Fire and Rain Daze

I am here when I am online. This is the computer that my brother bought and sent to me. Thanks, Sean. Life savor! That is a nice restaurant across the street. Unfortunately, no goats in the road at this time.

Blog time! Another blog of what seems to me to be a babble of complete randomness. These days I just take a seat in a hammock at the regional house every two or three weeks with my laptop, and write whatever comes into my head about what possibly could have happened since the last blog that I can tell about without really confusing or freaking anybody out. Haha. One example, no, I did not get eaten by hyenas and half the village is not giving me endless shit for being a crazy tubab.

Well lets see. Ive been spending 7-10 days in my village and then going somewhere else for two or three days. I went to the Basari festival for a day and a night, which was cool. We got to be tourists for a little bit. Unfortunately, my camera broke (just stopped working) so ictures are limited now. I ordered a new one but that could take well over a couple months to actually get into my hands. Ohhhhh Africa.

Every time I come into the Kedougou house I am greeted by one or two volunteers that also just got in. After a certain amount of isolation it's always nice to ask, "how are things going at site?" I greeted a volunteer this morning, who was just in his village for about 8 days and asked that question, which really, depending on what mood you are, can be a great or ridiculous question. His answer was:

"Well, lets see, We just got electricity in my village, and there are classes going on for how to build tractors, and now we are working on some new irrigation systems. And u?" And of course I replied, "Well we just finished our last household robinet (a water spicket), so now all houses have running water, and we are working hard on the barbed wire fencing project to enclose each individual farming plot.

Of course we are being sarcastic. Thats what stereotypical development is, right? But really, development just aint all peas and carrots. not when you start with a village that has just about nothing. So, when asked that question, it's hard to say what is really going on in your mind, like "well, nobody is really ever at the school to work on the pepeniere," or"Ive been trying to explain the basics of grafting to people but every word that comes out of my mouth must be Chinese," or, I just feel like people want to talk to me about development because they want to see how good my Pular is, but they never actually do anything."

And it's true. It's not always easy to be a PCV. Some days you will find nothing but failure and do nothing but discover new obstacles. Then you will go into your room for a day or two and wonder what you are doing here, and maybe even shed a tear. Then you will think of Abe Lincoln and how he failed so many times and then became this really famous guy so you think, "ok, failure isn't the end of the world."

Then when you are moping in your yard just starting to drink your powdered milk coffee drink, a man comes and pounds on your door, and (all of this is completely hypothetical, by the way), and asks, angrily, where the heck you've been, that he keeps coming over but you haven't been there and he wants you to look at his mangos and talk about oranges. So you go on over, leaving your coffee behind because you feel bad, and are tired of sitting around anyway, and end up biking out to his field. There you find your purpose. A man who is a step above the rest, who has all his stuff together, has been working his butt off for years on a goal and been through failure after failure and has come to me for help. You see the efforts of his labors in his fields, his dead banana plants, dried up garden lots, young mango trees beautifully spaced, but half died of thirst. Heck, he even planted a live fence. What he needs, you are there for. Who he is, you are there for. It's almost like PC fate! What he seeks to get and what you seek to do are hand in hand! And so with all the failures comes a little light.

Antics. Life. Work. Well, one day I was bored in my village. Imagine that. Just sitting around my compound. My neene (mom), started talking frantically about a fire and something about someones house being on fire. So she yelled at her daughter to get some water and off she went. Me, being bored, decided to tag along. Neene had 10 liters of water on her head and was walking really fast, stopping ever couple of minutes because her flip flop came apart. I would pick it up for her and put it back together and off we would go again. We walked up to the fire with my snapping photos (camera not yet broken). No house was on fire. But someone was burning brush in their field and the wild carried it and it got out of control. That happens all the time here, really. So people were all over, local fire fighters, smacking the fire with leafy branches, and woman after woman arriving with water, handing it over to the men who sprinkled it on the borders of the flames. Low and behold, they put the fire out. It was a fun sight to see. I only really told this story because I have pics :)

Then, after we got home, I invited my mom to go shoe shopping. I bought her some shoes and Nicolas, the shop man said that god will reward me for being so good to my mother.

There is a mountain I climb. It takes about 1 hour to get from my house to the top. Hendu always comes with me. The first time I climbed the mountain I had to carry him halfway because he was so small and didn't have enough energy. Now he is bigger and can make the whole trip. It is because of my nature adventures that the village thinks I'm a crazy tubab. Why would someone wander into the forest with a book instead of a machete? There is no recreation for villagers. Anyway, I do a lot of exploring and find some amazing places, and trees, and rocks. The land here is beautiful! I watched the sunset from my mosquito-net hammock (thanks, Mom) from the top of the mountain, eating cashew chicken curry (thanks, Aunt Debbie), listening to the BBC with Hendu laying under me.

Another day I was sitting on top of the mountain, texting my friend watching a forest fire in a neighboring village consume hundreds of acres of forest. Silly farmer, setting fire in such windy conditions. I drew a baobab and read Barack Obamas book.
Yeah, so the seasons are changing! It's spring in America, a transitional season, and it's the beginning of the rainy season here, and the end of the hot dry season. The first rain came on the 12th of may and it was torrential! I have never ever seen rain like that in real life. What an opening storm to the new season. It started with wind that could knock over a sleeping cow. And did not allow you to keep your eyes open. It ripped straw off of poorly thatched roofs. Then the rain fell, hard. It flowed and pooled in not so good places and all the men came out with their tools to dig drainage paths because houses (outdoor livingrooms) were flooding. Me, I was in my room that day watching. Thunder and lightning everywhere. Hendu was terrified and laid by my open door, curled up in a ball, shivering. Got a pic of this!

So the rain will come slowly. The heat will decline slowly. It hasn't rained like that since, just little storms here and there. It's still hot but now it is humid soout sweat doesn't get evaporated. We all smell reallybad now and sweat 24 hours a day. You can shower and dry off and immedialtely start sweating again. It's pretty gross. But one adjusts...

Farmers are sweeping and burning rubbish in their fields to prepare for planting. I'm looking forward to seeing the most primitive farming around. People hand dig and plant their fields, protect them from animals by spending all day in their fields shoeing them away, and then they harvest the food all by themselves, by hand. How fun.

Oh yeah and here is some pics of the inside of my hut. I had requests for these. You know, my hut is tiny. Im pretty sure there isn't a volunteers with a hut smaller than mine. Yet, everyone who has seen it says that it is lovely. It's funny. I'm known in American to have too much stuff and in turn I become a messy slob with things all over the place. Im not like that here. You go into my hut and think I have nothing. Nothing is really on the floor, and I have no shelves. I have very few clothes hung on a line above head level. Really, this cleanliness was an accident. I hate mice in my room. Every place that everything it has the underlying philosophy of keeping mice out of my room. They have nowhere to hide. :) So, on the floor is a bed, a table, a chair, a trunk and a suitcase. That is all.

And my backyard :)

Thats all for now.

Straw Fun

Africa! I love it yet I hate it. It's like living anywhere I suppose. My last two weeks were filled with frustration, new levels of realization, and then reconciliation, and I'm back into my comfort zone and realized that the whole time I never really stopped progressing. Neat huh?
I left my village for a week to attend several meetings with all the volunteers of my region. We had a day long meeting with the volunteers and representatives from other development organizations. We talked about the roles of volunteers and what we could do to help these organizations and what they could do to help us. Basically we talked about how we could all work together to make a bigger difference. I thought the meeting went well and hope we can have more. This meeting seemed like just the ice breaker for me, but it definitely got me thinking in a new direction.

After that we rented a bus and drove to Makko, a hip little road side town about 30 minutes away that sits on the river and is known for it's nice riverside campements (an affican village version of a hotel), and its hippos. We had a two day all day meeting there and on our breaks we would go to the river and watch the hippos.

I ended up going back to my village a week after leaving it. I didn't ride my bike this time around. I instead took the "auto lumo," the bus that goes to re stock the stores. The driver, named Ibu, is my buddy now as I have been taking the car a lot. I've put sacks of rice on the car, taken my dog on it, my bike,and now I've put a queen sized mattress on it, so the car has become a valuable tool for me. Ibu (short for Ibrahim) is a great driver. He takes responsibility for every detail of his weekly trip He makes sure that his helpers are loading it properly so nothing breaks, then before leaving he makes everyone inside move up to give everyone else room. Then before he takes off, he does a head count to make sure the amount of tickets purchased match the amount of people. Well, last Wednesday, when I was heading out to my village, Ibu refused to put a sack of rice on the car for me because he insisted that car was full. I thought about trying to argue with him (its the African way), but he has been so nice to me I just let it go. It was hard not to argue because my family has literally no food. I just asked nicely a couple more times to no avail. Well, after we got to my village with no rice, my brother said he would bike to Kedougou the next day to bring the rice (that is 120 lb sack on the back of a wobbly African bike, that is how bad he needed the rice). I felt bad once again. Then, to my surprise, Ibrihima called me to him before returning to town and told me he would be back the next day with a load of rice, and offered to bring a sack for me. I was so happy! So was my brother :) So, my family got their rice and I maintained my good relationship with my auto lumo driver.

So, I had been away from my village for a week. Omar, my brother was the one who takes care of my garden when I'm gone. Well thankfully he watered while I was gone, but unfortunately my dog missed me, and kept breaking into my garden and sleeping in the cabbage, and he broke it all. Apon hearing the news and standing over my broken cabbage, I let out a big sigh and just walked away. A couple of days later I pulled it up and tossed it over the fence. Gardening in Africa is hard. If I were there every day then perhaps I could prevent most of the mishaps that happen in gardens. But so far, every time I leave something ruins something. But! The good part, I water less now! I'm tired of pulling water! Now I only have to pull 80 liters a day instead of 120. I have 2 tree nurseries and two seedbeds of trees now, that is all I water. The thing with my tree nurseries, toads have moved in and sleep between the sacks during the day and emerge during the night and dig into the cool dirt in the sacks, while in the meantime digging up the seeds and preventing germination. I go toad hunting every night now. I get 5 or 6 toads a day, I grab those bastards by the head so they don't pee on me and I throw them like a baseball, as far as I can into the corn field. It's quite a sight. Their arms and legs flailing in the air followed by the distinct "plop" sound they make when hitting the ground.

This week in my village I've been giving out tons of sacks for people to plant trees. I brought about 2300 sacks and I'm almost out. Most people take about 25 sacks with the plan to plant one cord (fourth of a hectre) of mangos. I've also head several kids and a couple of old women ask for between 3 and 6 sacks. I have a feeling that those mango trees will be the best taken care of. There are a couple of farmers that I am working extensively with, and I am looking forward to seeing the progress of our work. One farmer is the towns only baker, who has shown his dedication both in his words and by showing what he has already done with his field. The other farmer is the banana/mango orchard guy who has the nicest field in my village. I am doing live fence projects with both of them, which is planting hundreds of small trees around the border which will grow into a barrier to stop animals from entering. I am also working with our school, which has turned out to be really fun. The director of the school is really motivated and excited about planting trees in the school grounds, and also excited about a cold season garden for later this year. We are planning a tree nursery of between 600-800 trees. It's neat because I get to design it from scratch. There are 4 classes of about 30 students who will be participating. I've made it so each kid will get about 3 trees to take home, a mango, a nebadie, and perhaps a cashew tree (maybe other options), then there will be a school pepeniere of several species which will be planted around the school grounds.

Being poor is hard. Not having food is hard. Not having work coordinated and shared is hard. My family is feeling the affects of these hardships, and in turn, I am. We are working through these issues slowly, and I am lucky to have a family that readily communicates with me.

This week I got my roof re-thatched! It's the American equivalent of getting new shingles. This event has been months in the making. Roofs of village huts are made with straw and last about 4 years. My straw has been on for 5 years now, so it was overdue. My brother did the job for me with some helpers. One of the helpers was my 15 yearold brother, Soulai. I don't know if I've said much about Soulai, but he is a character. He is your typical 15 year old high school student. He thinks he is the king of the world and the ultimate cool. He even started his own rap group and they are known, worshiped and mocked throughout my village. The group is called "group happiness." There went from being 4 members to 8. My brother is the self proclaimed leader. You should see what they wear! Jeans cut and frayed at the end. Pants with one leg rolled up sagging down to show bright yellow boxers. All kinds of accessories, hats and broken sunglasses. Blue army vests over red shirt and yellow basketball shorts. It's great. Often when they are at my house (they go to school in a neighboring village, and come home when there is no school), the group sits under the mango tree behind my compound and drink tea and joke around. One day they asked me to do a photo shoot. And so here I present, Group Happiness! Oh, and by the way, they have no songs yet. I'm supposed to write one for them in English.

Group Happiness is great. They are good in the fact that they joke around and have fun, bad in the way that they think they are better than everyone. My brother asked them to help with getting my straw ready for my roof one day. They worked hard! It was sweet. I took pics.
The actual application of the straw only took about 5 hours and was done by about 6 men. They worked for tea and lunch. I bought them a delicious lunch, Yassa! It's an onion/oil/mustard/vinegar sauce put over rice. It's usually only served in cities because the ingredients are expensive. It was a fun day! Here are some re thatching pictures.

The mango orchard! Mangos are becoming scarce in the village because people have eaten them all. So my mom sent my sister and me to the mango orchard where we paid 200cfa (about 50 cents) for a bucket full of mangos. The boys that hang out in the orchard collected the money and climbed the trees to get us ripe mangos. It was fun! And the mangos from this orchard are some of the best in the village. There is nothing quite like wandering through the tall trees and picking off a mango of your choice and eating it while gathering others to take home.

The mango boys are shy. I got a pic of them though after we were done gathering. Here they are.


Oh and I keep forgetting to mention. There is an organization called Sodafitex that is giving literacy classes to adults in villages. It is absoutely amazing and one of the few opportunities for village women to improve their education. There are about 25 students, 23 women and 2 men. They are learning to read and write in their native language, Pular. This is great because formal education is done solely in French, so they never really learn to read or write in their own language. The class goes on for a 3 hour period 4 days a week. The fact that these 23 women can leave their household duties for 3 hours 4 days a week is amazing. My sister struggles very hard those 4 days every week to get her work done and go to class. I am so proud of every woman who attends. I go to the class whenever I am in town, which is a lot. I am a welcome member of the class, and for me, it can become an amazing phonetics class. The classroom was hand made by bamboo fence with a straw shade structire, and the desks are made of sticks. Each student gets a free notebook, pen, pencil, reading and math book, and a little blackboard. What a great opportunity to learn. Everyone works together in the class and has a great time. Here is a pic of what I see in the class, I have a seat in the back.

So I'm in Kedougou today. I wasn't planning on coming in for another week or so but here I am! Hayes, a volunteer in a village about 12 miles from me came to visit me, and then we rode our bikes to Makko 37 kilometers away to visit a campement. Hayes works with campements. The bike ride to Makko was absoutely amazing and left both me and Hayes thrilled. It reminded me of biking through mountains in Colorado. We wove and navigated through mountain paths and there was a nice breeze, lots of trees, and no one else around. After spending the day in the campement talking with the locals about "left" and "right" Muslims, and then eating lunch and diving into the Gambia river with 10 local boys and a German man, we rode our bikes 45 Kilometers on the main road back to Kedougou. That means we rode about 82k in one day. Hayes and I both wanted to die after that. We got home after dark and ate, then passed out.

Today I slept until 9:30am. I usually can never manage to sleep after 8:00. Ha! Now here I am writing this blog, and now I am going to post it. :)