I've been doing lots of work

As you can tell from my pictures, if you've looked at them, over the last few weeks I've been really busy: teaching health classes, English class, teaching women in my and two other volunteers' villages how to make neem lotion and baby porridge, weighing babies, and helping to plant a mango orchard (okay, really all I did was take pictures of the mango planting).

 

While I was out at the mango planting, the president of the local Association of Health Agents asked me to help the association get funding to buy some bikes, wheelbarrows, rakes, and other items, to help support their village cleanup and health class activities.  I thought it sounded like a pretty decent idea, so I'm looking into doing a Peace Corps Partnership proposal.  (Which if it goes through, means I will soon be hitting up all my friends and family for money - watch out!)

 

But the morning after the mango planting, when I saw my village counterpart and told him about the proposal idea, he got really mad.  He told me I should be bringing money to the village before I go helping anyone else get funding.  I've been in my village for a year and a half and haven't done anything for them so far!

 

Which made me really mad.  I haven't done anything?  What about all the health and English classes?  What about all the money that people (my counterpart more than anyone) have "borrowed" from me and never paid back?

That fight hasn't been resolved yet.  I'm still going to try to do the proposal, but I'm not sure right now if I'm going to bother with continuing health and English classes in my village.

I'm a real Volunteer now!

Finally I have become a real Peace Corps Volunteer: I got my first parasites of my very own - amoebas, and maybe giardia.  Not to worry, I am taking meds and they will be gone soon.  I feel like this is a Peace Corps rite of passage that I have finally made it to.

New photos!

Finally got some new photos up!  Check them out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/aidworkr/JuneJuly2008

http://picasaweb.google.com/aidworkr/August2008

http://picasaweb.google.com/aidworkr/MariamaSVillage

Man-eating rat

Written Monday, 4 August 2008

A few days ago I was sitting in the Peace Corps house in Tamba,
watching a movie, when I felt something bite my toe. Of course I
jumped and yelled, so by the time I got around to looking down to see
what it was, it had run away. I thought it was a mouse – our house is
overrun with them. But a little later, as I was finishing my movie
(with my feet pulled out of reach on my chair), it came out and hung
out long enough for me to get a good look at it – a rat! Gross,
gross, gross.

Some of the other volunteers had recently said that there was a rat in
the house now, but I thought they were exaggerating and it was a big
mouse. But this was definitely a rat. Luckily its bite hadn't broken
my skin, or I would have been high-tailing it to Dakar to get myself
some shots for rabies and bubonic plague and anything else I could
get.

When one of the boys came to Tamba yesterday I told him about the rat
and asked him to try to buy some poison or something and kill it. We
hadn't managed to find strong enough poison in any of the stores
nearby yet, but this morning when I woke up he told me that he had
trapped the rat in our garbage can. And then a little later our
security guard killed it for us.

So, the current score is: Volunteers: 1. Tamba house rodents:
approximately 1000. But I've gotten pretty used to the mice now; if
we can keep the house rat-free, I think I'll be happy. The war is
still on with the devil-cat in my hut, though.

Porridge and baby weighings

Written Monday, 21 July 2008

After I got back from Tamba last time I started bugging my counterpart that we needed to do some more health activities – baby weighings or health classes. Since it is the rainy/farming season, people don't have much free time, so we decided to forgo the baby weighings for now since they take all day, and instead do some health classes, which only take about an hour.

So after some discussion, we decided to do the classes on nutrition, and also a baby porridge demonstration, which I did once last year. I knew that the women wouldn't start making the baby porridge after I taught it to them, even though it only requires fairly cheap, easily available ingredients; we included the porridge demonstration mainly as a bribe, to get the women to come to the class – because when the demonstration is done, the women can feed the porridge we made to their babies. Also I knew that if I did a class about nutrition, telling the women they need to feed their kids a balanced diet, that they would tell me that I should be giving them the money to buy such things (even though they can fill the protein and vitamin categories with peanuts and baobab and other leaves that are readily available).

So I bought them off with the porridge demonstration, and the class went great. They even asked me when I'm going to do another baby weighing, which made me really happy.

I'm going to do the same class again tomorrow for a different group of women. Hopefully it will go just as well.

Rain!

Written Monday, 21 July 2008

The rain has finally come! And with it, freezing cold weather – it is down to at least 90 degrees, maybe even 85 or 80 (my thermometer is broken – I blame the devil cat).

Strike

Written Saturday, 19 July 2008

My host brother told me that he is going on strike against God because the rain hasn't come. No more praying, no more going to mosque. I told him that sounds like the sort of thing that gets you smited by lightning. But he said he doesn't care, he's mad and he's going on strike.

I told him I had a better idea – why not convert to Christianity? Maybe God likes Christians better, and then he'll make the rains come. Good idea! my brother said. After all, it always rains in Christian countries, and Christians are rich! (Guess he wasn't thinking of all the poor countries in Africa and Latin America that are majority Christian).

So chalk me up for one Christian convert so far.

* Just in case it isn't clear: this conversation did actually happen, but of course neither of us were serious, except about being worried about the rains not coming.

Devil cat

Written Thursday, 17 July 2008

Last time I came back from Tamba I discovered that a cat had found its way into my hut and decided to make it his personal toilet. After moving pretty much everything in my room, I finally found where he had left his stinky present: under my bed. So I cleaned it up and thought that would be the end of it. Surely now that I was back the cat would stay away.

But no. In the last few days the cat has come into my hut four times and left me "presents". One of the times, he'd actually done his business up on a rafter – took me a whole day to figure out where the awful smell was coming from, and then I had to figure out how to get it down without benefit of a stool or even a decent chair, and without knocking it down onto my head.

I am starting to feel that this cat has declared war on me, and only one of us is going to make it out of this alive. If I ask my villagers, I'm sure they will remind me that cats work for sorcerers, so this probably means someone has put a curse on me. Whatever the case may be, this devil cat is starting to push me over the edge.

English class is getting complicated

Written Thursday, 17 July 2008

I re-started my English class when I got back from Guinea, with two new students: the village teacher and the park ranger, who are both Wolof speakers from Thies and are easily the most educated people in my village. Then today someone new asked to join: a Gambian man who knows some English ("I speak English small-small," he told me) but doesn't know French and is completely illiterate. So the total now is: two educated French/Wolof speakers, one semi-educated Mandinka/French speaker, one illiterate Pulaar speaker, and one illiterate Bambara/English speaker. To top it off, the Gambian man speaks really fast and mumbles, so I can barely understand his English (and I don't understand his Bambara at all, although he usually understands my Mandinka).

How in the world am I supposed to teach this class? I don't even know what language to teach it in anymore, to say nothing of coming up with lessons that are appropriate for everyone.

Where is the rain?

Written Thursday, 17 July 2008

It has been over a week since it rained in my village, and before that another week since the previous rain. The crops are still green, but the ground is dry and hard, which makes plowing and hoeing really hard. And people are starting to worry.

New well!

Written Thursday, 17 July 2008

A new well has just been dug (partly financed by an NGO) less than 50 feet from my front door! The water is not as clean as the well I used to go to, but I am hoping that a lot of the sediment is from the construction and it will settle down soon. In any case, it is definitely nice not to have to carry water so far and to be able to see if there is a long line at the well without even leaving my hut.

Senegalese village names

Written Thursday, 17 July 2008

Some Senegalese village names, in translation:

• The Woodcarver's Place
• Under the Diala Trees
• The Men's Place
• Life is Good Here
• New Home
• Gate of Peace
• Next to the Government
• Train Station
• Modu's Village
• Demba's House
• Home of the Tambas

And my favorite, so far: 

• Bean Party

More on how poor are my villagers

Written Tuesday, 8 July 2008

 

 

I've just started reading The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs (finally!), and he classifies poverty into three groups: extreme or absolute poverty, moderate poverty, and relative poverty.  Extreme poverty means that "households cannot meet basic needs for survival.  They are chronically hungry, unable to access health care, lack safe drinking water and sanitation, cannot afford education for some or all children, and perhaps lack rudimentary shelter (like a rain-proof roof) and basic articles of clothing such as shoes."  Moderate poverty "refers to conditions of life in which basic needs are met, but just barely."  Relative poverty is "a household income level below a given proportion of average national income", where basic needs are met but consumer goods (like a car or phone) that are the norm in a particular society are unaffordable.

 

So according to that scale, my villagers mostly fit into the "moderate poverty" category, which according to Jeff Sachs (and the World Bank) means my villagers are probably earning the equivalent of $1 to $2 a day.  It also means that there are over a billion people in the world poorer than my villagers.  Scary thought.

 

On a related note, right now is the hungry season in Senegal.  My family has started cutting back on food – we still eat every meal, but there is just not enough anymore to fill everyone up.

A bandit is caught

Written Tuesday, 8 July 2008

 

 

Recently a bandit who had stolen ten of my host family's cows over the last six months was caught.  My host brother was able to follow a stolen cow's tracks to the butcher in another village.  He called the gendarmes, who demanded that the butcher produce the head, feet, and skin of the cow whose meat he was currently selling (by which the cow could be identified).

 

The butcher, trying to be crafty, instead produced the hide of a cow that had been butchered some time ago and tried to pass it off as the cow killed that day.  Unfortunately for the butcher, though, that cow had also been stolen from my family and their brand was on its hide.  So the butcher was caught as a receiver of stolen goods.

 

Apparently without too much pressure he gave up the name of the actual cattle rustler: a man from another village who has been living in a neighbor's compound in my village and working as a farm hand.

 

My favorite part of the story is this: the gendarmes were clever and waited to come apprehend him until the hour when he was likely to be bathing, so that he would not be wearing his gris-gris (amulets) that would have protected him and allowed him to escape.  They came to his door and knocked as if they were just regular visitors, and when he came to the door gris-gris-less, they grabbed him!  He asked to be allowed to go back into his room to get dressed, but they knew that then he would put on his gris-gris and become invisible or turn into a bug or something, so they refused and took him straight off to jail, where he remains (gris-gris-less).

Written Tuesday, 8 July 2008

A bandit is caught

 

Recently a bandit who had stolen ten of my host family's cows over the last six months was caught.  My host brother was able to follow a stolen cow's tracks to the butcher in another village.  He called the gendarmes, who demanded that the butcher produce the head, feet, and skin of the cow whose meat he was currently selling (by which the cow could be identified).

 

The butcher, trying to be crafty, instead produced the hide of a cow that had been butchered some time ago and tried to pass it off as the cow killed that day.  Unfortunately for the butcher, though, that cow had also been stolen from my family and their brand was on its hide.  So the butcher was caught as a receiver of stolen goods.

 

Apparently without too much pressure he gave up the name of the actual cattle rustler: a man from another village who has been living in a neighbor's compound in my village and working as a farm hand.

 

My favorite part of the story is this: the gendarmes were clever and waited to come apprehend him until the hour when he was likely to be bathing, so that he would not be wearing his gris-gris (amulets) that would have protected him and allowed him to escape.  They came to his door and knocked as if they were just regular visitors, and when he came to the door gris-gris-less, they grabbed him!  He asked to be allowed to go back into his room to get dressed, but they knew that then he would put on his gris-gris and become invisible or turn into a bug or something, so they refused and took him straight off to jail, where he remains (gris-gris-less).

A bandit is caught

Written Tuesday, 8 July 2008

 

 

Recently a bandit who had stolen ten of my host family's cows over the last six months was caught.  My host brother was able to follow a stolen cow's tracks to the butcher in another village.  He called the gendarmes, who demanded that the butcher produce the head, feet, and skin of the cow whose meat he was currently selling (by which the cow could be identified).

 

The butcher, trying to be crafty, instead produced the hide of a cow that had been butchered some time ago and tried to pass it off as the cow killed that day.  Unfortunately for the butcher, though, that cow had also been stolen from my family and their brand was on its hide.  So the butcher was caught as a receiver of stolen goods.

 

Apparently without too much pressure he gave up the name of the actual cattle rustler: a man from another village who has been living in a neighbor's compound in my village and working as a farm hand.

 

My favorite part of the story is this: the gendarmes were clever and waited to come apprehend him until the hour when he was likely to be bathing, so that he would not be wearing his gris-gris (amulets) that would have protected him and allowed him to escape.  They came to his door and knocked as if they were just regular visitors, and when he came to the door gris-gris-less, they grabbed him!  He asked to be allowed to go back into his room to get dressed, but they knew that then he would put on his gris-gris and become invisible or turn into a bug or something, so they refused and took him straight off to jail, where he remains (gris-gris-less).

Written Tuesday, 8 July 2008

A bandit is caught

 

Recently a bandit who had stolen ten of my host family's cows over the last six months was caught.  My host brother was able to follow a stolen cow's tracks to the butcher in another village.  He called the gendarmes, who demanded that the butcher produce the head, feet, and skin of the cow whose meat he was currently selling (by which the cow could be identified).

 

The butcher, trying to be crafty, instead produced the hide of a cow that had been butchered some time ago and tried to pass it off as the cow killed that day.  Unfortunately for the butcher, though, that cow had also been stolen from my family and their brand was on its hide.  So the butcher was caught as a receiver of stolen goods.

 

Apparently without too much pressure he gave up the name of the actual cattle rustler: a man from another village who has been living in a neighbor's compound in my village and working as a farm hand.

 

My favorite part of the story is this: the gendarmes were clever and waited to come apprehend him until the hour when he was likely to be bathing, so that he would not be wearing his gris-gris (amulets) that would have protected him and allowed him to escape.  They came to his door and knocked as if they were just regular visitors, and when he came to the door gris-gris-less, they grabbed him!  He asked to be allowed to go back into his room to get dressed, but they knew that then he would put on his gris-gris and become invisible or turn into a bug or something, so they refused and took him straight off to jail, where he remains (gris-gris-less).

Baby with a rock in his ear

written 27 June 2008

 

Yesterday my sister came into my hut and told me her almost-two-year-old baby had stuck a peanut in his ear.  I grabbed a flashlight and aimed it at his ear, and sure enough, there was something in his ear.  Way, way down in his ear, so far it looked like it was in the middle of his head.  Definitely not something we were going to be able to get out ourselves.  So I told her she had to take him to the health post in Dialacoto.  She agreed, but there was a problem: she doesn't know how to ride a bike, and rainy/farming season has started, so everyone's out working in the fields, so a donkey cart is out of the question.  So she asked me if I would take him.  I said sure, no problem, thinking he could ride on the luggage rack on the back of my bike (I've taken him on short joy rides around the village that way, which he loves, so I know he's old enough to hold on).  But my sister said no, the ride to Dialacoto is too far, he will fall asleep and fall off the bike.  He has to be carried tied onto someone's back, traditional style.  So I said okay, fine.  My sister of course didn't think a toubab could handle carrying a baby African-style that far, so she insisted on my 15-year-old sister (who does know how to ride a bike) going along as a backup baby carrier.

 

So we tied the baby (who was being very quiet rather than screaming his head off, as I'd been afraid he would – Alhamdoulilah!) onto my back, and we were off, ten kilometers in the middle of a hot African day to the Dialacoto health post.

 

When we got there, the nurse looked at the baby almost right away, but he said that the peanut was too far down in the baby's head for him to get it out – he was afraid of puncturing his ear drum.  We'd have to take him to the hospital in Tamba, where they'd have more equipment and could anesthetize him if necessary.

 

Tamba is far.  And anesthesia is probably really expensive.  And we'd have to go back to the village and get his mom, and then get her out to the road somehow (on the back of my bike? I'm not sure I'm strong enough to carry an adult over the mountain to the main road on my bike). I did not want to have to do that. 

 

So I asked the nurse if they might be able to help him at Kinkeliba, the private French hospital about 15 kilometers up the road.  This was somewhat of a risky question, because the nurse is essentially in competition with the hospital, and I've heard that he doesn't take it very kindly when his patients go there.  But I really did not want to have to take the baby to Tamba, and I figured hopefully he couldn't get too mad, since I'd come to him first and we were going to have to go somewhere else for care regardless.  Luckily, he didn't seem offended, and just said, sure, give it a shot.

 

While I was at the health post, the two other volunteers in Dialacoto region, Fonsa and new volunteer Hawa, happened by, and I was able to talk them into coming with me to Kinkeliba (officially so that we could all learn more about health services available in the area, but really just to keep me company).  And I got even luckier in that there was an Africare (an American NGO) car heading that way, so we were able to hitch a ride. 

 

My back-up baby carrier of a sister, however, punked out on me, not wanting to go to Kinkeliba because it would be a long bike ride back.  So I told her fine, I could just meet her back in my village.  But she said she was scared to bike back to the village by herself (because there could be bandits on the road), so she made me promise to come all the way back to Dialacoto, which is several kilometers past the turn-off to my village, to pick her up after we were finished at Kinkeliba.

 

So a few minutes later we arrived at the hospital, which didn't seem to have any other patients so we were able to see a doctor right away.  He shot water into the baby's ear with a little pump to try to squirt the peanut out.  It wasn't successful, but it did make the peanut move enough so that he was then able to get it out with some tweezers.  And it turned out to be a rock rather than a peanut, which is probably a good thing because that means there won't be any crumbs left in his ear to cause an infection.   So the baby was once again good as new, and it only cost me $2.

 

It was about 1:30 by then, hot as the surface of the sun, so I was not about to bike the 20 kilometers back to Dialacoto, and then another 10 kilometers to my village, with a baby on my back, just yet.  So Fonsa and Hawa and I bought lunch from the hospital canteen (rice with vegetables), and relaxed in the shade while the baby took a nap.  Then at about 4:30 we biked (with the baby tied on my back) back to Dialacoto, where my friends left me to go home to their own villages, and where I discovered that my punk of a sister, who I had been counting on to carry the baby the last ten kilometers home, had left and gone home without me.  So I had to carry the baby the rest of the way home.  Did I mention that this baby weighs nine kilos and that it was hot out?

 

But eventually I made it back with both me and the baby still in one piece (or rather two pieces, one each), and his mom was waiting for us right at the edge of the village and was so happy to have her baby back minus foreign objects in his head. 

 

So it turned out to be a good day: baby cured, I earned lots of points with my host family for taking care of him, the baby didn't cry all day long (he also didn't talk, as he usually does – he seemed a little shell-shocked, but he's since back to his usual self), and I definitely win the Peace Corps hard-coreness competition for biking with a baby on my back for 35 kilometers.

I broke a man’s wife

25 June 2008

 

One of my first projects in my village was to get a woman sent to Tamba to be trained as a matron, or midwife.  The project was started by my ancienne, the volunteer who came before me, so I didn't actually have to do much work for it, but in any case the villagers give me credit for it.

 

Which is relevant to this story because the woman's training was supposed to last six months, which means she should have finished in May.  It is now the end of June, and she hasn't come back to the village.  Now my counterpart tells me that the woman's husband is going around complaining that I "broke his wife", meaning that now that she's had this training, she wants to stay in Tamba where life is a little cushier and where it will be easier for her to earn money with her new skills, rather than come back to the village and cook and clean for her husband all day long.

 

Can't say I blame her.

 

So when my counterpart came and told me that I am being accused of breaking this man's wife, even though I know it could have serious repercussions for my ability to work in my village (theoretically, if word of this gets around, the men might forbid their wives from working with me, although I don't really think that will happen), I could not help but laugh.  And smile and feel proud of myself. 

 

So my counterpart said that I have to fix this problem.  I have to prove that while I did help this woman go to Tamba and get matron training, that I always intended for her to come back and that I was not trying to help her leave her husband or otherwise "break" her.  And truthfully, I do want her to come back and provide matron services to the pregnant women in my village, because my village needs that.  I just don't happen to feel too sorry for her husband, who in any case has another wife to cook and clean for him (I suspect that it is really this wife, who is probably tired of being responsible for all the chores, who is pressuring her husband to complain about the other wife not being back yet).

 

So I called Sira, the woman who is getting trained, to ask about when she is coming home.  She said the training isn't finished yet, and she'll be home as soon as it's over.  Which may or may not be true, but in any case I did my part and could then tell her husband that I told her to come back when her training is done. 

 

So hopefully she will be back in the village soon, and this whole drama will be over.  Except that I have found a new mission for the rest of my service: break as many wives as possible.

 

--written by Rebecca Semmes, Professional Wife Breaker

International politics, from the perspective of my villagers

written 24 June 2008

 

Someone in my host family has a lighter with a flashlight built into it that projects an image of Saddam Hussein's face.

 

"Do you know who that is?" I am asked.

 

"Yes, it is Saddam Hussein," I say.

 

"The president of Iraq!"

 

"The former president of Iraq.  Now he is dead," I say.

 

"Yes, because the Americans killed him.  He was a good president because he made Iraq produce oil, but then the Americans killed him, and now there is no more oil from Iraq."

 

"He killed many Iraqis so that he could stay in power," I say.

 

"Oh.  Then he is not good?"

 

"No," I say.

 

"Do you know who Bin Laden is?  Did he kill many Americans?"

 

"Yes, he killed many Americans."

 

"Do you know why the Americans can't catch him?"

 

"Why's that?"

 

"Because he is a sorcerer, and he can change himself into a bug or even into dirt, so whenever the soldiers are coming he just changes himself into a rock or something until they are gone again."

I want to take my sister (and the cute babies) back to America with me

24 June 2008

 

Yesterday one of my host sisters, who is about 15 years old, came to visit me in my hut.  She is the first girl in my family, and probably in my village, to get an education.  All the women who are older than her, even just by a few years, have never been to school.  They can't even write their names.  So it is a huge feat that this girl, my sister, has managed to make it all the way to middle school (most kids, and especially girls, drop out after primary school, if they go to school at all) and even to be one of the top students in her class.

 

So while my sister was in my hut, I asked her how school was going and her plans for next year (she will be in the equivalent of 9^th grade).  She's been living in a neighboring village with relatives during the school year, so as to have a shorter commute to the middle school.  She told me she'd like to go to school in Tamba next year because the relatives she's living with now make her do so many chores that she never has time to study.  But no one has offered her a place to live in Tamba so far, and there's no particular reason to think another host family would give her fewer chores.  And in any case, in the next few years her family will most likely decide she's had enough education and they will arrange a marriage for her to a second or third cousin.  And then, as my other sisters were teasing her last night, all she will do all day is cook.

 

So I started thinking about whether there is anything I can do.  Pay to send her to school in Tamba?  Wouldn't solve the problem of the chores, or the looming arranged marriage.  Take her back to America with me?  Her family would love it, but I haven't got the means to support myself yet, much less someone else.  So I'm still thinking.

The American Club

Written 28 June 2008

 

While I was in Dakar, I went one day to The American Club, which is essentially a country club for expats.  From what I understand, it was originally only open to Americans (hence the name, which was actually changed some years ago because of security concerns, but everyone still calls it The American Club), but now it's open to all expats.  It's got tennis courts, and a pool, and a little canteen that sells American food like hamburgers.  And Peace Corps Volunteers can get in free, no membership hassle required.

 

Unlike the Senegalese, who (I am told, I haven't actually read the rule book) can't get in at all.  Not as a monthly dues-paying member, and not as the guest of a member.  Which just seems awfully racist to me.  So here's my problem: I like the American Club.  It's nice to have a place to go where I can speak English, and not be hassled by people asking me for money or to take them to America, and where I can wear culturally inappropriate clothes (like a swimsuit).  But it feels like I'm patronizing a white-only establishment during American Jim Crow times or South African apartheid (not that I ever experienced either of those).

 

So, tell me: is it wrong to have a club only for expats?  What if it were a club only for doctors or lawyers?  No one would care about that.  So is a club only for expats any different?  (Or maybe no one does care, except for me.  It's not as if the Senegalese are staging a protest outside the door).

 

So someone please tell me if it is okay for me to go there, because I like it and would like to go back, but I don't want to support racism.