There is a basketball court (well, a half court) that has a map of Senegal painted on it. For site announcements we were all lined up around the border... blindfolded. They gave us a spiel about not peaking and ruining the surprise or else we would be sent back to the US... blah, blah, blah. So I'm standing there on the Northern border of Senegal, in Mauritania, all the voices next to me are disappearing, and I pick up a conversation with the one guy still next to me on the border.
"David?" says an American man's voice in front of me. I've never met any of the American guys placing us on the map... weird.
"My name is David."
"I know where you go," my hand is grabbed and I am lead off through all of Senegal
I wound up where I expected based on the local language I was learning (Mandinka), the far away land of Kedougou in Sountheastern Senegal. I was, however, surprised to see Malinke listed as the village language in the paperwork we were given. We had been warned from the start that we would be speaking Jaxanke and not Mandinka from the get go; had it not been for other volunteers I would have not even been aware that Malinke existed. "But the are all basically dialects of each other anyway, it's easy."
Now, back to what is happening now - the Village Visit, more commonly called Demyst by the volunteers, short for Demystification:
Mandinka ≠ Milinke. I'll save final judgement for once I've been there for a while, but for now I'm pretending Malinke doesn't exist so that I pass all my Mandinka tests. I'll leave it at that.
I am about to go to bed for the first night at my new site, although I will be leaving in a couple days. I get to spend the time with my ancien (the PCV I will be replacing) to really get a feel for the village and what it is like to be a full fledged volunteer. His name is David, he likes to bike... a lot of my friends would also say these things to describe me. Funny how the Peace Corps works, or maybe Davids are just awesome like that. He has a blog which has earned a link in the sidebar. He's kind of a strange case in that he has only been at site for a year - but he has his work reasons, and I'll let you find that out from him.
We took a walk around Khossanto this evening, and it is going to be great (especially once I speak the right language). First we headed over to the Women's Group's gardens, but on the way we were pulled off the trail to check out the "well" that had been dug out to provide water for the cattle. The "well" was a dry hole in the ground that had no way for any cow to get at any sort of water. My ancien explained that there is another well that the village normally uses to get water for the cattle, but it has been broken for a while now. Cows have started dying due to lack of water, this can be a major thing because they use their cattle as their banks. They really have no place to store any money, so when they come into a little wealth they buy a cow. So some cows dying can be a little like being thrown into a major depression.
Then our stroll took us through what I am currently calling The Mango Orchard. Gloriously massive Mango trees shading off this entire valley, making it significantly cooler there. David says it's a good place to spend an afternoon. Apparently when the mangoes are falling the man who owns the trees will give some to you - not to mention that he is okay with people utilizing their shade.
Wo kola (Mandinka, probably not Malinke), we made it to the gardens. The women's group plots were rectangles of rather recently harvested crops ready to be replanted, that is assuming another harvest can come in before the rainy season comes and washes it all away. Did I mention that there is a river that can take over the road for short periods of time during the rainy season?
From there we went over to my future family's garden and checked that out... and sampled some tasty tasty carrots. That's when we decided to talk about what I wanted to do with my service and what things interested me. It was a little difficult for me to do, but talking to him about it really helped me put certain things in order and start thinking about these whole two years in a different light. I have purposely kept my hopes and desires open so that I can adapt them to what needs to happen in my community. Obviously there are triggers that would push me in certain directions, I am an Environmental Education volunteer after all, which is what this community wants.
That conversation put us on the path of the Collège (= Middle School) both literally and figuratively. A couple tangents on the Universal Nut Sheller project of his (Links 1 & 2), and the hill with Tigo cell phone reception (PCVs get Orange phones), but let's not get distracted from my big picture. The three month long construction of the Collège is now in its 18th or so month and is at a bit of a stand still due to funding. I guess some inspectors came in and pointed out that the materials were basically useless (i.e. too much sand in the cement). We stepped into one of the classrooms, it's just over a year old and already falling apart. So there it stands, 4 or so classrooms being used with three times that waiting for their finishing touches.
This place is absolutely ripe for projects for me to get a hold of, but I have to wait until it gets finished. Plenty of blank walls looking for murals, no gardens, and no environmental group (heavily dependent on students being there). Oh yeah, also there is no water source at the school either. They have douches (bathrooms / pit squat-toilettes) but no wells for water.
Now I just have to deal with another month of training before I can get to work on one or all of these... or some completely different project.
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