Frustrating, Lovely, Mysterious.

I've had a couple of people who know me here read my blog and come up to me and say “Gee, Sheila. I read your blog and it's amazing (of course!) but you really butter up your time here to make it sound so, well, beautiful. Why didn't you talk about all that crap you were going through in your village or how you've been so frustrated at people these past couple months?”
And my reply is all simple. This blog is public. While there are plenty of frustrations and problems and obstacles, those are mine to work through, and through all of those frustrations I am still accomplishing things, and you guys usually end up getting the end product, which is usually quite wonderful.
The truth is, sometimes it's easy to be grouchy in your village. I could probably admit that if you talked to people that know me in my village they would say that “Careful when going up to her, these days her tongue has been on fire!”
But why? Why be frustrated with your life and work in your village and in turn with the people in your village? The answer is easy! It's life! You are an American, alone in a village coming from a completely different background and you are trying to live and get things done at the same time, and sometimes, doing both of that can be hard! And it's well known for Peace Corps agroforestry volunteers that you can aim for 100% and work your butt off and only get a 10% success rate. Just imagine those constant letdowns in your daily life and add people walking up to you every day and asking for a present. ROOOAR!!! Sometimes you just gotta put that foot down. Haha.
Here's an example. This farmer guy, a guy who really talks up his desire, made a mango pepeniere. It's time to plant. Doesn't planting trees sound lovely? Ok, so you go to his house and set up a plant date and he stands you up five times, telling you each day to come back the next day. Then you finally catch him and he hasn't prepared a damn thing and you end up carrying all the trees he planted and the digging tools to his field for him. And then he plants a couple of trees and leaves the rest to his assistant while he goes and does other things. Then you find out that all the mangoes he planted are seeds from grafted mangoes, which you aren't supposed to plant. Everything you say to him about how far to plant tree from each other and why you should plant local seeds instead of grafted seeds goes in one ear, past his smiling, nodding head, and straight out the other ear. You ask him to repeat what you said and he says something in the realms of “you had porridge for breakfast.”


Ok, enough of that. Lots of cool stuff going on. Lets talk about my success! I guess I could add a few frustrations, just to add the yang to the yin, yaknow.
Trees are planted! We planted about 20 in the post de sante.
I planted (tried for 5 days to organize students to help me but failed) 25 trees in the school yard. My 6 year old brother helped, and my 2 year old sister and 3 and 5 year old neighbor boys came as well, so it was more like babysitting.

Lots of mango pepenieres were planted, which I will still need to follow up on. I ended up with a lot of extra trees and not much time left to plant so I tied a big bucket on the back of my bike, filled it with baby trees and circled the village several times giving trees out. It turns out that that is a great way to get trees planted. I gave about 30 nebadie trees (healthy leaves) to the womens group. I gave flamboyants (a perdy tree non-existant in my vill) out to people who live by the main road, and lots of other trees to random people. And I'm relatively sure these people are planting these trees. It's so easy to plant one or two at your house or field and take care of it. Then you get to tell everyone that you got a tree from Jenaba Jallo (me!)

I love my best farmer. His name is Numusara. He is like a grandpa to me. He always offers me things and never asks for a thing. Every time I show up at his house or field he is so happy. If my dog tags along and gets into ruckus and I try to control him tells me that my dog is fine (like eating his food, chewing on one of his baby trees.
On the professional side, it's nice having that ultimate farmer. The one that if you're feelin frustrated you can just go to and realize that you have a purpose! All you have to do it go to his field and he will lead you around and show you all the trees he has planted along his fence, and the papayas he has transplanted, or where he is going to plant next, etc. he goes on and on talking about the work he wants to do, and it's all great! Instead of you telling him what he could do with his field, he says, "just wait until the next time you come! I'll have cleared this whole section of the 10ft tall straw and have planted corn and 20 more papaya trees and manioc!" Anyway, I got a photo shoot with this guy. There was this time when he was leading me through some nasty grasses and my flip flop kept breaking and he tried to get me to use his shoes. Awe aint that sweet. And one great thing about now, is that my farmer is really happy! He has a lot of new grafted mango trees, and the grafted on brenches are sprouting!

So I brought my camera to Numusara's field yet again and realized that I didn't have a good pic of him and or course he welcomed my request to take pics, and even posed. Here is him beside one of his grafted mango trees (his baby!), and his thriving banans, which he is the only one in my village with bananas!

Lalala. Bleh. I don't feel like writing a blog so I'm just going to talk about nonsense .

It's Ramadan. That month where people fast. They don't eat or drink while the sun is out. If you want to know the insane reasoning behind it, or how it effects people's work and mood and strength and attitudes on life, give my cell phone a call and we will have a several hour conversation.
I'm trying to fast while I'm in my village but it's hard. I did it for two days successfully but on the third day I got in my hut after 3 hours of plantin peanuts and was real thirsty. I was alone in the household, alone in my hut, tired, sweaty, and starting me smack dab in the middle of my face was a bottle of water. Just me and it. I drank and felt guilty. It was over.

Um. yeah I've been talking a lot about farming and farming is still happening. It's my favorite spare time activity. Dalanda, my sis has her own corn and peanut field and I've franchised 50% of it. It's half mine. Well she gets all the goods but I get to do 50% of the labor. Yay! So I'm bent over planting or weeding several hours a day. I love it. It's a great work out and I love all the blisters I get on my hands and the insane rashes I get on my arms and endless ant-bites I get from working bare-footed. But all sarcasm aside, going to the fields is my favorite part of the day. It's peaceful, it's a great workout and you don't feel like you are living such a different life from them locals.
I'm trying to find different ways to approach working with the womens group so I went and worked with them on their funyo field for 4 hours. I got to hear them talking about they way they work without them smiling and nodding at me.

I told my sister, Dalanda I'd give her 2,000cfa (4 dollars) if she caught a bird with her bare hand. So she did. Then she tied it to a string, pulled out it's flight feathers and gave it to her son to play with. I sat and watched the whole “caught a bird” culture and watched the bird die a rather terrible death. Such is the way I have been learning culture these days. Which, by the way, cultural learning just don't stop, no matter how long you stay in a place. No more dares like that for me! Those birds are kinda like pests though. She caught it while it was stealing her corn she had set out to dry.

Now for the mysterious. One of my sisters that lives in my village has had a strange yet serious illness for the past months. I've always known her as the 25 year old sister that lives about 10 compounds down who comes over every day. She has a great husband and 4 kids. I see her every day in my life in the vill.
Here is her illness and her situation. Keep in mind that I'm do doctor! At the time I had the village bystandards perspective!
She had a kid that was stillborn. She went back to work the day after, recovering normally. A week later she complained of a massive headache and stomache ache, and got sick. She laid down and didn't get back up. She stopped eating and stopped talking. Day by day she lost her brain. She layed there and moaned saying over and over “ohhhh, mom, whats happening to me?” (her mom never left her side, and still hasn't). Then she stopped talking all together. She stopped having any recognition in her eyes what so ever. She could no longer control her body. She couldn't sit up, she couldn't walk, she couldn't talk. She just laid and stared. And made faces of pain. Everyone in the village said she went crazy. Her mom and kids and husband would go into the room and ask if she knew them and she would grunt “no.” She could only lay down, roll over, and grip something, like a hand.
The village nurse refused treatment without money. After money was found he made a diagnosis and didn't tell anyone what it was, just put her on a bunch of meds. I asked my brother and he said she was put on anti malaria meds, glucose, antibiotics and something to increase the blood.
She is slowly recovering. I was worried. I watched my perfectly sane sister lose her sanity. She reminded me of a vegetable that can't to anything and knows nothing. Now she eats. Now she is getting some recognition in her eyes. Slowly. She still can't control her body and can't talk.
So I looked it up online after I got back to Kedougou and I know what it is. So now am I doctor? No! But I realize how much online medical information can change a life. No one in the village has a clue what she has, even my brother, who is the medical assistant! The nurse knew what it was and did the treatments then told the family to call in an Imam to get her brains back an Imam is a Muslim magical healing man, very popular in village illnesses, I've heard lots of stories of their magical healing abilities
according to Google my sister has Cerebral Malaria, a strain of malaria that occurs in 20-50% of malaria cases. In Cerebral Malaria something stops blood flow, and deprives the brain of oxygen. This can cause all kids of problems but only in rare cases does it cause “cerebellar ataxia,” which I looked up on Wikipedia, which is what my sister has. It basically puts you in brain vegetable state without being in a coma. It's like your brain is in a coma (can't do anything, move or think) but you don't lose consciousness. According to the website, the craziness last 4 weeks and goes away withing 1-2 weeks after treatment. So should she heal, which would be a miracle to these people and I know, would be credited to the Imam!
I was really scared for my sis. I watched her brain die, and hopefully will see it come back to life. I'm glad I looked that up!
Ok, enough for now. Keep livin!