Quick Pic Post 7

Let's look at where you all poop! Now let's follow it to the river...

Bonus Picture: Can you tell what's going on here?

Life as a TV Show*

Khossanto's Health Post on a slow day

Ever since IST (In Service Training) when Spence asked, "Do you ever feel like Peace Corps is just playing with you?" He asked this both in general and to me specifically. It seemed like up to that point in my service I was always either the most isolated volunteer - Announcement of everyone's IST home stays: "... and David, you're off somewhere by yourself..." Hannah's response: "story of his life." - or somehow overlooked - the language seminar when I was in the hospital. - I've toyed with the idea of my life as a TV show ever since.

Lately I've taken a liking to thinking of the different Health Centers, Posts, Huts, and hospitals throughout the Region of Kedougou as different medical TV shows. Originally I liked my village, Khossanto as Scrubs - a bunch of young new doctors just getting started, fun times ensue. Saraya I thought would be Grey's Anatomy - more of a hospital with those complications, and according to Leah, "some drama and pretty people." Kedougou was E.R. just because it's the big regional hospital and I don't know much about it. I thought Ninifescha could be House... it's a bizarrely placed awesome new hospital that smells like an America hospital and probably gets some weird things even though no one really uses that facility. So there's Fongolimbi and Salemata left and I don't know much about either; and the only TV show I can think of now is MASH and nowhere is a combat zone.

Anyway, Saraya and Khossanto switched roles the past couple weeks. In Scrubs form the Saraya Health Center had yet to hire a new cook for their health workers so they all took turns cooking. Obviously Leah volunteered for her own day. Lunch was Peanut Sauce (Maffé) and for dinner an Alfredo Pasta. Apparently she wont be having any troubles finding a husband now. I told her to set up a bracket... I don't think she's going to.

Not to be left without a show; the youthful, pretty health workers of Khossanto ramped up the drama yesterday to bring it into Grey's territory. As an additional disclaimer here I'm just telling what I know to point out some complications in the system not to call anyone out. My opinion is everyone made some mistakes, and it's tricky because I consider myself friends with everyone involved and hope to not be caught in the middle - bottom line, no judgments.

A villager's child is sick, so he brings the infant to the health post on a Saturday. The doctor (not actually a doctor, but that's how the village refers to him. I think he's maybe somewhere around the level of nurse?), who lives at the Health Post, says, "It's the weekend, I'm tired, come back on Monday." The villager is of the opinion that the infant is urgently sick and insists with no results, so he goes to the PCR (local government guy) for some help. He apparently manages to get the okay to be seen by the doctor.

Now the doctors are busy... constantly... these guys are working at least 12 hour days most of the time and even on weekends they have to take all injuries, and there are a lot with all the artisanal mining around, and try to turn away sicknesses unless they are urgent. The logic is that if the person is sick on the weekend to the point that they think they need to come in that they were probably sick enough that they should have came in sooner. Basically these guys are on-call literally all the time. Overworked is an understatement in my opinion; treating things as black and white, like the injury vs. sickness rule, can lead to issues no matter who you are.

The villager apparently never bought his ticket to be seen (it's unclear if there was anyone there selling tickets) so the infant was never seen. After "a few hours" of waiting he went to the doctor to see what was up. Things are blurry here, I think it's because everyone realizes they made mistakes so details aren't shared. The rumor is that at some point things escalated to something physical. Someone described the villager as having the doctor in something like a headlock... I'm guessing it was something more along the lines of an angry hand on the shoulder. This particular villager is a massive man and that would be TERRIFYING with emotions running high. A few children also suggested that rock throwing happened, but that's kind of an angry child's go-to when they are angry so they could just be filling in gaps with what they would do.

At this point the doctor goes and reports this to the Gendarme (think police) in a nearby village to file a report. The villager may or may not have had to go there to resolve that, either way things calmed down... except that it's all that anyone can talk about. Nobody loves hopping on a soapbox more than my host father... shouting... outside my door while I'm trying to nap through the part of the day that is over 105º. I'm kind of sick of hearing about it frankly, I'm not hearing anyone learn any lessons. The teachers are trying to get people to understand that the villager assaulted a government worker; villagers insist that the doctors are there for the entire village's health needs... all day any day.

Anyway, this morning the doctor was instructed to head to Saraya (the Health Center) to deal with whatever reporting needed to happen there. Meanwhile the remaining doctor (still not actually a doctor), who is actually paid by one of the commercial mines to do things in villages they affect, has to deal with all the injuries that come in (and soapbox standing villagers) on his own. Frankly, after the whole assault thing the doctors aren't really sympathetic to the situation anymore and the infant's need to see a doctor was kind of forgotten... that is until sometime this afternoon when the infant succumb to whatever illness it had.

That evening the second doctor was asked to go to Saraya. I think this was both to answer more questions for the Health Center and for his own safety... but now we have no one at the Health Post in Khossanto. I'm hoping this will get the village to see that you can only push so hard until you break something, what I think they are mostly seeing is that when things get complicated the doctors will just "run away." Unfortunately for the first doctor, if this isn't handled well he's not going to be able to work in Khossanto again, or anywhere in the region really the way news like this can travel. I don't know what's going to happen, and that's kind of scary. Like I said before, I consider everyone involved a friend - hopefully I'll seem them all again.

Gold Rush*

Last week I had my very first hut sleepover! Despite my writing this on Valentines Day, there was nothing romantic about it… it wasn’t even to visit me, bringing out my Eeyore, it was just to check out the gold mining going on all around my village. All joking aside it was a good visit and I’d love to have more (hint hint everyone). 

Right now there is a whole new rush to a village right nearby called Sambaranbougou. It started up sometime in November and is continuing to grow and it’s causing a lot of changes for me. First I’d wanted to put an Ag volunteer there and now with the gold rush security would be an issue (nothing with security has changed for me so don’t worry). The most obnoxious change has been in transport, which up to now has been pretty regular; when I missed cars it was usually my own procrastination. This caused a day of lost time and I even accounted for my own usual tardiness in the plans. Cars headed my direction are now filling up faster so I have to make it to the garage even earlier than I’m used to (but still in the afternoon, allowing plenty of time to come up with a procrastination project) and cars that used to go all the way through my village are now going to Sambaranbougou , the road to which does not pass through Khossanto (though there is a handy bush path). There is the option of getting off at the turn off, but that’s still a good 30-minute bike ride. This was the option we took. It was a great plan until Martin got a flat tire right around sunset – I biked ahead to get a spare tire I had in my hut. When I got there and told my family about it they were a little on edge that I had just left him “in the bush,” I assured them he was on the road… this is, by the way, coming from people who freak out if you cell phone is on while there is lightning around just to give you perspective. He was fiiine.

The next morning, with a fresh new tube in his bike, Martin and I bike the 25ish km to Sabodala to check out the commercial mining operation there. They were our big donors for the summer camp in August and had given me an open invitation to check out what their doing, so our resident geologist (Martin) and I cashed that in. We spent most of the day with their Environmental Manager but I still didn’t know what kind of questions to ask. We say “The Pit” which was very impressive, but the nature lover in me saw this big hole in the ground and the giant hill next to it and wasn’t very happy. In their defense they were clearly using ‘first world’ standards for safety and environmental practices – even down to making everyone buckle-up in their cars. I know there’s a need for mining, and I don’t know enough about any details to say that I am for or against it; it’s still hard for me to see people making such big changes to the environment, no matter how responsible they are. Martin, having been to active mine sites before, informed me that it was pretty par-for-the-course and seemed fairly impressed by their standards himself.

I did not take this photo

My thoughts quickly turned to all the water they use. So much, so fast that simply pulling from the ground water isn’t fast enough. What does that mean then? Well, they took two intermittent/seasonal streams, built some earthen dams, and voila! Lakes. Right now their names are really boring so I’m going to call them Big One and the Little One (not that far off from their actual names). Actually, any time now they’ll be finishing up another dam to create a medium sized one. To make Medium One they had to move a tiny village (we’re talking like 8 families) to higher ground. If I have anything to do with it, and I wont, it’s going to be named after that village – I think Big One can have the same naming scheme actually. Dear mapmakers, keep that in mind.

This whole operation started in the late aughts so these new lakes are still pretty young and don’t really have their shorelines worked out yet. To complicate their establishment they have no real input in the dry seasons, and a pretty major pull in the mines, so levels fluctuate a bunch. Actually, Little One might wind up drying up before the rains come. When the rains do come their streams do connect to the big one that is the border with Mali so there is a fish population as well as crocodiles and birds and terrestrial animals have definitely found and started utilizing these water sources. Their youth and fluctuating shore line has yet to make noticeable changes to the flora in the area; we were told the dams, and therefore lakes, would stay when the commercial operation closed so they will have plenty of time to find their footing. This creates a very unique water resource in the area that includes at least one “permanent” stream coming from Big One.

Honestly I’m conflicted on this. The bottom line is what kind of impacts is this new set of ecosystems going to have on the area – there are positives for humans and nature, but there are negatives too. It all depends on management and it could go either way. I for one and very interested to find out.

Moving on, we were given a ride back to Khossanto and made our plans to check out Sambaranbougou and the artisanal mines the next day. We almost made it out of town in the morning when a friend of mine told us that no one would be working; someone had died out there. Obviously shocked and concerned I asked what happened. All I was told is that he had a sickness and was a guy from Mali. We made the best of the day and were able to see everything that an artisanal miner does right in Khossanto, except the digging in the ground part.

This happens all day every day somewhere in the village so I’ve got a pretty good handle on what they do at this point.

1. Dig and bring rocks back to your compound
2. Hammer said rocks into pebbles. 
3. a: Pound pebbles into powder, some choose to use a special iron pounder. b: Pay a small amount to have the pebbles ground to a powder by a machine. 
4. Use water to wash the powder down a ramp covered in carpet squares, which will catch the heavier bits, including gold.
5. “Pan” what comes off the carpet squares for a preview of what you got. Optionally set this aside to pay special attention to the higher concentration of gold. 
6. Get as much water out of the sand collected from the carpet squares without drying and add mercury (you know, that dangerous element in some thermometers, they call it “Produit”) and grind that into the sand with your hands until you cannot tell it is there. 
7. Add water again and agitate so the mercury, which will have grabbed all the gold, consolidated into a bead while carefully pouring out the excess sand and water. 
8. Pour the mercury/gold bead into a small cloth and squeeze out as much mercury as possible, leaving a mostly gold nugget in the cloth. 
9. Press out as much mercury from that as possible, that stuff is expensive and you will not be getting it back after the next step. 
10. Take your nugget to the buyer who uses a special torch to burn off what’s left of the mercury (usually in a place that makes it really easy to breath in the fumes) then weighs the gold and pays you accordingly. 

As with any commodity the price varies and changes, but I feel pretty comfortable saying people are getting about 20,000 CFA/gram (about $40). I don’t however feel comfortable saying what an average days work gets, but it is apparently worth it. 

That night we found out another man from Mali died in Sambaranbougou. This time I was a little more persistent to get information about what kind of sickness it was – he was coughing, had a fever, and was maybe throwing up. These may be the symptoms for a lot of diseases, but I’m going to be extra aware of anything like that happening to me. So far so good and I haven’t heard about anyone else passing away. Between it being Friday (prayer day) and news of this new death it was clear no one would be working out there the next day so Martin decided to head back to Kédougou and my little gold rush came to an end.

It’s Been A While

Around Thanksgiving I made a decision to go home for Christmas and New Years. Originally I thought this would be awkwardly close to the end of my service, but I followed the example of another volunteer and did it. Besides, my original plans to go home in September fell through and there was something I just couldn’t pass up.

Heading Out

One night a bunch of the family (a couple aunts, a few cousins, their kids, my parents, and me) decided to go for a ride in the old Winnebago to see the Christmas lights, coincidentally located at a park on Lake Winnebago. The highlight here was the Reindeer. On a bit of a whim, after that we decided to drive about a half hour to see the light show in a nearby city (almost wrote village there) to see their light show. Word on the street was that it was pretty awesome. Well it was, so many lights timed to music. Music that was broadcast using a little radio transmitter so that we just had to turn our car to a certain station. I know there’s nothing new about this technology (drive-in movies), but it’s still really cool especially with all those lights.

For me, coming from Senegal, it quickly turned overwhelming. So much power going to those lights, we have easy enough access to all that power that we can just put on a show with it and not worry. Everyone’s houses were still fully powered all day long. Even the major cities in Senegal can’t do that. To get the timing just right so many people and machines had to be working together to make that come out. It wasn’t just the effort and coordination to put on the show – but us, watching it… there. Frankly, we could have easily fit ten more people into that Winnebago and still be comfortable… heck, that’s not even including the bedroom area. Gas is cheap here, but the thought of buying that much to head that far without a packed car is almost unthinkable

The kids, one of whom I’d just met days before because she was just a swollen tummy when I left, were definitely enjoying the show, but somehow seemed under impressed. Risking sounding like an old curmudgeon, that Nintendo DS seemed to hold their attention a lot better. In my family compound you’ll have 30 kids crammed around one 13 inch TV just to watch the news. Somewhere between that; Alvin, Simon, and Theodore’s hosting; and the Carol of the Bells (My personal favorite non-religious Christmas song) I had to basically turn myself off in order to avoid a complete overload/breakdown. I had gone to this place where I realized that almost every aspect of my day to day life in America is unthinkable to most of the people I’ve spent the last 21 months with. Do I feel guilty? Should we all? No. I wish I could show people from my village, that it would be easy to have someone come visit – but it’s not, and people here are happy anyway.

All-in-all America was worth it. I got to see the family, which is a big deal… and a big ordeal, but so much fun. I managed to fit in a couple good Goodbyes - both unfortunately too soon, one long overdue. I comeback refreshed and with a renewed perspective about what it is that I’m doing here. It was a good choice.

Baseball, by the Gou Crew

To hit fast-forward a little bit here now- I came back to the West African All-Volunteer conference. Thanks to budget cuts across the board it was just another something that all of PC Senegal felt required to attend while a handful of volunteers from nearby countries got lost in the mix. It’s a great idea, don’t get me wrong, I’d just like to see more of what’s happening in other placed instead of continuing to hash over what’s happening in Senegal.

After All-Vol was the West African Invitational Softball Tournament (WAIST), earlier than usual thanks to the upcoming presidential elections. Basically a weekend of theme parties and Peace Corps teams playing dress up even for the games themselves. This year my team’s theme was Baseball – easily underrated but awesome (thanks Bonnie and Mike). And finally after that there was COS Conference (Close of Service). That was just a lot of me thinking, “Really? Already?”

After COS Conference it was time to finally head back down to Kédougou where I spent a couple days getting my life in some semblance of order. When I was all set to head back to site I found myself stuck in the middle of a transport strike and therefore unable to take a car in order to bring all my gifts back to village. Luckily someone was headed my way in a Peace Corps car (which NEVER happens) to check out possible sites in my neck of the woods. That’s right, I’m finally getting neighbors as I leave. Now I can finally spend a god chunk of time back at site… Nin Allah Sonnta.

My host dad was happy to see me come back

Occupy Khossanto*

I really didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. My breakfast porridge is coming later, now that cold season has kicked in nobody wants to get out of bed, even to make breakfast.  It’s SO cold - like all the way down into the 60s.  I get to snuggle up under all my sheets and blankets (Thanks Jay this is the only time of year I can use it), and I’ve always liked being under the covers.  It’s a welcome change to sleeping with no sheets and starfishing so that no part of my body is touching another.

Breakfast came nonetheless and I was forced to start my day, which was in fact a fairly rough start.  Roughness aside there certainly was a lot more noise than usual coming from the Case des Tous Petits (think pre-school then take away all the money) than the toddlers usually make.  That’s when I noticed host siblings had an urgency in them that usually isn’t there when they said they were going with the other students.

Turns out they went on strike!  I was annoyed at first because there are already so many reasons that the students don’t get enough time in school – teacher strikes, holidays, the whole affecté thing where teachers are not necessarily from anywhere nearby – but I had nothing better to do since everyone I work with was either taking part in the strikes or trying to resolve the situation so I went to check it out… from a safe distance.

I’m not going to lie and say I’m super informed about all of the Occupy Place demonstrations, but much like the “Arab Spring” the name seems apropos.  As I asked around to get the reason for the strike, that’s the word they used… well the French word, I got a few nonsense answers like because there’s no fence around the school.  I think that her dad was just talking about having to go cut bamboo for the school fence so she had it in her head. What the real reason the students took to the street was because of the dust. Give me a second, I’ll explain.

The road through Khossanto is just a dirt road, but it is heavily trafficked by transport heading to and from the gold mines.  Many of the vehicles seem fairly oblivious to the fact that they are going through a village and speed right through, even going so far as to swerve around the speed bumps.  Not only is this dangerous, I’ve been informed that someone was killed last month biking just outside of the village, but it also kicks up a lot of dust which gets everywhere – even when I have my hut all closed up an amazing amount of dust still makes its way in.  Another concern is the status of our lungs thanks to all the red dust in the air with all the schools (primary, middle, and aforementioned pre) are along that road… as is most of the village honestly.

By the time I got out there the students had stopped three tanker-trucks heading towards the mines and 3 pick-ups heading to Kedougou.  By the end of everything there were a few more bits of public transport and mine cars caught in the line.  I had seen a group of older students head to the meeting place with the PCR (local government official) so I decided to find somewhere high to get a good view of the street. Right when I got into position is when the Gendarme (police) showed up… with their riot gear.

I’m all about better safe than sorry, and the Gendarmes were definitely peaceful, as were the students, but I was worried their jumping into riot gear might scare the students into making a stupid mistake and throwing one of those stones they had used to build their road blocks.  They didn’t – everyone was very civil.  The students would yell and make noise ever so often, but it all seemed good-natured.  Villagers were let through the line if they needed, I heard one woman offer up an “Allah mu al deema,” “May God help you all.” That’s not in our sarcastic context but an honest wishing that the students be helped.

As I asked around everyone seemed to agree that the dust was an issue and that with this much traffic the road should be paved.  It would change Khossanto a lot – it’s just unclear how the project would be funded.  I’m fairly positive it’s not on the government’s short list of roads to pave.  Although the mines would benefit from the road it’s my opinion that if they were willing to pay for it the work would already be done.  Who knows what’s going to happen though, as the crowd dispersed I asked a friend if it was finished, “It’s not done yet, next Monday.”

Taa Bota!!*

There are two events in village that always send me into an emotional reaction that I don’t quite know what to do with. The first of those is a death - particularly the way women react. There is an almost ghostly wail they will go into, fairly often they are able to work themselves into such a frenzy that they will start to shake uncontrollably. I can’t help but feel for them in this display and for the loss of this individual as a whole. It is consoling that everyone knows that death is a pert of everyday life and that the wailing is, to a certain extent, what you are supposed to do. Everything just builds, like crying at a funeral; it’s almost impossible not to, even if you hardly know the person.

The second, for me at least, is infinitely more terrifying in its unpredictability and the palpable fear in the air. If you understand Malinké you may have already guessed this one thanks to the title – it’s fire. Khossanto just put one out and I decided to start writing this post as a way to calm me down.

In America, nine times out of ten, by the time you know there is a fire somewhere the fire trucks have beat you there (or in some cases led you there). You can watch in awe knowing everything is under control simply hoping that everyone is okay… and even that can be stressful. The village has no fire department, no running water so no fire hydrants. What Khossanto does have are wells around or past the 100ft mark and buckets or tubs like what I do laundry in to carry the water.

Anyway, today is Tabaski – the best descriptor I’ve heard is that it’s sort of like a Muslim Christmas here in Senegal. The Family killed a nice big ram and we will be eating most of it today for lunch. So everyone has their shiny new clothes on and we just got back from prayer service. One of my host sisters is getting her hair finished up at the last minute when another host sister comes rushing into the compound. We’ve all already felt the energy go up nearby and started hearing people yelling by the time she gives the call to arms, “Taa Bota!” (literally: Fire Left!).

This seems to happen every couple months in Khossanto, so unfortunately the feeling is familiar. Everyone rushes to their water and hoofs it over to wherever the fire is. I never keep enough water to actually do anything and I never want to get in the way so unfortunately spend too much time just pacing around my compound looking for a way to help. I’ve found a good spot for me to help is by lifting the large tubs onto people’s heads (if I were to do this I’d spill more water than would make it to the fire to be honest), the next step I’d want is to get a rope and bucket and be at the well pulling water for everyone. Usually the fire is out before anyone needs to go pulling from the well, but this one was by far the worst fire I’ve seen in village and smoke was still billowing when all the water was out.

Luckily there is a well in my family compound so all of the panic just comes rushing right into where I live. People are yelling in search of more water, there is the general din of people yelling where the fire is, my host dad is yelling commands to do things people are already doing, everyone’s trying to make sure all the kids in the compound are accounted for – among all that panic people also realize that the fire could spread. This is kind of a big deal since everyone has thatched roofs, fortunately this is actually a fairly easy task as long as you have around 10 people. The thatch is supported by a lattice of bamboo, which in most cases are simply sitting on top of the walls of the hut. Somewhere in my host dad’s yelling of commands he decided it was time to move the roof of the little hut we have in the corner for the goats so I pitched in with that real quick. Thankfully that turned out to be unnecessary.

One reassuring thing is that once the fire is out, which always seems to happen so suddenly, is that EVERYONE is talking about what happened… learning from their mistakes. In this case there are 2 stories that I heard. The less popular theory, which came from a seemingly more reliable source, is that someone took the coals from making tea and tossed them into their corn. Rainy season has been over for a little bit now so all the corn is pretty dry, so supposedly the corn started on fire then it spread to the roof of the hut in question. The more popular belief is that some kids were preparing tea with a big propane tank between to closely placed huts and turned the gas up too high. Either way it led to a huge fire.

That already seems like it happened so long ago today; life is back to normal here… well, as normal as it can be on Tabaski. Soon everyone will eat sheep until we pass out, then wake back up get dressed up in the fancy party clothes and greet everyone we know.

 Happy Tabaski!

Quick Pic Post 6

Bonus Photo: The key is that "thi" makes a "ch" sound.

Get it?!  Make sure you read the whole sign.