Meal Time!

I decided to do a topic near and dear to my heart… Food. In this case leaning towards the way family meals work here in Senegal.

In my village there are no grocery stores or any big stores at all, only a few small corner stores about the size of two parking spaces. These corner stores are called boutique and they stock basically everything you need from cleaning supplies to small amounts of food. The trick is that they only stock a small amount of one brand of everything, which is surprisingly regular throughout the country (for example I thing there are only two different brands of tomato paste you can buy in Senegal). Khossanto, being a fairly large village also has a larger boutique where you can buy bulk items, such as your 100ish pound sack of rice that is the base of most of your meals.

Actually though, right now is harvest time, and since literally everyone in Khossanto farms, there is a lot of corn, rice, millet, and peanuts to go around. What still surprises me is that most of the harvest winds up being sold - apparently it is more cost effective to sell your harvest and buy your food. Don’t be mistaken though; we do get to eat some of the harvest mostly as snacks though.

Women do ALL of the cooking; I’ve even been scolded for trying to help because that is for the women to do. The women and girls in my family are cooking for 15 people each meal, so ultimately someone is always tending the food. However, in this case they do get a break – my host father has two wives, which effectively splits the compound into two families. They wind up taking turns with the meals, whoever makes dinner also makes breakfast and lunch the next day. This system works pretty well for my family, but it’s not necessarily the case for everyone. It is not entirely uncommon for girls to be pulled out of school to help their mom’s with the cooking and household chores.

Moving on to the first meal of the day, breakfast is usually worro, which is either a rice or corn based porridge. The corn version comes least often, thankfully, and needs sugar added to it to become bearable. The rice variety is the most common breakfast that is served and I like to add a little sugar and powdered milk to make it so I can eat enough of it. Milk powder can be expensive though for a lot of villagers so most of the time it is just the sugar, there is always money for sugar. My personal favorite breakfast, that comes the least often of all because it is a little more labor intensive, is monoo. Monoo (pictured below) is still porridge but it contains tapioca like balls made with various types of flower. Monoo tends to start off sweeter than the worro so it doesn’t need as much sugar, but it can also take peanut butter really well. Delicious.

Another breakfast treat that is easier to find in the larger villages and cities but a lot more expensive so only for the more well of or on special occasions is the bean sandwich. Bear with me hear, I remember the first time I heard about them but they are really tasty. Basically you take baked beans, drier than you normally see in the US, and put them on a fresh baguette. Sometimes with mayo, or fried up potatoes… it’s mouth watering to me at this point.

Now for lunches and dinners, generally the same meals are served, with lunched tending to be on the lighter side. Except on holidays lunch is the big deal, as in this picture, which is why that bowl is filled with meat instead of the usual basis of rice or couscous. The big bowl of meat is not an everyday thing; meat in and of itself is a rare treat so this was a pretty special holiday. The big bowl itself though IS an everyday thing.

Most families split up based on gender, sometimes a well respected woman will make it into the bowl with the men, but this is not the case in my family. We typically have 4 bowls. Grandma gets her own since she can barely leave her room, and the oldest son also gets his own since he is basically just waiting on a wife before he moves into his own compound. I eat with my host dad and two younger host brothers. The remaining 9 are women, girls, and one very young boy. They all share the biggest bowl, which does not mean the best bowl. The bowl I eat at, with the patriarch, winds up with the most vegetables and the better bits of meat whenever they show up in the meals

In order to not complicate things I bring my own spoon to the bowl, which guarantees my host father to have his own, and sometimes another spoon shows up that the older of my brothers uses. Everyone else uses only his or her right hand to eat (the left is used when going to the bathroom, keep your left had to yourself). The meals themselves are usually rice or couscous based with some kind of sauce leading to a meal that can easily be balled up in one hand and popped into the mouth. In these cases it is very okay to lick your hands – it’s still kind of hard for me to see the person I’m sharing a bowl with do. This is why I make sure to have my own spoon whenever possible. It allows me to control better when I’m getting my food from, and to avoid the areas where the boy with the runny nose has been eating or where my host dad just coughed into the bowl.

On that note, there are in fact table manners… well, bowl manners. Since there are no tables and the only chairs are really stools, bowls are typically set right on the ground. You eat from the area in the bowl directly in front of you, as everyone around you eats you wind up building rice walls separating your spaces. Those walls so eventually get broken down, but you still have your space to take food from and it is bad form to reach across the bowl for things. To accommodate this and meat or veggies that happen to show up are served in the middle of the bowl, so just reach into the middle and break of a chunk to eat. More often than not someone takes on the role of “Bowl Mom”. The Bowl Mom takes on the responsibility of using her (men can do it too, it’s usually the most respected person at the bowl) one hand to cut up whatever is served in the middle of the bowl and divide it up between everyone at the bowl. It is a polite thing for someone tosses a bit of carrot into it, or uses the back of his or her spoon to push some cabbage into your space. It can be considered disrespectful not to accept it, so you have to be careful when something you don’t want to eat shows up.

There's my summary of meal time in Senegal.  I'm sure there are things I have missed so please ask any questions you have and I will try to answer them whenever I can.

Quick Pic Post 4

Bakary Kamara - Khossanto's Blacksmith

Summer Camp… Finally*

It’s been almost a month now since camp ended, but I really want to write about it so please accept my tardiness.

For this installment of the Kedougou Leadership Summer Camp in Dindefello (my first, the thrid in total) everything got bigger. More students, more Senegalese staff, more food… more arguments… one of which was was over the fact that there was less bread than last year. Peace Corps volunteers were not as numerous as in the past and tried to take a back seat as much as possible to allow the Senegalese counterparts to take as much control of the camp as possible. It’s all part of the plan to make this be run completely by the ADDK (Association pour le Développement Durable a Kédougou/Association for the Sustainable Development of Kedougou). They could still use some help with ‘the softer side of camp,’ speaking of which, anyone know of a French version of that “Camp is for the Camper” book?

Peace Corps volunteers took on specific programmatic duties. I was in charge of the Challenge Course, Kellen took care of Sports, Eric had First Aid, Hannah was SeneGAD/AIDS, and Meera did Art and translated for me at the Challenge Course. Then there was Thomas, who planned out and ran the camp while it was happening, he also wound up paying for the camp when funds ran out with the last of his CFA before he returned to America (we plan on doing a little more budget training next year). Basically, camp would not have happened without him. The Senegalese counselors this year were working towards what basically amounts to becoming a licensed counselor. As such there were rules that kept us from being able to work with specific counselors and train them on specific areas of camp as well.

Challenge Course – Step 1: find new challenges for second and third year campers. I thought I had that taken care of based on the resources I saw from last year’s camp. I was wrong, they had all done everything I planned and prepared for. Now I’m working on grouping challenges so that there is something new to be done each year as well as the good repeats of things that are always different. Step 2: introduce challenge to campers. Simple… except their first languages are Puular OR Malinké, not both, luckily by middle school everyone can speak French which is what we tried to run the camp in as much as possible. My French, however, is limited to being a customer or responding to yes or no type questions. I can understand quite a bit of what I hear, I just have a lot of trouble producing French on my own. This is why I stole Meera (who has never done a Challenge Course) as my translator, we like to think of it as a Little Mermaid type situation. Step 3: TCCCT. This is where Meera came in even handier and the Little Mermaid of the situation really came out. The discussion after a challenge is completed, or not completed, is really the point of doing a Challenge Course. That’s where everyone learns to work as a team and all the joys I get out of doing a Challenge Course become obvious. Pretty quickly the campers figured out that we were looking for certain key words – Trust, Communication, Cooperation, and Creating Thinking (TCCCT). Once they figured them out they would just say them in the discussion times. This is where it’s good to have some experience with it, you need to ask the right questions at the right times to lead the discussion in the right direction, and to know when to back down if the group is starting to get frustrated. I by no means am an expert, but I have had experience. By the end of the two weeks I loved seeing not only the campers getting what we were talking about, but also the way Meera wound up being able to just run with the discussion on her own. This is why I do what I do.

Here’s how it worked, towards the end of the challenge I would give Meera (in English) a few questions to ask and points I thought they should get out of the discussion. She would start the discussion with all that in mind and I would just listen to what the campers were saying, most of which I was able to understand or at least get the gist of. If there was something I wanted to ask, or a point I thought they should discuss more I would just say it when I normally would, in English, to Meera, who would then say it in French. I imagine this was confusing for anyone watching since I wasn’t having anyone translate to me, but still able to guide the discussion. It’s also a matter of being able to keep the right pacing of the discussion otherwise you loose momentum fast and Meera was really helpful for that. My French comes out a lot slower – at one point when I was guiding a sub-group of campers on my own I blanked on the word for hand. After a long pause I held up my own hand, started at it, and said, “Ça c’est quoi?” (What is this?). I don’t imagine I had much credibility on my own after that.

Creative Thinking proved to be the most challenging concept for the campers throughout camp. It makes sense since (haha) in many cases it was literally beaten out of them in school. The Senegalese school system is heaving on the memorization of things, in order to be successful in school you need to know things verbatim. In this case creative thinking is almost a disadvantage. It was really interesting to see how readily the second and third years got into it and to compare that to how much the first years struggled when we did not provide a single correct answer. Again, at the end of the two weeks the change was apparent in all of the campers.

Aside: Dear Campy Friends, I have a challenge for you over the next year. I need activities that encourage/teach Sportsmanship. Tons of cheating along with sore losers and winners. We stopped things quite often to explain that it is a whole lot more fun for everyone if you follow the rules, and in the case of the challenge course when you start cheating you lose the whole point of doing it. It’s the challenges that you build off of and learn from. I’m talking really basic stuff here; the concept of sportsmanship just really isn’t there. GO! Bonus points if it’s in French and English.

So a quick wrap up on camp as a whole. I would say this year was filled with growing pains, next year it should have settled into it’s new scale and run a lot smoother. Plus, with all the certified counselors we won’t have to have the outside influence that wound up instigating a lot of the tension. The wonderful bureaucracy of it all should be simplified (see flowchart pictured here).

Unfortunately I have to end on a low note. About two weeks after camp ended, leadership camp, one of the male counselors and a couple of his friends took a moto ride out to a village. There they went to the house of one of the female campers so he could ask her parents for her hand in marriage. Reminder, these are middle school students. Also keep in mind that this isn’t as a whole culturally unacceptable; the younger generations and the more educated seem to prefer waiting until the girl is out of school until she gets married off.

Just to twist that knife in there a little more it is worth noting that this particular counselor is also a teacher. Meaning he works with kids this age all the time, and once she pops out a kid he’s allowed to take a second wife. Now, the parents do need to approve in order for this to happen. We need to be honest here; she’s a village girl being proposed to by a teacher from the city. This is a huge get for the family, not only does she get out of the village and into the city, but she also has a husband with a steady job. It’s unlikely that they will deny this union. Come to leadership camp… expand your horizons, open yourself up to new possibilities… yeah.

Jurassic Park - or - The Monkey Stole My Things*

Since September 15th I’ve been helping out with a leadership summer camp for the region of Kedougou. It will be ending on the 30th, and I’ll save most of the details for after that - for now I want to talk a little about Movie Night and living arrangements.

For the first of the two scheduled movie nights we chose Jurassic Park (The plan for the second one is Finding Nemo, but there is little respect for the Chrono so who knows if that will happen). We decided an action movie translates best across language barriers, we showed the French dub but French is still at best a second language for everyone. We also wanted to blow their minds with a movie about dinosaurs. Minds weren’t blown in quite the way we all hoped for but it was still a lot of fun to watch the movie.

I was most looking forward to the big T-Rex scene and seeing their reaction to that. I was expecting a lot more on the fear spectrum of reactions, but they seemed to have a far better grasp of just how pretend the scene was than I had hoped for. Another volunteer / my roommate for the two weeks and I talked about it afterwards and we came up with a couple ideas on why. First, when we first saw Jurassic Park we were younger than these campers are. Second, a lot of these campers have already seen action flicks on TV at some point and have been exposed to CGI so it’s not a new thing.

Everyone was still definitely entertained and on the edge of their seats for the scene. I could feel the tension in the room rise as everyone’s eyes remained glued to the projection. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the silent type of tension, it was the yell at the characters for doing something stupid type of tension… and as things got more intense the comments became more and more urgent. It was really fun to watch; I mean, I love that scene but I was having so much more fun watching the audience for most of it. It was most clear just how tense everyone was during the actions scenes when they ended. The collective sigh of relief was audible and followed by a discussion of what just happened with your neighbors. Unfortunately there was a lot of whispering at once and in a bunch of languages that it was tough for me to pull out any good comments.

A lot of joy was gleaned from watching people get hurt, and they loved watching the “fat one” do pretty much anything - plus at the end of his arch he gets hurt too, what more could you want? All in all everyone seemed to follow the movie really well, and there was a surprising amount that was relatable to life in Senegal. Raptors eat cows fast, the T-Rex gets a goat (both animals are EVERYWHERE), and all lizards must die. Speaking of which, the scene where Alan Grant and the kids spend the night in the tree and the Brontosaurus comes over to say hi turned into the moment that made me laugh the most thanks to someone’s reaction. There is the line in the movie that compares them to “big cows” which was apparently lost on one of the Senegalese counselors (kind-of counselor, her role really was unclear). She started to scold them quite loudly as soon as they started petting them. She had the full “whatever, fine, don’t listen to me” reaction too and threw up her arms in disgust.

It was really great to people watch the whole time. Now it’s time for the Rocky and Bullwinkle style chang up. During camp the Peace Corps Volunteers involved stayed at a different place than all the campers. I got to share a hut with Kellen, my closest neighbor actually; however, there’s a small debate as to wether or not our hut can actually be considered as suck. It was basically a box made out of bamboo poles with a thatched roof on sticks. The thatch roof was the most weather proof part of the hut and at least bigger animals wouldn’t be able to make it into the hut. We came to the conclusion that a good tent could probably provide better protection from the elements the night of the big storm when the grass mats lining the walls nearly blew down onto us. Kellen may have made a hole on the back porch on the way to take a bucket bath one day, but the beds are REALLY comfortable. Next to our hut there was a monkey leashed to a tree, apparently it’s the more temperamental of the pair of pet monkeys that lived there (the other being left to roam free and apparently live under our hut). Now, I had been leaving my toothpaste out back by the sink so that we could brush out teeth there when it went missing one day. I will admit that I laughed off Kellen’s suggestion that the monkey had taken it for a few days until the tube was found in the Lost and Found with monkey bite marks on it. That was just funny, no harm done, first offense, all the toothpaste was still there, and I was basically inviting it to get taken by leaving it out.

The Second offense however… the cursed little monkey came into our hut and stole out corn! We had the back door open, and a couple ears of corn left on a small table that we were planning on roasting up that night. We were all hanging out having a Coke/Fanta break when Kellen had to get something from our hut. He came back with two empty ears of corn in his hands, “The monkeys ate our corn.” Apparently he caught them and his mouth dropped open, a motion the monkeys decided the mimic as they stood over their prizes. If you can’t tell I have a very specific picture of how this all went down in my head. It was a traumatic experience, I was looking forward to making someone roast that corn for me so I could have a tasty night time snack.

Pure devastation when the evening rolled around and I wanted to have a snack. Stupid Monkey.

Korité*

Well, I made a big deal out of staying in site for this party, I should probably let you know what happend on Korité (Friday 10 September).

I woke up early knowing that they probably let me do any work on this party day and tried to quietly move my newly aquired soil under my shade structure before breakfast. After I was successful with that task I had breakfast as usual, the went out to sit with my host father, Niama. Since the night before he had shaved his head for the big day, in doing so I had some trouble recognizing him at first since he looked significantly younger. While sitting there with him trying to get an idea of what was in store for me today I became very self conscious about my personal “challenge” of not shaving for the month of Ramadan. So after some Nescafe I excused myself to take a shower. Not only did I scrub extra hard with my loofa as instructed by my host sister but I also treated myself to the free shampoo sample that came with my bar of soap a few months ago (I was saving it for a special occasion). But this all started with the shave. Using good ol’ Dr. Bronner as my shaving cream and my hands being the closest thing I had to a mirror I managed to get rid of all my facial hair with no major issues.

After the shower I fumbled around in my hut for a while because I didn’t want to get all fancied up too early. In the process of getting ready slowly the neighbor boy burst into my room catching me in my boxers; he reacted as though I was naked and basically ran away. I thought it was hilarious because he has seen me in my pajama shorts which were basically the same and he never had a problem there, I will admit, these particular boxers are in the flesh color tone range. After that excitement I decided to put on my fancy pants but procrastinated more on getting my shirt on to complete the outfit. It didn’t take too long for one of my host mothers to stop by and tell me that everyone is going to Mosque RIGHT NOW. So I threw on the top, got out the door, did a little modeling for the family, and was led to the mosque by my oldest brother.

I wasn’t fasting for Ramadan (my family just keeps giving me food, I can’t let it go to waste!) and I never pretended to be Muslim so I was expecting a place in the back of the mosque. Nope, once we go there I was given a spot just a few rows from the front next to the youngest son of the Village Chief. Not only that but one of the old men around me gave me his prayer mat to use for the service and there was another man who gave me his prayer beads at one point and tried to teach me how to use them. It was pretty nice of them, and that prayer mat is one of the softest things I have touched in country. The service - like most religious services it’s fairly easy to follow along and eventually you’ll find the rhythm. In this case there was a definite of words that would make everyone change positions (stand, bow, kneel, touch forehead to ground, etc). Every once and a while we got to do my favorite one (I wish I could take credit for this explanation, but I heard it from someone, I just don’t remember who) which consists of cupping your hands in front of your face, saying your prayers into the cup you just made, and finally washing your face with your prayers. The mosque itself was not the grand mosque that you picture, it was more comparable to a large garage and was ridiculously hot. One man too it upon himself to stand next to the man leading the service and fan him the entire time, another man took it upon himself to photograph the entire service in the most intrusive ways possible. I’m sure he got some great shots, but boy did he know how to get in the way and be distracting.

After Mosque I was taken to my community counterpart’s family compound by the neighbor who had caught me in my underwear earlier. I met some more people there who had a lot to say about Famara and not as much to say about Shekho. It was a pretty food time, not to mention the tastiest meat sandwich I’ve ever had in Senegal, I dodn’t know this was even possible. The meat was cooked well, seasoned right, and actually actually meat - not organs. Where did these spices even come from? Amazing.

Thus begins the day of food. Well cooked, good cuts of beef were all over the place (when I say good cuts I’m not necessarily talking about anything you’d find in a grocery store, it’s probably still pretty close to the scraps by American standards). Three lunches and a bunch of snack times later I needed to take a break and have a little gemalschgaming - even laying down was painful for me I was so full. A gemalschgaming, by the way, in this case means a walk to aid digestion and it is another inside joke, sorry (Thank you Ali and the Engle family for this word that has filled a void I didn’t realize existed). This walk aligned nicely with a tradition of going around and greeting everyone else in the village. What I was not warned about though is that children expect gifts/money when they greet you. I didn’t plan out my month at site very well and was down to 475cfa of cash in my possesion… 400 of those cfa were reserved for the purchase of bread in the morning so I would survive my bike back into Kedougou. The remaining 75cfa just wasn’t worth giving to only one kid, and besides I also wanted to keep it in case I needed to buy a sac of water on the way. There were a lot of disappointed children who greeted me on that walk. I’m sure they assumed I had money but was just withholding it, but it is considered better to lie in a situation like that and say ‘I have nothing’ than to say ‘I’m not going to give you anything’.

The gemalschgaming was a pretty great time - more people know who I am (and that I’m not Shekho), I got another (less sincere) offer of Malinké lessons for English ones, and another visit to Lengkhoxoto. That was the highlight for me, there were only 2 men sitting under the tree at the time, but after a short talk and an explanation of why I was walking around they wound up thanking me for stopping by. It felt really good. From Lengkhoxhoto I headed to the blacksmith’s place. His name is Bakary Kamara and has been one of the most understanding people in Khossanto when it comes to my language acquisition and the what I’m going through in general.

I wound up greeting every person notable to me during that gemalschgaming and I wasn’t even trying. I accidentally did what I was supposed to do because I ate far too much. I left my village the next morning very happy with the status of everything, looking forward to meeting the new volunteers who were coming to visit, and just about bouncing off the walls for summer camp to happen.

The Neighbors
(some of them - the boy on the left is my buddy that
saw me in my undies)

Let’s talk about today…*

Today was one of those days where I really needed Cake’s song “Sheep Go To Heaven” to help make me feel better. If you don’t know it I recommend you find it and listen to at least the opening lines. If you choose to go through the rest of the song (and why wouldn’t you?) keep in mind that I live with both sheep and goats (along with other farm animals, and yes Zach, I realize it’s an allegory).

To get the full story I guess we need to start with last night… well, I guess for that one we need to know a little about yesterday afternoon. I’ll start there:

Even though it is Ramadan I still get to eat during the day for a couple reasons (1) My light complexion apparently means I can not possibly survive a day of fasting, and (2) Most of my host family is not fasting due to age, work schedules, or pregnancies so food still gets made anyway. All the same, I still like to eat my lunches secretly in my hut so I don’t go rubbing it in for anyone who is fasting. Also, it’s kind of fun because I get my very own bowl since the ones I normally eat with are off farming, that means no need to build rice walls between my part of the bowl and that of the dirty, dirty child squatting next to me - the dirtiest one just doesn’t get it though and keep taking from my section, and it’s food I’ve already mixed to the consistency I like. I’ll let him know what’s up soon enough. After my lunch I read/nap, it’s a great system I’ve got going for me.

I’ve gotten off track. So I was heading to my hut from a morning of Malinké acquisition to hold up in my hut for “secret lunch’ (with super secret hot sauce!). Upon entering the compound I hear the distinctive “Iburahiiiimaaa…” of my host sister (actually a host aunt) to which I have started responding to by mimicking the call with her name (Kouta) as opposed to the traditional response of ‘Naamu” (A Mandinkified verstion of Arabic for “Yes” if I haven’t been lied to). She seems to get a kick out of it, and I’m happy to have an inside something of my very own with someone in the family. With greetings taken care of she dives right in to her point - I can’t leave for Saraya or Kedougou as I had planned. I need to stay in Khossanto for Korité (The party at the end of Ramadan). I really wanted to do that anyway so that was all the push I needed, “Awa, after Lunch I need to go for a bike to get cell phone reception and call my neighbor to tell him that I’m not going to Saraya to do the radio show tomorrow.” It’s the first Peace Corps radio show out of Saraya and I really wanted to be there, but there will be a bunch more of those and only one more Korité. Plus they said I’d get to eat cow, a bull in fact, and I need an excuse to wear my fancy Senegalese clothes.

So after secret lunch I did just that. The plan is - Thursday: No Radio/Saraya, Friday: Korité/Pray/Food, Saturday - Go to Kedougou and buy a bunch of phone credit to sing my mom Happy Birthday, Sunday: New volunteers head down to Kedougou for demyst (and hopefully Leah too).

Fast forward to after dinner when I decided to sit with my host dad who tells me that Korité is going to be Saturday. HOLD UP… after cross referencing with Kouta we decided that the celebration will be Saturday. This means I can go to Saraya for the radio show tomorrow (today as I’m writing)! Sweet. I’d better go to bed quick and rest up for the ride in the morning.

Now we’ll get today started, and why I need some Cake. I’m all kinds of excited so waking up at 7 is pretty easy to do. I’m trying to take it slow and make sure I don’t get rained on the whole way like last time when my host dad comes to my door to tell my that Korité will actually be on Friday… so, I’d miss it if I went to Saraya. If’ you’ve been keeping track I believe we just crossed off Plan C; luckily though it just reverts to Plan B - and I don’t have to tell anyone about any changes in plans!

No I’m bound and determined to make this day a productive one. First thing on the list, go to the Health Post and ask the ASC about Khossanto. Well, he’s gone for Korité and not coming back before I have to leave for Kedougou. Oh well, whatever, I’ll just find Moussa (my adult host brother)and get that tree he want’s planted in the compound taken care of. Well, I can’t find him so I’ll just hang out with the neighbor boy for a while… Actually, he showed me a GREAT potential gardening spot that I want to use for the school. That was a good thing in the morning.

Then it was time for Secret Lunch, after which I decided to shorten my siesta by a bit to ensure getting some work done. I headed back over to the neighbors’ compound to ask about getting my hands on a wheelbarrow to get soil for my personal tree nursery and gardens. I’ve been asking, trying to get this to happen for at least a month now and I’ll be darned if it’s not going to happen today! He had told me he knew where dirt was last week, so when I asked for a wheelbarrow he was very suspicious of where I was going to get this soil from. So I took him to take a look at the stuff I had picked out, it was rocky, but everything is rocky around here and the soil was nice and dark. He instantly said it was no good, I asked if it was because of the rocks and he informs me that it is because I would have to sift it… I’m a little impatient due to a lack of sleep, and he might be a little irritated because his stomach apparently hurts (unless he was lying to get out of work) so I probably shouldn’t have said out loud, “Right, we have to sift it because of the rocks.” I’m thinking he picked up on my attitude and spit back with a little ‘Chekho (My ancien) did it this way,’ which I think he’s realizing irritates me even more. But, no biggie, I just need to find someone with a screen to sift it with, shouldn’t be too bad. Oh, but wait, he has a place with good soil for me.

He led me to the other side of the village where we poked at a pile of rocks with a mostly clay/loam soil that was the color of sand. Not nearly as good of a soil as the other pile. Then we moved on to a decent soil with just as many rocks as the first pile, but a spot he had found so that was better (even though the first one was closer to home). Finally he takes me to the pen where his family keeps their cows at night where we both agree this is good (Basically it was a pile of manure that I really wanted to mix with the soil already in my yard to make pure awesomeness, but I needed to keep my cool). “We’ll do it at 4,” he tells me after I have to remind him that it has to happen today.

At 4 he actually came back and we grabbed my shovel and pick and made our way to the pile of manure, broke it up a bit, and confirmed it was good stuff. Then he informed me that the sun was too hot and we would come back later with the charette (a cart made to be pulled my a donkey or horse) to pick it up. I laughed a little because I didn’t believe him, but what am I going to do, I really need to use his charette so I agreed. He started to pick up the tools so I told him to just leave them since we would be coming back later in the day to pick everything up, now we have collateral involved and I am bound and determined to make this happen today.

Now it’s nap time because I realize I’m unreasonably cranky… no nap, but a tea break, kind of the same thing… but opposite. While waiting for the tea I came to terms with the fact that my white skin means I’m going to have to be assertive with certain people to allow me to actually do any physical labor. Also, the default assumption is that I don’t know how to do any physical labor and need to be taught, and finally that I am probably going to have to work using this same level of determination and slight trickery in order to make things happen on a schedule I can agree with. I’ve gotten the word ‘after’ said to me a lot and need to start reminding more often or butting my foot down with more people to keep myself from getting too angry.

In a personal triumph the neighbor boy returned later with the charette and we got the stuff into my back yard. So, knowing that Korité’s date is unclear to say the least I got to work trying to get my soil mixed and where I want it… then it started to rain.My initial calculations were a little off and the sprinkle was more of a downpour for the rest of the evening. I sat the storm out in my hut working with some bamboo pieces for the garden and almost laughed myself into tears with how all of my plans for the day had somehow fallen through.

When the rain broke I went back to work with the soil (not mud thanks to a woven mat that I threw over it). Long story short I might have caused some structural damage to my shade structure and I won’t be surprised if it isn’t standing when I get back from Summer Camp. I’m a little worried about it lasting the night to be honest with you.

Night time bucket bath.
Dinner.

Both unremarkable, but they happened. I went to remind Kouta about the radio show tonight and she made me come in, sit, and eat some tasty leaves mixed with dried fish. Tasty until you hit a big pocket of the fish. Anyway, she got the radio set up and reminded me about my fancy clothes.

I had given her my swearing-in outfit to get washed - I’m sorry Aziz, Lamine, and the Senegalese Fashion Police, they weren’t even clean when I got them and I trust her to do it right. Which she did, and spent the first half hour or so of the show ironing my clothes and getting all the creases in the right places.

Now the radio, as much as I wish I could have been there for the first show I think I’m more happy that I got to experience it with part of my host family. Now, when I actually go in to help out I have a good idea of how they’ll be reacting. I have experience with both sides of the show now, and I can’t wait to greet them from more than 40 km away!

With that said, they were really excited to know the people who were talking on the radio since they have met all the Malinké volunteers, they laughed at the jokes and danced to the American Music (looking to me to make sure they were doing it right). They were probably more excited than I was to hear my name mentioned on the radio, once as a recording of me, and another shout out from the volunteers who made it to the show.

I really do think this radio show is the start of something really cool for Saraya, if nothing else a lot more people with get an idea of what the Peace Corps is and what we are here to do.

That’s how it is, a day of small disasters topped off with an optimistic peak into the future. Donding donding.

Rains*

I didn’t realize it until today, but it had started two weeks ago when I biked to Saraya and spent the first 3 hours of that trip in the rain… I knew the rain was coming. I had come to a realization that morning that I didn’t just want to go to Saraya for a movie night with other PCVs in the area but that I needed to go for my own sanity. It was actually not a bad ride and just what I needed; ever since then though whenever I get on my bike it will rain. Granted, it is rainy season, the name is telling you what to expect; it seems to wait just long enough for me to get to a point that turning back makes no sense whatsoever. Also, if I didn’t do things because it looked like it was going to rain I would wind up never doing anything.

The past couple weeks have been the rainy season I expected before I came here and people told me what to expect from rainy season. I was told to expect a storm of some kind nearly every day to blow through and the sun would come out and make everything hot and muggy, but things would dry. In Khossanto though, we have been getting long soaking rains with all day mists. Nothing ever dries. When I started writing this it was sunny - that 10 minutes of sun was long enough, now the mists and winds have moved in and I’ve moved into my hut. It’s not what I was told to expect, but no one here seems to think it’s weird.

Me, I wish there were more storms. Sitting out or “sleeping through” a big storm in my hut is unbelievably fun. Its mud-brick construction and thatched roof keep out enoug of the rain in predictable areas that I don’t need to worry about myself o my things getting wet. What I do get though is all the sounds of the storm as though I weren’t in a building at all (without all those nasty getting sick side effects). I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night by more than one clap of thunder that you would swear hit in my back yard, or by my door being slammed shut in the wind. I get angry about being woken up for a bit, but then I just get happy and enjoy the music of the storm (in the case of the door slamming I was angry for a bit longer because I needed to get up, make sure the door wasn’t in fact broken, fix it, then secure it and go back to bed). Just be sure that all flashlights,radios, and electronics are off because they will get struck my lightning according to most Senegalese, including my host father.

A few days ago I set out to meet my neighbor at his field conveniently located some distance out of town along the road to Bambarayaa. I, having only been there once, took the road to the fields of one of the many Cissokhos (Family name) in Khossanto by mistake. It was a beautiful ride along the hills it turns out you can see in the distance from the fields I was trying to get to. When I reached the dead end in this family’s corn field and temporary hut that made me know for a fact I was in the wrong spot (nothing has been familiar since IST when the rains made the forest a jungle) I greeted “I nin tiling?” to make sure no one was in the hut. Thankfully nobody was so I wasn’t going to need to admit to getting lost and I turned to correct my mistake. This is where the adventure became a little serendipitous when I came across a patch of bamboo. Only a few hours earlier had I decided that I wanted to try planting bamboo along the back of my yard for a little more privacy (as I shower I can look into the entire neighboring compound, and they often say hi). So I took a few pieces of a couple shoots and continued back to Khossanto. When I found myself in the middle of a herd of cows with a sizable storm obviously coming I decided to suck it up and go back to the hut to sit out the storm.

The storm, once it came, was obviously going to be a soaker and the kids just kept laughing at me and saying that I don’t understand Malinké. So when a break came I headed out, at which point the hardest of the storm came and I got soaked in about 3 seconds. At that point it was not worth turning back anymore… guess I’ll keep going. It was kind of fun to be cold, but I did feel really bad for my bike each time I had to go through the muddy streams that were now crossing the paths.

At that point I came to the small river I was worrying about for the whole ride (Flashbacks of the Ozarks for those who get the reference) until I heard the shouts of joy coming from that direction. The shouts were a group of women who had been out in the area digging for gold, they had stopped there to play in the water and to bathe. Since it was a group of only women they were, as a whole, a lot less reserved in their manners than they are within the village. It was refreshing for me to know that the women of the village CAN in fact have fun and be loud and have that outlet from all that work they do all day every day. Even in this case though, they had been digging for gold in the hills. I feel that I don’t need to work very hard to let you know how hard this work is. It goes to show the personality of the people here, always finding the happy.

I’m glad I went the wrong way.
I’m glad that it rained.
I’m glad I was able to see that the women of Khossanto can have a good time just playing in the rains.

Lengoxoto*

Today encapsulated a lot of the past few weeks for me in ups and downs. Luckily, today used that saying in reverse. I spent most of the morning in my hut, at first I had the excuse of the rain, but that really didn’t last all that long. So I laid there getting angry at myself for not taking enough action and wasting everyone’s time. Ultimately I was just dwelling on the downs of the past week or so. After lunch however, I forced myself to get out to the Health post and ask them some questions I had worked on translating from English a few days ago. No one was there. I figured this was going to happen because I got the motivation at a weird time of day, I had a back up plan prepared.

This back up plan was really more of a personal dare because it was to go to the place in village where all the old men sit on this huge bench under this AWESOME tree. I’d been there a couple times and never really felt welcome. They would always just mumble something I couldn’t manage to make into words, say “He doesn’t understand Malinké” a lot, and eventually someone would throw in something like “White Guy doesn’t speak French either.” Then we’d all laugh and I’d get out of there feeling rather dejected. Last time I was there, the two men who happened to be there I’m pretty sure actually hated me. However, I know that if I really want the good Malinké I need to talk to the older generation who haven’t been quite as tainted with French in their language.

So I made my way back to the spot, Donding donding (little by little), when I turned the corner and saw the nine men sitting there on that gigantic bench made of whole trees, I lost all my courage to approach them. So I took the path that would keep me walking through the area instead of up to the men. I greeting them all, they greeted back and I was home free. Then one said, “Iburahima (me), come here.” My plan had been foiled, and I knew that for my own good I needed to go to them. We chatted for a bit, they invited me to sit, so I did, I felt the need to write a few things down in my notebook. I turned them into teachers and they loved it. I did stumble through a few things and got the chorus of, “He doesn’t understand Malinké,” but I was able to throw in a few gems forcing them to admit that I was understanding, donding donding. In the end they basically told me to come back every day if I wanted to learn the language really well. The part that struck me the most was that they barely even mentioned my ancien volunteer - I am the third volunteer in Khossanto, first was Famara (my double ancien), then came Shekho (my ancien), now Iburahima is there. I’m not going to lie, these guys would not shut up about Famara who’s been gone for more than a year and a half now, but we weren’t being compared. They just were remembering him fondly and I could tell that they were hoping to be able to build that kind of relationship with me too. When they talked about Shekho they did so only to say that he was there, I seemed to have found a pocket of the village that he did not spend a lot of time in. It’s what I’ve been looking for, usually when he comes up it’s a direct comparison because he’s a lot more recent in everyone’s memories. When that happens and I get the feeling that they wish he were still there or that they think he was better than me. At that point I usually turn off and stop listening.

Now, because I really liked making that last post, a few bullets:

• They are actually really nice (except the one who wants things from me) 
• It’s a great place to go to avoid being compared to Shekho 
• One younger guy there actually wants to work with me specifically on language in excange for English lessons (If he’s actually good I can also pay him in money Peace Corps gives me for a tutor) 
• They are all very patient with my language abilities 
• They’re old and generally speak the real deal Malinké 
• That tree is REALLY cool. 

When I left I had a huge smile and was feeling SUPER re-energized, I will be going back.

With an extra spring in my step I made my way back to the Health Post where I found only the ones who don’t speak Malinké. I was feeling motivated and they were in a good mood too, so we worked with my limited French and their equally limited English to get my questions answered. It was a fun and productive game, plus I noticed that when searching for words in a foreign language my default has changed to Malinké, which is far more effective than the German that has usually been popping into my head.

Then, to wrap up the day I sat on a log outside my family’s compound with a man I think I can start calling a friend, and a few men I don’t know at all, and they told me the name of the place with the old men and the AWESOME tree - Lengoxoto. After a little research into the meaning I came to this, “Under the Lengo tree.”

Quick Pic Post 3

The jungle that was my back yard when I got back from IST

IST, now in Bullets!*

• Awesome Yekini notebook (possibly purple)
• Permaculture!
• “Food Forests”
• Compost… why not?
• Heavy Givers, Heavy Feeders, Light Feeders
• Keyhole Garden
• Hammock Garden!
• Fences are not animal proof, walls are not kid proof
• Pomegranate can grow here
• I need to look more into planting Leucaena and Gmelina
• There are a bunh of books I want to get
• Rocket stoves are pretty sweet, but I think they will be a hard sell in Khossanto
• “Hey there Mr. Spidermite… are you doing any damage? Is there a beetle around that’s going to eat you?”
• Manure has a bunch of seeds in it, compost done right should kill all those seeds
• Small Scale ≠ Small Yield
• AIDs is probably more of an issue in Khossanto that I originally thought with the Mining nearby
• Women in Development --> Gender and Development --> Men as Partners
• EE in Senegal - Look at the GLOBE Project
• Community Content Based Instruction: It will be really tough to do with the lack of flexibility in the school system, but it is important to get a little environmental knowledge out there however possible.
• Community Radio, it’s actually going to be fun… especially since I can edit it on the computer to fix my language mistakes
• Malinke Girls’ Soccer Camp?
• Dinner with Aziz!
• Waste Management - Take it slow, go through the right channels, and give credit where it is due.
• Senegal is NOT eligible for Eco Schools!?
• Chicken Raising (layers vs. Broilers)
• Outplanting = fun times in dirt!
• “The rubber stamp in important”
• SeneGAD
• Bee Keeping!
• Red and Yellow = Bees
• Blue and Green = Butterflys
• White = Bats and Moths
• Needs ≠ Desires
• Hilly Billy Breath is a home-made insecticide
• Chopped Mint, Ash, Garlic and Tobacco, with some soap
• Beer kills slugs and coke might help with Rats

The Bottom Line

I can’t say they didn’t warn us about the fact that things just move slower in Senegal than they do in the US, let alone that for the first few month simply communicating would be difficult. This was all expected, one thing I did not count on contributing to the slow pace was being sick. It really doesn't make "integrating into the community" any easier when you are sick. My previous post provides my first, and rather major, example of that. I am now stuck with something less debilitating, but far less conducive to travel. I will call them ‘Digestive Issues,’ and as a result I have been stuck away from my village for a week now.

I am very anxious to get back, especially since I will need to leave once again for a long while for In Service Training (IST). I’m worried that I’m going to be spending more time away from my village than in it. The issue is getting back. From Kedougou there is one car a day that usually makes it’s way to my village of Khossanto and beyond. Unfortunately, this car is loading up and leaving at a time that does not agree with those digestive issues I mentioned.

My other option is to bike out which can easily turn into an all day event, but at the very least will exhaust me while I’m already not exactly in peak form. You might also question biking with digestive issues - Let’s just put it this way, it’s a lot easier to stop a bike in an emergency situation than it is to stop any kind of public transport.

There is my dilemma, between these couple events I feel like I have missed out on prime time to really get to know my village and its people. I’m going to need to be putting a much larger effort into getting to know new people in my village. A neighboring volunteer’s goal is to have dinner in every family compound in his village; I don’t know if I’m willing to set that goal yet, but maybe once a week (heck, that might even cover it over the next two years).

To throw a silver lining onto this as well, I’ve come to notice that these breaks (the one for the infection, and the ones from CBT families during Pre Service Training) have helped me to really notice my own improvements in the local language. Logic would agree with “you don’t use it you lose it,” but this situation for me I think there is something else going on. Here’s how I see it: I’ve been cramming a brand new language into my head, a lot of info in a short period of time, and doing my darnedest to make sense of it all. I think these breaks of not using Malinke have allowed it to settle into my mind in a more organized and logical order. Like in Dr. Mario when he starts throwing the pills too fast and you can’t keep up then eventually lose, but when you start a new game it’s SUPER easy and you kill all those nasty germs in no time.  On a side note, I do consider Dr. Mario superior to Tetris.

The bottom line is, I have two years here. My service is not going to be defined by these first few months here, so I need to continue to do what I need to do in order to stay healthy. No matter how much I want to be in Khossanto right now, I’m not doing any good if I am sick in my hut with a temperature of 102º (not that I’ve done that or anything).  These frustrations will pass in time.

Nin Allah Sonnta

It’s the Malinke version of Inshalla, which means God Willing. The more direct translation is ‘If God Agrees,’ and it is what I told my host family last Tuesday when the asked if I would be back that evening.

God did not agree.

My elbow had been doing this crazy infection thing for a while so I started taking antibiotics on Sunday when I realized it was not getting better after almost a week and hurt to find a position to sleep in. Then when Tuesday rolled around and it was in fact getting worse as the antibiotics should be doing their thing I decided to make the 3ish hour bike to my closest neighbor and see what he though while giving Med a good call. So I put on my dirty clothes and packed up some med supplies, 2 cliff bars, half a loaf of village bread, iPod, sunglasses, Adventure Racing Club baseball hat, and water then took off down the dirt road. It’s a good ride, fairly scenic, a few small villages to pass through keeping everything fun. I, however, am in horrible shape from not doing much of anything since we got in country; that half loaf of bread really did the trick to get me through the last third of the bike. 

Once in Bembou I stuck with my plan of going to the main road and asking someone there where the volunteer (PCV, Kellen) lives. So I biked along the main road for a while, up close to the side street that I thought he lived down, spotted the guy I thought looked most helpful and stopped next to him. I did the generic greetings then before I could ask about the volunteer the man told me that he was at his house. I looked at him for a bit so he asked if I had ever been there before… I hadn’t so he got up and walked me up the street where I saw Kellen getting out of his compound. Turns out the random man I picked up on the side of the street was his host father, so I made the right choice when I picked him out as looking helpful. 

To my luck again Kellen was on his way to second lunch at the school. He’s made this fun habit of eating with the teachers at the school, something I’ve decided to try to do. After second lunch we went to his counterpart’s house and shelled some peanuts while I tried to get a hold of Med to try finding out what is going on with me. It was kind of an ordeal getting a hold of them since I now have 2 phone numbers, but we figured it out. Med wanted me to email some pictures over when I had a chance, and this is about 3 hours closer to internet than I’ve been if a couple weeks so my chance was now. 

I hopped back on my bike and made the 45 minute ride to Saraya to meet up with the PCV there (Chris), and the volunteer I helped the baby weighings with (Emily). Chris was nice enough to let me spend the night and Emily has a pretty sweet set up, including internet so we used her computer to send out a couple pictures to Med. Later in the night we had to go to the hospital where Chris does a lot of his work so he could talk to someone about a Basketball event they were hosting the next day. While we were there Emily convinced me to let a nurse look at my elbow, she quickly said that the antibiotic I was on was not the right one at all. That, combined with Chris’s urging to head to Kedougou if things were not getting better the next day helped to make my next decision that much easier. 

I woke up the next morning fairly certain my elbow was getting worse, so instead of heading back to my village in the middle of nowhere I loaded myself and my bike onto a bus heading to the regional capitol of Kedougou. After biking to the Peace Corps regional house I rested for about 3 minutes before calling Med to update them on the status of my elbow. With the news that it was getting worse they suggested I head to Dakar so they could see it. I was able to add my computer to what I have with me at this point since that is all I had left at the regional house, and with help from people who know what their doing I was in a sept-place (a station wagon with room for 7 passengers, public transportation) on my way to Tambacounda for the night. 

Once that 3 hour ride was finished and I had made it to the Tamba regional house I soaked my elbow in hot water in an attempt to draw out some puss. I did this quickly while I was in Kedougou as well, but this attempt was far more successful and I needed to change the water several times. 

I woke up the next morning with my arm swollen up to my wrist, and made my way to the Garage to get on another sept-place to Dakar. This being a 10 hour drive, and my experience in the back seat with my elbow was less than enjoyable I opted to pay a little extra to get the front seat. VERY glad I made that decision when they loaded the sick woman into the back (you might think, rude, you should give up the good seat for the sick person. This was actually probably more desirable because she was able to be surrounded by people who knew her and would support her if needed. It was also clear very early on that she did not want help). The ride itself was fairly uneventful actually. 

A solid 10 hours later I was in Dakar negotiating taxi price to the Peace Corps office. He laughed at me, I laughed at him, and we came to an agreement. I was a little annoyed when he made me pay pat way through the ride because he needed gas, leaving me with no bargaining chip should he start driving me in circles. Luckily he didn’t, and we made it to the office easily, just in time for med to be gone for the night. 

First order of business, shower… once I got clean clothes to change into. dI rummaged through the SeneGAD clothes and picked out the only clothes that a male could possibly wear and headed to the shower. I washed my nasty dirty clothes in the sink before the shower (so they would have as much time as possible to dry in case none of the SeneGAD clothes worked). The real shower felt AMAZING, so good that I decided to try to squeeze as much puss out of my elbow as I could. After the shower I tried on my new clothes, which were fully acceptable, grabbed some dinner, put in a movie and continued soaking my elbow. 

***Graphic details because I know some people who want to know, until the stars come back, don’t read if you don’t want to know:: The puss ranged from your standard yellowish to green, and to start off with there was what I think of as a clog. Meaning that the pus at the openings had kind of coagulated into a plug so when I started squeezing the start of that plug just popped out, needing me to actively pull it out of my arm.*** Graphicness done. 

The next (Friday) morning I went in for med to take a look, with again more swelling in my arm, and was informed that an appointment was already made for me at the clinic/hospital and that they might want to keep me for a few days so I should bring my things. Luckily I did, because of my slight fever and Popeye arm they decided to keep me there for the weekend so they could give me IV antibiotics and make sure it was all working. In reality I probably didn’t need to stay there, but whatever, luckily there was another PCV there and we got to keep each other company! 

The swelling started to go down quickly, and my Sunday afternoon I was off the IV and getting to take oral antibiotics. I am thankful that they did not have to lance it or do anything to drain out the puss beside squeeze a bunch out every morning when they changed the bandage. 

And so, Monday at 10am I was picked up from the hospital with bandages on both arms from where they had drawn blood and where my IV had stopped working right and returned to the office “Health Hut.” Now here I am, more than a week after leaving on my daylong bike trip to Bembou, back in Tamba waiting for a ride to Kedougou, then on to Khossanto.

I like being dehydrated because then I don’t sweat*

It has rained! We had one good storm a couple days ago, followed by a morning of drizzle, and a couple of small rains. From what I’ve been told “I ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Other random updates to this roller coaster of a week: My shade structre can now provide actual shade. I just scared a baby goat that didn’t realize I was sitting here, and my fence might be done. I’m hoping not because animals can still come in and eat my plants. 

That’s all beside the point, I want to talk about the last 2 days. As I’ve made a habit of doing, I showed up at my host dad’s work at about mid morning. He works at the health post every morning and likes when I come so that I can do the ticket, this requires me to write down everyones names and take their money. It’s fun to write everyone’s name because I have no idea how to spell them so everyone just winds up giggling the whole time. 

After sitting there for a little bit he informs me that the Peace Corps woman from Saraya is coming today and we are going to go with them to a nearby village. The following things were wrong with that statement: There is no Peace Corps woman in Saraya (there is one who volunteers for an NGO), and only I went along (his boss said he needed to do work). And so, without really knowing what I was getting into I hopped into the back of the ambulance and we drove off for the day. 

First stop was the village of Madina Sabodala where we proceeded to vaccinate and weigh the 23 babies under a year old. I was put in charge of the weighing! Now, if you know me, you are probably aware that I love children but my experience with infants if very limited. Well in Senegal something like 60% of the population is under 18 years old… babies be jan (no, I’m not apologizing for throwing Mandinka/Malika/Mande in there, and it might happen more, deal). 

So, weighing babies consists of putting them in a sling a la Johnny Jump Up (only far less supportive) and hanging them from a scale. This is in fact the same highly effective plan as weighing fish. Using an age/weight chart you can tell how well nourished a child is fairly effectively. 

At first I was scared that I was going to break someone’s baby, but after so many mothers grab they baby by a single are and all but throw them into the sling I stopped being scared 

Most of the babies weren’t too happy with the sling, mostly I think because they were not somehow attached to their mothers. Some of them were just really curious about this person who is not only white, but also a man who was touching them. The mom’s for the most part thought it was really funny… I tend to agree with them, the babies either stared confused at me, cried, or if we were lucky they were too tired to do anything so they just wound up being blobs hanging from a scale. 

Once all the babies were taken care of there we moved on to Mamakhono. A far less organized situation compounded by the man in charge not having much respect for women (aka the moms and the volunteer trying to make things run smoother. 

Part of this general disorganization was the decision that to weigh the babies I should stand on the world’s most finicky electronic scale, hold the babies and subtract my weight. It could be faster, but thanks to the scale it was probably slower. Perhaps the most important thing to not about this technique is that I am in full contact with all the babies. With the sling when an exceptionally dirty kid came around I could just let their mother do most of the work. On the scale all I could do is hold them away from me, being very careful not to be obvious about it. This is when I got peed on a couple times, however, far fewer babies cried throughout this process. 

Note from day 1: Babies with a mohawk are always cute. Babies with the forehead soul patch… it’s about half and half. 

Day two of baby weighing started with me getting really frustrated with my host dad. Here I was looking to have a good day in the village since I was gone the whole day before, but I was so angry with him that morning that when he suggested I go with them again I did not hesitate to jump into the ambulance again. I’m glad I did because this day was really interesting and provided me with the opportunity to hear A LOT of Malinke. 

Our first stop was Diakhling. Before we could start vaccinations an weighings we had some visitors that had work to do. It seems the Japanese government is funding a pretty major health infrastructure re-haul in the area. Phase 1: Saraya gets a new hospital; Phase 2: A few other villages get new Health Posts. Diakhling may be one of those villages, except that it is very remote so secondary costs to the project are high. It becomes a question of a lot of Health Posts in easily accessible areas, or fewer in more difficult to reach places. 

This is where the fun began, the two people representing the Japanese government could speak English, so they hired a French interpreter (I assume from Dakar). Armed with their French interpreter they set out to a village that only speaks Malinke. Of the 30 or so local men in attendance only one stepped forward as able to speak French and act as the interpreter into Malinke. This was great for me because I got to hear the whole thing translated both ways, I moved myself to a spot where I could hear everything and used it as an opportunity to try to pick up some new vocabulary. Its effectiveness is debatable. 

After they got done with their interviews we went right to work. I was happy to see Johnny Jump Up come back out for the weighings, and the man in charge brought us sodas! it was a good day. A notable difference for today is that the villages were much smaller and more rural, so to make sure that all children were taken care of there were lists for each stop of who needed work done. If a mother did not show up with her child she was sent for since the ambulance will not be able to make it out there in less than a month due to the rains. 

From our first stop we moved on to Diegoung and finally Kobokhoto, each village smaller and closer to Mali than the last. It was in Diegoung that I got the screams of terror out of the babies. It was quite obvious to be that they were certain of their impending deaths in the hands of this white man. 

The comparison that comes to mind is really just for my parents and uncle. Remember the first time I was ever in a canoe? I knew for a fact that we were going to sink and I was going to die despite the PFD around my neck. I was absolutely terrified and had no problem vocalizing this, same with these particular babies. I tried to do my work fast so I could get them back to mom before they stressed themselves out too much. The only problem is that mom barely had time to calm them down before they were getting stabbed by needles, one poor boy got one in each limb. In the long run it is better for the children, so I was able to get past the tears and obtain my sense of accomplishment.

In my rush to get away from my host dad today I neglected to bring any water, and the last villages did not offer us any of their water.  By the time I made it back to my hut I was ready to drink a liter of water, which I did and then proceeded to sweat that all out.  Luckily I decided to shower right after I drank the water, so I was nice and clean by the time I started sweating again.

Quick Pic Post 2

My hut with a small goat at the back door.

On feeling like a fool and a pig: Day 2 at site*

I woke up today without needing to be woken up! I even managed to get a little privacy from the family’s latrine by tying my sheet to my “shade structure.”

Now, Clarification on that. Yesterday I was still asleep by the time the sun had fully risen, this is not how it works apparently because my host dad decided to wake me up. Next clarification, there is a section of fence missing that closes of my back yard from the rest of the compound. This particular missing section also happens to block my view of the family latrine from my outside bedding spot. I get my own latrine in my backyard by policy, which is really nice for sanitary reasons (although I suspect someone used mine last night). Final bit of clarification, yes, I do sleep outside. The inside of my hut has been maintaining a fairly constant 100ºF (according to the thermometer hanging from the wall, so this is really a more accurate description of the wall’s temperature), as such I have spent the last 2 nights sleeping under my “shade structure.” The quotes are because it really provides more of a Shade Grid since it is only the bamboo framing that will one day hold a roof and provide me with shade and rain blocking. The fact that it doesn’t provide shade doesn’t matter at night, and I’m willing to risk getting wet to sleep where it is cooler. I still wake up sweating though. Anyway, last night, I hung up my bed sheet to act as a temporary fence so I don’t have to worry about peeking in on anyone using the latrine.

The day started slow, my host dad disappeared early; apparently running off to Mali, possibly for a funeral. So helpful neighbor boy came over and tried talking to me in French only (if you aren’t aware, my French is very limited to survival phrases). After a while he pulled me over to his family compound, I greeted his mother and the woman who was visiting, then he and I started to pull apart mango pits to get at the seeds so I could plant them. (only 485 to go). After that I decided to take a walk over to the school to check on the status of the well there and if I might be able to plant some trees there.

Still needs to be dug deeper, the pile of rocks behind throws me off every time.

On my way there I greeted everyone I passed, which led to only one attempted conversation… luckily I had prepared by reviewing the word for ‘well’ and have already mastered the verb ‘to go’ in Malinke (both slightly different than Mandinka).

Lunch was plain rice with peanut sauce - tasty, but feels like a side more than a meal. Since dad was apparently in Mali it was up to me as the oldest to do the work. I waved this duty on to my oldest brother (about 10 years old) since this was only my second lunch with the family. So he split the rice in half and poured the sauce onto the half that remained in the bowl and we started eating. We finished the first half and my youngest brother left the bowl. We’re down to me and the oldest brother… he reloads the bowl with the second half of rice, peanut sauce is poured on, and we continue eating. Well, I continue eating. He took one handful and left the bowl for me, so I at it, all of it. I’ll be honest, it was only difficult for my last two spoons full.

After lunch I decided it was time for another walk… to the hill with the supposed cell phone reception (reso). I found the hill, not the reso. Making my mother proud I decided not to double back and took a new route home. I made an effort to take a few of the conversations past greetings a few times. There were 2 main themes to these conversations 1) I am not the volunteer I replaced, he is in Kedougou; 2) I only speak a little French, but I am studying Malinke (little by little).

This endeavor made me simultaneously proud of my efforts and embarrassed of my language skills. Case in point was the teenage girl helping to make dinner with her family saying in broken English, “You do not like the English do you?” I’m sure this was her saying that I don’t speak English… well I do, I just can’t understand mumbles, sorry.

So, I returned home feeling proud and inadequate so I poured water over my head to cool off.

FUN NEW PRACTICE: Bucket Bathe into a benwar (big bucket) and use that to water the plants in my backyard! **I’m pretty sure one is a Baobob!

Then it was dinner time: millet couscous with leaf sauce. SO tasty that even now that host dad is back I decided to continue eating twice as long as everyone else. It’s good, because then I feel like a pig for eating a lot at the same time as I lose all kinds of weight because I have no protein in my diet.

The End of Homestay*

Remember how on Christmas Eve you would get so excited that you couldn't sleep and Mom and Dad would remind you that, "The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner you will wake up and it will be Christmas Day!" Well it works in the other direction too.  I am currently doing everything I can so I don't have to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and leave my new family.

It is my opinion that Peace Corps is like a 27(ish) month lifetime.  Right now, I'm getting ready to leave for college.  Okay, I have to put another clause on this 'lifetime'; it's more at the turn of the century, when leaving for college didn't necessarily mean you were coming back.

I've been living with the Mandian family in MBour for the past 2 months.  They have fed me, taught me to talk, taught me how to get around on my own, even clothed me.  What it comes down to is I love these guys, and owe them the most for helping to be able to integrate into this new society.  I might not be able to speak the same language as everyone in the house, or even be able to carry on a conversation with the ones who speak my language.  I'm going be near tears all day tomorrow, I was having trouble today when my LCF left the city.  It made it all too real.

So not only am I leaving the family I love and the city I've grown up in to go to a village where they don't speak the exact same language I've been learning... I'm also leaving the Mandikol.  The three of us have gone through pretty much all of this together, and I think the rest of our stage would agree that we are quite possibly the closest language group here (I swear we aren't exclusive, it's just that no one knows our language).

I'm leaving my family behind, my friends are splitting up, and I'm starting something completely different.  Yup, I'm off to college.  Graduation and the "Real World" coming up after IST (In Service Training) in mid July.

But, for all of my sadness and worry about the changes about to happen, I have the world to look forward to!  I'm about to get started on what I actually came to the country for.  I can look back to my post on Village Visit to get a refresher on what I have to be excited about.  It's all about keeping a handle on the past but always looking to the future.

Happy

To Host a Wrestling Tournament*

Wrestling in Senegal is a pretty big deal. According to my LCF (Language Teacher) Aziz it has gotten more popular than Soccer in Senegal.

TANGENT: Aziz also told us a little story about why this is a good thing. About 5 years ago mugging was a big problem in the cities of Senegal. Apparently, as wrestling has gained popularity all the muggers became wrestlers. More money in a legitimate way, kind of a win win situation.

Spence’s Senegalese father, Lamine, was a wrestler back in the day, and still loves it. He seems to be grooming his son to be good too. So as a gift to his Tubabs (white people), Lamine organized a Wrestling tournament for us in front of his house. All we had to do was pay 3000cfa (pronounce cfa “say-faa”). This seemed reasonable to us, so we started calling the other trainees in our city. To most of them this price seemed unreasonable apparently, and since we didn’t want to have to pay more we extended our search the trainees of a neighboring village. They were all for the wrestling tournament so it was still on! Which was good, since in a true Senegalese fashion, we didn’t get this taken care of until the morning of. We were a little worried, but it turned out AMAZING!

It started off with the little kids wrestling, and little kids doing anything like that is just cute. As the evening wore on the age of the participants increased and the crowd got bigger, louder, and closer. As with any amateur sporting event there were more pauses than one would prefer to see, but it was none the less a great time. It started to get intense when the oldest group was going (I think age maxed out at 17ish).

Lamine’s son, Ismaela, won his bracket of the tournament, which gave him bragging rights that he tried his best to keep under control. At first it was just confusing to watch and just looked like chaos, but as the evening moved forward it became clearer what was happening and significantly more fun to watch. A little more details on the wrestling itself now.

Senegalese wrestling is best described, in my opinion, as a mix between WWE style wrestling and Sumo. Probably a little dull by American standards. The wrestlers basically bat at each other like cats for a few minutes before grabbing one another by their diapers and trying to get the other's torso/head to hit the ground before theirs. The action usually lasts a few seconds.

Back on April 4th (Senegal’s Independence Day) there was a HUGE match between and wrestler names Yekini and one named Tyson (Yes, as in Mike Tyson). The story as I know it is that Tyson was the former champion but moved to America for a few years and this was his big return match. There were some fans rooting for Tyson, but it seemed like most people were rooting for Yekini with all their Senegalese pride. It was a long build up, felt a little like watching the Super Bowl on TV, except that when Yekenni finally won you could hear the city EXPLODE with excitement. People literally flooded the streets. It was a fairly exciting match too, long, and it was close, but Tyson’s head hit the ground just before Yekini’s shoulder did.  With that the party began.

Plans and Adjustments

I'm going to try to be a responsible blogger now, I promise.  Well, semi responsible... my plan, since I don't have as ready access to the internet as bloogging responsibly requires I am going to write notes to myself on what I'm going to blog, transcribe them to the blog, and adjust the posting time to when I actually put my thoughts onto paper as opposed to when I actually put them online.  I'll even make special notation... so if you see a * at the end of a post's title it means that I wrote it on paper before it made it online.

This is all a means to make it so that I am more likely to write things up while they are fresh and therefore make this more interesting for you to read.  This is an issue for me, I'm not to most consistent when it comes to things like this.

Anyway, in order to add to the confusion, I am now going to write my first such post, which when looking at the blog will appear to be older - but I'm actually going to write it right now, it's like I'm a time traveler.

Keep in mind too, that while I wrote most of this I was sitting in a hammock quite similar to the one pictured (it is the one pictured, I took this picture then started writing).

Village Visits*

I just made it into Khossanto a few hours ago, this village will become my home for two years about a month from now. It's a pretty big deal for me to be visiting, but I have to start from the beginning - Site Announcements!

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.