Senegalese men are making this country poorer.

I have been reading lately about how the economists are predicting the world will fall into crisis around 2030. They then show pictures of an African mother feeding half a dozen children. In other words implying that Africa is basically going to starve to death in about 20 years because of lack of food and water. And I have to say from here, I wouldn't be too surprised if they turned out to be right.

The whole thing frustrates me a lot because being in Africa I see that the problems are partially created by the Africans themselves, mainly the men. The Koran says a man can take up to 4 wives but he must treat them equally. In some parts of the Muslim world they understand this to mean that they must be able to treat them equally financially as well as love them equally and that is not possible so most men have one wife. In Senegal they interpret that as only treat them equally financially. I have been told by Senegalese men that they take multiple wives because they want more women to sleep with and take care of the house! So you either starve, struggle along or thrive together but as long as its equal, its ok. Unfortunately this is not and never has been a good idea because wives mean children and 4 wives can mean 16-20 children for one man to support which is incredibly difficult in an economy that only has half of its working population in the formal sector and the other half is in the informal sector. You cannot support 20 children by hawking peanuts on the side of the road! 45% of this country's population is under the age of 15 and a large percentage of them are going to have very sad futures. Its so enraging to see this vicious train of arrogance leading to the suffering of children. If only the men here could see that what was written over 1400 years ago is not a good idea in the 21st Century. They are endangering the future of their offspring by having so many of them!
One of the PCVs here worked with a mosquito-net distribution project last year. In her village of 800 people, 300 where between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. Those are the ages you could get a free mosquito net for because they are the most vulnerable for malaria. The pregnant and nursing mothers also got them. But 3/8 of her village was between 6 months and 5 years!!! How on earth are these children to survive? They already are malnourished and barely educated. Yet the average man in her village has two wives and takes another when he gets any type of windfall! Its is so incredibly stressful. I feel like there is very little I can do about it from this end. I am a young single white female. The men here are more interested in making me wife number 3 than listening to me.
What they need here is one of the Muslim development agencies to come in here and do some serious family planning work. I feel like its the only way to make them listen. It would also make the International Muslim Community look a lot better!
Yes, there are many other reasons that Africa is not developing, lack of work ethic amongst men is one reason due to too much aid from developed countries. (But then the Wolofs were noted as "lazy" and only want to "dance and sing" as far back as the 16th century.) Also the fact that the schools are almost always on strike because the government thinks its more important to build statues of Mother Africa (or whatever that large odd looking this is in Dakar) then pay their teachers. The students are then not prepared for their exams to go to high school or university and so fail out of school.
This place is a mess. And quite frankly I feel is a mess of their own doing.
Even in tourism they do it too themselves. The government levys a hefty tax on all passengers going through the Dakar airport which inflates ticket prices and makes Senegal a less appealing destination.
You feel like you are trying to swim into a tidal wave. Petit a petit. Only in the individuals can we make any sort of change.

upitydate

Hello, hello!
I have very busy the past several weeks and will continue to be so until mid-Jan at least. My cousin Anya is coming in 10 days for a visit... of 10 days! Before that I am going to be hosting a study abroad student from Dakar for 4 nights, showing her around Sokone and probably Toubakuta too. We are still waiting for the financing to come in for our fruit drying project. When that does we can start purchasing supplies and put the order in for the dryers to be made. I also have started tutoring in English again. I really am enjoying that. Its fun finding creative ways to teach things. I explained autumn and leaves changing colors and why it happens in my last session with my friend Mariame.
Currently I'm in Kaolack. Our new volunteers for the Kaolack Region arrived at the regional house yesterday and are going to be installed this week into their towns and villages. This thursday is my one year anniversary in Sokone. Seems crazy that time has gone this fast! I am glad I still have 10 months left. I don't want any more or any less. Lots of plans are going through my head right now for after peace corps.
My birthday is now less then 2 weeks away! The big 24. Anya is going to be here for my birthday which will be a lot of fun. Last year I was sick!

traveling again

Well the month of October is bringing me to the distant corners of the country again. I went down to Kedougou at the beginning of the month after Korité. I was down there for a camp this time. Next summer the PCVs in my area would like to do a camp and so I went down to observe and help out with one that was going on in Dindefello in the region of Kedougou. It was an awesome spot for a camp because it is a great place to be outdoors as it is at the foot of some hills/cliffs and there is a waterfall about at 40 minute hike away. Well do ours hopefully in the Mangroves.

After that I went up to Kaolack for a night and then on to Thiés to help at training for the new volunteers. Then to Dakar where I did my midservice physical and other errands. Tomorrow I'll head back to Sokone and finally sleep in my own bed again!

Its been interesting to watch the election lead up and reaction to it from over here across the pond. Obama is the overwelming favorite. At the camp this kid from a small village in the middle of Africa made a collage that said I Love Obama on it in an Art session. The awe in people's faces when you tell them that not only is he African American but that his father was from Kenya is really incredible. Its like they can see the idea of the American Dream being realized in such amazing way.

I went to an Indian buffet today. It was so awesome. The Channa Masala and the Chicken Masala were so good. I decided I'm going to become an excellent cook when I go home. I would like to be good at Italian, Indian, Greek and Moroccan.

ramandan pt 2

The second half of Ramandan has been just as good as the first. Last weekend a bunch of us took a boat to an island and had a great time getting a bit fried on the beach. It was a nice relaxing over night get away. Not that Ramandan is stressful but its nice to have some time with a bunch of the other female PCVs. We did have one guy with and he did very well with all the girl talk that was going on.

I can't remember if I mentioned last time that I got my hair braided. Well its still in... sort of. I took out all 167 little elastics and tied the braids into a pony tail which is slowly unraveling itself.

Thursday is Korité here and I will take off for Kedougou the day after to help at a camp down there. Not really looking forward to the long trip down but it should be a good experience.

I've started some new exercises that I am enjoying. I got them out of a couple magazines that my wonderful sister, Kelly, gave me. Trying to keep fit here is a bit tough right now since its so hot you don't want to go out and run or walk.

Ohhh I've also started Salsa lessons with my sitemate, Laura. They are a lot of fun. We are learning a Senegalese style which according to the teacher is more advanced then the basic steps. We've had two lessons so far and have gotten some of the movements down. Its fun to just start practicing them when your doing things like brushing your teeth.

ok need to go. ciao.

so i guess this actually gets read....

I recently met someone who told me they actually read my blog before coming to country and it was helpful so now I feel obligated to keep updating it.


Well things are good. Very good. My sitemate, Laura, and I have been having a lot of fun lately. It is currently the second week of Ramadan. I fasted for two days with water and then got bored so on Wednesday Laura came over for lunch and we made a very nice veggie curry with moraccan couscous and then had a nice glass of sherry afterwords that I had bought in the Madrid DutyFree on my way back from a lovely 4 week vacation to the UK with my family.



The vacation was just what I needed. Relaxing, with my wonderful family and good friends, cold (wearing jeans and longsleeves was so nice), good food (berry season!), siteseeing, and not being the center of attention when I walk down the street. I'm glad I didn't go back to the US for vacation. I think I would have been bored and at the same time not want to come back. My family would have all been working as would my friends. The UK was a better choice because it was really expensive and I wasn't prepared to be in that weather for an extended period of time. Plus my family was on holiday too. But living out of a suitcase is fine for a bit but then you just want to be in your own bed.

My first few days back were mainly spent hanging out in kaolack waiting for the rain to stop so I could go back to Sokone. I ended up only getting 5 hours there before heading back up to Dakar to get a proposal written for the Fruit Dryers for Ndef Leng. That was a lot of fun because there were a lot of other volunteers there for various conferences and meetings. Everything getting squeezed in before Ramadan starts.

Well thats all I have time for today. Oh yesterday was my one year anniversary in country!

Ciao!

happy 23.5 bday to me!

Today is 23 years and 6 months exactly from my birth. During those past 23.5 years I have now spent 16 years out side of my country of citizenship… not too shabby. Still have spent more time in the US than any other country… but only by a year and a half. Wonder if another country will ever take over the top spot?

Life is good. I feel like I’ve gotten into my groove and its such a nice place to be. I feel like I am actually getting productive work done, my language is finally getting better (both Wolof and French), I’ve gotten to see a bit of the other parts of Senegal, I get to see my family in 8.5 weeks in the U.K., the weather isn’t too hot and the evenings and mornings are still cool and I am very content to just be where I am at the moment. Hopefully I can keep away the itchy-feet feeling for awhile!

Oh we had our first little rain shower! It was so exciting. It was a week ago and it rained for 10 minutes right after dusk. It was lovely to hear it on my tin roof. I really miss rain and weather. I need rain and gloom to help discharge my bad mood times. For me weather keeps me even keel. I love rain so much. I really miss it! Hopefully we get a lot of it this year. There is something very enchanting about listening to rain on a tin roof.

Mango season is in full force. My body doesn’t really like me eating a ton of them so I’m eating them in moderation. But I can buy a dozen for $1. I’m working with a group at the moment to hopefully start drying them. Mangos are so messy to eat but if you dry them they become so much better for travel and snacking. They taste so nice too. We already have one dryer and are going to apply for funding to get more and make it a proper business opportunity. We did one test run this week on some and they were delicious. We ate our test run very quickly!

Two weeks ago I went down to the Southeast corner of Senegal, to Kedougou. We were supposed to go down for the Bassari Initiation ceremonies but we got all the way out to the area they were to be held and found out they were actually not happening this year in the village we’d gone to and the neighboring village was having them the weekend after! It was a beautiful area so well worth the time and money spent getting down there. It’s a really hilly area which was a nice change after the flat of the rest of Senegal. I’m glad I got to see it. It was interesting seeing the town of Kedougou too because it’s the same size as Sokone but looks very different. Kedougou is a frontier town and Sokone is an old-colonial town. The compounds and business in Sokone are built very close together compared to Kedougou. They have the Gambia River running through it whereas we have the mangroves of the Siné-Saloum Delta. Quite a few people in the town speak French which was nice because I could communicate just fine. It’s a Pulaar speaking area (one of the other tribal languages which has dialects spoken in 28 African countries) and not very many people speak Wolof though some do.

So that is a basic update on me. Keeping busy and loving life!

Gambia, April and Orange!

So the past month has been up and down. I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately. Going to bed early and taking naps in my hammock. I’m not sure if I’ve just gotten warn down from various things on an emotional level and that’s how my body is trying to slow me down or if it’s the heat or if I’m not sleeping well. That’s the thing about being a PC Volunteer, when something isn’t right, there are usually many possible reasons for it which can make rectifying stuff very hard to do! I spent the last weeks in March in Sokone working on various projects. I was actually surprisingly busy going from various meetings and doing other prep work. I then went up to Dakar for a week for various Peace Corps related stuff.
For Easter, back in the end of March, I took 4 days of vacation and went and visited Gary and Denise Williamson in their village of Pirang, Gambia. They are only about 60km as the crow flies from Sokone but more like 85km if you drive it. I had to take vacation because you must if you go out of the country. It was a lovely long weekend. I really like the Serekunda area where most of the tourist related stuff is in the Gambia. Banjul is mainly administrative type stuff. Its on an island in the mouth of the Gambia River so it can’t spread so most development is on the Southern Coast of the Southern Bank. We visited the beach a couple times and I enjoyed following the Williamsons around and seeing their life. The weekend I was there was during the circumcision ceremonies for the Jola people in the area. They have this figure sort of like the bogey man named the Koncharan. The man who plays the role dresses up in a costume and carries two big machetes which he clangs together while making eerie sound screams. He is supposed to be protecting the newly circumcised boys from evil sprits. Women and children (the uncircumcised) are supposed to stay away and in doors. So when he’s out the streets are deserted. He was out starting around dusk and all night. He wanders through the town clanging the machetes and screaming. It was very different, to say the lease.
After that I came down to Kaolack for the annual Kaolack party. The theme was the color Orange so our decorations were orange and we all wore orange too. I wore an orange toga-like thing and have a streak of my hair dyed orange. The orange was the color of the Thai Buddhist monks. It was a lot of fun. We rented a big sound system and got lots of drinks and snacks. Most people were from our region but there were a few from outside. I danced a lot.
Oh sad news, Raja died. He died when I was in Dakar so I wasn’t there. I think he must have eaten something because my host family said he got really weak over two days and then died on the evening of the second night. I was really sad of course when it first happened but I also had kept the possibility that it could happen in the back of my mind. I know of other PCVs who’ve had animals who died. Usually they get attacked or hit by a car. I’m not sure if I’ll get another cat. I’ll not be much in site starting June until the end of August between going on vacation and various other conferences and other stuff going on around the country. I’d feel bad leaving a kitten for that long. So hopefully I don’t get mice! I still have Mador, the very badly behaved dog that my predecessor left behind. He is one of the biggest dogs I’ve seen in Senegal and likes to chase anything non-human… except for cats. He leaves them well alone. I think he got his nose scratched a few times as a puppy.
The second week of April I hosted an American study abroad student from Dakar named Jessie. I had a lot of fun showing her around Sokone. She helped me do a presentation on the American Family to the English Club one evening. She also came in to watch me teach a first level English class at the private middle school. I’ve done that a few times now, teach English. It’s a lot of fun and I think having an American teacher is more interesting for them then the Senegalese headmaster who usually teaches it. I try to make the class fun.
Last Thursday I got to come up to Kaolack to meet the National Director for Peace Corps from Washington. There was a lunch that was arranged for us to meet him and a couple other staff from D.C. The food was very good. He used to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in India in the 60’s with his wife. He was quite surprised when I could answer his “topi ko nam kay ho”. I got a quite a bit of time to talk to him because I got a ride in his car to Sokone. They were on their way to visit PC Gambia and so took the road that Sokone is on because it’s the main road from Kaolack to Banjul, the capital of the Gambia.
I’ll be at site now for the next 2.5 weeks. In two weeks we are having the Kaolack Regional Strategy Meeting in Sokone. We are going to be staying at a new hotel on the mangroves. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m glad I only have a 30 minute walk through the mangroves to get there! Certainly makes it cheaper for me! Hopefully we get some good ideas from all of it. We’ll certainly have fun swimming in the mangroves when the meetings are done!

Mid-March

On the Ides of March, what do I have to say for myself? Well I have just past the six months anniversary of my arrival date in Senegal. March 13th was also the day the 39 members of the new stagé entered the country. My stagé is now the “sophomore” stagé. No longer the newbies and supposedly now we are “forgotten” i.e. not the focus of Admin any more because by now we have good idea of the hang of things. There are usually 4 stagés in country at any given point with a few from a fifth that are on their way out and are just closing up at site, getting ready to hand over to the next volunteer and doing their last medical checkup. That is the point my sitemate, Erica, is at. She’ll be flying out on May 10th. Before that there is lots going on in my life.

I am currently in Kaolack for the night to get caught up on internet stuff as well as to celebrate Tayo’s, the PCV stationed in Kaolack, finishing with his TB meds. He also had a small chance that he had TB when he entered the Peace Corps and had to take medications “just in case”. He was on the 9 month plan but I was fortunate to be on the 4 month plan which was far more expensive but Montgomery County’s TB control program paid for it.

Next weekend I am going down to the Gambia for Easter or Paak as its called in Wolof. I’ll be there for three nights and it will be my first official vacation while in the PC. I’m really excited to go and I have to take a ferry and I love ferries! You have to take vacation days if you leave the country. For stuff like going to Kaolack or other in-country stuff you don’t, particularly if the trip involves service related stuff such as if you go to observe what another volunteer is doing in another part of the country or you help someone with a training or you yourself go for a conference.

I also was in Kolda during the first week in March. Kolda is a city and also a region south of Gambia. There are only about 14 or 15 PCVs in that region so it is far less populated than the Kaolack region that I think is at 39 right now. The “Kaolack” region is really made up of three different government regions but Peace Corps groups them together. I don’t mind it because that means our regional house is in Kaolack which is a great place for shopping and internet is pretty cheap. About 65 cents an hour. Anyways, I really enjoyed going down to Kolda. I saw a few people from my stagé as well as a couple others I knew from other groups. I hung out at their very nice regional house, enjoyed cooking with them, watched movies, spent lots of time talking, walked a long the river, explored their main market street. It was a really good time. I’m not sure if I’m going to go again during my service so I am glad I got to get down there and see the place. One thing I noticed is that animals in the south seem to have no sense of the danger of vehicles. They just start across the year despite the fact that there is a big bus heading straight toward them. I also at lots of vegetables that I usually never eat because one of the PCVs down there is a vegan…. Ocra, eggplant, zucchini….
Raja is getting very big and he is a wonderful source of entertainment. When I sit down he still comes bounding in from the other room to sit on my lap and kneed my belly. I’m very glad I have him. He’s started to spend the night outside now. He’s big enough I think that the other males cats in the area can’t kill him to protect their territory and his claws are very very sharp. I have plenty of little scratches to prove it!

Dakar and Softball...

I've just spent a week in Dakar and its been a fantastic, sleepless and busy week.

Lets see... I was here originally for the West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament (W.A.I.S.T.). My region, Kaolack, had a team. I didn't play because there are so many people in my region who want to play and frankly, I haven't played softball since freshman year of high school so I would have been very bad at it. Plus I don't like hard projectiles coming at me. There were plenty of people walking around with black eyes and other injuries by the end of the long weekend!

All the Peace Corps participants stayed in a homestay. I was with two girls from PC Benin. We had a lot of fun together. I spent a lot of time with them. I reasoned that I can see and talk to PC Senegal people all the time and far less frequently do I get the opportunity to talk to PCVs from other areas. The family we stayed with were lovely and had a very nice house right near the Peace Corps office and by many good restaurants. Days were spent by the pool or watching games and evenings were spent at good restaurants and bars. It was such a difference from everywhere else in Senegal. Even Thies is completely different. Dakar is much more metropolitan. I really, really had a good time. Lol, oh yes. There was a date auction one of the nights too to raise money for scholarships to help keep girls in school (literacy amongst women in Senegal is only around 30%). I bid (and won). It was a lot of fun. I bid on someone that I was told to and didn't know but it ended up working out well.

The day after WAIST we had an all PCV conference and talked about Malaria prevention and funding options. Malaria kills more people in Africa than any other disease. It really is a problem. In my area in particular because of the delta. There is a lot of standing water. Kaolack is also really bad because of the excessive number of open sewers.

Tomorrow I'm heading back to Sokone, I'll have been gone for four weeks exactly. I'm definately ready to get back to my kitten and my bed! Until next time...

reporting in from thies!

Reporting in from Thiès again. I am almost done with my second week of my second round of training here. I arrived the 27th of Jan and will be here until the 15th of Feb. It has been nice being back here with the people from my stage. This round of training has been focused for me on Wolof and tech class for Small Business Development and Ecotourism. I actually am going to be working in both areas. The girl I replaced was actually an ecotourism volunteer so I will be working on some of the projects that she was working on as well as hopefully get involved in other small business areas. There are a couple new campements/little hotels opening up in Sokone so maybe I’ll be able to work with them. It would cover both areas.

I am enjoying being in Thiès in general. Don’t get me wrong, Sokone is a lovely little town but it is also the smallest place I ever remember living in (the only place smaller was only until I turned 1). I’ve grown used to living in the suburbs of big cities and I miss the energy that they have. Thiès is by no means an energetic place compared to most cities around the world but it certainly is compared to Sokone. Actually, I remember my first impression of Thiès was that it was a pretty sleepy city for having a million inhabitants but then it was also the beginning of Ramadan so that might also have had something to do with it.

It has been chilly here in the mornings. I get up at 6:10AM and then do about half an hour of Pilates before getting dressed and bags ready for the day. I leave the house at about 7:10 to walk with my next door neighbor Lauren to the center. Breky is then at the center and then classes start at 8. I definitely feel like I have more energy this time around then I did when I was here for the first eight weeks. That’s is likely do to the fact that it is no longer peaky humidity season as well as that my body has adjusted better to food and water. I have lost about 5 pounds since I left here in November. I figure I’m probably closest to the healthiest I’ve ever been. Between the fact that I do Pilates regularly as well as eat a pretty balance diet (need a bit more dairy but I get more then most volunteers in Senegal so I’m fortunate in that) as well as get a good amount of sleep and a good regular does of Vitamin D and my daily Centrum all leave me feeling great. When I do come into Thies and eat things like pastries at the Magic Croissant I don’t feel bad about it at all. I know that I probably actually need the sugar… I just have to remember to brush my teeth well!!

I actually went to the beach again last weekend with the other people in my stage. It was so nice to be back on a real beach. The Sokone mangroves are wonderfully refreshing to swim in though, particularly on a hot afternoon. I love looking out though from the beach here and thinking that the next thing really out there (other then maybe the Cape Verde Islands) is the Americas.

the cross dressing holiday is today!!

Hello from Thies this time!

I am here for two nights on a whirl wind trip. I left Sokone yesterday morning at 5AM on the horaire which is basically a Senegalese bus. It went directly from Sokone to Dakar and took a bit over 5 hours. Then I did a bunch of errands in Dakar and then in the evening traveled down here to Thies. I'm staying with one of the guys in my Stage named Christopher. Tomorrow morning I'll go to Kaolack for a regional meeting for PCVs in the area and then down to Sokone in the evening.

Today is also Tamharite which celebrates the end of the Muslim year. In Senegal, in the evenings the children will cross-dress.... the girls in boys clothes with painted mustaches and the boys in girls' dresses. They then go around banging pots and pans and what ever else they can find to make as much noise as possible. Its quite a racket outside right now!

I only have one week left in Sokone before I come back here to Thies for another three weeks of training and then about 5 days in Dakar for the West African Invitational Softball Tournament and a conference. No, I'm not playing softball but I am going to cheer. It is basically the social event of the year for PCVs because we come from all over the country to it. It is over President's Day Weekend every February.

The past two weeks have been good for the most part. I did get sick on this past Monday but it was nothing too bad and has only been the third time I've really been sick here (I don't count colds). I think I was sick because of something I ate, not sure what it was exactly because I had eaten a wide variety of foods that day. I have been enjoying getting to know the Japanese volunteers in my town. There are currently four located in Sokone. Three of them speak English so we get a long just fine in our mix of french, wolof and english. I hope that I'll be able to work with them on something because I think it would be a really good experience.

My kitten is doing well. I left him for the first time overnight lastnight and tonight. I'm sure he'll do just fine. He likes to complain though. He's getting a little spoilt. He is a rascal though and loves to play with anything that moves or looks fun to climb/swat at. Raja really is good company and makes me laugh with his antics which is always a good mood boster.

kittens and the mystery machine

The Mystery Machine drove by me today. Yes, the one from Scuby-Doo. An exact replica. And there were foreigners in it. It was a very surreal experience. I was walking toward the main road that goes through Sokone from Kaolack to Banjul, The Gambia, and then I saw it drive by. A bunch of other cars came after it, also painted but nothing I recognized. I got up close enough to the road to see the last car go by. It said “Plymouth to Banjul Challenge” on the side. I’ll have to look it up.

I also got a kitten today. My host brother came by this morning and asked me if I wanted a kitten because there was one right outside the gate. I went out and there was this tiny little thing meowing and looking very bedraggled. I picked him up and figured he is possibly a male. It’s been about 11 years since I had a cat so I think I checked correctly!!! I’ve named him Raja which is king in Hindi/Nepali. Cats that belong to PCVs tend to be in much better condition than most in Senegal so the name should suit him. He is able to lap up milk by himself and will go to the bathroom in the sandbox I made him so hopefully he is old enough to survive without his mother. He is grayish-white and black with grayish-green eyes. He keeps swatting at my fingers as I try to type. He definitely livened up after the milk and a good long nap. Ah, he finally settled down to clean himself instead of playing with my fingers which will make the writing of this post much easier!!

I also bought some plants yesterday to beautify the outside of my house. I bought two hibiscus plants and a frangipani tree. Well the frangipani is only about 10 inches tall so it has a very long way to grow but I was told there will be flowers on it within a year. I’m sure it will grow a lot during the rainy season. The hibiscuses are about 2-3 feet but they have a long way to maturity too. I carried them all about a kilometer yesterday. My arms were so incredibly tired by the end that I could barely do anything. I didn’t even want to cook so had bananas and pretzels for dinner. Yes, I can buy pretzels in Senegal! Not terribly cheap. They are from Germany.

New Years came and went, not terribly eventful. I was with two other PCVs when the year changed. We had this really good hot mint flavored milk. It was so good. Better than egg nogg in my opinion. Only three more weeks until I’m back in Thiès. Time had really gone fast. I left the US four months ago next Saturday, Jan. 12th.

quick hello!!!

only have a few minutes left of internet but i thought i'd use it for this!!!

these past 12 days have been a bit slow. i got my house painted. wonderful bright colors. pink in the kitchen... it was supposed to be mustard but the painter had a bit of a probably figuring out what colors he needed to mix to get mustard... oh africa!!! and then my living room is light yellow and my bathroom and my bed room aqua. i really do love it.

this next week is Tabaski which is the muslim new year... i think. they change the names in senegal for the muslim holidays so i get confused!!! it involves slaughtering a goat. ours has been tied up in the compound for a couple weeks now. not sure if i'll watch them kill it... maybe i will... cultural experience.....

my ancienne... the girl i replaced, visited this past week and picked up her cat that i'd been taking care of. it was good to talk to her to find out about different things i'd had questions about. i'm sure i'll come up with dozens more over the next few weeks.

well i need to go!!! will write a long update over the next week and post on sunday.

three weeks in!!!

tomorrow will be three weeks at site. i'm definately settling in now. i have my hammock up so in the afternoons after lunch I sit and read and listen to the reggae that seems to always be in the air. life is slow here which is taking a lot of time to get used to. i'm so used the hustle and bustle of college life.

language is sorta of stagnent. I can get by with my little bit of french and wolof is hard to do by myself. i should start tutoring next week hopefully. but so far everything that i've scheduled happens several days or a week later then orginally planned.

one thing that i have been getting into is doing an hour of pilaties every morning. its really something i've always wanted the time to do regularly and now time is definately not hard to find. the bit of exercise is so good for me. i need to start going out and walking more but its really tough to walk in the sand. you really sink in pretty well. its too sandy to use my bike too. I haven't been sleeping too well and wake up easily which is something i've never really had problems with before. I think i need to get busier to become more tired so i have more incentive to sleep.

i've been feeling definate ups and downs. one thing that you don't really think about before you come is how absolutely alone you can feel at times. other times i'm just on top of the world. i had one of those moments this morning on the way to kaolack when i was squashed in a sept-place with 7 senegalese men bouncing along over the sandy roads. it was just such a unique experience and all i could think was "wow, i really am in africa, and this is so incredibly amazing".

First 9 days at Site

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Well I’ve completed 1 week at site and now I have 99 to go. Lol, that sounds very depressing and long when you put it that simply. In reality I have 99 weeks or so until I am completely done with my service in Senegal. Those 99 weeks will contain 7 weeks of vacation time, another 13 weeks at barest minimum away from site to go to the regional house, do admin stuff at the office in Dakar, etc. Plus I am convinced I live in paradise so the other 70 something weeks I spend in Sokone aren’t exactly going to be a hardship.

Yes, Sokone is amazing. I live a 3 minute walk from the delta and the mangroves. I could swim at the closest point but I would be gawked at by everyone because it’s right near the market. I’ve been told that there is a better place up a bit further that has deeper water so the Senegalese don’t go there because they can’t swim. The water is salt and very nice to stick your feet into. The streets are mainly all sand except for a couple that are paved but they too are being threatened to be covered by the sand. There are massive trees all over the place that dwarf all buildings and provide wonderful shade. Sokone spreads out on either side of the road from Kaolack to Banjul, The Gambia. The western side of the town curves around the inlets of the delta. Sokone used to be one of the loading places for the peanut harvests but the delta has silted up too much so the ships can’t come in but the old warehouses are still there, some which have been converted to homes and others which have been left to decay and have long since lost their roofs. They are quite picturesque. One little thing that I’ve noticed that thrills me about this town is that wherever you would find gravel or small stones used in the U.S. or any other part of the world, i.e. for driveways, in cement foundations etc., they use shells here. It looks really cool. Can you imagine the drive way of the police station in a town in the U.S. filled with white shells?

My house, yes I have my own house, has three nicely sized rooms and a bathroom. A kitchen, living room and a bedroom, I decided to measure the square footage of the house because I was curious so I got out my ruler and my calculator. It’s about 515 sq. ft. And there is my porch. It runs the length of my house. I think it’s about 40 by 6 ft long. And it has a hammock. Well I’ve had to replace the one that was here but it’s is going to be the most marvelous thing to have. I’ve had to spend a lot of time cleaning everything over the past week too. No one lived here for more than a month so everything accumulates so much dirt and dust. I’ve also scheduled to have the entire inside painted. That is supposed to happen Dec. 6th. After that I’ve plans to do all sorts of little things to make it homier. My home is sort of like a second regional house. There are 8 other volunteers who use my post office and Sokone is also just a nice place to come take a vacation in-country. Particularly because you can swim here and I do have the room. I figure if someone wants to sleep in the hammock, I can put up 6 people in total besides myself without too much trouble. I mainly need to get a hold of some more bedding.

It’s definitely hotter here in Sokone that it was up in Thiès but it is farther south and breezier. It’s been very cool in the mornings though and I’ve had to put a light blanket on my bed.

I will admit I’ve mainly taken these first days to recover from the intensity of training. I can get by with the little French I learnt in training so learning Wolof isn’t quite immediate necessity I thought it was going to be. My conversations at the moment tend to be about what my name is, that I don’t know Pulaar or Wolof and that I’m working for the Corps de la Paix. Pulaar is one of the other main languages of Senegal that is mainly spoken in the southern regions. My Senegalese name is Pulaar though so the Pulaar people in Sokone want me to know Pulaar too. There aren’t many of them even though I know my host mother is one. Pulaar is one of the most widely spoken languages in Africa.

Oh, a couple of the PCVs in my stage came by to visit on Monday and pick up mail and while we were hanging out at my house we heard a helicopter. All of a sudden it got really close and we looked outside and it was literally above my house, not by more then 40 meters. It wobbled around and then finally landed in a small empty lot about 100 meters from my house. It was very strange. All these Senegalese kids came running out. After a bit we went over and talked to the people standing by it and they said they worked for a helicopter charter company and they were flying around some politician around the country. It certainly isn’t a cheap way to travel but it only takes them 12 minutes to cover 40km/ 25 miles so it’s certainly more convenient!

I’ll be heading up to Kaolack for Thanksgiving with the other people from my region as well as a few from other regions who wanted to spend it our house. The day after is my 23rd birthday. I remember as a kid wondering where I was going to spend my golden birthday (23 on the 23rd) and I know I would never have guessed Senegal. I’ve had such great birthdays the past two years that this one isn’t going to rate very well comparatively. I’ll do something next year. Maybe have a party here in Sokone. This year’s is just so awkwardly timed being the day after Thanksgiving and only two weeks after leaving Thiès. I really don’t have the energy.

Well I’ll leave the rest until next time. There is so much to say and this will just be too long of a posting if I continue. I should be getting back to Kaolack around the first couple days of December. Ciao.

On my way to Sokone

I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer!!! On Friday, November 9th, 39 trainees were sworn-in at the Ambassador’s residence in Dakar. All of our language and technical trainers as well as all the Peace Corps Staff were there. There were also some currently serving PCVs there including Laura, whom I demysted with back when I first arrived in September. It was really nice to see her because there was so much to say and so much to relate but of course there was too little time and we barely got to chat. After the ceremony, which was about 45 minutes long, there was a lovely reception afterwards with amazing food. We all got back in the SUVs and buses and headed back to Thiès for a big Fête after. A member of each of our Thiès host families came and we had a big meal, Senegalese music and dancing. By 11PM, all the Senegalese families had left and it was just us trainees and a couple trainers and we kept dancing until 1AM. It was so much fun to just be able to goof off and have fun after such an intense 8 weeks of training. We’ve gotten to know each other so well by now that we are very comfortable. If you can spend the amount of time that we have talking about the crazy health problems you get here in Senegal and how often you’ve been running to the bathroom because of your latest case of the runs, you have no problem dancing in front of these same people.

A bunch of us ended up staying at the center overnight which made it certainly easier to dance till 1AM but primarily because early the next morning about 8 people left for their sites down in the southern regions of Senegal that are south of The Gambia and we wanted to say goodbye. They had to leave on Saturday because it can take up to two days to get there because some of the roads they have to take basically have no right to be called roads. The most infamous is the road between Kaolack and Tambacounda (we just called it Tamba) which is so bad it takes 6-10 hours depending on if its dry or wet season and it is no more than 150 miles. My site is on the “right side” of that road. The rest of us left Sunday for our various regions of the country.

It was sad and surreal to say goodbye to them and then also to the others that I said goodbye to on Sunday who aren’t living in my region. If I think of it realistically, I had no idea of who most of these people were 9 weeks ago. Sure I knew who a couple of them were through the PC Senegal Facebook group but that was still just a web page with a picture and some random information that really in no way defines a person in any real terms of accuracy. But at the same time, I’ve been getting to know some of these people really well and feel like I’ve just barely been able to get to enjoy their company and off they go. Despite the fact that you usually get along with everyone else in your stage, there are always those who you’ve gotten to know better or seem to laugh a bit more with and it seems like most of those people have gone really far for me. I know that I’ll get to know the other volunteers well in my area too but I’ll still miss the others. I’ll see them all again in exactly 11 weeks when we come back for another three weeks of training in late January.

I left Thies early yesterday morning (Sunday) with two other new PCVs for Koalack. Koalack is the second/third largest city in Senegal. No one really seems to know if Thies or Koalack is really bigger. It is the cross-roads of Senegal as you have to go through it to get to Dakar or Saint Louis from any of the southern regions. It has the second largest covered market in Africa, and I can attest that it is very easy to get lost in!! We managed to get all our baggage as well as our three PC provided bikes as well as us and our driver into what is best described as something like a station-wagon. They are called sept-places (say it with a French accent… SET-PLAS) because it can usually fit 7 people because of additional row that has been added in the back. These vehicles are extremely rickety. The one I took to Dakar a couple weeks ago did not have any of the dashboard working so you didn’t actually know how fast you were going.

Koalack is where my regional house is located. The Peace Corps splits up the country into regions and each region, for the most part, has its own regional house that is basically a rest/guest house for that region’s PCVs. My region is actually called Fatick but our regional house is combined with Koalack because it easier for most of us to get to Koalack than the actual city of Fatick because of the delta. The house serves 40 PCVs so I hear it can get pretty crazy when everyone comes into town for Christmas or Thanksgiving. Koalack is also where I’ll access internet. I can hook up my laptop at the cyber cafés there which is much easier than trying to tackle the French keyboards. It also keeps me from getting to many viruses which can happen if you are using a flashdrive to transfer files from a personal computer to the café computers.

Well I am being installed in my site tomorrow, Tuesday. I am really excited. There are so many people in the Kaolack regional house at the moment. There are 18 people from my training group who are in this house. Plus all their baggage. It’s really a crazy mess and I am very exhausted and stressed right now because of all of it. There are people everywhere so alone time is not existent!!!

Beach and Dakar

It has been almost two weeks since I last updated this blog, life has gotten itself into a routine so there weren’t too many different things happening. The weekends are what have changed because now we are allowed to leave Thiès. We weren’t allowed to leave for the first three weeks in Thiès because they wanted us to get to know the town and our host families instead of running off to have fun in other cities or at the beach.

That weekend after Korite, all of us trainees went to the beach together. It so beautiful there. The beach is called Popenguine and it is one of the less touristy beaches. It also helps that the tourist season hasn’t quite started. Tourist season in Senegal is usually Nov-Mar when the weather is cooler (still warm compared to most of the Northern Hemisphere… in the upper 70s or so) and dryer which is essential for making the roads in the southern regions passable. It is also when the birds migrate south from Europe. In Northern Senegal, near the coast, there is the Parc National des Oiseaux du Djoudj (Djoudj National Bird Park) which is the first major freshwater stop over for birds flying south for the winter. It gets visited by hundreds of species of birds. The most spectacular are probably the pelicans that come in huge numbers and all gather on this one little island. January is also when the Paris-Dakar Rally is… that’s the huge car, truck and motorcycle race from Paris, France to Dakar, Senegal. It goes through France, Spain, Morocco and all through the Sahara region and then final ends at the Lac Rose which is right outside of Senegal’s capital. My dad says he wants to come watch the last stage while I’m here.

Anyways, the beach was a great respite from Thiès, which is a great place but we had been in the town continually for over three weeks and in class almost everyday of those three weeks. We still were only at the beach for a day and a half but it was very refreshing. We rented a huge house on the beach and people ended up sleeping with mattresses all over the place. The water was nice and warm and the waves big enough for a bit of body surfing. Its also nice being on the west coast of the continent because then you actually get to see the sunset.

Last weekend I finally visited Dakar. It was so nice to be back in a huge city in a developing country. They have this certain feel that I am so comfortable with. I think it has something to do with the heat, the noise, the differences in wealth, and the energy you feel. After living in Manila and also visiting the family in Jakarta every winter break for my first three years of college, it is almost first nature to me. I went with about 14 other trainees and we stayed at place that is very much like a youth hostel in Europe except you get don’t have to share you room with strangers. It is not too expensive… With four people in a room you pay about $8 and with two people in a room you would pay about $10 per person. We had dinner at a little ramshackle seafood place on the western most point of Africa which is on the Dakar peninsual, its called Pointe des Almadies. While we were there, I was given a necklace for free from a souvenir vendor because I think he thought I was the wife of this other trainee who had been talking to him in Wolof and had the same Senegalese last name as him. They like giving little gifts in this culture too.

This past week was also the counterpart workshop. Our future work counterparts and our supervisors came to Thies for it. My supervisor is also going to be my host mother in Sokone. She is very sweet but doesn’t speak much French. Her children do so we should be able to cope during my first few weeks while my Wolof is very, very basic. My counterpart does speak French and very clearly too which is very important. Some people have very thick accents here and I have a very hard time understanding. I am really excited now about getting to site and getting to know people. It is such a wonderful thought to think I’m not going to have to move all my stuff for two years. In college you move so much and it’s really exhausting and unsettling. Moving three or more times a year is too much!!!

Oh I’ve forgotten to mention my Senegalese names. In Senegal, we are given a Senegalese name. During my demystification my name was Aïda Ndieye. In Thies my name was Ndoumbe Sall and in Sokone my name will be Adema Diallo. In Thies I was named after my host mother’s sister and in Sokone I am named after my host mother’s grandmother. It can all be quite confusing. You do get used to be called that name but the hard thing will be after I’m used to being called Adema to switch back to Ndoumbe during Inservice Training (IST) when we go back to Thies for three weeks in Jan/Feb. This custom also becomes confusing when you don’t know other volunteers’ Senegalese names so when you try to talk about them to a Senegalese national, they don’t always know who you are talking about even if you know they know them. For instance, when I was talking to my host mother from Sokone, I was trying to tell her which volunteers I’d already met whom she knew and I was having to describe what they looked like because she didn’t know their American names and I didn’t know their Senegalese names.

Sokone and Korite

First news, I know where I’m going to live and work after training!! I’ll be moving to Sokone which is in the Delta area which is NE of The Gambia. It’s a town of about 15,000 people and there are tons of PC Volunteers (PCVs) in the area including a bunch of people in my training stage that will be very close to me. I am told I’ll get a lot of visitors, particularly from the village based volunteers because I have running water and electricity as well as a nice 3 room apartment on a compound of a very nice family.

The way they revealed our site was really fun. On the basketball court at the training center they have a map of Senegal painted. We all had to shut our eyes and then they led us to our spot on the map. They when we were all placed we were allowed to open our eyes and not only see where we were but also which of the other trainees we are near. It was so exciting!!!

It’s Korite (Core E Tay) Weekend here and Ramadan is finally over!! It will be interesting to see how my daily life will change now. I’ve been told that Senegal is very different and much more subdued during Ramadan.

Korite has been an interesting experience. A friend called Alex who works for the same NGO that my dad works for came up for it the night before. He got stung by a scorpion when he was leaning on the door frame of my room just after he arrived. The scorpion was about an inch and a half long and black. I’d been told before by one of the other trainees that her biologist father said there were no deadly scorpions in Senegal but I still rushed to pull out my PC health handbook. We followed the directions to ice it and take Tylenol. He said that the spot that was stung was sore as were his arm muscles after words.

Korite was nothing like I suspected and I am not sure if it was a normal Korite or was altered because we had a huge down pour in the afternoon. The day started off with all the males in the families who were old enough to talk going off to the Mosque. They were all dressed in their brand new clothes. All Senegalese Muslims like to get new clothes for holidays and they try to never re-wear an outfit to another holiday if they can help it. As for the women, they must have done their own prayers at home and then started preparing the meal that we had at 2PM. It was Senegalese couscous, chicken, olives, sausage, boiled egg and an onion sauce. My family is wealthy by Senegalese standards so this meal had ingredients in it that most families might not have such as sausage and chicken. They would usually have fish. After our lunch I was so tired that I took a nap and was told that at 4PM we would be going out to visit people. But when I woke up at 4PM it started to pour with rain.

And then my room flooded. I wasn’t in my room when it started raining hard and didn’t realize that there was a puddle accumulating on my floor right where a bunch of my stuff is. So there was a big scramble to move everything when I walked in and yelled. We managed to put everything on my bed, shut the window and then mop up the floor. That is one great thing about having tiled floors versus carpet is that they are so much easier to clean, particularly with liquids. Nothing was too badly affected, a couple books have some water wrinkling and a few other things were wet.

So after that I changed into my new Senegalese outfit and we sat around for a bit. I got the outfit made a week ago. It consists of a panga (Paan Ya) which is a wrap skirt and a top made out of the same material. I picked out what they call a Hollandais Wax fabric. It’s white with a blue print on it. They call the fabric wax because there is a layer of wax on it. It makes it stiff and shiny, two things that the Senegalese like in their clothing. Then we went out “visiting”. That consisted of visiting the two homes that other Trainees live in around me. The first house the men in the house were watching Pearl Harbor in French! It strange seeing Josh Hartnett and Ben Affleck speaking French….


After that we came back and had another meal. Then some family came by to visit and drink tea but that was it. It was all a bit anti-climatic. First off all eating on the floor somehow takes a bit of the fun of a big meal away. We usually eat on the floor anyways, in the same circle around the bowl on a big mat like we did yesterday. Then just walking around to chat with people just seems a bit strange too. You do it to show off your clothes mainly since these are the same people you see all the time. Because families live together already, it is not the same sense of family reunion like it is in the U.S. for our big holidays.

Week 4

This has been a long week. First of all, on Sunday evening the man in charge of Security for PC Senegal died in a car accident. So Monday there were no classes and Tuesday after class we went to pay our respects to his family. He was young and had 5 children and was by far the most important male in his family in terms of leadership and financial earning power.

This week had also been assessment week so we had our first language oral. I feel like I did pretty well on my French one. Class is going pretty well. Some of my tech classes are boring simply because I got my degree in Business and what is being covered is very elementary. I am one of the few in the Small Enterprise Development who has taken a lot of business courses so these classes are essential. It still is hard for me to sit through when I’m tired and already know the material.

Daily life for me here is long. Every morning I rise at 6:15 AM to get ready to leave for the training center at 7. I walk or bike with another Trainee who lives in the compound across from mine. I have taken to showering twice a day in order to keep my skin clean and cooler. I shower in the morning when I wake up and before I go to bed. Keeping clean is the best way to prevent most of the infections that you can get here and particularly heat rashes. I douse on the baby powder in the morning like I did when I lived in the Philippines. It really does help keep one drier and cooler in this hot and humid weather.

At the center, which is a 10 minute walk, we have breakfast that consists of a piece of fruit and French bread and tea or coffee. Classes run from 8-10, 10:30-12:30, 2:30-4, 4:30-6. So the morning is usually language with medical, cross cultural and tech sessions in the afternoon. I have gotten a lot of vaccinations while I’ve been here and before I came. Every week we seem to have 2 more. I’ve gotten some of them before but am getting them again just to be safe.

Thiès

I have arrived!!! I am in Thiès, Senegal until November 9th.

I am so excited to be here. This country is absolutely fascinating. Where shall I start?

Well my first few days were probably less overwhelming for me than for others. 15 years in Asia helps a lot when adjusting to a third-world country, no matter what continent. It’s been taking me a bit to figure out what all the things I’m experiencing remind me of. It really is as if someone has taken random portions of my past and thrown them together and added a wee bit more to create the Senegal I am experiencing.

People here live in what can best be described as compounds. I live in a large house with various generations of one family. Some of the compounds are built around a courtyard, depending on the tribal group. Senegal is also a polygamous society so families really are huge. Most wives have their own house so a man could be supporting two wives and two households that could each include 3-5 children plus other relationships including grandparents (12-15 people). This can be difficult in a county that has 45% or so in the informal/unemployed sector. Technically all Muslims are polygamous because the Koran says you can have more than one wife but it also says you must treat them equally. Some Muslims take this to mean to love them equally which they know is not possible so that is why they only have one wife. However in Senegal they take that to mean that you must treat them equally financially which is fully possible to do.

The family I live with has four kids, two parents and a grandmother. My father works in the North of Senegal so he is gone for a week or two at a time and comes down some weekends. My mother works in Dakar but is here at the moment because she is a teacher and it is still holidays because it is Ramadan. Ramadan is the month of fasting for Muslims. It started September 14th and will finish on either October 13th or 14th depending on the sighting of the moon. The dates for Ramadan are set by the lunar calendar and so it moves 11 days earlier every year. I remember when we lived in Pakistan from 93-96 it was sometime between January and March. It is also the hottest time of the year in Thiès so it can be difficult for people to fast from dawn until dusk… no water or food. The really observant Muslims won’t even swallow their saliva.

Back to my Family. Well I have a 18 year old sister, a 6 year old sister and two brothers ages 3 and 1. The one year old took a couple days to get used to me but now he thinks I am very funny and laughs almost continually when he’s around me. He loves to come into my room and move all my toiletries from one side of the room to the other and see what else he can manage to carry out of my room with out being caught.