of the dancers, which I'll try to post). It was really touching that the village was so excited to have her come, but I also found it a little intimidating - people here seem to think that we can do so much for them, and I am afraid that they will be disappointed when they discover that we can't solve every problem in two years.
Finally it was my turn. I am the second volunteer (or maybe third, I think there may have been someone here a long time ago), so no big ceremony for me, which was fine with me. But several old men, who I presume are the village elders, were there to greet me, and some women were there as well, although they stood kind of far away. They told me my village name will be Khadija Tanjian (which I think is really pretty). They also said they're going to have a baptism ceremony for me to officially name me, but I'm not sure if they were serious. Then they said a prayer for me, which I thought was really nice.
After all the official stuff was over, I finally got to check out my hut. It is a palace! What qualifies a hut as a palace, you ask? It has two rooms - a "living room" and a bedroom, screen doors, a nice backyard area which will be nice for relaxing in, and the most advanced, sophisticated kind of latrine. What makes a latrine sophisticated, you wonder? Well, instead of just being a hole in the ground, it has a tall pole covered with mesh next to the hole that goes down into the latrine, which is supposed to catch flies and vent bad odors away.
After unpacking for a little bit, I went over to my family's compound for dinner. We had "futoo", which was millet with some kind of peanut sauce. It wasn't bad, but there was definitely a little sand mixed in. After dinner I sat around with the family for a little bit, and then I said I was tired and going to bed. My sister insisted on walking me over to my hut since it was dark out, and about five little kids tagged along. I hadn't unpacked my sheets and made my bed yet, so she insisted on helping me make my bed, and then took my mattress outside to my little backyard, because it's too hot to sleep inside. Then she said something like, hey, you've got a huge bed, how about letting Khadija (my five-year-old niece or cousin or something) sleep with you? So somehow I ended up with a kid sleeping in bed with me. It wasn't bad, except that I hadn't planned to go to bed right that minute - I was going to stay up and unpack and write letters and read a little bit. But my sister wouldn't leave til I was in the bed with Khadija, so finally I gave up and just went to bed. I think tonight I'm going to try saying that I need to go study or something, and see how that works out.
I don't remember if I mentioned this when I wrote about the village I visited when I first got to Senegal, but showering outside is really nice - especially when the water is cool and the sun is hot. And sleeping outside is really nice too - without electricity, you can see about a million stars. Contrary to what you might expect though, it's really loud here at night, which (at least until I get used to it) makes it really difficult to sleep. I thought I had it bad in D.C. with all the traffic and sirens, but I think I prefer the sirens to the donkey sounds, because the noise they make sounds like they're in incredible pain and about to die.
Anyway, after not very much sleep last night, I got up at about 6 am (I figured getting up early was my best chance to get some time by myself - but no such luck, my little shadow/spy Khadija followed me around the whole time, until I finally threw her out so I could use the bathroom.
After breakfast ("monoo" - millet porridge - not bad) my counterpart, who is a health education volunteer from the village, came to get me, and we went on a really nice 10 kilometer bike ride on a dirt road through the bush to a village a few towns over where they were holding the "lumoo", the weekly market. He helped me buy some stuff I needed (soap, a curtain for my front door which doesn't have a screen door) and some food to give to my family, and then we rode back home.
During the bike ride I noticed that there were a lot of trees with raggedy clothes up in them. I asked Mamadou, my counterpart, if they were being hung up to dry, but he said no, they are old clothes that are being thrown away; old clothes must be thrown into trees because of a taboo, he said, but he couldn't really explain it to me other than to say that it is better for the clothes to go up than down.
Back in the village it was lunch time with the family (rice with peanut sauce and a little fish, no vegetables). After lunch I tried to get away for a while by myself by telling them I was going to go take a nap, but it didn't work very well because apparently it's not rude at all to come up and stare at people (or at least toubabs) through their windows, so they caught me not sleeping and trying to do other things instead (like write for my blog!), so then I got called to go hang out with the family some more.
I was warned before I got "installed" that I would probably have a lot of free time and finding things to do to fill it would be a challenge. So far, though, that hasn't happened. I feel a little like I'm in prison, with people making my schedule for me and a troop of kids guarding me all the time. I'm going to just say no to having a kid sleep with me tonight, and hopefully tomorrow will go a little better. My counterpart says he's going to take me to Dialacoto, a town about 8 kilometers away, where the health post I am associated with is located, so I can greet my other counterpart who works there.
written Monday, 7 April 2007
Recently I received an email from a friend who said she's enjoyed reading my blog, but I don't really write about how I'm feeling on it. So how am I feeling?
Of course life here has its ups and downs, just like life anywhere. But overall I'm having a great time and really enjoying all the new experiences. I have my moments of wondering what I'm doing here, whether I'm doing anything worthwhile or whether it's just a giant vacation for me (and if so, where is the pampering? I miss showers!), but mostly I'm really glad I came here. Even if I don't manage to do anything useful for anyone in Senegal, I think I am really learning a lot which will help me to be a better and hopefully wiser person in the future.
One thing that I have already noticed changing in my outlook is that I have great respect for people here. Working in the field of humanitarian assistance, which is what I was doing before I came here, it is easy to see people in developing countries as simply recipients of assistance, people to be pitied. And I think many of us in America tend to view women in Muslim countries as oppressed because of the different gender roles here and practices such as polygamy and female circumcision/genital cutting.
But I have found that the people here, while they may not have much, are resourceful and take care of themselves, and while they appreciate assistance, they don't want pity. And I haven't met a woman yet who says she feels oppressed by gender roles and cultural practices, but I have spoken to many who not only support but take pride in their place in society.
So I am learning. Some days are really hard, and I am just desperate for a real shower and some American food and to be in my own little apartment where I don't have to try to fit into anyone else's culture or lifestyle, but mostly I am really happy to be having this experience.
Today I received a package from a good friend and a girl I just met briefly. She wrote a note that said she has been reading my blog, and wanted to do something to thank me for the work I am doing here. I don't think I deserve such compliments at all, but it's very encouraging and motivating to know that people back home, even people I don't know very well, are rooting for me and think I am doing something good here. (Thanks, C! PS: I gave one of the bags of jelly beans to my family, and they LOVED them. My mom poured them out on a plate, and then they all just looked at them and ooh'ed and aah'ed at the pretty colors, and wouldn't even eat them until I took a picture of my mom with the plate of jellybeans, which I promised to give her a copy of. And then they gobbled them up, and gave me high 5's, saying 'way to go, Fatou' (or its equivalent in Mandinka, anyway). I spent about half the day debating with myself whether I could stand to share my precious toubab food, but seeing how much they enjoyed it was definitely more wonderful than eating them myself.)
So, I'm learning. Toubab food will always be very much appreciated though!
written Wednesday, 2 April 2007
Money
I finally learned how money works here. I had learned before that when speaking in local languages such as Wolof or Mandinka, that the numbers don't correspond to money amounts. For example, the word that means "twenty" means a different amount if you're talking about money. Up til now, what the "money number" was was a complete mystery to me.
So here's how it works: it's all based on the "dasato", the five-franc coin, (which is worth about one cent in American money). Five francs is called "one dasato"; twenty-five francs is called "5 dasatos"; one hundred francs is "twenty dasatos"; and so on.
Seems simple - just multiply everything times five. It gets a little more confusing though, because people don't always say "dasatos". So if you're trying to buy something, and you ask how much it costs, the vendor might say "five". But that doesn't mean five francs. That would be too easy. It means five dasatos, which equals twenty-five francs.
Just when I was starting to get a little faster at being able to figure out what number it is when someone says "tan saaba nin kilin", they throw in this whole monkey wrench of multiplying money times five. I am going to have to get better at math. But I guess it keeps life interesting.
My atrophying left hand
written Sunday, 29 April 2007
I was warned before I came to Senegal that I would not be allowed to do a lot of things with my left hand, including eating and handing things to people, because the left hand is considered dirty (because it is the hand you use in the bathroom, as a substitute for toilet paper).
I was afraid, since I am left handed, I would be constantly forgetting and offending people by using my left hand, but as it turns out, I made myself so paranoid about doing the wrong thing that I hardly use my left hand for anything anymore (except writing, which I just can't do with my right hand). Even when I am with other Americans and I consciously tell myself that I can use my left hand, I can hardly bring myself to do it.
I am a little afraid that my left arm is going to atrophy and fall off from lack of use.
The Abdoulaye Wade music video
written Sunday, 29 April 2007
Yesterday I saw the most hilarious example yet of African "big man" politics - the President Abdoulaye Wade music video. It featured two girls riding down the highway in Dakar in a covertible or jeep or something, and singing about how great "grandfather Abdoulaye" is - that he is bringing Senegal into the future, building roads, creating jobs, etc. Every few seconds they would cut to one of the standard photos of Wade, where he has his arms raised in a victory pose.
Should the President Bush tribute music video be next?
So cute
written Sunday, 29 April 2007
Today I was out walking around town with some friends and we came across a very cute lost baby goat, bleating for its mother. One of my friends baa'ed back at it because it was so cute. I guess she did a good goat impression, because the baby goat decided she was its mother and followed us halfway to town, until we took evasive measures (we wanted it to stay in its neighborhood so if its mother was around she might find it).
