My Time in Senegal With the Peace Corps

My Last Moments Approach

2010-09-11T12:57:00.000-07:00

It's August. Ramadan began this month. This means that nobody is eating or drinking while the sun is up. It means that people aren't cooking breakfast or lunch in my village. So, what do I eat for breakfast and lunch? Powdered sweetened coffee milk mixed with room temperature water, and animal crackers. I actually enjoy it, however I do not often feel full during the day.

It seems as though time is passing at three paces. In a way, time is going very slow, sitting in my hut, letting the seconds pass by, knowing a new life in a once familiar world full of long absent stimulations will soon become my new reality. In another way, time is flying, running from person to person in my village, telling them that my time is almost up and discussing with them what they need to do to prepare for the future of their projects, and the arrival of the new volunteer. Then there is that time in between all of that, where you are rushing to sit down with your volunteers friends, seeking roads to start up a new life in America, yet also rushing to please the administration by closing your service properly, which, I must say, is almost more complicated than applying for the Peace Corps in the first place. All in all, I'm being pulled in many directions. I'm starting a transition.

That has been my month of August. It was my last full month in Senegal. I lived a bit of all my lives,, and tried to appreciate all. I will try to make this blog simple. I will talk about what I have been doing to close my service, I will talk about my last waterfall adventure, and I will talk about wrapping up the village work!

In the beginning of August I went on a nature adventure. Four of us gals decided to get together and bike to a waterfall named Ingli, probably the most beautiful waterfall in the whole country, and camp there for the night. I was the only one who had been there before, but it had been two years, and I had taken a completely different route. None of us really knew how to get there. So I called Matt, a volunteer who knows, got directions (left at this fork, right here, ask this village for directions), and off we went!

Here we are just leaving

About three hours in, the girls are certainly wondering if we are there yet. Nope, only half way!

We did the notorious river crossing with our bikes over our heads.

And we crossed the ever unstable wire and bamboo bridge.

When we finally got to the waterfall, it took our breaths away. The water in the pools below the falls was cool and clear perfect to dive into after sweating through your clothes for 6 hours straight.

Then it got dark. Oh yes. We got there kinda late. We enjoyed sitting by the fire. KC played the tune whistle and we all sang. It was lovely.

When it was bedtime, we tucked ourselves up in our tents, and it proceeded to rain hard all night long. We managed to stay kinda of dry. But not really. Here we are … wet and cold in the morning.

We woke up to a waterfall that was much different from the one we saw the previous night. We got to see a real power of water. It was so misty you couldn't see much. The water was so violent there was no way to get closer for a better shot. Could you imagine trying to swim in those waters?

In the morning I went exploring. I found this cool tree. I know this tree from two years ago. You have to climb a cliff to get to it. When you finally climb up to the tree, you have a nice view.

Here is the tree's view to the left

The tree's view to the right.

Here is a flower the tree has recently shed.

And climbed up to the top to get a better view. This was the view.

And we walked right to the source. Here she falls...

Then we biked home. And because of the rise in water, we had to take our bikes over the rope bridge. Yikes!

The trip was exhausting, but definitely worth it.

Time to start closing my service!

After going on the trip to the waterfall, all of the people from my stage (people who came at the same time and are leaving at the same time) were invited to stay at a nice hotel in Dakar where we attended a mandatory informational meeting about closing out our service service. The meeting helped us to reflect on our time here, and give us an idea of the opportunities that will be available to us as returned Peace Corps volunteers. It also introduced us to the complicated process of getting the paper work done that needs to be completed before leaving. Wow. So, the meeting lasted for three days. All of the volunteers who have been going through the same phases of struggles had finally all gotten together again, the first time since pre-service training. It was interesting.

Here is a pic of our stage at the end of the meeting.

After the meeting was over, we all dispersed. I had a day left to spend in Dakar, so me and a few friends decided to go to the recently finished statue. It's the new statue the celebrates the African Renaissance, according to the sign in front of it. If you look up the statue on any media things, you will find out that the statue is controversial.

Anyway, here is the statue. Of course when having a photo with a statue, you must pose like it.

Yay statue! This is me.

We found some Talibe boys on top who wanted to pose with us,

Then they decided they wanted to do push-ups with Lindsay.

We had a nice view of an area of the city that is in development.

So, the last part of August I got to concentrate on my last tree project. August is prime mango grafting time! Last year we held a grafting seminar in my village with participants who came from several different villages. They were leading mango tree farmers in their villages and the idea was for them to gain knowledge in grafting that they could then spread to other mango enthusiasts in their villages. Well, this year I got to put their teaching skills to the test. Well, two of the people that is. I had Numusara, my wonderful counterpart and best mango man, teach people in my village how to graft mango trees. I also had a man named Woori, who comes from a village named Baraboy, teach his very eager and willing villgers how to graft mangoes. It was all very fun. It took a lot of running around and organizing things, but it all went pretty smoothly, as I had great helpers.

Here are some photos of the grafting seminar in my village

And I just forgot to take pictures of the seminar in Baraboy. It' s a shame. They did a wonderful job.

I kept telling my villagers that the last grafting seminar was my last day of official work. I wanted to leave the last week in my village to talk to people about their upcoming volunteer transition, and to give away my stuff to people who have been kind to me. But that is a story for September. So you will have to wait!

Until next time... my last post for my time in Senegal!

and a picture for the road: petting warthogs in the park :)

Time To Plant Some Trees!

2010-09-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

July has come and gone. In that time we have had, according to the farmers, a wonderful amount of rain. The corn in one month's time has gone from the size of simple young blades of grass to towering well above my head. The flamboyant tree that I planted last year in my backyard has been soaking up all the water and has doubled in size. Take a look!

Rain here brings more than just food crops. It brings life to everything. The amount of bugs increases daily. I've also noticed, every time that I take a moment to look, that the amount of random things living in every crevice of my back yard increases. Just look at all the wonderful things I've found!

I have several species of mushrooms

I have no idea what this is, but it's alive!

Of the million kinds of bugs, I might as well show a few.

Here is one little guy who I found on my yoga mat.

Some flies had fun having their babies in a bag of seed I left out in the rain... ugh!

These GIANT centipedes like to hide under things. when they sting it hurts!

Village happenings.

So my biggest projects are done and I'm on the down hill slope in my village, preparing for my departure and the arrival of the volunteer who will replace me. So, is work slowing down? No and yes. Yes as in I have no more giant projects. Yes as in people are farming from sunrise to sunset so it's almost impossible to get them to do anything for me. However, my to-do list has been a mile long. Just a few things on my list are: get groups to out plant their demonstration live fences, get members to plant trees from their private nurseries. Promote and attempt to do rainy season gardens, organize people to plant ornamental trees on main road, organize grafting formations, meet with new neighborhoods who want to discuss starting a group, and strengthen the liaison between my leaders. Oh, and have tea with Issa. Yes, there is a lot to do.

I've gotten the groups to out plant their trees for their garden demonstration live fences. See them planting the trees?

The women who planted trees during the formation were excited to take them and plant them in their fields. Here is one happy woman and her trees.

The politics of the groups are ever changing as well. These days this has become one of my favorite sectors to work in. My new counterparts continue to help me in organizing the groups, and the group members and presidents alike are starting to question the role of my “special helpers”. This month I've had talks about it and arguments about it with several people in my groups, including group presidents. I've also discussed it with my counterparts. Basically, it's a lot of drama. The villgers argue: “Are the counterparts the bosses of the groups? But they aren't in any of the groups! Who has the right to make decisions? The groups are doing their work, the counterparts should do their own. We have our wells and they have theirs, leave them to their fields and us to our groups!”
At the end of the month I sat down with my counterparts and my presidents facing one another, said a few words, and then sat back and let them duke it out. The counterparts hashed it out to the presidents saying “there is no individual work here. The groups work together, we all work together. Lets face it, we all have knowledge. If one is not there to help, the other one can, then we can tell the others about it. Some of us know what good soil is, some of us know how to plant trees, and some of us know how to organize people. It's all for one cause and we all need to work together instead of doing everything individually. We are here to support the volunteer, who is here to help us. You are part of her work as well as us. If we work together, her work will be more likely to succeed.” The presidents could do nothing but agree. And if they agree, the groups' members will know. It's a start.

How about a test in organization?

I had each group plant many flamboyant trees. A flamboyant is a really pretty tree that has fern-type leaves and has beautiful orange flowers. I discussed with them from the start that these trees were for the main road. Well, the trees grew, and this last week, we out planted them. The great part was, I played a very small roll in it. My leaders are really coming along.
So, towards the end of July we managed to plant about half of the trees. I was head organizer, giving advise to my group president, my counterparts, and everyone wanting to plant trees. It was hectic, and according to my counterparts, I didn't do it right. I was needing to leave town the following day. I actually think they were glad. They told me that when I came back, all of the trees would be planted the way I had requested. And it's true, when I went back, they were all planted. How about that for work partners? A Peace Corps Volunteer couldn't ask for more.
Some photos:

here are the trees. I got metal signs made so the trees would have owners.

We painted the name of the caretaker for the tree on the signs

Each tree got a sign.

Ideally, every person will protect his/her tree when the rain stops. They all knew upon planting the tree that this was the case. So, even more ideally, in 10 years the main road in Thiabedji will be lined with flamboyant trees. Like I said, it's a test in organization. Success rate can be 0% or if we are lucky 50%.

The 4th of July in Kedougou.

Every 4th of July, Kedougou hosts a rather large party and volunteers from all over the country are invited. This year we threw a wonderful party! There was food, drinks, music, games, a singing of the national anthem, and even fireworks!
The day started out with a nice 4k run in the center of town for anyone who wished to attend. Many volunteers as well as locals, participated in the race. It was very fun. I didn't run, I opted to stand by and take some photos.

The start of the race

David finishing the race.

The contestants post:

After that, the party began! Here are some photos.

We had a few freshly slaughtered pigs :) Ian cooked them!

Well that sums up most of July. I apologize for delay in posting. :P

Until next time!

Water is here in many ways.

2010-07-10T13:35:00.002-07:00

The rains are here. So sometimes, when I'm not out and about, I help my sister weed her corn.

I'm not the best at it, but it's nice to know what the villagers mean when they say their whole body hurts from farming all day.

Now les get to it. Ladies and gentlemen. It's time for a blog of what has been going on here in Senegal these past couple of months. I've been meaning to blog, believe me. But I've been waiting for this current chapter to close so I could give the whole story, and as of now, it is finished!

I have four new wells in my village. Count that, four.

So it started with a thought. Followed by some research. A lot more thought. Many discussions with many villagers. And finally, a decision. After that I had to accept the fact that what I was doing was giving me the feeling of walking barefoot and blindfolded off a plank into an unknown never ending ocean of some sort that could be filled with any sort of life, poisonous snakes, sharks waiting for their next feeding frenzy, or, perhaps, nothing but cool crisp waters and a couple of peaceful sea turtles.

How does a village of 1,200 people really work? Villages are all different, how will MY village react to this project that is happening for these new garden groups and in turn, for the whole village?

Can I just say that four wells were completed in the small time frame of about six weeks. Four wells, each 1.5 meters in diameter, average of 8 meters deep, and fully lined with cement. Each single well was done by hand, by local villagers (a neighboring village called Gingara, paired with some people from my village).
May I just say, I'm still in shock of how smoothly this endeavor went down. I've been in this country for over a year and a half. Nothing is supposed to happen this smoothly. Ever. Postponing things and putting things off, not matter now important or official they are, always happens. It only takes one person, one sentence, or one small decision by one piece of the puzzle to delay a project this large.
But some reason, for me, every piece of the puzzle came together, everyone stayed on track, and now my village has 4 new beautiful, reliable water sources that aim to help them:

increase income,
increase nutrition,
increase knowledge in gardening techniques AND
increase knowledge in tree planting techniques.

And a side goal of these wells which has come up between the lines and has also decided to be one of the more important goals of these wells, combines with the garden groups who own them:

To be s starting point in organizing a community.

So, let us reenact the key points in this project.

Why dig wells? The above reasons that I listed quite nicely, of course. Each of my four wells is different, and has a different group of villagers behind it, and a different type of politics. I won't get in to the nitty gritty of all of that, but just know, 4 wells means 4 very different miniature political systems. Each political aspect is now coming together. Can't imagine what that means? Come to my village and ask the people.

The need. Water is one of the important key factors in the way a community works. It can make or break a person's day, month, and year. While there is water in Thiabedji, I must say, there is not nearly enough. Most water sources there were either public and overcrowded or private, with a purpose to water cows. No water sources were there for community garden groups, or for farming technique improvement and demonstration. With water available specifically for these reasons, it allows certain people to excel in something other than the necessities of daily life. And if success is seen in a village, it will be imitated, right? Especially if those who succeed are there to teach and help those who want to.

Organization. It helped that I already had my garden groups. And a couple of amazing farmers to help me with these groups. The groups were brand new groups started by neighborhood, and they had proved to me this past season that they have the desire and the ability to work together for a common purpose. Now they just needed water. They were already hyped up from their harvest, so when I mentioned wells they just got very excited. They were ready to do what it took to get them. And I was confident they could do it. Same with my farmers.

Financing. That is my main job, according to the villagers. I organize that stuff. They need to pay a percentage, and I bring in the rest. For one well I got funding from a website called Water Charity. They are an organization that funds small projects that give people more access to water. They funded the well for my farmer, Numusara, whose field is to become a demonstration site. It will be perfected over time, and people will go there from all around the region to learn technologies that they also are able to see.
The other three wells were funded by grant that promotes food security: AKA gardening and nutrition. With this grant, the people contribute 25% of the cost of labor/money, and the grant covers the rest. That was a lot of paperwork and I learned a lot filling it out.

Workers, materials, village cooperation. All this is a lot more complicated than it sounds, and t's a village by village basis. I got lucky with workers. There is a village next to mine, a Bedik village called Gingara, who are trained well diggers thanks to a Catholic missionary from France who devoted his life to teaching skills to Bediks. He has recently passed away but his legacy lives on. Pierre was the boss well digger in my village. Here he is, working.

My well blog.

He had already started one well, the well of Numusara. Then my villagers and I hit him with a big question. “Can you, Pierre, do three more wells in 6 weeks, before the farming season begins? Pierre just got a huge bomb dropped on him. A huge question that came with a huge responsibility, and a lot, lot lot of heavy work. He thought about it, and he agreed. It was to be done.
There was a big meeting with the well digging team (Pierre had helpers), and the main villgares in charge of the wells. We needed the materials... tomorrow. We calculated how many of what we needed. Pierre, Issa (my counterpart), and I were to bike to town the next day and get ALL of the materials delivered the next day. The whole day was a blur. We got every single item that we needed for the wells to my village in one day. Not a single thing went wrong. Everybody worked together. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off making wild commands to everyone. . And everyone did what I said. It was quite an experience. I could not have done it without Issa and Pierre helping me.
Villagers. I could not have done this without them. The wells were for them and I needed their free manpower. They did it amazingly. Many villagers broke their backs (metaphorically) helping in the construction of the wells. Yes, they spoke of their pains. But more often than “ouch,” I heard “thank you's.” They were very happy with the prospect of new wells in their village.

Now, for fun. How do you make a well? I sure as heck didn't know. Which is funny because I was the “boss,” according to my villagers and the diggers. But they knew I knew nothing. They had a lot of fun teaching me, and I had a lot of fun learning.

The digging part is the easiest, according to Pierre. I don't know if the diggers would say the same thing. These four wells were dug by hand, with really dull picks. We were very lucky that they did not hit hard rocks. Only soft ones..

Every morning, my six Bedik diggers would walk/bike about 4 miles to my village. Then they would work from sunrise to just before sunset. They were fed lunch and tea by my villagers. With digging, one or two men would be in the hole digging, and one or two men would be above the hole, taking the dirt out of the whole, one bucket after another.

The next step is to make the cement lining. This takes many steps. First, you need a mold. This is a heavy hard to find item. Luckily, we got one.

Iron bars needed to be cut and assembled to be the skeleton of the cement molds. Here is Tamba, one of the well diggers, attatching them.

For each bag of cement, there needed to be about 3 bags of sand and 3 bags of gravel. It was up to the villagers to bring this. They did it with wheelbarrows, bikes, and donkey carts. This was the most difficult job for the villagers, as this stuff is very heavy and they needed very large amounts of it. But somehow, they all managed.

The cement, gravel, and sand are mixed on site, and poored into the mold.

Each lining needs to dry for 7 hours. They can only made 2 linings per day. Each mold needs to be watered two times a day, for cement likes water. If too dry, it will be feeble and crack easily.

I was watching the cement linings pop up one by one. All the time I was noticing how heavy they were, and always wondering how the heck they are going to get those nicely stacked in the well without any sort of machine. Finally, the day came where I got to see what happened. Manpower was called for. All the villagers knew the wells were being made, and many were eager to go see what was going on. So maybe 30 or 40 men would go to the well on “lining” day. The hosts of the well were offering some sort of compensation, either tea, mangoes, or lunch. Basically, it's a well party.

Each lining probably weighs a up 400-500 lbs. Ha! How the heck do you move something so big and kinda fragile and drop it down a big hole? Materials, ropes, logs, and sheer manpower. Wow.

First, the pried the linings off the ground and tied ropes around them.

They put big logs over the well. Then they lifted the linings by hand and carried them to the top of the hole, where they placed them on the logs.

There was one main rope over the lining. It was long enough for about 20-30 men to hold on to in a line. They were the manpower. There was also a crew of people surrounding the well to take the logs out of above the hole.

On command, everyone pulled the rope and the lining was lifted off the logs, suspending. Those who were around the well scurried to remove the logs. The lining was now suspending over the hole.

On command, the people slackened the rope, little by little. The lining was lowered into the well.

As it reached the bottom, one of the diggers would grab the rope and swing down to the bottom of the well, he would then grab the lining and direct it to it's proper place in the well. This was done with each lining, one by one.

Next, they seal the linings together with cement. They seal the other gap, and then make it pretty at the top.

Here are my four wells.

Well number one is Numusara's well. I have a story about him on a previous blog. His well was funded by a group called Water Charity. It pre-funds necessary projects and counts on donations to be reimbursed. I have had a few people give very generous donations. I need $200 more dollars to reimburse the people who funded me. If you are interested in helping me out, please make a donation of any size. No pressure to you folks. It's just an opportunity. Here is the link to the site with a project description.

http://appropriateprojects.com/node/126

And finally, Numusara's beautiful new well!

Well number two was put in a location that is to be an example for the garden groups. A model gardener, you could call it. Through all the difficulties of organization groups, if there is one perfect garden that is open to teaching others and showing them the success possiblities in gardening and tree planting, it can “take off” other efforts. Here is the owner and teacher, with his well.

Well number three. A group garden well. It is finished except for it's beautification. The group is very excited for this up coming season.

And the final well, for another group. Yes I know they all kinda look the same. But they aren't. Not really.

That is four wells. Count that. And the cool thing, it's only a symbol for what opportunities are arriving for my people. Because really, it's the people that make the changes, and they are doing well at starting this.

I have only a few more months in country. I am in the process of closing up my work, yet my to do list is overflowing. I have people in my village and neighboring villages coming up to me with all kinds of ideas, and, surprisingly, they are good ideas. I am still working constantly to help my groups organize themselves and work through problems that come from... well, starting new groups. Organizing people. Every day I learn, and every day I see progress. It's pretty neat.

I will try to write again soon :)

Until next time!

2010-05-03T07:51:00.000-07:00

Hello American subscribers and surfers!

How about this dreaded hot and dry month of April in Senegal? That month that, when thoughts of the painful heat with no air conditioned room to escape to except for the atm stand in the bank in town arrive, you can't help but cringe no matter what time of year it is.
Well, guess what? April is over and I don't even remember how hot it was. I was too busy having fun playing with the people!

This month I learned a lot of things, and perhaps I even got some things done. If I had to chose a theme or two for the month, first, facilitating things. Second, fun random stuff, like marching in a parade, climbing a couple of mountains to visit Bedik villages, and an overnight trek to a waterfall. That is basically what I did all month. I ate lots and lots of mangoes, and I facilitated a lot of stuff, and I had fun. How did this come all about? Well, I will try to explain it to you in the most entertaining and comprehensible fashion that I can.

Marching, marching, marching.

Well it just so happens that the 4th of April is Senegal's Independence day. Isn't that just lovely? So in Kedougou they had a nice parade where everyone who was any sort of group was to come dressed up and march in a colorful parade. The length of the march? About a block and a half!
Well, as I recall, for our American Independence day the Peace Corps had a big party and Senegal was invited, so this year Senegal invited the Peace Corps to take part in their celebration by marching in their parade as well. Seven of us complied.
It was fun. We got to stand around for a few hours watching people stand around for a few hours.

We goofed off and took pictures and had lots of people take pictures of us. Yes, we were the only white people to be seen. There was a moment where a man walked up to us and just took a several minute long video on his phone of us standing there and doing nothing.

Of all the people dressed all fancily, I don't see what our sensitive to the sun pale skin and ridiculously casual dress gives to entertain that the group of scantily dressed cheerleaders a few feet away from us did not give.

And so we marched. Behind a group of people wearing fruits and vegetables and in front of scantily dressed dancing women. We had no float, no sign, just a giant pictures of Barack Obama's face that we decided to bring the last second. It was nice. It gave the people something to shout at us rather than “tubab!”

It was nice. We got to be on television. We got a couple of nicely wrapped photos of us marching that a bystander took and printed out for it. All in all it was a good experience.

Garden group evolution/ Learning to facilitate stuff.

Well, gardening season is over. The women are exhausted from watering every day and so all the tomato plants were drying up. The materials that they have been scrounging and saving their pennies for for so long were just sitting in a shed getting covered in dust. The wind was flying through the grillage fence and rogue straw was getting caught in the links. My groups were forgetting how fun it is to work together and create. Something had to change!

How about some new knowledge? How about a composting formation? Hmmm hold on, I've never made a compost pile myself. I've never gathered people together and taught a new technology. Heck, I've never done much actual teaching in my village at all. I needed some help.
I called a friend of the Peace Corps and a great business man named Hassana. I also asked my friend Alan to help. I figured that if three minds were put together, we could teach my villagers how to compost and maybe teach me how to teach.. Not only was Hassana and Alan's knowledge and encouragement important to me, but I also wanted Hassana to meet the villagers to whom he supplied many wonderful garden materials, and I kinda of wanted them to meet him as well. Hassana is one of the leading agriculture and garden suppliers in the region of Kedougou. What a guy.

Boy was I nervous. I don't know why. But it worked really well. I had been talking the formation up for several weeks before it happened. The villagers had no idea what I was talking about when I tried to explain compost. They just knew they were going to learn to do something that healed sick dirt.
There was an underlying strategy to all of this as well. My garden groups were starting to hibernate. They had never really been able to show off all the fancy materials that they had gained for their village. And another point, my three garden groups had never done any sort of project together. They had always been more competitive, and just about never went to the other gardens to see their progress. So, for the first time, I brought my three groups together. I brought 4 people (2 men 2 women) officially from each group,and allowed anyone else who was interested to attend. We got a lot more attendees that I had planned!

The day of the actual formation was great. I had told all the group members to meet me at my house. We got all our wheelbarrows, picks, shovels and rakes and at 8:30 in the morning we literally had a parade through the village pushing out loud wheelbarrows that echoed so much, every single household we walked by ran outside to see what the ruckus was. It was awesome.

We ended up at the garden plot of Nikolas, who was the farthest from my house. We had all gotten there before Hassana and Alan arrived, so I explained what we needed to do before they arrived and the men immediately started to get to work on the shade structure while the women and I took the wheelbarrows and started gathering decomposable trash.

Then my guests arrived on their motorcycle. What an entrance! There were greetings all around, and then Hassana proceeded to explain in amazing Pular, why compost was great, and how to do it. Then we split into three grous and gathered materials: green leaves, dry leaves, trash, and cow poop.

When it was all gathered, Hassana and Alan explained in detail the proceess of making the pile, how and why it would decompose, and how to take care of it. A lot of people were asking questions, and we answered them all to the best of our ability. We made the pile, everyone thanked each other, and Hassana and Alan returned to Kedougou.

It's been about 4 weeks since the pile was made. It is turned every week, and every week it has looked more and more like beautiful soil. Here is a pic of the second turning.

I trained my own counterparts.

So, most volunteers have counterparts. A counterpart is a fellow villager that knows the real purpose of PCV's and helps them to facilitate things and organize and communicate with the people. Crap, I had never had that at all. And above all that, tree season is coming. I want to teach people how to plant trees but there are way too many people out there who just don't understand the way I say things. Believe me I have tried and I always end up completely frustrated.
Got a problem? Fix it.
I've been in my village for nearly a year and a half. I know the people pretty well. There are these two guys that I am working pretty extensively with in tree planting, and I decided to ask them if they wouldn't mind helping me to organize people throughout the village and help me to talk to the people until they understand why it is good to plant trees and why I am really there. They were very eager to help me.

One is Numusara. You probably know him

The other is Issa. He is younger and has recently spent 5 years in Lybia working in amazing farms and gardens. He wishes to replicate it in his village where his family is. This man is a man with ambition and intelligence.

So I made dates with these two guys to teach them what I knew. The first day we sat in an empty hut and I just explained to them the problems that I had been having with people not understanding what I want from them. “Why do I want people to plant trees?” was what I asked them. “Do I want them to plant them because I want them to work for me, or do I want them to plant them so they can have a knew knowledge that can perhaps benefit their lives later on?” “If I give someone any tree sacks or trees, is it because I am giving them a gift that they can throw out the window and brag to their friends about or am I giving them an opportunity to give something to themselves that they can keep for the rest of their lives?” “People just get so excited that they are planting trees because I am their boss. What will be there when I leave? Me, or the trees?” Basically, the three of us had a lot of brainstorming about why I was there. Fortunately, they really got it after only a few minutes, and they started telling me about the false concepts that villagers have about PC volunteers as well.
After that was cleared up, I taught them about all of the possible things that you can do with trees. I showed them photos from my tree manuals, and showed them all the different kinds of seeds that I had. Being the biggest tree enthusiasts in my village, they both were absolutely fascinated by all of this information, especially the photos of different kinds of live fences, alley cropping, and contour planting. They were absolutely fascinated to find out that there are trees that work as fertilizer that can increase corn and peanut yields during farming season. After that I just sit there and listened to them tell me all the tree projects that we could organize throughout the village.

The next step was to teach them how to teach people how to make tree nurseries. So, we went to Issa's field and had a very through tree nursery training session. We talked about the different kinds of tree nurseries and the positive and negative aspects of them. We talked about what trees are planted at what times, with what depth and what spacing. We talked about soil quality, and the ratio of poop to dirt mixture. We basically talked a lot and did a lot of work. Some members of my garden groups had heard about the training and attended it as well. It was a good time. So, now I have helpers. Lets play!

Formations and meetings galore!

I had gotten my first formation jitters over with. So I have three groups that are ready to work together. I have three fenced in areas that need some attention. I have materials and I have helpers. It's like I'm in my own African playground. And it just so happens that this week, I was not alone. I had two American study abroad students who were shadowing me for a few days in the village. It was great! They helped motivate my villagers and made the whole experiences a lot more fun.

So we had three tree nursery formations in my three garden groups. Anyone was welcome to come, man and woman, and everyone was required to do physical labor. Each formation was different but good in it's own way. Numusara and Issa were there for every single one, and each morning of the formation I had one of them walking on each side of me, and they actually did most of the talking, I just directed the smaller details and worked with the people who were working. Each formation had talks about what trees were available to plant and what purpose and benefit each tree served. We made several tree nursery plots, both types, in the fenced in area that were to be used, some for private use by garden members, and other pots to be used to planting around the garden fence, and inside the garden.
The formations included a lot of digging, searching for good soil, cow manure, putting dirt in sacks, planting and watering. We also explained to those who were not in the garden group, how they could make their own nurseries in their backyards and that Issa or I would be able to supply sacks and seeds.

gathering poop

mixing poop and dirt

more poop

putting dirt in sacks

planting bareroot beds

All in all it was successful.

Since then I have had requests for about a couple of other tree nurseryy formations by villagers, and we also have plans to do more composting groups work with other garden groups. And we are talking up our rainy season gardens as well. :)

Meetings. Lots and lots of meetings going on all the time. Numusara and Issa go to all of them. Actually another thing interesting has happened with meetings. The three presidents of the three garden groups are starting to work together, and now all three presidents go to every single meeting, no matter for which group the meeting is. They often talk during them meeting as well saying what kind of projects are going on in their group and how it could be implemented into this group. All is going well.

Well meetings. I was recently aproved to dig three more wells in my village for three more groups. There have been meetings out the wazoo for that, and as of now I have 5 Bedik villagers digging and making cement linings on 4 wells from sun rise to sun set. But this story will be in the upcoming blog.

Leisure time.

It's not all work and no fun in my village. I have been hanging out a lot with my sister, dalanda. There were a couple of days in the afternoon where we would sit in the field behind the house under a mango tree, make tea, eat mangoes and just talk about life while the kids were playing around us. Those are fun times. My two study abroad students got to do that with us once. That was a fun time as well. Those are some of my favorite moments in the village.

We had a presidential candidate, Macky Sall, come and visit out village for about 20 minutes. I do believe that was the craziest thing I have ever seen in my village as long as I had been there. A truck came with giant speakers and played loud dance music that could be heard throughout the entire village. Every woman who was cooking lunch at that time walked out off their kitcken and started dancing right where they stood. I know, I saw this in several houses and couldn't help but laugh. Then the word spread that everyone needed to gather and run down the road and make a ruckus when Macky Sall came around the ben, and escort him all the way to the giant Mango tree that he would park under. They did this. I have never seen so many of my villagers in one place as long as I have been there. And they were al parading around and shouting Oui Macky! Like he was a soccer star. Or a presidential candidat. Macky had a lot of escorts. Most of them talked to me, asking why the heck there was a white person in a village in the middle of nowhere. It was funny...

Then everyone crowded under the giant mango tree and listened to motivational political inspirational speeches, and several villagers gave tear worthy speeches about how they love Macky and how much his visit was appreciated by them.
Then Macky gave a speech and donated 50,000cfa (about 100 dollars) to the village. Then they left.

I realize that this blog is rediculously long. But I'm not finished.
I went on a couple of adventures. The first one was with my two study abroad students, Elise and Joana.

We got a ride by my favorite chauffeur, Bruno, to two mountains, each of which we climbed on foot with a French woman named Fabienne. The first mountain we climbed was to go to a vlilage named Iwol, which is known for having the largest baobab tree in the region.

Bediks are amazing people. They are one of the most unique parts of Senegal, and there are my neighbors. I think this is cool. There are about 8,000 of them in existence. They are Christian Animists and wear large amounts of handmade jewlery and have things going through their noses. The mountain top villages have become quite toursisty and on top we were greeted by many artisinal jewlery ladies. This is my heaven. I bought lots of stuff from all the ladies and they all went crazy trying to get something of their sold. They were yelling and screaming and having tantrums and the whole time I was just laughing and picking out what I wanted. Elise and Joana went through the same thing but I don't know if they appreciated their agression as much as I did. Haha!

The second village was Angel. I've been there before and I was excted to go back. It is one of the most picturesque villages I have ever seen.

We were bombarded by jewlery women there as well. Boy did I get some cool stuff.

Segou Waterfal trip.

So I went on an overnight camping trip with my friends Alan and Meg. We biked to Segou.

Then walked for an hour or two along a river in a beautiful jungley
Insert walking photos

area until we got to a trickling waterfall.

The whole thing was beautiful and we had a lot of fun.
We had a nap, explored a bit, made a wonderful dinner, chat, read, and then went to sleep. Jest before sleeping we noticed that there were a lot of ants starting to emerge from their houses, and they were acting strange.
I awoke with a start at about 11:30 pm when my skin was crawling. As soon as I moved, every single ant that was on my body bit me. Ouch! That was about 30. On my arms, in my pants, under my shirt. Everywhere. Thank GOD these were little tiny black ants and their bite was nothing more than an aggravating pinch that couldn't even break the skin. Still, how annoying was that! I leapt up shouting cuss words and frantically brushed all of those crazy little guys off of me. I shined my flashlight onto my bed to find the whole thing covered with ants, and all of my possessions beside me to be even more covered with ants. It was strange as I had absolutely no food anywhere on me. The ants seemed to have gone insane.

It was pitch dark outside. I shined my light along the terrain. Hundreds of shiny eyes caught the glow of the light and looked straight back at me. All of those eyes were spiders that were as big as my hand. 10 inch millipedes were also crawling everywhere.
We were definitely not alone.
For some reason I made my way toward the waterfall carrying my bed with me. I was in a groggy state of mind. I walked carefully around the spiders and found that everywhere I stepped when I walked was accompanied by tickley feelings which were followed by several pinchy feelings of biting ants. What is up with these ants!? I started literally hopping toward the waterfall shouting along the way. I passed a few rather gruesome sites. We had a large zip lock bag with empty sardine cans laying in my path. The bag was swollen with thousand upon thousands of black ands crawling franctically all over each other. I had never seen anything like it. I also walked by some random scattered posessions of my fellow campers. A shirt here, a shoe there. For some reason there was also a large concentration of ants all over them. I stared at a shoe for a little while. I looked at the ants crawling over it so frantically, like they were looking for something. I gave the shoe a little tap. Every single ant on that shoe immediately bared down on the shoe and bit it. Ants don't act like this. Something was driving them crazy.
I reached the waterfall only to find ants going all the way up to it. The only place where there were no ants was under the flowing water, and that was wet and cold. Can't sleep in the wet and cold. I climbed up onto the ridge behind the waterfall. It was a bit dryer there but there were spiderwebs as big as a motorcycle and the spiders were out and sitting proudly on them waiting for anything to touch their webs. No thank you.
I went and woke my camp mates. The ants had not reached them yet. They got up to assess the situation and it included a lot of cussing, slapping off biting ants, and many many minutes of getting thousands and thousands of ants out of our backpacks, shoes, socks, and all other materials. They were even between the pages of my book. I had to put my shoes on knowing their was probably still ants in them, and sure enough, got bit several more times.
There was no way we could have stay there. It was now after midnight and we were hiking with most of our gear (we had to leave some behind, too many ants and we were stressed) back towards where we left out bikes. What fun hiking in the middle of the night in the African wilderness. Especially when most of the time there were chimpanzees or baboons, or some large ape, barking angrily at you from directly above your head, for we were disturbing their peaceful, ant-less sleep.
We made it to our bikes with no problems. It was actually a fun hike. There we found open spaces and a lot less insects. We were pretty tired, so we tucked ourselves up for some sleep.

Then it rained. All night. And it was windy. And there were chimpanzees screaming their heads off on top of some mountain and the sound echoed so much you could feel the vibrations of it in your very bones.
I think I might have slept, a little bit. I definitely shivered some too.

We woke the next morning and felt like frozen zombies. But it was peaceful.

We had a lovely bike ride back to Kedougou.

Another volunteer had just been to that waterfall a few days before us, and he had no insect problems. He also said that the very day that he left the waterfall the villagers burned all around the trail and waterfall. Poor ants, their homes must have been burned and those who managed to flee went straight to water, where fire can't go. No wonder there were so many ants, and no wonder they were so upset.

Once again, fire causes insects to put a damper on Sheila's camping trips.
But it was all in all, great fun.

Next months topic, wells! Some travel in Senegal and, I'm going to go on vacation soon! To America! It's been so long since I've had a nice haircut and slept a night without being waken up by some bug crawling on me. Should be a great adventure!

March Flies By

2010-03-25T15:37:00.000-07:00

Whoops, I seemed to have forgotten to write for a month. My apologies to anyone who checks this.
Hello out there!

This month went rather fast. I think I did lots of stuff. The Peace Corps is funny. We are supposed to be living in this village, yet so many opportunities arise that are outside of our own village that we are able to get involved in, it seems as though there are times that the village gets neglected. Uh Oh!

News Flash! Front Page Headline!

So, how about some dollars? The one thing I don't generally ever do it ask people for money. Crap, I'm cracking. This month I decided that I am going to get my man, Numusara, a well (my farmer man). The main reason that I was put into my village was for this man. This man is amazing. This man has worked for me and with me for a year and a half. We have discussed tree projects and wells for a year and a half. I have asked my bosses about this for a long time to no avail. I thought I would have to buy this man a well with money that technically did not exist.

So I found another way. My job is to help people, right? And I want to help this man. But asking for money is bad, right? Right. But then there is this organization that wants to help us Peace Corps Volunteers, and they help us with small projects like this by giving us the money. Should I do it?

Fine, helping people is OK. So I filled out an application and they loved it and voila, I'm funded. This man's well is being dug at top speed and all the materials (after much work) have arrived. When you talk for a year and a half, the day that everything is put into place and the work actually starts is probably something like Christmas. This hard working, intelligent and kind man is gettting what he has wanted and needed for years and years to help him to obtain the results that he has always envisioned in his orchard.

So the digging has started. Look how happy this man is.

He was so happy he gave me this many bananas.

So this organization called Water Charity (water, imagine that), who understand a PC volunteer's dilemma, gave me money with the hope that someone out there will want to help fun this project with a few dollars of their own. I'm curious, have any of you ever had a desire to give to a purpose in the third world but were a little bit hesitant because you didn't know exactly where your money would go? Well, this could solve the problem.

Read about my project. It's called “Thiabedji Orchard Well” and the best link is

http://appropriateprojects.com/taxonomy/term/3?page=1

or just go to www.appropriateprojects.org to get to know the site. Click on Senegal and move on until you find me. Haha, or read the others ones as well as the other Senegal projects are my friends who are also looking for help from their friends and families.

If you donate and want to know progress, just check my blog. I will do a thorough follow through. As of now it is updated. The well constructing is still in progress. Thank you in advance!

Oh, and just so you know, Numusara knows where this money is coming from. He knows that my mom already donated a nice amount to this well (thanks, mom!) because I told him. He is so happy that my mom would help him to get his well. Anyone else that donates has the right to ask me to tell him anything, or have specific photos, a video, or anything I can do for you! Please feel free to contact me via email or comment :)

Ok now, quick update on what else is up.

With all this gardening going on, my village was full of salad. My family has never had a delicious salad. One day I brought some tomatoes, cucumbers, fish and potatoes. I actually did an equal amount of cooking that my sister did for this meal. It was delicious and the whole family loved it! here is Dalanda showing off her chopped veggies. This was everyone in my family's first time to eat a cucumber, and several of their first french fries.

Recently every moment in my village that I'm at home I'm a babysitter. I believe I've become one of the family.

I went on a day trip to a neighboring village named Tomboronkoto to talk to a guy who wanted to meet me to improve his banana field and giant garden. Imagine that.

I went with a friend and we spent the day together talking about possible projects. I also got to watch his wife getting silver out of pounded rock dust. That was fun but a bit dangerous considering how they were using mercury. The area is a huge mining area, there are goldmines every where My brother, Omar, is currently in one of these villages digging away in hopes of making some money, as money is hard to come by this season in my village. I also got to go visit Bantako, a gold mining village.

This month the volunteers of the region of Kedougou took a trip to Salemata, a villaage about 80 kilometers from Kedougou, for our annual regional retreat where we all get together and talk about the work we are doing and what we would like to do. We also discuss regional projects and group projects, things that are not only done in our own villages but done at a larger level. The whole thing was a two day meeting followed by lots of fancy eating, games of frisbee with the locals, movie nights, and even a trip to the village castle, some random piece of contsruction that was ordered by a French man living in the village.

ALSO This month there was a 2 week eye clinic in Kedougou put on by a small organization called “The Right to Sight.” A team of two doctors and three nurses came and, with the help of many of us volunteers, saw hundreds of patients' eyes, and did about 10 (or more) surgeries a day to give people back their sight who were suffering from blindness due to cataracts.

I helped for the first week. I was among the translators who translated from Pular or French to English for the doctors. I had several duties including: taking histories (name, age, location, problem with eyes), doing eye tests (“close one eye and tell me how well you see...), helping blind people get around (yes, some fell down the stairs if we weren't holding them up), and giving the diagnosis. The diagnosis consisted of “you have allergies, wash your eyes and wear sunglasses,” to “you have a cataract, if you would like, we can remove it with an operation and you may be able to see again,” Or, “I'm sorry, you have a problem that we cannot fix, you will be blind forever.” That last one was hard in a few cases, but surprisingly easy for most.

After that I was scheduled to go to an agroforestry summit in the region of Kolda. This is a yearly get-together of all agroforestry volunteers where we meet together in one place to talk about, well, agroforestry.
I went down a couple of days early to go visit my friend Dorothy. This was my first time in this regionof Senegal and I was pleasantly surprised. Well, kind of. I had some interesting travel experiences as well. I got stuck at the bus station in Velangara some 30 kilometers from Dorothy's town, for about two hours all because the bus drivers were not able to come to some sort of financial agreement. Then the next day I waited for four hours in Diaobe, the city that hosts the largest market in all of West Africa, with Dorathy, waiting for my car to fill up to go on a two hours ride the rest of the way to Kolda. While waiting we sat outside of this guy's boutique,

and ate cashew apples,

and watched the traffic go by.

Diaobe is awesome, from what I saw. I got 15 liters of peanutbutter for my family for only 9 dollars. That is such a great deal!

The visit to Dorothy's house was brief but fun. We got to catch up and I finally got to see her area. We also got to do a bit of detective work. There has been a mystery going on with young school girls having mass seizure attacks at school. In several cities throughout Senegal, a girl has beegun seizing and started a chain effect of up to 30 other girls falling into the same sort of thing. No one has gotten seriously injured. Well, it recently happened in her town and her villagers were mad, so Dorothy and I went to investigate a bit. Thats all you get!

The agroforestry meet was fun.

I am ready to plant some trees. We ate amazing food and socialized a lot. The ride home was a normal "I think I'm going to die every few seconds" ride, a lot less waiting, but still took about 10 hours. Mostly we just sang, slept, complained about the exhaust fumes, and took photos of one another.

Now I need to go back to my village.

Oh and on a side note, all the chickens in my village died. Every last one. Sometimes there is just an animal bug that is contagious and no one can afford medicine. I had kind of bonded to these chickens, then again, as soon as I realized how peaceful it can be without them, I was ok with this.

Eventually we will get more chickens. I might even help with that.

Bye bye.

How much can one say about so little?

2010-02-24T12:20:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted a photo of my dog in a while, so I took one just for this post. Not to mention he recently celeebrated his birthday (He and someone else..). My dog, Hendu, is now one year old. Everyone wish him a happy birthday.

I did some pondering in my village a few days ago and for some reason I suddenly felt a bit of a tragedy inside of my head, and it had to do with America.

Ok, it's not what you think. I didn't freak out. I wasn't angry or frustrated. I neither loved nor hated America or the fact that it was far away.

What I realized is how long I've been blogging, and how I probably haven't really managed to capture one “real” village moment to share with you all (whoever is reading this..). I'm supposed to be representing the Peace Corps Experience, right? Why then, am I blogging once every 2-4 weeks and just talking about a bunch of general stuff, or cutesy random stuff, or super duper accomplishments?

Thats not all the peace corps is! Here we have to live. Day by day, second by second. If I asked you now what it is that I “do,” when I'm in my village, would you be able to answer? Probably not! What actually happens is a lot of really adorable moments, a lot of fascinating cultural exchange, a bunch of nothing, and a lot of laying around when it's hot outside. But this is me being general. So here we have it.

A whole day. Wake up to sleep. No yesterday, no tomorrow. Keep in mind, every day is different. I've done a lot more than this, and a lot less. Enjoy the ride. Try not to fall asleep.

Oh, and I'll only post pictures that I took that day ;)
The day is Sunday Feb 21, 2010

I slept in a bit this day, maybe until 8:30 but I stayed in bed until 9:00 simply because the temperature was comfortable. I knew it would get hot soon, and I knew that if I moved around I would just get hotter sooner. When I got out of bed I realized that there was a mouse in the trap that my brother had mailed to me. Yes! That is the fourth mouse in 2 days! I grabbed that mouse out of the trap and chucked it out to somewhere behind my backyard. I did my morning douche duties and walked out my front door to get breakfast.

My sister, Dalanda was out of town. This is the first day in all my service that she wasn't in my village the same day that I was. Oh well, one day certainly can't hurt. I walked to the little “store,” about a 60 second walk from my house with Hendu, my dog following proudly behind. I caught Hudi, the store owner, sitting outside of the shop reading out-loud in Arabic. As I approached him he stopped reading, looked up, and greeted me warmly, as he always does. I asked for my usual Vitacafe and biscuits (powdered coffee flavored milk and small cookies), and he said he had biscuits but no vitacafe. I bought the biscuits from him for about .12 cents and left them there to buy my coffee, about .28 cents, at the next store down. I didn't want to walk into the store carrying what I had just bought from his competitor. So, I walked the 50ft to the neighboring boutique and bought my coffee drink. I went back to get my biscuits, then went home, Hendu following me the whole time.

When I got back I chucked the food on my bed and went to water my young mango trees with the water I had collected from showering the night before. Then I went inside to make my luke-warm coffee drink with biscuits dumped in. This is what I have for breakfast every day in the village... it's the closest thing I can get to having cereal and milk and it's sweet. Yay...

Just as I was about to start eating, a woman named Fatou called my name from outside. I waited again to be sure it was me she was calling, and when it was I moaned a bit, put my food down and went out of my hut. Fatou is a woman in the garden group who occasionaly sells deep-fried dough to me, when she makes it. Today she had come just to say hello I guess, so I just went with it. I shook her hand and sat down beside her. She said she was waiting for the meeting that was supposed to happen at the school and thought she may as well greet me. Ok then.. I asked her how the garden group was going and she said fine but the women fight all the time. She said the cabbage won't make apples because the women are watering them wrong. She said she tried to tell them how to water them but nobody listened. I told her I'd go have a look later. I realized that I didn't know Fatou very well so I asked if she had a husband. She said she used to, but is divorced because they fought all the time. We sat in silence for a couple minutes as I watched a few of our chickens fighting over the body of a dead mouse. Gee, I wonder where they found that (waste not...) Then, after a few more minutes of small talk, she just got up and walked away.

I went and ate breakfast. Then I did a bit of exercises to get those endorphins going. At about 10:00 I walked outside to go look at my three garden groups.

The first group visit was brief. I went, greeted the women, and took a few pics of the gardens. I had been over a month since I had taken pictures of it. Now the garden was huge.

I mentioned to the women that they should put stakes in their tomatoes and thin their carrots. Look at those carrots!

I was going to spend more time there but a woman named Woori grabbed me to take me to the second garden. She was wanting me to see it. This garden had also improved a lot in the past month.

When we got there we has a long chat.

I'm about to tell you an entire conversation. You might think I am writing too much detail. But I'm teaching you, really. This is a moment; A precious moment. A long conversation with a hard working, strong, African village woman, and a member of my group. Woori is the president of the women of this particular group. I talked to these people all the time. I mean ALL the time. This is quite a typical conversation. The favorite thing of the women members to do when they get me one on one is to complain about the other women, and state why their group it better than the others.

Woori started by showing me her onions.

Then started explaining to me the difference in organization between her group and the first group, and how her group's organization was better than the other's because it doesn't allow women to be lazy. In the other group, a group of women are responsible for watering the entire garden which allows for women to just ditch their water duties and not go. But in her group, they had given each woman the responsibility for one plot,and if they didn't water it, it would die and the other women would know. That is bad. And as for those selling the vegetables, she said, her group was also more organized. The first group had about 4 people who were designated to sell everything, not giving the other women a chance to have their hand in selling. But Woori's group, each woman sold what was in her plot.
Woori was proud of her group's organization. “And don't even get me started on that third group!” She exclaimed. “They have nothing! It's as if the women there are too tired to water and for that, everything is dead!

It was nice listening to Woori's opinions. In fact, it's nice listening to any woman's opinions even though they are often more critical than they are productive. She had her say, so I counteracted it with mine.
“As for the first group,” I replied, “You are right, they aren't very well organized. But just yesterday they did something to change that. In fact last night they woke me up at 10:30pm to take me to their group meeting. There they discussed selling the salad, why women aren't showing up to water, and they confronted who hadn't been paying their weekly sum. All of their issues were brought out on the table and this morning, I don't know if you saw, everyone was working very well together.
Of course Woori agreed.
“As for the second group,” I explained, The garden isn't dead because the people are tired of watering. The problem is that the people are tired of watering because the garden keeps dying. There it's not the people that is the problem, it is the soil.”
“They didn't put enough manure on it,” she snapped.
“They put lots of manure on it,” I said, “but that wasn't enough. The soil is ill. There are no vitamins left. I'm going to help them learn how to heal their soil.” I said.
“How?” she asked.
“Compost,” I replied. “Thats when you take food trash, dry leaves and green leaves, put it in a pile, and take care of it until it becomes like earth. If you do that, your soil will be happier.
“Oh yeah, we know what that is,” exclaimed Woori.
“If you guys know what it is, why don't you ever do it?” I asked
“People don't work together like that,” she replied
“Well maybe if I bring someone from Kedougou who can teach them and make them do it, then maybe they will work together, and maybe they can organize themselves a bit,” I said. “If someone comes from Kedougou, a professional, the people will listen.”
“Is it only for that group? I want to go to,” said Woori.
“It will be held in their garden because their dirt is the worst,” I said. “But I'll bring a couple of people from each group to attend so he can organize it in his own plot,” I replied.
Woori was happy.

After that we discussed my sister Dalanda and her place in the family. Woori is Dalanda's big sister.

I then said goodbye to Woori as I made my way to the third garden group.

I never actually made it to the garden, because it's practically all dead. I know what it looks like because I had just been yesterday. Today I just went to the “store” that the group leader owns. There I find the group leader and a few other members. I greet them.

Before I sit there I bypass the “store” to greet Numusara, my best farmer. I had an agenda with him this day as well; I wanted to ask him about his well diggers. Numusara was sitting under a mango tree with three other old men, including the old man, Yero, who is one of the most influential and feared men in my village. Old men in my village... you never know what to expect but the norm is that they want to marry you. I got the googly smile from the first two men I shook hands with, the kind smile from Numusara, and the devious smile from Yero.
“Aren't you married yet?” asked Yero.
I haven't talked to this guy in months. I don't trust his underlying intentions so I don't go out of my way to see him, and he has kind of given up on me because he has realized that I will not help him obtain any kind of power. We live in close quarters though, so we still get along.
Numusara is like my grandfather. He protects me and helps me any time he can. He replies before I even open my mouth.
“She isn't married and doesn't want to be. Leave her alone.”
“No way, she has a man, I know this,” exclaimed Yero, squinting his one eye and grimacing at me with his one tooth, trying to see if I'd lie or not.
I know this man and I know his game, so I respond accordingly, “I'm not going to tell you whether I have a boyfriend or not,” I replied. That is for me to know, not you.” And as for marriage, I won't even consider it until I'm done studying. I will not work for a man until I have what I want. In fact, maybe I will have a boyfriend while I study and we will visit each other and spend time together and if I like him maybe I'll marry him when I'm done studying. Thats what we do in America, actually. We marry our boyfriends, not strangers. That way, we can get to know him and know that we want to stay together for the rest of our lives.”

Note to reader- conversations with villagers are always bullshit. You don't tell them real stories about you, you just don't. Why? Do they ever offer details of their married lives? I don't think so. All they want is to marry you themselves. So my replies are kind of like a “fable” of something I kinda of want to passive aggressively say to them. And it's always put into a context that they can understand Can you see the hidden message in my words?

“Oh, really?” Said Yero. He pondered for a while and then nodded. “Then he translated it into better Pular for the other men sitting there.
“In America, they marry their boyfriends! Yero exclaimed!”
“Oh yeah, maybe thats a good idea,” said the older man. “That way you can know if you like them or not before you marry them. That way if you have problems you find out soon and don't have to marry them.”

Note to reader-In village life, there are boyfriend and husbands. Boyfriends are hidden. They are forbidden affairs that happen out of wedlock, or they are used as passionate and transactional affairs to some married people. The parents are never informed and the discreet couple only shows affection for one another at night under the protection of trusted friends. They can love each other much more than husbands or wives, who are often chosen by the parents and quite often are people who barely know each other, and maybe don't even like each other!
Whatever.

I changed the subject to wells. I looked right at Numusara and asked if he had talked to his well diggers. He explained to me that he changed his mind about who he wanted to dig, that there was someone in another village, Hamadi Heri, that he wanted to dig for him. I asked when the meeting would be. The men advised me that I probably shouldn't go to the meeting because if the well differ saw me, he would immediately think that I was the one financing this well and would raise the price. I agreed and we decided to send my brother to go to the meeting who would then explain the price to me. Numusara said that he would go see them tomorrow and then come to my house to give me the news. Then Yero said that I was a good volunteer, and had brought much to the village.

Then I went to talk to the third garden group. I've had lots of problems communicating with this group. Usually when I say something, nothing happens. Thats because when I talk the leader, Nikola, just stares at the ground and never even acklowledges what I say. I don't think he understands me. Thats a problem, right? Today my strategy was to just ask a question and then listen, and then maybe put it some suggestions that would spark conversation about what I wanted them to talk about and then they would think that they came up with some ideas for stuff. Haha. That worked, kinda.

Nicolas started by telling me that my first payment was ready. I told him great, that as soon as he gave that to me he could keep the materials at his place, not at mine. Then I asked him what was wrong with the garden. He told me that the garden wasn't too bad, but there were problems with the earth, and a bit with the watering. I asked him if his well was going to dry out, because it looked a little bit low. He said that if it did dry out he would dig again. I don't doubt that he will do that.
We talked about compost. With the help of Numusara who came over to translate (which is funny because Numusara doesn't speak any French, he just manages to understand my poor Pular and can translate it into good pular, while Nikolas often has no clue what I'm saying), we explained what compost could do and how there was someone very intelligent and professional who was willing to come and hold a formation right in his own garden group. Nikola was very excited about this. The idea of having a professional formation in his own land made him very happy.
Then I listened to the men again. They talked about all sorts of stuff. Farming, tractors, machines that shelled peanuts and corn. Then Nikola asked me if we could plant some mangoes this upcoming tree season. That was my signal to introduce my new project without too much imposing it.
“Yes, mangoes! Tree season is coming you know. I was thinking, if you had water, we could to a group in your tree nursery and maybe even sell mango and orange trees to the other villagers.”
Of course Nikola liked this because selling things means money. He agreed.
“Oh, and there is another tree project I was hoping to start.”
Everyone just looked at me, quietly.
“Do you guys know what Jatropha is? I asked them.
“I know what it is,” exclaimed one guy. “Its a tree that makes gas. People buy that stuff.”
Ok.
So I had a discussion with them about Jatropha. It was them talking just as much as me, and by the time I got up every single one there wanted to plant Jatropha around their houses and fields.
That was the first time I had talked about that with these people. Actually, this is the month of late February/early March. It's time to start introducing tree projects that I want to do. If you introduce ideas too early they forget. If you do it too late they don't learn enough. Its just about the time now to get their brains turning. So now, every few days I will come to this place, spend time with them, and make them tell me how much trees will benefit them. Haha.

I have my reasons for planting what I'm planting, but they aren't ready for those ideas yet. Not really. What I think the trees will do for them they might not want. So I'm seeking their ideas as well. The idea of fencing in houses, for example. Only about 30% of my village does it.
There ideas: Jatropha makes gas. Gas makes money. Fencing is the house is good because animals can't get in. Cows don't eat it. But why a live fence? They don't really know.

My ideas. Fencing the house is a great idea because cows and sheep and goats come in from all angles and sneak into the kitchen and try to steal any food they can get. You can't leave your water bucket on the table unsupervised for one second because a cow WILL drink it. It's a danger for kids as well. Last year 4 stampeding donkeys went galloping crazily through our compound, crossing right over the front porch 3 times. That front porch is where my 2 year old sister often sits. Had she been sitting there at that moment, she would have been trampled. Why a live fence instead of a fence made of cut down trees? Cut down trees rot and termites eat them. They need to be replaced every few years, and they fall over. A live fence plants trees rather than cutting them down, and any reduction in chopping trees is a good thing. You will have a LIVE fence post that last forever and ever. Also, they are green, they are pretty. They can sell the seeds for about .50 cents per kilo.
The end.

Before heading toward home Numusara took me to his house and gave me about 7 pounds of bananas. I asked him how his grafted trees were and asked if he would be interested in teaching a grafting formation in August in his field for our villagers. He said he would be willing, and that I work too much, that August was far away.

I went home.

It was only about noon. I went home to get my phone so I could go back out and look for a signal to send some text messages to work partners. On my way out I was caught by Matar, a young man I've known since my first day in the village. We have a like/hate relationship. We had a 30 minute debate on the right and wrong treatment of my brother at the job he had recently left. I won this debate and went on my way.

I found a signal in a dried up corn field, 8 feet to the left of a diagonal foot trail, standing in the middle of a pile of dry cow poop to get the strongest signal.

It was about 12:30. I was done with the day. Nothing else to do, not really. Thats fine, it was hot!!
I went into my backyard and wrote a bunch of stuff and read a lot. When they called me for lunch I was caked in sweat from doing nothing, and almost asleep.

Lunch was couscous.

After lunch I was feeling lethargic. The hottest time of the day is 12:00-4:00 and it was about 2:00. Omar, my brother and Fatou, my favorite 2 year old baby, and a goat herder were sitting under the mango tree. Omar invited me to join them. The goat herder left. Just me and Omar and Fatou. We struck up a conversation. We ended up talking for about two hours about Omars marriage issues. Boy was it interesting. But that info is for me :P

Fatou went poop on the ground and Omar went to go wipe her butt and clean up the poop because he was the only one at the house. Normally that is the mom, or any woman's job. Omar is a really good dad.

I decided to go find a signal again. I was corresponding with a couple of people about work stuff. Honest. So, I invited Fatou to come with me and she agreed. That little gal held my hand the entire time and cried when I tried to get her to go play with the kids at her grandma's house so she didn't have to stand in a pile of poop with me. She wanted nothing to do with those other kids and hit them when they approached her. She wouldn't let go of my hand. I knew that she missed her mom, who was in Kedougou for the day. So Fatou came with me and so did her bigger sister, Jenaba. We all three stood in a pile of poop while I sent a couple more text messages. Then we all three walked back home.

I went into my backyard and Fatou and Jenaba came with me. I sat in my hammock reading and they played on my cot. Then Hassana came in. Hassana is the cutest 2 and a half year old baby in the whole world! With the three of them I opted to give them some attention rather than read. I had gotten an “Edward Cullen Puzzle Ball,” in a Christmas package and I let them play with it They liked it as a ball but freaked out when I started to take it apart. Then the girls were called out of my yard so they could get their baths. Hassana left with them, but in a couple of minutes Hassana came back into my yard, carrying his shoes. He put them on the ground and hopped on to my cot. He had never been in my backyard alone before, so I embraced the moment and got my camera. I took a couple pics and a video of us goofing around. What kind of goofing around? I was teaching him to smile on command for the photo, which he got good at.

Then I took a video and got him to mimic other things :).

Hassana left and I read until it was too dark to read.

Then I took a bucket bath, then I watered my mango trees.

I did what I usually do between bathing and dinner. I laid in my bed in my pitch black hut and started to doze off. Yes, I nap every day in my village before dinner. But only in my village, nowhere else. While falling asleep I often ponder my many identities and possible lives, past, present and future. Perhaps that is why I doze off.

Instead of being waken by my dinner call, I was waken by a moto, and the voice of my sister. Dalanda had returned! Of course I jumped out of bed to greet her. We had a nice warm greeting and I sat with her in her room with her kids as she pulled out the presents she had gotten them. A new pair of shoes for Usuman, a pair of underwear for Jenaba, a small; cup for Fatou, and an orange for the three kids, and me. Yes, she got me an orange. What a nice sister. We talked about her experience in Kedougou and then her husband, who had been out, came in to greet her as well.

Dinner was plain rice with oil and spices. Yum.....

After dinner I chatted with my sister for about 30 minutes then went into my room and read until I fell asleep.

Well thats all that I have to share. Now I'm wondering why the heck I decided to do this. Who wants to know this many details of anyones day? Ha! Oh well, I just spent hours on this thing, so here ya go!

Hail Mr Blanders, who will soon be a daddy.

Until next time!

A bit of a lot of stuff

2010-02-18T03:06:00.000-08:00

I believe I have just spent about five weeks doing two rotations on a rather large ferris wheel. One it was just me and a friend alone in the same car on a medium sized ferris wheel, and the other, me with my own car but all the other cars filled with other Peace Corps volunteers Seem a bit bizarre? keep reading.

Yes, I've been taken on many rides. While moments flew and moments drug, each rotation was in full. There was a start, a middle and an end. There were high points, low points, and lots of in between.

Geezuz, what is with these metaphors? I have no idea why I say corny stuff like that.

To start out where I left off on this blog... My face was still swollen from the bee stings when I arrived in Dakar but it went away pretty darn fast. By the time Sarah arrived at the airport my face was pretty much back to normal size. Aside from almost going to pick her up a day early, everything went fine. She arrived well before dawn and I was greeted by the normal people harassing us at the airport. I had already been through this when my family came to visit.

This time I had only one visitor. She is named Sarah (which you might have noticed from above), and I have known her now for only a couple of years. We actually met in France when I studied abroad in 2006/2007.

here we are in France in 2007

We were together for a semester and have stayed in touch ever since. If I were going to have a visitor from the states, she would be my top choice! Sarah speaks great French, has a huge interest in international travel, and wants to help people. That and she works with African refugees full-time where she lives in Pittsburgh. What a great opportunity for her to experience a culture that may resemble what her refugees have come from.

Sarah had two weeks to spend in Senegal. She had told me that she was considering joining the Peace Corps so I kind of wanted to give her the “Peace Corps Experience” rather than just going from tourist site to tourist site. So after a day busing around in Dakar, a day of travel, and a day of the market, making baoabab juice with Fanta, and biking in Kedougou to help her get her eye-full of Africa (trust me, it can be absolutely shocking to come here), Sarah finally said she was starting to get used to Africa. Thats when her real challenge started!

Carrying a bit of baggage and a rooster named Mr Blanders, We biked to my village. I allowed us to get ready as a leisurely pace so we ended up going in the heat of the day. Oops. Neither Sarah nor Mr Blanders truly appreciated the ride in the heat of the sun. We made our way slowly, occasionally stopping when Mr Blanders decided that the heat and road bumps were too much and jumped out of his box.

You may be asking yourselves why I would bring a rooster to my village. We already have a rooster that I brought to be our pet (aka handsome baby-maker to our hens) when my family came to visit. He is beautiful and has quite a way with the ladies. Unfortunately, he has outstayed his welcome. He was starting to spend the night in other households and his place of residence was no longer sure and that can often lead to other people claiming him as their own, and eating him. So, I decided to beat the people to it, and we ate that rooster. We brought Mr Blanders as a replacement.

Here is the old rooster

Here is Mr Blanders!!

So anyway, When we arrived at the village I had been away for almost two weeks. Its always fun going home after being away for so long, and I got a warm welcome from my family, and they were all very happy to meet Sarah. . Those two days of getting Sarah adjusted to Africa did not apply to village life. In the village there is no electricity, no running water, and nothing really is available except people to chat with. In all we spent four days in my village. I believe that it was a fun, yet a rough four days for Sarah. You see, after the first day, she became ill. It is Senegalitis, the normal vomiting and diarrhea that plagues certain white people that come here and change their diet. It turned out that her stomach doesn't like something about my village because she was sick every day that we were there. Of course the sickness came in waves and there were plenty of times that we still managed to get out and about. We went to all of my garden groups and I got to see how they had improved in the two weeks that I was gone. Sarah got to bond with the ladies there, and see what kind of work is possible in villages.

We walked around a lot as well and stopped to sit down and chat with random groups of old men who taught her Pular with a notebook we had gotten for her.

We also sat in the bachelor hut and ate peanuts while 15 year old boys taught her Pular.

We went and talked to my favorite farmer about setting up a meeting with some local well diggers. I also got to take her to his field and she got to see his banana plants and where we are hoping to build the well. We biked there.

Sarah got to help pluck the chicken that we were cooking in honor of her visit.

There was a woman visiting who was in our extended family who adopted Sarah and claimed her as her pupil for African culture. The two of them spent a lot of time together learning how to communicate because she didn't speak any French. Here are the bestest buddies!

We went to the school in the village and got to sit in on a class for a little while. In these four days we got to spend a lot of time with kids. The kids here loved Sarah very much.

Here is a funny story. I have this friend named Phil (the guy who is studying gold, remember?) who has visited my village many times and was about to return to the united states. For months now he has been telling me he wants a bamboo flute made by one of my villagers to take home. Phil is a good friend so of course I said that I could get him one, no problem. Every man in the village knows how to make bamboo flutes. Well, it turned out to be a problem. I had been asking one guy for about a month to make one and he continuously assured me that he would make it the next day. But of course, it never got made. The time came when I was about to leave to go pick up Sarah and I had no flute. Sometimes the only way to get things done is to get angry. So I tried it... It didn't work. I had two different guys who said they would make me one but they couldn't. So I left to go get Sarah.

The four days in my village was my last chance to get a flute before Phil left for America. A guy had promised to make two flutes for me and have them ready by the time I arrived there with Sarah, but of course, when I arrived he hadn't lifted a finger to make them. I realized that I may be going about this the wrong way, so, the day before Sarah and I were to leave my village, I went around to several compounds and asked about 10 people to make me flutes, and I said that I would pay 500francs (1 dollar) for each functional flute that was brought to me by that evening.

I got 16 flutes that evening. Made by teenagers, adults and a couple old men who were looking for some cash. It was quite a satisfying success after so many failures. Heck, the next morning I had about 5 of my male friends come up tp me and ask why I hadn't asked them to make a flute for me, that they would have done it for free. Oops. So.. if you want something done, ask a lot of people. Ok. Here are 11 of the flutes.

I brought them to Kedougou and each one found a home quite rapidly. You'd be surprised how many white people want a hand-made bamboo flute.

We called a car and had it come pick us up and take us to Kedougou. It's funny, as soon as we left the village her health went back to normal. We spent two days there shopping in the market and hanging out with Fanta. Sarah had a long list of gifts to buy for her family and friends. It was like a treasure hunt for me. We found original things that represent the region of Kedougou, and things that represent Senegalese culture as well. We had plans to shop a lot more in Dakar. It was fun.

With Fanta we biked to a part of the Gambia River where you are supposed to see hippos. We didn't see any, unfortunately.

Ok, then we went to Dakar. We spent four days there doing lots of fun things. We went to Goree Island

and Madeleine Island.

We walked along the beach-side road. We ate lots of good food. Oh, and in the Peace Corps house we watched almost the entire season of the TV show Freaks and Geeks. We spent entire days seeking out markets to finish her shopping list. That was super fun. She had random things on her list and each thing she bought has a story of its own, like a teapot that included belittling racist sellers, followed by a proposal from an old Senegalese white person looking for a second wife, locally made cooking supplies which involved women surrounding us trying to get us to buy beaded thong underwear on the side, fabric, jewelry bought from aggressive island ladies, paintings where we bonded with the sellers who almost got in a fist fight with a bracelet selling lady who was taking my attention away from them, baskets from a lady who spoke my language and led us around the whole marker introducing us to her friends, gift for boyfriend (we got to pick that together) that ended up being a spontaneous yet amazing purchase made from someone selling things on the road, and the most interesting, a hand made wooden spoon that we had to go to the Malian Market to find, and found three. We got everything on her list and more, and sarah went from a shy American to a professional haggler! By the end of the shopping I would tell her the price to go for and she would talk the seller down like a pro!

When it was time to go Sarah had emptied absolutely everything from her bags, given it to me, and filled up with her new souvenirs. I got a lot of new clothes and trinkets from America. Thank you, Sarah! She left to go home after two weeks that flew by. The goodbye sucked because I was distracted, once again, by people harassing us at the airport. Arg.

So, my second rotation started the moment Sarah left. Suddenly I was all alone in Dakar and I had to be there for two weeks. I was taking the GRE in a week and didn't see why I should go all the way back to Kedougou for 5 days when I cloud just stay there and study. Then after the GRE I had to wait yet another 5 days for an annual Peace Corps get together called the All Volunteer Conference and WAIST, the West African International Softball Tournament.

There really isn't a lot to say about his rotation. I was suddenly alone because my friend, who was with me every second for the last two weeks, was now gone. I spent several days completely alone in the Dakar Peace Corps house studying for the test. Then volunteers started coming into town and I hung out with random people at random moments in between studying. That week was stressful because I tend to be really bad at standardized tests. The four days leading up to the test I hadn't been sleeping because of the noise at the Peace Corps house with the other volunteers there. The studying was stressful as well. And of course I finally took the test all those things leading up to it showed up. Bleh.

By the time the test was over there were about 40 volunteers staying in the Peace Corps house. Peace and quiet? What the heck is that? Chaos? Everywhere! I didn't know most of the people but I guess it was fun chatting around and getting to know who people were. Apparently I'm known as a volunteer who rarely leaves her region. Oops. So, after those in between days of randomness, we had the 5 days of official stuff. We had a two day conference where Volunteers came together from several countries and shared their best practices to give ideas to others, and then we had three days of softball and partying, to give us all a bit of vacation from the stresses of African life. The softball tournament goes on every year and every year the volunteers break up into teams by region, and come up with a costume theme. This year our team was called P.C.B.C or... cavemen. We all dressed up like cave people and used clubs for bats and stuff. It was fun.

Well that was two weeks summed up into two paragraphs.

Now I'm back in Kedougou. I missed it here. One thing that sucks though, the hot, hot hot season is coming. Constant sweating and heat lethargy is coming up. Tomorrow I will go back to my village. I have a LOT of work coming up in the near future. Those 5 weeks of “play” will be the last for some while.

Until next time!

The Latest Buzzz

2010-01-12T03:19:00.000-08:00

Dry season. The season in which African honey bees are pushed out of their homes by forest fires and seek refuge on the tops of mountains, where forest fires don't generally go. Like this mountain.

Recognize the mountain? These are the spires that I had went on just a couple of months ago and had a nice camping trip. I was invited to go again with my buddy David and his friend who is visiting from the states, David (we call him David's David), who are just about the funnest guys to go places with, so off we go! On the way up we stop off at my friend KC's village, which happens to be on the top of a mountain also. We spend the afternoon and evening there, exploring her mountain and playing music with a mandolin and a tin whistle.

And my buddies are (LtoR): David's David, David, KC

David, KC, and David's David

The next day, David, David, KC and I head off to the spires! Biking, biking biking! We stop off in Fungolimbi, where there is another volunteer, Katie, and lots of food. We stock up on food, say hello to Katie, and continue on our way.

David, Katie, KC

On the way up I was grateful for the fires. There was no bushwhacking! instead of 8 ft dry grass like the previous time, we just walked over the grass ash and boulders that were now clearly visible.

The climb up to the top was smooth. It was steep, and a bit of rock climbing but no problem! We had all our senses, and our bodies were functioning perfectly, and we were all there to help and encourage each other along.
When we got to our camping spot on top it was lovely. KC and I sat up top and enjoyed the views.

The men went to explore the other spires.

As it turns oute were not on top of these rocks alone. There were just a few bees that were keeping us company. Until the sun started going down, each of us had one or two bees coming up to us, then leaving again. But then the sun went down, so it was no problem.

Yes, it crossed my mind that this could be a problem. I think it crossed everyone's mind. But when there are so many things going on in your mind, and not a lot of personal experience with African bees, who pays attention to just a small frequent buzzing in your ears?

As of now all four of us will pay attention to this buzz. Here is why.

We wake up to the most beautiful sunrise that one could imagine.

We are on top of the world, after all. Nothing above us, only below us. For some reason, the first thing every single person did when waking up, was put on our shoes.

A couple of bees came out. We decided to leave before having anymore bee problems, and so we started packing. Then more bees came. Lots more. They started stinging all of us at the same time. This situation became a big problem at lightening speed.

KC was the first to start down. We were suddenly all in our own place in time because we were all being stung by bees, and that hurts. One David tried to start a fire to calm them with smoke. The other David advised that we all go down. They disappeared. I was hiding under a sheet when they left, trying to get some protective wear on for my journey down. They started stinging me through the sheet, entering in the sheet, and getting caught under my hood, hat, bandanna and sunglasses. “Screw protective gear,” I thought, and I took the sheet off and suddenly realized that I was alone on top of the spires getting attacked by bees.

These ain't no American honey bees. These are African bees. You could call them African killer bees, because thats what they are. There is no other kind here. They are those really aggressive ones that don't sting to warn, they sting to kill. They don't sting in small quantities, they sting as groups. I didn't know this really at the time. I read it later on the Internet.

So, a lot of things were going through my mind, but at many different levels. While you are being stung by bees, your senses change, and your perspective changes. I was the slowest in leaving. Big ouch for me. I got the largest collection of bees after me because I was the last one the swarm found on the mountain. My face. They all went for my head and face. And my hands. They were all over my back and legs too but couldn't get me because of what I as wearing. I was ripping at the bees and unfortunately that took off my hat, sunglasses, hood, and bandanna. I guess that was ok at the time because it wasn't very light outside and I kinda needed to see to climb down this rock formation. But then again I couldn't see for long because the bees decided they wanted to go for my eyes... My f-ing eyes... There were points in the descent that I remember being hard to climb up the day before. I had gotten help from the others. These parts were no longer difficult to descend. Flying leaps work a lot better then carefully calculated hops. Then my ears... they dove butt first into my ears and got stuck there. They stung them. I couldn't hear a damn thing because of the buzzzzzzing of dying bees lodged into both ears. I could no longer see straight. As soon as I pulled one out of my ear another would go in. On top of that, bee after bee after bee was getting lodged into my hair, stinging my scalp or just getting stuck and buzzing around up there. They went in my nose. If I opened my mouth they went in there. I spit out bee after bee. I felt like I was going insane.

I still had a long way to go to get down. I needed my hands to stay balanced, but I needed my hands to get the bees out of my eyes. The stings hurt. But they were stinging me so damn much I almost couldn't feel it anymore, but it hurt... a lot. So did falling down the mountain. So did diving head first down rocks slides into seas of grass, swimming through them, trying to brush off bees to no avail.
I don't know how many times I fell. It was hard to distinguish on pain between falling and stinging. I think it ended up balancing out pretty well.
While the trip down the mountain was pretty direct, there was one moment where even the bees couldn't push me forward, however much they may have wanted to. I was shuffling through the grass and came one on one with a 10 foot cliff. I stopped dead in my tracks, looked down, had a moment with myself, and turned around to go back UP, towards the bees, in order to find a different way down.

If I had to describe what was going through my mind at the time, I'd say the main thing going on in the very very back of my head was “This really sucks. When will they stop stinging me. When will they leave me alone. I just want them to stop. Please stop.”

Other than that my body was just moving. Autpmatically, yet clumsy. I eventually got down to where the grass was burned. I realized that I could see better now. I heard David calling my name. He shouted something else but I couldn't hear because of the buzzing. I waited to answer until I got closer to his voice. I called out his name and said that I couldn't hear him. He shouted louder and told me to stop where I was. I stopped. I found it difficult to stop, but I did. I sat down and tucked into a ball. The bees were all over my face. I brushed them off and tucked my face into my fleece shirt. I waited for David. He stopped a ways behind me and explained the situation. He said we were far enough from the hive that no more bees were coming. We had to kill the remaining bees. He said I had a lot of bees on me. He was going to come hit them but needed my help. I needed to kill as many as I could reach before we came. I was listening intently. I knew there were lots of bees in my hair, so I took my hands, took handfuls of my hair and just squeezed. I heard pop after pop after pop after pop. It was a lovely sound. David told me I was doing a good job. He told me I had a lot on my back and shoulders. I hit everywhere I could reach. Then David basically ran up to me and started beating the shit out of my back, arms, and head. Ouch, but a good kind of ouch. He yelped a couple of times as my bees suddenly turned on him. David took a lot of stings for me. What a guy.

Then, miraculously, It was quiet. The buzzing stopped. David stood me up and gave me a big hug (David knows when one needs a hug). I was sort of on the brink of hyperventilating I think. He look me straight in the eyes and told me “Sheila, I need you to concentrate on your breathing, ok? I want you to take deep, slow breaths.”
So, I did. And I followed David weakly down the mountain. There were straggling bees. One flew straight into my ear. Fuck that bee. I tried to get it out but it was too far in. Buzzzzzzinig. Crazy moment: I grabbed some long, hard grass ready to make a stick out of it to jab it straight into my ear. Thank heavens for David. He just came up to me, pulled it out of my ear, and told me to keep going. At this point I was talking a lot. I was asking how the others were. I had no idea if they even made it down. David said they were all waiting for me. I was saying that we need to call Etienne about this (our emergency guy). I was worried that something could still go wrong. What if someone had an alergic reaction? I talked a lot about calling someone. Basically I was still in freak-out mode. My whole face was literally on fire. It hurt so much...
We met the others. They both looked at me and their jaws dropped. They seemed to be OK, just shaken up, like I was.
All of our baggage was on top of the mountain. It just so happens, however, that KC and I both had our cellphones in our pockets. David went to look for a signal to make some phone calls. The other two and I went to the forage to “wash up.”
We found A couple of local women at the water source. I'm sure we looked like the un-dead when they saw us approaching. They just stared at us, petrified. KC tried explaining to them what had happened. They spoke only Jahanke. We spoke Pular, and David spoke Malinke. Oh well, they got the gist, lent us a bowl and told us to put it in the onion garden when we were done.

While we were all in bad shape, I was probably freaking out the most. I wanted to rinse off my face but when I touched it I couldn't feel much skin, I could only feel bee stingers. I kindly asked the others to help me get them out. It was a humbling experience being surrounded by people carefully picking stinger after stinger after stinger out from around your eyes.
David's friend David was starting to get a rash. He was getting an allergic reaction. I was lost and confused. I was probably still freaking out. KC made a comment that we should probably get away from the forage because the bees come here to drink. Because we all smelled like bee distress signal, we would probably be stung again. Sure enough, a moment later a bee flies straight into my hair. Another lands on my shoulder. I hear that buzzing again. Something went off in my head “FUCK THIS!” And I started sprinting away from the forage toward the village. I had visions of laying down in a hut where the bees couldn't find me anymore. More buzzing. And they were following me. I was flailing at them wildly. Yes, I was going crazy.
Well, I snapped back into it when the buzzing stopped again. I looked back and saw KC jogging towards me and David's David coming in behind. “Sorry,” I said. “I want to get away from where there are bees.” KC stopped me to get the dead bees out of my hood. I don't know what we would have done without KC. Though she got stung a lot as well and had her own very, very dangerous descent down a much steeper side of the mountain, she managed to stay completely calm and helped to calm and organize the whole situation. She never rested. KC and David's David both went with me to the village, and found the first household and KC asked if David's David (Whose allergic reaction was worsening) and I could lay down because we were very, very sick.
So I got a hut to lay in, as did David's David. KC went to wait for David to come back so he could find us.

I lay down. It was just me and the villagers, who were coming in in shifts to check me out. The villagers were very, very nervous about my condition. They were very hospitable, giving me fruit, some insect bite balm, and asking if I wanted to bathe (this is pretty much everything that they could possibly do for us). Then time passed. After a few minutes I felt buzzing at the back of my neck. I reached to the sound and pulled out a dying bee and chucked it across the room. Then another. The two women in the hut stared in shock at the dying bees on the ground that I had magically pulled out of my shirt. They examined them for a moment, shared a few words, then squished them. Then the buzzing started up again in my hair. AAAHH!! So I sit up, start pulling at my hair trying to get it out. Three women come up to me and found the bees and picked them out. Then they started picking the other dead bees out of my hair. I asked for a comb and they brought me one. I spent about 15 minutes combing the grass, dirt and dead bees out of my hair, all with an audience of amazed children watching me intently. There was an impressive pile of crap on the floor by the time I was done.
At this time I could no longer see out of my left eye. My other one, I could see just a bit. I lay down, tears streaming out of both my eyes. I couldn't tell if I was crying or if it was the fact that I had been stung some 100-somethingish times on my face that was just making my eyes water
KC came in with news. David had made some calls. There was a doctor on the way with meds. David's David's allergic reaction was becoming worse. Matt was coming with a car to meet us at Fungolimbi with a car. The doctor came. We got pills and shots. He tested our breathing. Within a few minutes, according to KC and David's David, my swelling had reduced a lot. I could now see out of my left eye. Davids allergic reaction went away almost immediately. By this time we were all OK enough to make some jokes, and we even laughed a bit about this damn situation.

David's David and I got motorcycle rides 12 kilometers to Fungolimbi, where the health center was. Matt was already there with a car when we got there. The expressionon Matt's face when he saw my face was priceless. I got to see it for the first time as well (motorcycle mirror) and wow...

David and KC were riding their bikes back to Fungolimbi with two local villagers riding the other two bikes. Bless KC's heart. She had lost her glasses on the top of the mountain, had a terrifying experience and managed to take care of us the whole time and STILL rode her bike, without seeing much, 12 kilometers over rocky, steep paths in lightening speed.
We rode the car back to Kedougou. No one talked much, but David's David sang a lot. The whole ordeal started at about 6:30am. We got back the the house at 1:00pm. We've gotten lots of calls from the PC med staff asking how we are and prescribing us medicine. They were very worried about us.
I think that by that evening I had gotten pretty much all of the stingers out of me.
David went left to go get our bags the very same afternoon. none of us can believe how much this man can do. It's like, he never stops. He is back and safe. Bees don't come out at night. He slept under two giant baobabs near the top of the mountain and as the sun rose he carried 4 bags and everything inside down two mountains by himself, on foot. Is he even human?

Here's to David, KC and David's David for all staying alive and sane and helping me through this. Here's to Katie, the volunteer in Fungolimbi who, after receiving a call from Etienne (our emergency man), ran all over her village in her pajamas, waking the doctor and getting him to come to us in lightening speed. Here's to Matt for getting a car up there that arrived even before we did. And of course the villagers who welcomed us strangers and did everything to make us feel safe. And last but not least, heres to all the volunteers who greeted us at our homecoming and made us feel more than taken care of.

Pictures didn't come until David bought the camera back. But have a look! This is me before

and after. The swelling has gone down a lot in 24 hours, but I still look like a chubby pale chinese lady. And I'm purple to boot.

It isn't every day that I'll be posting a picture of my butt, so enjoy.

And Bees? I think everyone involved in this will no longer overlook that small buzzing sound in their ears. And so, who is up for some beekeeping?!

Until next time!

Toads Belly.

2010-01-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

You know the dry season is really here when you find a toad wetting his belly in the leftover drops of the spout of your water filer.

Sometimes it's hard for me to write about interesting things because now everything here just seems normal. Kind of like going to that office job every day. Then I think really really hard and remember that nothing here is normal in an American's eyes, so I can write whatever I want! Then again, I am about to write about work. Work … yuck! Right?

Artsy intro:
December is cold here. I am wrapping myself up in my sleeping bag every night and loving it! It sucks if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night though because you have to crawl out of your warm cocoon and go outside in the FREEZING 60 degree weather to get to the potty. Then again, it does reinforce th loveliness of the sleeping bag. Which brings me to a nice little theme of todays blog: The more hopeless your job seems to be when starting out, the more lovely it is when it actually starts working.. Right?

Gardens. Cold season is garden season. I planned this big garden project down to the last tiny hair on the back of my hand, only to find out that I had to stick that hand into a steaming pile of cow poo and then re examine the situation.
The villagers were just not with me. The upper bosses were just not with me. I was worried. I was nervous and grouchy. I felt like I was spinning in a circle as fast as I can trying to get to China and everyone was just looking at me and laughing. And this went on for a long time.
Then I made a phone call to the big boss and boom, it all started going forward. I finally got to bring that materials to villagers who were starting to think that I was a big fat liar. I finally got to take a break from sitting in my village and telling people to get ready for something that I had no idea was coming or not. Here are my materials :)

So the garden project. Without any respect to what I went through to get it, the project is kind of pretty. I have three new groups, each with their own personality, who now have a project to work on together. Its really cool to see people come together in a village that is known for not having one single functional group. I used to sit in on conversations where people were complaining about how there is not a thread of ogranization in Thiabedji. Now I'm not only sitting in on cconversation after conversation about whats going on in the gardens, I'm also seeing people who have long been scattered start to get into the rhythm of working together.

The first group worked the fastest. It's been about three weeks. Still in the honeymoon phase, and they impress me with their dedication.
Don't know how much you all are interested in gardening in African villages. But because I can, I will give you a step by step of the labor involved.
Note: Segregation at its greatest! Men start the job.

Clear an area. Cut 66 posts (yes I realize I'm a tree volunteer)

dig 66 holes

Put the posts in the holes

Attach super expensive chain-link fence.

Measure Plots

Dig Plots.

Men leave. Women come in and
Hit the dirt until its pretty

Add manure, rake.

Water.

Plant stuff from the nursery that has been brewin baby plants.
Then there is that constant daily gardening thing. Watering, planting, and the most neverending task; pest control.
Sooooo I can't leave the other two group out.
Group 2
Groups two is coming in close behind group 1 in speed of work. Their nursery is to die for.
They are about a week and a half behind in planting. Their organization is pending. But they are all very high in spirits. Woooo are their gardens baking in the sun! To do list: mulching lesson. Get these people a well.

Group three is straggling! It's all about the politics and its looking to be an uphill slope! The group members are eager to get it going! Today we FINALLY measured the plots. Their soil SUCKS! And the sun is a problem. To do list: lots and lots of poop. Mulching. Compost lessons galore. Warnings that this years gardens will suuuuck!
I decided on three groups for several reasons. One big group was recommended to me by my boss but heck, I know my village and I know that wouldn't work. My village is just too big. It practically has its own zipcodes. I went by neighborhood. One thing I didn't think of when doing this is how busy it would make me. I've got three groups coming to me all the time in all different kinds of requests. It keeps me busy, thats for sure.
So thats going on in the village, and my trying to get a well for my one good farmer. That is another uphill slope.
I've been thinking a lot about development, and what the heck it is. Heck, I've been thinking about it since I got here. But still, I keep thinking about it. Thats all I have to say about that.

Random fact time!
I'm also bothering this guy named Bocar in my village to make a flute for Phil. Phil is my buddy who is studying gold and is though of as a godly figure by my villagers. Phil is going home soon, bleh for me but yay for him! Anyway, it's fun getting this flute made because I'm leaning how flutes are made.
So this other thing happened this month. This thing called Christmas and then a new year came along. Eh... big deal. I got a Christmas present on Christmas, some nutrigrain bars and tupperware. We ate lots of food. I got to skin a pig all by myself that we threw away because it spoiled. I chatted with the other volunteers and got to teach Fanta about Christmas.
Then New Years came along and I came back to Kedougou to spend it with Fanta. This was not the best night. It is said that there is at least one moment in everyone service where a volunteer “loses it” with local kids. Well at about 11:00pm on January 31st I lost it with a pack of 9 year old boys. I guess the stress had been rising over these past couple of months. Then there was this night where I was walking the streets of Kedougou with Fanta and a couple of other local gals. Kids were sitting on the side of the road looking for interesting things to throw fireworks at. Why not shoot them at the tubab? 10 bonus points! Shoot what,, exactly? They are little balls they light and throw at your feet and they explode and make a sound like a gunshot. They leave your ears ringing. After getting hit two times I start watching these kids... the third one starts to light it and I go up to him and tell him to stop, rather rudely. It clicks in them some crazy button because, “Oh my god, the tubab spoke to me!” and a suddenly twenty 9 year old boys start running after me screaming at the top of their lungs all the shit that kids scream at tubabs. I'm walking away from them. They are following. I go insane.
Ok, not really insane. But I turned around lighting fast. The kids instinct is to run away from the angry tubab, but I grab one at random by his shirt and jerk him back toward me until his face is in my face and he is in tears screaming “don't hurt me, I didn't do anything!” Then I just look at him and say, “And me?! What did I do!?” Ok so then all the other kids think I'm going to beat this kid and they either start crying or picking up sticks and coming after me. Oh dear. I seem to have gotten into a fight with a group of 9 year old boys. A bunch of local men came running up to seperate us. Fanta was helping too by telling the boys that they had better leave me alone because I was Peace Corps and if they bother me the police will come after them.
On a lighter note. Our chicken had babies! 10 out of 10 to be exact! And the father is my rooster, Woohoo! Really, this is not news. Our chickens have chicks all the time. I think out family is up to like 30 chickens or all sizes. I just wanted to post this cute photo.

Thats all folks!

The Peace Corps Experience

2009-12-05T14:42:00.000-08:00

Peace Corps. What the heck is it, anyway? I've been here for a year and I'm still constantly learning new things and finding myself in new situations that can only be categorized as a Peace Corps Volunteer experience. These things are one in a lifetime, for sure. This month I've had it all over the board. This meaning that my once-in-a-lifetime experiences did it all for me. I laughed, I cried, I wanted to go home, I wanted to stay here for ever, I loved my village and family, I hated them. I felt like I knew what I was doing, I felt completely incompetent. I was full of energy and I even felt so exhausted I thought I would die (perhaps this is a hyperbole, perhaps not).

This month the maximum amount of time I spent in one place was three days. I averaged about a day or two at a place. Basically I just went back and forth between Kedougou and my village. Oh and there was this time I climbed some spired on top of a mountain as well. All in all this month I rode almost 600 kilometers on my bike. I now feel strange going two days without a rigorous bike ride.

Now really, what have I done this month?

I'll start with work.
Gardening season is starting. This is my second time around. I actually contemplated for quite a while about what I could do to really “help” my village this time around, using all of the knowledge that I can acquired over the previous year. Remember last year? I slaved over my own garden, pulling up to 160 liters of water a day and helped 15 households have a private garden of their own. I learned what worked and what didn't. Some worked, lots didn't. Over this past year I've learned how my village works. What the people do and don't do. This year I wanted to make something that would work. Something that would satisfy the people's desire and would do it with as little obstacles as possible.
So... I applied for funding for a gardening project for three groups in my village. About 40 people total will work together with others to make a total of 60 garden plots. The funding allows for supplies to be brought to my village to give the project a good start and to make it more sustainable. Gardening tools and chain-link fence are the supples. The fence will go up next to three reliable water sources so that people don't have to carry their water and they can garden together. It's like, group work. I thought about this a lot. I had it down to a T. I felt like this thing was on the back of my hand.

Time passed. I started mixing my plan with the people..

Then reality hit me. Wow. There is this thing I read about.... pure VS applied science. Never really got to put it into context firsthand until now. And I'm doing it in an African village. Next step, throw away everything you thought you knew and become … well... not the pure and perfect Peace Corps Volunteer. My role in this project is more like a sort of phantom/babysitter. Nobody really knows what to do in my presence other than nod and smile, and then when they don't do what I tell them, I have to mediate through drama by just standing there. It must be the anatomy of forming new groups that I hadn't taken into account.

My other big project is starting slow because I keep finding obstacles in outside help. Development. What is it? Giving a village a bunch of fish or teaching a man to fish efficiently and teach him the skills to teach his fellow men? Who knew that helping an extraordinary individual become a model farmer so he could be an example for and teach others would be so controversial. Why use funding to help one person when you could use it to help a whole lot? In theory yes, I get it. But in practice, shouldn't you look a little bit closer? Which project would actually be most likely to give positive results? I call in a case by case study.
So I have this really great farmer that I've been working with for a year.
If I could help him I could get him and his field to maximum capacity in technology I could then work with him to teach him to teach others. Doesn't that sound kinda cool? So yeah, I'm working on that and don't be surprised if I may need to ask for some of your guys' help (whoever reads these things, anyway?).

Now do you know why I've been putting off my blog? I'm in a strange situation of …. nothingness.

What the heck else happened this month? Here are some tidbits.

One bright and sunny morning I woke up at 6:00 and had a lovely 90 minute, 20 mile leisurely bike ride into Kedougou. I got there, pumped up with my big fat “to do” list for the next couple of days: Funding research, having an in-depth conversation with my PC representative, talking about finding some interesting new jobs, looking into schools for my future, studying for the GRE, stuff to buy at the market.
Well, as I rolled in, Matt, another volunteer was packing up his bike. I asked him where he was going. He said something about a two day trip to the top of some spires on the top of some mountain that I've never been to before. He asked if I'd like to come.
Me: “What do you think I am? Free?” Wait a second...what is a PCV? A moment of silence. “Sure, ok. I'll go.”
One of the things on my list was to “de-stress.” While it was the one thing that I didn't think I'd be able to do, it was actually probably one of the most important at the time. So I went. All together there were three of us. Matt, Alan (my good friend), and me.

Physically, me going was probably not the best idea. It was really exhausting. I had been biking almost two hours every day and my legs were really tired that day. So I packed up and we left in the heat of the day. After 5 hours of biking (we went really slow, it was really hot) we got to Koboy, the village of a fellow volunteer, KC, who happens to live on the top of a mountain. There I pretty much passed out from exhaustion. Had I known what was in store for the next day I may have died on the spot. The next day was a million times more exhausting than the first day. We left at about 7:30am and went non stop until we got to the top of the spires, which was at about 3:30pm. We biked on top of the mountain from one side to the other. Up and down, stopping at several villages on the way, one of which being Fungolimbi, where another volunteer lives named Katie. While everything was probably breathtakingly beautiful, I felt like I was going to throw up and could not really breath properly. There was this one moment when the spires (our destination) came into view. Matt got really excited. I couldn't help but say “wow, those are really far away.” And off we went.

We went all the way to a village called Maribou. It is settled on top of the mountain just below where the hill is the leads to the spires. Some sort of luck was with us because we just happened to pass a forage (water source) right before ditching out bikes to hike UP. We filled up. It was probably about one kilometer from the end of the last peanut field to the top of the spires. We got there, looked up at those giant spires (so close!) and thought we were almost there.

Nope.

It probably took over 4 hours for us to get to where we wanted to be. Maybe thats because we didn't have a trail. We didn't really think of a direction to go. We just went. The grass was taller than us. The grass was seeding. Grass bites. There are plants mixed in with the grass that bites. There are bugs that live in the grass that bite.

There are rocks on the ground hiding under the grass that twist ankles and make you fall. We walked through this grass that we couldn't see above for a long, long time. Yuck. Then when we started going UP, the impenetrable bamboo forests showed up. That stuff is dangerous. And really impenetrable. Look here.

We ended up turning around a lot and looking for a new way up. We found random cliffs below the spires that made us change course. We finally got up to the base of the spires and realized we were on the wrong side of them, so we scaled the wide of the base and made our way up, eventually, to the top. We stopped by some baobab trees (I love those, a lot) and took some pictures.

I eventually stopped being tired. I was too tired to be tired. Then we got to the top and it was just absolutely breathtakingly amazing and …. perdy. We played. We explored. We sat quietly and watched the sun set. We ate corned beef sandwiches and Werther's Originals. We drank the last drops of our water. And we slept, under the stars, on the very top of the spires.

The way back? Peace of cake! We were already sliced to crap from bushwhacking and exhausted from walking and biking. We ran down that mountain, surprised women bathing at the forage by basically guzzling water right from the spicket (ok I may be exagurating). We basically carried our bikes down the mountain and then biked another 40 kilometers home. It only took about 7 hours with no breaks more than 5 minutes long. When we got home, we still didn't know how tired we were. But we were happy.

Another thing that happened this month. Two holidays. Thanksgiving for us Americans and Tabaski, the biggest holiday of the year for Muslims here.

Which brings up the subject of my family. My host family. They are in a tough spot this month. Tabaski is kind of like Christmas. It's a very, very materialistic holiday. In my village, everyone needs new clothes and new shoes and nice hair and wonderful food. Especially the women and kids. Everyone gets their nicest and cleanest and spends the whole holiday just being happy and beautiful and greeting people. Before Tabaski is here people spend a lot of time worrying about how they will get stuff. It's just what they do.
It's hard to explain the situation of my family in my village. I will say a simple version. My family currently has no income. Some stuff happened that caused some stuff to happen and then some stuff happened and they have negative nothing and their spirits were right down with all of that. And boy, living there, I was kinda dropping right down with them...... (maybe why I didn't stay there much this month?). Family is family, right? We kinda know each other really well, whether we are from the same culture or not. I'm telling ya, it was the holiday that topped off their moods. Damn materialistic things.
So some stuff happened. And some more stuff happened. And then some really bad stuff almost happened, like the climax of make or break, and then it was triumph. The triumph somehow solved all of the families problems but kinda made me a bit crabby.

I got to bring my sister to Kedougou for two days, just a few days before Tabaski. This is my bestest friend in the village. She lives quite a redundant life and more than deserved a couple of days for herself. It was an amazing cultural exchange and actually worked out quite well. We stayed in Kedougou at Fanta's house. Fanta is my friend, a local woman who is the same age as my sister but lives a completely different life. My sister is a villager, born and raised amongst a small population and thrown into marriage and motherhood at the age of 15. Fanta is a city girl, raised middle class (which in Kdg is “upper class”), dating guys, and about to graduate high school and applying for colleges overseas. These are my two best local friends. It's funny. People who live in the same country like this often don't really get to know each other. Fanta has never spent more than a couple of days in a village, and Dalanda, my sister has never really been in a situation where she just got to be friends with someone who was raised, well, away from a village.

Dalanda got a couple days of luxury. It was great. Fanta was with us the whole time. When we weren't shopping for clothes for the kids and mom and food for the family we were eating great food or meeting other Peace Corps volunteers, and then there were the 6 hours of waiting while Dalanda got her hair braided in the salon (every village girls dream, apparently). There were also lots of times when we just all three laid in bed, stared at the ceiling and talked about the different paths of life that have been put in front of us. I think this experience really got all three of us thinking. Don't yet know where those thoughts will go, but it was really amazing. The whole thing was really fun but I must say, really expensive for me, a volunteer. But my family was in a rough spot. The smiles on all of their faces on their biggest day of the year... whether or not I was in a good mood, were nice and made it worth it.

Thanksgiving. A lot of volunteers came and a LOT of food was cooked. It was just like last year. I was thankful once again for everything that is in my life, good and bad. It's all perspective really. Dalanda had gone back to the village by this day but I got Fanta to come and see our thanksgiving. She enjoyed it I think, and ate a little bit (she is usually terrified of what we cook).

Tabaski. Boy was I grouchy. While I loved the family's gracious “thank you”s and was glad to see them getting along in perfect harmony and smiling so much, I admit I was a bit of a party pooper. I couldn't help but feel frustrated that it was the “stuff” that seemed to have turned their moods. I kind of hid from Tabaski this year. Just another cultural frustration? Maybe. Maybe one I got a bit too involved in. But I'm still glad I did.

I guess I'll stop there. This was kind of long. Sorry about the lack of photos.
Until next time.

Yeeeeeeee haw!

2009-11-02T07:05:00.000-08:00

A million hours of public transport. Yes. Thats what I've done. To Dakar and back. Twice. To and from my village. To other villages, days and days of driving. Almost died a million times. My family with me, almost dying a million times. But then, eventually, getting used to the feeling and realizing the here, when traveling, you just need to put your life in the hands of... well, whoever you think controls that sort of stuff. But if you are gonna travel, in wind blown dirty hot cars, you might as well travel in style, right?

My family came to visit! What a strange and wonderful experience to let two lives and two families collide. The whole experience was a bit overwhelming. So many things coming at me from so many angles. While it was happening I must admit I didn't quite know what exactly was happening. Now that it's over, now that it's the past, I can see what happened.
Boy was I sick when my family came! I hear amongst other volunteers that it's common for healthy volunteers to get sick right when their families come. Perhaps it's an inner excuse to get sick, with your real mom by your side worrying about you and trying to make you feel better. Could that be?
This is the sickest I have been since I had been here. It started out as a cold thing and Fever, body ache, non stop headache. Bleh. It started the day before the fam got here and finally ended 10 days later, two days before the family left. Just to clarify my state of mind for my sick days. I was like... blah. Fever every day fluctuating from 99 to 102.6 degrees,yet we were constantly on the go and I did my best to ignore it (probably not the best idea seeing as how I didn't treat it). Mom got so worried. My bro and his guy were so patient with my really bad mood. The people in my village thought I was being rude. The sickness finally ended with my brother diagnosing me (haha) with a sinus infection/flu after the headaches got so bad that I could barely function and I was so clogged up there I couldn't taste or smell a thing. Not to mention I almost lost my voice and couldn't talk without coughing all the time. Eventually got on meds, it went away.
Now the pretty part of their visit. What a wonderful experience! I had the logistics of the trip planned out to a tee. We spent most of the time in my region. I wanted them to meet certain people and have certain experiences, and they did. I worked out when to give them luxury, when to give them my “rouging it” experiences. We ate tourist food (clean food), and I coaxed them into the local foods as well (here is the family eating dinner in my hut). We spent 4 whole days in villages. We did a couple days in my village (with local transport, something exhausting that I wanted them to experience, which they would probably do a better job of describing because I'm so used to it). We spent a very difficult 2 days in my village. The stay in my village was actually the most difficult time for me of the whole trip, which is not what I would have expected. With my sickness and the pressure that all the villagers were putting on me, I almost went completely ins ane those days. For some reason I had this lovely image of the village welcoming my family, maybe giving them a couple of gifts, greeting them, and then letting us be to explore on our own. How wrong I was! My village is... well... not like that. The problem with my village is that everyone is dirt poor, people don't really work together as one, and there are 1200 people there that want individual attention. Yes, there were many wonderful people who came and greated my family. My host family was wonderful with my family. My closest friends in my village were wonderful to my family. Numusara, my best farmer gave us a chicken. He is a wonderful man. Everyone else greeted us non stop all day ever day. We were nervous about leaving the compound. Or should I say, I was nervous. We did eventually wander around and... AAAHHH!!! We only had a few households we wanted to visit. My favorite people and best friends and stuff. But nooooooo that wasn't going to happen. Apparently the word got out that my family was coming (even though my brother was trying to keep it discreet by only telling the village “leaders” and telling them to keep it secret so we wouldn't get bombarded with people expecting my family to throw them a party). People stopped us on the road non stop. People I kinda knew, people I know I've seen before and people I don't know and have never talked who who apparently know me. They all gave me endless crap! Every person kept saying they were mad at me and ashamed of me for not telling them that my family was coming. How dare I not stop at every single one of the 120 compounds and tell each of the 1200 residents that my family was coming and that we wanted to greet them!? Yes, I realized then and I realize now that this is the cultural thing to say for the locals that really means “hello, I am glad your family is here, I want to greet them too, welcome now give me a present,” But I could not stop getting frustrated with their critical method of delivery and I kept giving them the same apologetic/argumentative response until I wanted to scream and cry at the same time. Man, I had so many things I wanted to show my family and so many places in my village I wanted to take them, yet after one lap around one small area of my village I went home and we hid. We just hid. I must say, I was still strong for the small amount of circling we did do. We managed to get some pictures and they are lovely.
I hope the trip to my village wasn't quite as stressful for them. I mean, they didn't understand a word I was saying to anyone, seeing as how I was speaking Pular only. All they really needed to do was shake hands and reply “Jam tun” to everything anyone said.

Here is my fam posing w some local kids.

Below - my two families combines

A Land Cruiser driven by a retired French man named Bruno picked us up the following morning. The second I left my village a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. The fam lightened up too. We were going exploring (where no1 knew me, yay!!!). We had a two day excursion planned with Bruno and we would go to three villages and look at three different local “tribes” We explored the Basari culture first in the village of Etiolo (Ech-oh-low). There we stayed at a nice “campement” and had a tour of the scattered village and learned about the ways of life of the Basari. Each household is a 10-20 minute walk away from the other. This made the Basari very difficult to conquer during colonialism because .. well they couldn't group together the people. The way of life of the Basari is still very, very traditional. They are animists that have slightly converted to Christianism. One of the most fascinating parts of Basari culture is their male initiation ceremonies. There are three steps to “manhood” and they are all quite fascinating. If you want me to explain them, call my cell phone and we can have a long converstaion about that.

below-walking through Basari territory

We then visited Pular nation. Hell, Pular is everywhere, so that doesn't count. We really just went to Dindefelo and visited the waterfall. We got to go one a hike to the waterfall after a really, really exhausting car ride to get there. Man was I sick!

Family at the waterfall

Then we drove to our last destination, a village on top of a mountain called Angel (on-gel). This village is Bedik. The Bedik is another Christian animist “tribe” and there are only about 8,000 of them in the world (I think). They have their own language and culture as well, and we got to see a little bit of it after climbing up a mountain and seeing the cutest, most quaint village that I have ever seen.

Something funny about our trip... I've traveled wit my family before and we usually don't really buy anything. Here, it was different. We ended up with an entire suitcase full of souvenirs. I think it may be because I live here and I know what is good! We got a ton of hand made Basari and Bedik stuff like masks, statues, flutes, carvings and jewelry. I knew we were in the best place in the world to get hand made stuff, so I made them take advantage. Oh, and while we were in Kedougou I made my fam take advantage of Kedougou's unique fabric that comes from Guinea (the country to the south which generally makes really cool stuff). We got my fam some “indigo” fabric, exclusively found in kedougou (rare in other parts) and got them hand tailored, custom outfits. Lovely. This got my fam interested in local fabrics and we ended up taking several market trips to buy more kinds of fabrics just because it's perdy and possible to make things with them.

What else did we do. Hmmmm. Spent the rest of the time in cities. Man did we do a lot of shopping! We went to Tambacounda and I took a 7 hour nap (sick). No Shopping there. We went to Thies and went to the tapestry factory (great art investment), and then shopped in the market. Then we went to Dakar and spent one day touring things and the next day, at the market bargaining for souvenirs for almost a whole day. By the time we got to Dakar I was feeling a lot better. It just so happens, I love to shop in Senegal because I like haggling for prices. Dakar is, to me, the most difficult place to haggle... my kind of place!!! We spent hours circling and I got to argue with people and yell at people and refuse to pay and walk away and come back again until I gave myself a migraine and had to go take a break. But I loved it deep down. We got lots of cool stuff that I can't even start to list.
We went to Goree Island as well.. a really touristy place that used to be a port for slave transport. What a fascinating island with a great history. But For me, of course, I couldn't stop haggling. We had a boy fix my brothers shoes because he was looking for work. While we waited another boy came and fixed my bag and another fixed Bill's flip flops without him really wanting him to fix them. I'm telling you, people that need money and are looking for work are about 100x more pushy than a used car salesman. We let the kid fix my brothers shoes because he was cute and spoke Pular. Then another one came and then another. We stood there for like 15 minutes until they were done than my poor family stood there while I bargained with these kids for like 15 more minutes in Pular. Ha! The sales people on the island are ridiculous with their pricing! You know, white people usually pay what they think items would be worth in their country. And on this Island, and in a lot of places in Dakar, there area lot of white people that pay a lot, which makes the sellers think that all white people should pay a certain price and all black people should pay like 10% of that price. Take this crappy tshirt for example. Bill saw a shirt he liked that I know you can buy for 4 dollars in a normal market (or less if you really haggle). This man would not sell the shirt for less than 20 dollars and got furious with me for saying that his price was ridiculous. He gave me a 10 minute speech about why Bill should pay 20 dollars even though others can pay 4 dollars. All this while boys were fixing Sean's shoes. I listed to him light-heartedly and then basically go told him to take his 20 dollar shirt and shove it up his ass. The next day we bought the shirt in the market for 4 dollars.
So, my family had fun I think. I think also that I exhausted them with three main things, 1 – public transport., 2- The mood I get in when I'm sick and finally 3- my obvious obsession with bargaining with the locals. Oh dear. Sorry family!
The trip ended on a good note with a midnight ride to the airport followed by me returning to the hotel alone at 1:30 in the morning, feeling suddely so alone and consoling myself by watching prostitutes coming and going from cars on the corner of the road from my 6th floor balcony until I got sleepy and went to bed. The next day I did that painful 16 hour ride back to Kedougou.
Sorry this is so long! But.....
I've changed soooo much in the last 5 weeks. All I've learned in this first year in country was just solidified by my five weeks off circling all over the place. Camp, circling Dakar waiting for my family, leading my family frantically through a country they don't know... all of it together did something to me.
A whole bunch of things kind of just came together. What I'm doing here and what I'm capable of doing here. Before these 5 weeks I had some plans sketched out but I wasn't sure how I could really get things done. The path was a bit blurry. Now.... it's not. After dealing with all the stuff I dealt with, after running around like a chicken with it's head cutoff and dealing with locals that come from every aspect of life, now I can see the path to a goal a lot more clearly. This next year is looking to be pretty freaking awesome. Not at all calm, and not at all lazy. And not knowing what I'm doing? Bring it on! I'm ready! And perhaps I don't know as little as I think.

Ok I have to tell this funny story really quick because it happened, like, yesterday.
I have these Senegalese female friends. I met them at camp (we were counselors together). Well, now I have local friends in Kedougou and we do some pretty freaking awesome things together. The cultural exchange going on between my new city friends and my old village friends... are both enlightening yet very different.
My city gals are going to go far. They are aware of womens rights and are on their way to success! Yesterday I went to a big soccer game in Kedougou with Fanta and Sira, two of my pals. (Fanta on left, Sira on right)

Both of them were there to support their teams but also to get their diplomas for Red Cross first aide. I arrived with Fanta late to the game and we were faced with a line of hundreds of people waiting to get in. Fanta skipped the line with a few sentences and a bribe and got us seats that were great considering all the seats were taken. Then, during half time she drug me up to the Red Cross graduation ceremony thing that was being broadcasted on the radio and being filmed for the national news. All the Red Cross first aid graduates stood in a line facing the audience, and so did I. Fanta brought me a first aide vest so I could fit in. Sira said that I would get a diploma too, standing in for her sister, who was supposed to be there but was sick and at home. So I got filmed getting Red Cross diploma with all the other Senegalese graduates. Wow was that fun.

(me and Fanta)

(Fanta and Sira getting their cirtificates)

The whole time I really could not stop laughing, and I took lots of pics! Then we watched the rest of the game sitting right on the side of the field (amazing seats!). After that I went to Fanta's house and we cooked dinner (more like I stood there and peeled a cucumber while she cooked and laughed at my terrible knife techniques.)
Thats all.
I'm gong to bike back to my village again. Got this garden project thing I'm working on...
till next time!

Campish

2009-10-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

I must say, there is nothing quite like a hat that keeps out everything. Say you are hot and want to sit under a waterfall....

Anyway, hello out there to whoever is reading this! Are you still following me after over a year of being away from home? If so, wow. I'm impressed. If not, you probably aren't reading this right now, right? Well maybe they are.
Anyway, back to business. I'm in Dakar! I'm with a friend, a fellow PCV that I randomly met and we randomly stumbled into this random luxurious hotel and asked them if we could use their wireless Internet and they said yes. Yay for black leather couches and cold drinks!
So I have just had an amazing few weeks. Two great things have happened. First of all, I spent 10 days involved in a week-long Summer Camp for the youth of Kedougou. I had been aware that I would be involved with this camp for a whole year. Heck, I even planned my family's visit around this camp, because I felt like I should be involved. Yet, knowing that I would be involved doesn't mean that I knew what I was getting involved with. I admit that all I really did was put the time aside, without really knowing what to expect.
The camp turned out, in my opinion, to be amazing. I've been spending this whole year learning first hand the paths and the obstacles to helping people and helping with the tedious “one step forward, two steps back” task of development. So, the camp to me was yet another PC project that I would learn something from and maybe help out a bit.
But what a great week! It turns out that this was the second year that the camp held place. One of the biggest problems with starting projects is trying to turn them into something sustainable. Something that will last beyond our short presence and continue to help the population after we are no longer a part of it. The camp is on it's second year now with a good plan that will hopefully make it last for many years and produce man leaders.
So summer camp doesn't exist here. There is a summer vacation but when out of school there is no time to play. In fact they usually spend their summers with their families helping with the laborious task of farming and keeping up with house work So for them the idea of going to a camp to have fun and meet new friends and play with tubabs is great to them. So that is what we did. We had two groups of kids, one group of first-year campers and one group of second year campers, and we threw a summer camp!
The camp took place in Dindefelo, a village popular for tourists because of it's beautiful waterfall and mountains, and weekly lumo. There were about 10 Senegalese camp counselors and maybe 7-10 PCVs running camp. We had agreements with the town and the campement where we stayed and lots of other people. We then spent a week together doing many activities. There were fun activities and learning activities, both of which ended up being fun. I was responsible for the Agroforestry activity. I did a pepeniere and outplanting activity for the first year campers and a grafting activity for the second year campers. After my activity I spent the rest of the week helping with other activities, which included many kinds of sports, teamwork games, scavenger hunts, art,

races,

soccer, food sustainability courses, gender and development,

career day,

and even a human rights course. The human rights course was just a lecture but was intense because the campers and the counselors (often teachers) started a heated debate about the right of a teacher to hit a student. Then of course there were the hikes, both to the waterfall and to the top of the mountain where there were amazing viewpoints, tops of waterfalls and caves.

The next amazing thing that happened. Well, I don't know if it is amazing. I went to Dakar. I haven't been out of the Kedougou region now for almost 8 months. Talk about a homebody! I'm in the capital of the country and I don't know my way around at all! I'm a bit ashamed but then again, there is nowhere to go but up! I've been wandering around a lot these last few days, trying to get a feel of the city so I can lead my family around when they come. Oh and they get here tomorrow evening, how exciting! We have plans to go straight to Kedougou off the plane. We will spend a couple of days in Kedougou, hen they will take my “auto lumo” to my village where they will spend two nights meeting my villagers and looking at some of the work I've done. Then I have a driver picking us up who will lead us on explorations of basari, bedik and pular villages for a couple of days. After that we will slowly make our way back up to Dakar, stopping a couple places on the way to see the sights. We will end the stay with a few days to explore Dakar.
Ok, I'm tired and I have places to be and monkeys to groom!

Until next time.

I'm alone in the execution line of a laser tag game.

2009-09-18T05:21:00.000-07:00

Hello! Thought I would write a quick blog just because.
It's been a clusterfuck. Maybe it's the year volunteer thing. All kinds of things pouring in on all different sides.

I thought I'd be having a down moment in my village work wise, with all the tree planting done. Instead, something threw me into a whirlwind of different “jobs” coming in at all angles. It's then that you start realizing your limitations, your strengths, your weaknesses, and realize it's time to sort all that crap out or just get the hell out (sorry, had to say that cuz it rhymed). So, I've been playing my hand in starting up some new projects and seeing if it really is possible to get something done in a village that has a rather unique esprit. But the obstacles just keep coming in every angle and now I can't sleep!

So that is just my village. Lots of other things happening. A sort of change of pace for me. I'm going to be leaving my village for 5 weeks. I haven't been gone from my village for over 5 days in over 7 months! Yes, was being a homebody but boy do I know how my village works, vraiment!
What will I be doing for five weeks?

I'm going to be helping with a “summer camp” for girls for a week. I'm going to Dakar to take my mid-service exam (required) and have a few days off waiting for my family to get here. I'm going to pick up my family in Dakar and travel around with them for two weeks (we will go to my village for a couple of days, so I suppose I'm not “technically" gone for 5 weeks...but come on...). Then I'm going to slowly make my way back to my village.

Yay, my family is coming! Well, to be more specific, it's my mom, my brother and his guy. All amazing people. I've traveled with them many times but this is the first time that I get to make the itinerary. It's the "Sheila" test for how well I can plan a trip. Yay! Though I do have some obvious advantages seeing as how they are coming to visit me in my home.

Through all this stuff I've been doing another thing that all Peace Corps volunteers tend to go though. I've been thinking of potential paths to follow when my service is over. I've been considering things from grad school to hobo traveling, to organic chicken and pig farming on an uninhabited island, to getting a job, and thought about living in just about every country of the globe and every corner of the states as well. Oh and you can't forget the prospect of staying in your village for the rest of your life and becoming the third wife to a one-eyed, toothless old man and providing him with many children.
Well, especially after that last image, I've been driven to do some personal career counseling (Yes, I'm my own therapist... thats the way it is here), and have been surfing the internet lots and I think I found a future path!!!! It's like magic! It hit me like a light! It iluminated and then exploded right on top of my head! It all fits together and I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel that begins my next chapter in life! My future is....
To be continued (aka these paths change every day)... Hehe.

So I've been here about a year now. It's a great feeling. I kinda feel like I just recently started to really be ready to do some work while actually knowing what I'm doing. Prospects for this next year are bright, yet busy and evidently frustrating as well. I'm excited!
Because that year mark has arrived, that means there are new volunteers coming into our Kedougou mixture! In fact, they just visited us for a couple of days. We have four new girls and three new guy volunteers that will be installed into their villages in about a month. How exciting!

Ok, thats all. I didn't take many pictures recently. Just a few on a rainy day. Here ya go.

Oh and this little guy... he is a "bug" that has been living in my room for a couple months now. We have a symbiotic relationship. He eats bugs and never bothers me, and I let him hide under my trunk. we meet every single day when I sweep under the trunk, and he just kindly moves out of the way while I sweep, then goes back under the trunk when I'm done. Here he is on my bed. haha!

bye bye

Frustrating, Lovely, Mysterious.

2009-08-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

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!

Still Here

2009-08-13T02:39:00.000-07:00

Ok so I just spent a bunch of time in my village and a whole lot of stuff happened. Actually, I wasn't planning on coming back to town for another couple of weeks but I was drawn here by electricity. In other words, I needed to charge my phone, upload my pictures and catch up on blogs!

I must announce, I got my new camera! I've been taking tons of pictures, of course, so expect me to post a lot! Here are some just for fun.

Farming

So I guess the themes of this two and a half weeks would be work and fun. It seems like it would be an easy thing to split work from fun. You know, when are you doing your job and when are you not doing anything? Even when you are wandering around your village doing nothing it still seems like you are doing something. Just having a two minute conversation on the road with someone can cause quite an exchange of culture, which is part of my job here. Then there are those days when I don't really leave the compound but end up working harder than most days. I've been helping out as much as I can in the house as well as in the fields in my spare time. In other words, I'm staying busy!
Ok, so I guess I'll talking Agroforestry stuff. That will be work.
Two things went on recently. August is here, so it's the month of tree planting, and also, on the 5th of August I had a grafting formation in my village. I'll start with the grafting formation. For those of you who don't know, mangos are big here in senegal. There are two kinds of mangos, local, small, sweet mangos that are everywhere, and then there are giant mangos. They ripen at different times, and the giant/grafted mangos make a lot more money for people than small mangos do. So, in order to get a good grafted mango tree you need to be able to do this very specific little technologocal thing called grafting. That is where you take one young local mango tree, a tree that is a year or two old, and you combine it with a grafted mango tree. This means that you combine two trees and get the best of both trees. Local mango trees have roots that better withstand the dry season, while the grafted mango trees give bigger fruits that ripen at a different time, keeping the flow of mangoes coming. If you learn this technology of combining two trees, which is just simple yet specific information that just about no villagers know, you can graft a tree really easily. So the formation was meant for a small number of people from several different villages. We ended up having about 12 people from 8 different villages. My sister made lunch for them all and throughout the whole formation I ended up biking back and forth regulating any technical problems, aka supplies. I thought the formation would be easy but boy was I wrong! finding all the people and explaining to the hundreds of other peo[people that they couldn't come was quite a task. There were some negative quirks on the day of the formation as well, like locals inviting themselves to the formation after I had already refused many people who had asked to come in my village. Argh!
Photos of the formation: Here we all are in a meeting talking about what grafting is. We got a local grafting expert to bethe formation teacher. It was Peace Corps who just organized it all.

Here they are learning how to graft a tree. First they watch and listen, then they do it themselves! Very hands on lessons.

Oh, and I did another hike to the mountain top villages. This time I was accompanied by my 15 year old brother, Soulaiman, and Phil. Here are some photos!

So, other than that, it's tree planting time! Along with that I feel I should introduce yet another group of French people that have come to give a helping hand to my village. This time there are five, and like before, it is great not being the only tubab in the village! This group's main focus was AIDS and education. They did causeries on AIDS, and spent a lot of time with the local youth of Thiabedji doing exchanges of cultures. I loved watching the eyes light up in the villagers when they learned something new, like how they dance in Paris! Anyway, one of the the first things I did with our visitors was plant some trees in the village health center. groforestry and

health come together! that was fun.

As for the rest of the tree planting, it is underway and I think I will talk about it more in my next blog.
So, what did I do for fun? Well the thing that comes to mind first probably wouldn't be considered fun, but it was! I farmed a lot. These days that consists of weeding acres and acres of land with a little tool called a keri, by hand.. Sometimes I did 4 hour stretches. It hurts your back a lot to bend over and you always end up drenched in sweat and covered in dirt. But it's great, really! There was a cultivating party at my house recently. A group of girls got together and weeded my family's field in exchange for a feast and a dance party that lasted until 4:00am! This has to have been one of my favorite days in Thiabedji! During the day I was going back and forth between watching the gals (and some guys as well) working and the field and back to home where there was a team of some great women preparing food for some 60 people! And it was all centered around my sister, Dalanda. My family explained to me that every year the girls pick a woman in the village who they love, and the work/food and party exchange takes place. Omar, my sisters wife, killed our only sheep for this party. It was big! Here are some of the happenings in the field:

And at home, the preparing of the meal.

Then the meal was taken to the field.

One of the French students had a birthday and as a surprise, they had rented a car that was to take them all to the famous waterfall in dindefello. Well, lucky me, I got invited to come along! In truth, I have been a bit ashamed that I haven't been to this waterfall yet. I feel like I am the only volunteer in my region that hasn't been there. Until now! We took a 2.5 hour ride on a really rought road to get there, walked 20 minutes to the waterfall, and then just relaxed, had a picnic, swam, and made tea m it was time to go. Haha. the tea at the waterfall was a bit of a stretch. Two locals friends of ours from the village were also invited and they brought a cot, a propane tank, and all the fixings to make ataaya (tea). It was hilarious to see all these white people there in their swimsuits with backpacks, sitting on rocks, and then there was, at the head of the river going away from the waterfall, my two buddies on their cot cookin up tea in their city clothes. I got a picture of this, which in my opinion, is priceless!
Waterfall pics as well :)

Lots of fun things happened, really. I got to show the French visitors some of my favoirite quaint mango orchards. We all farmed my sister's field together. There were soccer games and other nighttime parties. Most of all I've just been having a lot of fun spending time with my ssister and the French students, and all our friends!
Well, thats all for now. Until next time

People

2009-08-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

I suppose this entry will be about the month of July because, well, I haven't written much about the month and now it's almost over. How time flies here when you're having fun! Heck, even if you're not having fun, you look back and realize how quickly it is all passing.

I have discovered that the 4th of July in Kedougou is quite well known throughout the country to all Senegal Peace Corps Volunteers. It's the party, and I must say, we had quite a party at our regional house. The planning started months in advance with budget planning, job designation and activity ideas. We anticipated about 80 people and lot and behold, about 80 people showed up,not including local friends that came. Kedougou is one of the more exotic regions in the country so volunteers often like to come here to get their "nature fix," by biking to waterfalls or going to a part of the Gambia river where there are hippos. Then there is your floating down the river to the local hotel to get your warthog sandwich, which is becoming a Kedougou norm. Anyway, a lot of region exploring went on but everyone was at the party for the day of the party. On the day of the party the Peace Corps had an activity that involved the locals, to help promote and educate the people about what the peace corps is and teach them a bit about our country. We did a 4k run around the city! The run was open to all and organized by two volunteers in Kedougou, Alan and Thomas. The radio advertised it, the pooliticians reglated it. There was a tent and Djs and American music, free cold water, chairs, registration, and for those not running, games with prizes. It was a blast! I think about 80 people ran, inclusing about 15 volunteers and the entire Kedougou police and Military forces. Holy crap those guys are in amazing shape. Anyway, the volunteer that got 1st place among volunteers got 18th place amongst the whole group. Which is still pretty darn fast considering that the 2nd place volunteer got like 32nd place.

The party was fun as well and included a lot of music, food, games and even fireworks! The African touch happenened just after it got dark when I line of traditionally dressed Basari warriors came parading through the back door in a straight line, doing their warrior dance and hooting and hollering. All the Americans gathered up to watch, and danced as well and we were delighted when the end of the line came around, to see an old lady about 5 feet tall taking up the tail end of the line, just dancing away.

Ok, on to the next thing. After the party I went back to my village, but not alone! I brought Phil with me. I know you must be asking yourself, "Who is Phil?" Well, Phil is Phil! Phil is a guy who is in Senegal doing research for the Fulbright institute on the politics of gold mining in Senegal. He lives in Dakar but travels all around talking to gold miners of all levels of gold mining, and organizations and companies and stuff. I guess that kind of explains it. Well Phil has been to my village before to look at the gold mining that it going on. I know I've written about it before. It's a really small scale, under the table artisan gold mine, and now that it's farming season, there are only about 5 miners working on the mountain. Phil is doing a lot of work with my gold miners and if I tried to explain what kind of work he was doing it would just confuse you all, so if you want to know about it just call my cell phone and be prepared for hours of super exciting and quite philosophical conversation. But really, what he is doing it pretty darn cool and I can't wait to see how all his research mixes together. The gold miners in my village definitely love him, thats for sure. Here is a picture taken by phil of Tuncara. This man not only gold mines, but he also farms, has a young orchard, and is our village's only baker. He is one of the best multi-taskers I've ever known, and he does all of his tasks well.

There are also, don't forget, 6 French people in my village. They were getting pretty settled, well, as settled as you can get on a three week stay in a relatively remote African village. There was daily play day still, and random adventures. They also did another malaria skit mixed with a dance party with music. It was basically the same play but this time it was bigger and better. This time they had a microphone, a much bigger crowd, and all the enders there to support them, they had several doctors to share their knowledge, and even personal testimonies from the locals! I did a project with the French people as well. We put some money and effort together to make a large batch of Neem Lotion. Neem lotion is a locally produced lotion made from the leaf of a local tree that naturally repels mosquitoes. Yay! We spent a long time circline the village and handing out the lotion and explaining its purpose to the locals. The locals loved the lotion and I've been trying to find a way to get the women's group to start making the lotion to sell, because people loved it.
Ok, so more stuff happened but lets move on

Phil went home, the French people went home, and then I went back to Kedougou to take part in a big project that was going on in Kedougou. The Kedougou volunteers had teamed up with an organization called Netlife, who was planning on distributing about 14,000 mosquito nets to every single bed in the region of Saaraya, which is a HUGE region just beside Kedougou. Netlife bought the nets and got them here but asked for our help in distributing them because of our experience in communicating with the locals and our knowledge of how to get around. Well, one of the volunteers took charge of organizing the whole thing. That is Matt. Boy did he work hard! Then he needed our help for three weeks in the actual distribution. Volunteers worked for from a few days to all three weeks. I worked for about 8 days.

I had no idea what I was getting into when I signed up for this! What an amazing experience! Both good and bad, fun and stressful, and it was all rapid fire and non stop adventure. I don't care to give all the details, but here are some experiences that just stand out.

A couple of fun crazy people. Crazy people are everywhere in ever culture, but these two I'm going to mention.
In Saaraya, the regional capital (it's a big village, not even a city), there is a young man who doesn't speak and spends all day walking around with a radio, walking up to people, and cracking their knuckles, both on fingers and toes. He just walks up to you, sticks his hand out like he wants to shake it, then takes your hand with both ofhis hands and cracks each one of your knuckles, then he takes the other hand and does it as well. If you are sitting, he will then move on to your feet and crack those too, but it's not as common because he usually encounters people who are standing. At first it's a bit strange but then you see him walk over tto a group of people who live in the city, and it seems as if they almost wait in line to get their knuckles cracked by him. Then there are those who simply refuse to give their hand to him when he puts his hand out, so he calmly moves on to the next person. So, Saaraya has its own knuckle cracking man. He came up to me twice and I only let him crack my knuckles once. I'm not really into that... haha.

Then there was the crazy guy of one of the villages we went to to distruibute. He was probably about 40 years old. Well I was in a room full of mosquito nets and he was excited to get his mosquito net so he kept coming into the room with the nets and doing little solo improv skits. He was a karate man, a bronco rider from a rodeo, a hunter in the forest, and someone who accidentally sat on a porcupine. He was very animated and loud with all his skits. He always gathered quite an audience and everyone always burst out laughing when he did a skit and he gave them all high-fives. The man who was helping me translate, who lived in the village said that this man was off his rocker, yet harmless.

Off-road adventuring! People in American pay loads of money to explore the wilderness in a 4x4. Imagine doing it for free with a local ambulance driver from dawn to dusk. And this off roading was nothing like... well, off roading. I guess it was. Sometimes we were driving on roads meant only for bikes. So basically we were trudging through 2-3ft tall grass and mud, weaving through trees and bushes, seeing only thick, dense, neon green forest from every angle, listening to the driver tell stories about what you should and shouldn't do when you come into contact with a lion. We passed so many river crossings that seemed unpassable at first that by the time we were done, we didn't even take a second glance at the seemingly unpassable parts. Our driver's name was Gouda, like the cheese. He was a, and I quote, "fucking badass." that man can drive!

Well, we did get stuck in the mud once. I was laying in the back of the vehicle, exhausted, on bags and bags of empty mosquito net bags with six live chickens tied up beside me protesting at every bump when suddenly I realized that we were no longer going forward and the tires under me were only spinning. Then we stopped and I hear those words you ever want to hear from your badass driver, the one who can drive through anything,. "Oo,o, c'est grave." or "This is not good." So what to do when stuck in the mud in the middle of nowhere with no cars within probably 75 miles, no cell phone signal, and no tools to get the car unstuck? Is it the end of the world? Heck no! All we needed was man power, and we weren't too far from a village full of men made of pure muscle that we just gave a bunch of mosquito nets to. So we sent a message to the village via someone we found on a motorcycle, and about 10 men came running to the rescue, faster than any tow-truck would ever have gotten to someone broken down on an American highway. They looked at the situation, had a brief huddle, gave the words and every man scattered into the forest like lions! They scattered and disappeared amongst the trees. They all came back at the same time loaded with huge tree branches covered with leaves. They dug the excess mud out from under the car in a second, and put the branches in the tracks to give the tired something to grab. Then they did another huddle, and Hut, hut! They all, single file, walked briskly in a straight line, forward on the trail. Five minutes later they came back with rocks, and big ones. 3 or 4 piled on their heads or cupped in their shirts. They put the rocks under the tires to give the tires something to sit on. Then they all got behind the car and pushed as it tried to go forward. No luck but a bit of movement. They readjusted the rocks and sticks and this time told the car to go backwards as they pushed. And let me tell you, 10 African men can push hard. The car moved more, but didn't get unstuck. They adjusted the rocks one more time. Got behind the car, told it to go, and pushed. The car leaped out of the mud and went zooming on forward as the locals jumps in the air and clapped, hooting and hollering with joy. Then they thanked us for the nets and started walking back to their village, covered from head to toe with mud.

People. We dealt with lots of people who have a very, very different perspective than us, and a very different way of thinking than us. Sometimes, when your head is full of the technicallities of the job you are trying to do, it's hard to remember that the locals really have no idea what you are doing for them, other than giving them a present. We got so many "gimme, gimme, gimme!" attitudes. We had so many frustrated people amongst the excitement. It really was up to us to organize the people and teach them what we were actually doing for them. It took a few villages until we started knowing how to get the people into a mindset of what we were actually trying to do for them, other than give them a present. Each village was different. Some were big and some were absoutely tiny and completely isolated. I distributed alone in a village of 83 people, 6 households. Nobody in the entire village had every gone to school. There was no school in the village. Of all the people, one man spoke a little bit of Pular (in this region the language is Malinke, not Pular), and one man spoke a little bit of French that he learned because he picked it up by visiting the neighboring village. In other words, he is a genius that never went to school a day in his life. Many of the villages had absolutely no medicine of any kind. Luckily every village had a motorcycle though, and it could be used in case of emergency. Unless, of course, it rains a lot and that motorcycle can't cross the river, which tends to be the case a lot in the rainy season.
Well, I think this is long enough. Even though there was so much more!

Oh and all these pictures are borrowed. I should have my new camera soon though.
Until next time!

It's Farmin time!

2009-07-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh life in an African village... It's wonderful!

Before going back to my village I spent the night with another volunteer named Hayes, in her village. Hayes is my closest neighbor, only about 20 Kilometers from my village. There I negotiated transport for my cement and then, before bed, we watched "Twilight" on her laptop! Hayes lives in a village that is smaller than mine but due to its location, it is more developed. It has power in the evenings and a middle school and cars and robinets (a robinet is a water source that works like a faucet, while a forage works like a pump and a well works like... a well.). Anyway, the fact that I saw that movie was great because I've been a fan since day one. I read that book while I was studying abroad in France.

So I just got back from spending a lovely two weeks in my village. There's nothing quite like a moment in time where your whole family is getting along, people say that you speak good Pular, and when you actually take peoples humor as jokes rather than insults. Yes, if all these things are happening you cant help but have a wonderful time. Oh, and nature always helps too, right? Things are growing! Everyone can feel the season changing and everyone loves it! The signs of seasons changing here are so different than any season changes in America. Here, the first sign is the cows. What a relief the rain brings for cows, and due to that, everyone! When it rains, cows can drink in natural puddles. If they are drinking far away from us they don't come and wait by the forage. That means people don't spend hours a day watering the cows, which means the forage, our main water source, is much less crowded! Also, with the rains, comes grass. Cows love grass, so they stop trumping through house compounds trying to steal last bits of corn from pots and pans, and they stop nosing around and trying to eat whatever they can get from us. Now we just don't see cows. Well, not very often. No more animals invading our living room is a great thing! Of course this doesn't take into mind chickens, who just live here. Man those things are annoying as heck. Imagine 8 people gathered around a bowl of rice and baby chickens weaving under your feet picking up what you drop. Aahh!!

Farming is the biggest change. I finally get to see the men work. Oh my goodness! Ok, I'm being sarcastic, but then again I'm not. Me and the women in the village joke around about it all the time. The men are finally doing something instead of sitting around and drinking tea all day. Hehe. Anyway, Everyone is out and about these days preparing their fields, and first and foremost, planting their corn. The farming methods here are quite old fashioned. The most high tech farming that is available in my village is a little metal plow drug by two cows. Here is a pic!
My family doesn't have cows. If you don't have a cow, you've got to either swoon someone into letting you borrow theirs, or... find another way. I helped my brother Omar plant his field of corn without plowing it first. With that, you just take to the field a dabo (the most used farming tool) and seeds, and a rope. You use the rope as a guide for a straight line, and you plant , bent over, digging a little hole and putting the seed in.

I did this for hours with my family. It is hard work! The problem is, that there is grass and weeds also growing over the whole field. In order to get rid of that my brother bought herbicide. My mom also has a field, right outside of our compound. She got rid of the weeds for that by waiting for the corn to sprout, then taking her dabo and spending hours each day scraping the weeds by hand. All people working with a dabo works completely bent over. It is literally back breaking work. I did it for like 45 minutes and was out cold. So, farming is starting! Volunteers said that it's naïve of me to what to learn about farming by helping my family with it. It's true that I am not a professional farmer. But the way I see it, if I'm to really learn about a culture I've got to get my hands dirty, right? And I'm still new and leaning, so learn I shall. Now I can walk out to the fields that I helped plant and look at their progress with a special understanding of how it was made.

Ok, other happenings. Random but interesting. There are now 6 French medical students that are living in my village for the next month. They all come from Paris, and are in either their second or third year of med school. They are between 20 and 22 years old. 2 men and 4 women. So, suddenly I have become not the only, but one of 7 tubabs living in my village! They have been here for over a week now and I have been having a lot of fun with them. 7 tubabs can definitely light up a village more than one! They are like a burst of culture for these people and everyone, especially the kids, love them! They have a play time almost every afternoon just playing games with the kids. They have done a play as well about how malaria is caught.

These guys came right as the mosquito season started, so they are working with malaria prevention things. I find being in their presence very interesting because they had absolutely no cultural training before they arrived. Fresh meat? Yes! Seeing how they reacted to what I see as normal aspects of daily life make me realize how much I have "integrated" over these past 10 months. Anyway, one of the things I end up being for the new guys is a tour guide. Daily life can be boring living in a village when you don't know what is going on, so I have offered nature hikes. We have already gone to the top of a mountain, where we ran into two bee hives and a snake, and got lost on the way back because I couldn't see the mountains (my vantage points) because of the new leaves in the trees. It was fun though and nobody was hurt!
Oh and just a random note about Malaria. It's everywhere here man. My little 6 year old brother just got it. He is very sick but got on meds and got better fast. My sister had it in the dry season. I asked my sister how many times she has had it since she was born, and she said somewhere around 30 times. Malaria here is seen a lot differently than it is in America. It's still seen as a scary illness though. My sis said she is afraid of it, even though it is so common. It is true that if not treated, it can kill you quickly. Luckily I am on meds that will prevent me from getting it. I also do the most I can to avoid mosquitos.

So just recently I also went on another biking adventure. This time I went to Mako (again) with Hayes to meet some friends to give a biking tour to. I swear I live in one of the prettiest parts of the country (biased? Maybe..).

The biking trip to Mako from my village is absoutely breathtaking, and once again, some of its charm is those little villages you stop at and find people sitting over their breakfast porridge, who, when you arrive, look up at you and smile. They never quite know what to say to a tubab that just shows up in their rather isolated village. Then when you greet them in their language,their smiles get even bigger. It's almost priceless. Then you ask for directions and they gladly hop up and accompany you to the proper road, and you say your thank yous, exchange names and go on your way and say, "until next time!" Anyway, Here are some pics of that trip!
There was a moment on the trip where I slammed on my breaks in the middle of the woods and jumped off my bike and ran towards a tree. Why? Laare! There is a local fruit that is in season but it's hard to find in my village because people go out and collect it and sell it to a big truck that sends it to cities to be sold! Well there are wild laare bushes all over in the forest, and I knew I was far enough from a village for their to be some fruit on the tree. Sure enough, it was full of it! How great is is to be able to eat local fruits in the middle of the woods on a long bike ride. We also came across several trees with another edible local fruit. I forgot the name, but it reminds me of kinda a "sweet avocado." I took a pic. Here.

So... that was my two weeks. I had some questions asked now that I will answer. What is a pepeniere? I guess I didn't explain that. A pepeniere is a tree nursery. It's a bunch of sacks that you fill with dirt and then you put seeds in, and the trees go. We make pepenieres to give trees a head start. We plant the pepenieres in the dry season and water them every day. Then when the rainy season comes the trees are big enough and they will have a head start so when the rain comes the tree will grow a lot more. Here is a picture of Alan with one of my pepenieres in my backyard. And here is my school pepeniere as well.

You can also make a garden pepeniere, which is like a nursery that you plant a bunch of seeds and when the plant gets bigger you plant in a bigger plot with more spacing. It saves on watering, which is important in places without running water. Here is Alan with one of the pepenieres in my backyard

Also, what is a douche! I said that people are making douches. I realize that I didn't explain what that is. I know in French is means shower. Or a faucet that cleans … well.. I dont know. But not here in Africa. In Africa a douche is the hole in the ground that you use to go to the bathroom. Every household in a village should have a douche because it stops people from pooping in the forest which gets people sick, especially when it rains and the water flushes it all over the place. Pooing in a hole is good. The hole is dug about 3-4 meters deep, 1.5 meters by 1.5 meters in size, then lined with iron and cement with just an opening at the top.

So thats all... The 4th of July is coming, by the way. The Kedougou regional house is known for having the biggest party where volunteers come from all over the country. That should be fine. I signed up to be a bartender.
Well, thats it! Oh and a picture for the road, a giant Fromagio tree. I talked a bit about them in my last blog, so I thought I'd share a picture.

Village Hoppping

2009-06-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well I almost didn't write a blog for these last two weeks for two reasons. One: I don't have any photos, and two: I just did a whole bunch of work stuff. Work? Blah! Who wants to hear about work? Work sucks! It's boring just babbline about your days at work, right?

Maybe, maybe not. Might as well give it a try. Perhaps it's good to remember that my daily life is drastically different from most of yours. I'll try to keep that in mind when writing this. Here, life is just becoming... daily. Let me know if this is boring. I suppose it seems so to me because it's just stuff that needs to be done, and often it's hot outside and I want to go in the shade and relax!

So I met a guy in my village while I was chatting with a friend. My friend and I were having a discussion about why I am not here to hand over free success to the people, without them doing anything. He wanted me to give the village forages and supplies, and he wanted me to give him 500,000cfa. I definitely won this argument by telling him that I am here to help people learn to help themselves. I told him that I am here to work with those who have worked hard, and are still working but not had the means to succeed. Anyway, I met this guy, as I said at the beginning of this paragraph. He was sitting beside us, listening. He was from a village called Gingara about 10 kilometers from mine. He told me he had a banana garden and was having problems with water, and asked if I could help him. We chatted for a while and I said I would go look at his field. So, a few days later I biked out to his village to look at his field. I must say, biking to a village you have never really been to is kinda a unique experience. Here you show up, a lone white person in a village of about 100 pretty isolated people. I can only imagine what goes through these people's heads. All the stereotypes they associate with us just jump right out. I was suddenly surrounded by women who were chatting with me in Pular, asking me who I was and where I came from, and one lady ran to get a rather strange looking clay bead necklace to sell to me. Of course they all burst out laughing several times when I said joke in Pular. The funny thing is, in this village, Pular isn't their first language. This village was a Bedik village. The Bediks live close in hand with the Pular's. The Bediks, in general, are Christian and the Pulars are Muslims. Quite often the Bediks live on the tops of mountains, which I think I've said before. But this particular village was just beside a nice bunch of mountains. Anyway, I asked where my guy lived, whos name was Samuel. Samuel speaks great French and Pular, as well as Bedik. Samuel is his village's Caticist, which is the man who brings people to prayer. Perhaps he is the equivalant to a village preist. Anyway, walked through his fields and discussed what he has been trying to to and what his problems were. Together we came up with the best possible solution to his problem. Now it is my job to go do some research and we will meet again soon to discuss how we will go about the project. That same day, after I went to his village, I went to another village close by. Thiokethian (choke-eh-chan). I have a friend I met in my village that really wanted me to visit her, so I did. Her name is Woori (woo-ree) I just kinda trinkled my way into this village as well, and asked about 5 people how to get to get house, which was the village chiefs house. Woori was thrilled to see me and, seeing how dirty and tired I was, immediately brought me water to shower with, and lent me some of her clean clothes while she washed mine. Then she fed me and mad eme lay down while she proceeded to sit over me and fan me, constantly talking about how glad she was that I came. I'm tellin ya, African hospitality... you can't beat it. While I had originally planned only to stay for a few hours, Woori talked me into spending the rest of the day and thenight there. I really didn't see much of a choice in it, because they killed a chicken for me. Anyway, I had a lot of fun getting to know about the village and the family. I went home the next morning and my sister proceeded to stand over me, yelling at me saying that she was up all night worrying that I was lost and alone in the woods, because I had told her I would be home that previos day. Oops.

A couple of days later, another volunteer, named Matt, came to visit me in my village. Together we traveled to five other villages in one day, actively looking for mango enthusiasts. Matt helped me out with really pushing to find the best farmers. His Pular is a lot better than mine, and he isn't afraid to use it! With Matt we would just arrive at a village, ask for the village chief, and then introduce ourselves, state out purpose and ask to see the best fields and meet the best mango farmers. The first two villages were really cute, quaint villages surrounded by mountains. One village was called Hamadi Heri and the other was called Ndaniaell. In Ndaniell Matt and I left our bikes at the house of a man we had just met (a perfectly nomral thing in Arican culture) and we were lead up a steep, rocky, mountain trail to our next destination. It was a lovely hike, it reminded me of hiking in the mountains at home in Colorado. The only difference was.. well, all of the vegetation and palm trees, and the oasis we stumbled apon that was a secret hiding place for crocs and chimpanzees, one of the last water sources in the dryest part of the year, aka now! It was beautiful. Anyway, we kept climbing and reached a city called Ethies (Eh-chess). Ethies has to be just about the most beautiful city I have ever seen so far in my time here. The houses mixed with the trees in complete harmony, unlike most villages that just kinda chop their way through the trees and stick a village there. Then, scattered throughout the village were some of the biggest Fromagio trees I've ever seen. Basically, they are really beautiful, giant trees. Can't explain them.. just can't. We sat under the tree and were served lunch (nice!) and watched a very old man make a metal hair braider thing while beside him a small black and white kitten scaled the protruding roots of the giant tree. There was one moment in time where the old man looked up and found him self face to face, eye to eye with the kitten, which stopped to look back at him. The old man smiled, and the kitten seemed to smile back. It just a nice moment.
Anyway, Matt and I, after a short break, went down one mountain and up the next to another village called Kessema. There we met up with the village chief who led us around for the next couple hours all over the mountain, showing us water sources, mango orchards in yet another village, called, Angusaka, and finally, he showed us some ancient caves, hidden in the forest just outside of the village. Apparently they were caves that the women and children of the mountain villages hid during war. The chief also told us stories about a woman who was fleeing from soldiers of war and was beheaded and her and her child were turned to stone, and the stone is still on the mountain trail and where the head is supposed to be there is a huge baobab tree. Matt and I saw that rock on our hike down the mountain (sorry, no camera, but it was amazing!). The day was very tiring, but more than worth it. The soil on the top of the mountains is some of the most beautiul, fertil soil I have ever seen. On the mountain villages they already have corn and peanuts 6 inches tall while in my village they haven't even started planting. There was a mango orchard there that has the biggest mango trees I have ever seen, and a banana garden!

So after that adventure I made my way back to Kedougou. There I went to yet another village. I went to Pondala, the village of a fellow agroforestry volunteer named Andy. Together one day he and I went to a roadside village called Diakhaba that "loves to build fences by cutting down trees." There we measured 30ish farms for a big live fence planting project set for July. This project is just the first step in finding a way to fence the entire city without cutting down trees. a fence made from dead wood only lasts a few years. Each fence takes hundreds of adult trees. Not good! Anywy measuring all those farms took a whole day, and a lot of walking in the sun, and it exhausted me, but I learned a lot by working with Andy! The next day we spent in his village and I got to see his tree pepeniere, and we discussed a lot about what kinds of projects he has been doing for his service. :)

Now I am back in Kedougou and waiting for cement to take back to my village so we can make some last minute douches before the rainy season kicks into full gear.

Ha, and today I "accidently" bought an Egret at the market for a dollar that some lady had captured. I set him free, but got a pic.

Fire and Rain Daze

2009-05-28T09:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-08T07:16:00.000-07:00

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. :)

Mango Fun

2009-04-23T06:38:00.000-07:00

Well it seems as though a couple of weeks have passed since I have last written. It seems to me, in a way, more like a year. Spending quality time being the only tubab in your village is almost like living in another world. I walked into the PC house in Kedougou today and another volunteer said hello today and I shouted happily, "Oh my God, English! I feel like I've forgotten what it is like!" In the next few hours several ice cream cones entered my mouth while three languages exited. Pular, French, and English. These people here are now probably some of the only people in the world who can understand my melange of languages! It's pretty cool.

Mangos! It's mango season here and that is what people do. Mangos. They take mangos off the tree and eat them. With all the mango trees around and the hundreds and hundreds of mangos on each tree, you would think there would be too much for 900 people. But no, certainly not. if 900 people want to eat about 5 mangos a day, that adds up! It's the starving season here and mangos are quite a treat! There are pretty much no veggies in my village these days, and no other kinds of fruit. Never. No meat really either. It's corn, rice, peanuts and jumbo. Maybe an onion here and there. Oh, and mangos. Lots of mangos. I eat about 4 or 5 a day. Don't ask about my bowel movements. I'm working on that. Oh, and bofore coming here, I think I ate about 3 whole mangos in my life. Mangos are yummy! I look forward to my 5 a day. And to make food more interesting here I have been upping my Vitacafe (a powdered sweeted milk coffee instant drink, yucky in usa but lovely in my village) to about 2 a day. Yes. And my gas has run out so Dalanda, my sister will wake me up in the morning and give me hot water from the water she is heating for breakfast. My sis btw, is still great! She is exhausted every day from being the only one that works. We are working on this issue...

Oh have I mentioned that the starving season is well on it's way. When we are having the corn couscous with sauce, it's been difficult for the locals to find what to put in the sauce. Now a days they are getting leaves off of trees. Yes. Which reminds me,one day about 7 kids climbed up a tree just outside of my compound and picked all the leaves off. They had just recently sprouted (it'sone of those rare trees that have leaves in the dry season). It was quite a speticle, kids throwing leaves down to women waiting and the bottom and running to get the leaves before another woman, or a cow, got there first. Here is a pic :) Notice how high up those kids are! Oh, and the leaves are yummy, btw. Much better than salty onion water without leaves.

My garden is still almost like my child and it is tucked firmly under my wing. The blistering heat, which easily reaches 130 in the sun (it was actually measured 142 in the sun yesterday), is detrimental for the cold loving cabbage that is flourishing in my garden due to my constant surveylance of my make shift shade structure. The sun has managed to fry a couple cabbage plants on the edge of my shade structure, but the others are all beautiful! Unfortunately, I didn't take a pic. I will next time. Who wants to see a bunch of cabbage anyway?

Cabbage is the only vegetable I have in my garden. The others have been toasted or pulled and eaten. Don't get me wrong though, there are other things sprouting: Trees, of course! My pepeniere has begun sprouting and it's perdy. Thats all I have to say about that.

So I've been kicking myself into gear and I had the chief of the village call a town meeting. Nobody showed up. What a damper, eh? Perhaps it's because they called for it to be at 10:00 in the evening and people were eating, sleeping, or drinking tea! Heck, I wanted to get out of there to pull water. Yes, I have been pushed to pull water at night now because of all the issues of people throughout the day. There have been several issues at the forage and I've been having fun with it. On days that I get bored in my hut I will go out and interview villagers about the water problem. It's kinda like I'm in a mystery novel. It's hard to explain this, so I will stop. Needless to say, there is a water problem in my village which makes my job rather difficult. Maybe I can help do something about the water problem?

In the meantime, pulling water at night is great because African women, or people that pull water, are afraid of the dark. There is no one there at night except the occasional man and his bike and bidons. They are all super nice. The night water pulling crew are now buddies.

Oh, and here is just one example of why it's not very fun to pull water during the day. People waiting in line while people are pumping non stop trying to water their cows. It's the Thiabedji equivalent to a Los Angeles rush hour. Very stressful. I've witnessed several physical fights that have come out of this issue. Oh and I finally got a pic of the forage. This is kinda a medium amount of people. There are cows waiting but most aren't in the shot.

There is a red chicken that hangs out in my compound that can fly. She flies into my garden and digs up my stuff so she can lay in the damp dirt because it's cool. I have turned that chickens life into a living hell because she killed several of my veggies and completely terminated a eucalyptus germination bed that I have been watering for 2 weeks. Everyone within 1000 feet of me knew I had it in for that chicken. The chicken knew I had it in for the chicken. Every time she saw me she would give me her upset "squawk squawk!" before tucking her tail-feathers and running, even before I started chasing her. Haha, I got many hysterical laughters thrown my way as I circled my compound swinging a huge bamboo stick and chucking rocks with my other stick, shouting curse words in Pular. They would ask me what veggies she destroyed now and I would tell them. After about 4 days of this I stopped seeing the chicken altogether. A couple days later I saw her at a different neighbors house. I saw her from quite a distance away but still when she saw me she freaked out. Hehe. She knows better now!

Hehe, so you guys still think I had a meeting in which nobody showed up. Don't worry! There was another one the next afternoon and lots of people showed up and the meeting lasted over an hour! We discussed trees, trees and trees! Then we discussed douches. I am going to continue with a douche project the the volunteer before me was working on. The village was happy to hear that. After my meeting I had a lot of potential farmers to work with, and a lot of excitement to start making pepenieres! I also visited the best "tree field" in my village. The only bananas and the only successful mango orchard in my village. It was very interesting! Bananas need a lot of water to grow and this man did it! His field just happened to be by a river with a part tucked under for flooding for the rainy season, so voila, water!

Here are the bananas. Actually kinda dry now because there is no water. :P

Water in Pular is Ndiem. Cool huh? Ndiem is very important and very hard to come by. Sorry I'm talking nonsense, I'm kind of sleepy.

The puppy is good. I don't know if I mentioned it but he is the puppy of Aggie, the family's dog that came from a volunteer that lived in my village about 3 years ago. She has about two litters a year. Hendu is now the last puppy around. The last girl was lucky, just as I was handing her over to my brother who was going to go strangle her in the forest (we had no choice, no one wanted her), a man said he would take her. He made me name her, I called her jack because it was the only thing I could think of that he could pronounce. Here is a pick of Jack on her day of reckoning. She is lovely.

Anyway, my pup! He seems to have brains. He is growing. I've been bonding with my kids a lot. I realize that before coming here I had pretty much no experience with kids. In American I went to a kid's 1 year old birthday party and had no idea how to treat a baby. Now I play with my 1 year old sister, Fatu, all the time. We are like best buds! I've become my own self proclaimed professional at getting my 4 year old sister, Dienaba, to stop crying. I like to make faces at my 6 year old brother, Usuman, while we are eating. It makes him laugh.

Here is Aggie, Dienaba, and Fatu. Dienaba was messing with Aggie putting lolly pop sticks between her toes. Aggie is very patient with the kids but when they start poking her or hitting her with sticks she will growl at them and My sis will hear and tell the kids, "Achu bareru!" or "Stop dog!" (stop messing with the dog)

Im getting tired of eating rice and corn and peanuts all the time. I don't tell my family this because it would hurt their feelings. The starving season is only beginning and my family has no money. Yay! I've lost lots of weight. It's cool. I'm helping my family out a lot. They are my family, after all. My brother sent me about one billion drink mix things. Thank you, brother, my sugar is set. Sleping outside is great. My whole fam sleeps outside. There isn't a huge bug problem because it's the dry season and a lot of flying insects die. Oh, here is my sis and 2 of her kids sleeping outside. I opened my door and had to take a pic.

Ok, closing thought! I came back to Kedougou yesterday with the auto Lumo, or the market bus. Every wednesday an african bus thing caled an alhum takes a bunch of supplies to restock the boutiques. It also takes people. Then it drives back the same day. The ride is 2 dollars. So I hitched a ride yesterday, sitting snuggles up with African women all sittingon sacks of corn. I will be spending the next week in Kedougou, and we are going to a nearby small city called Makko for work purposes. A regional strategy meetting/regional getaway. I will take the car back to my village the following wednesday. Im taking the car because it would be hard to carry a 120lb sack of rice, a queen sized foam matress, 50ish oranges, a propane gas thing, and myself back to my village on a bike.

So a picture. Our auto Lumo got a flat tire about halfway home. This is never a big deal, btw, flat tires just haappen. So we all got off while they fixed it and I was bored so I just started taking pics and then made someone take a picture of my andd got several people to be in it with me. So here is the pic. It was taken yesterday, so it's new. yay!

The Heat is On

2009-04-09T06:33:00.000-07:00

It's April, and for us Senegalese Peace Corps Volunteers that means its hot outside! I believe that it gets up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in some places. I don't know how hot it gets in my village because I don't have a thermometer but when lunch is over but during the day time its hard to do much its so hot. The whole village does pretty much nothing between noon and 5:00pm. A couple of days ago after lunch I wanted to lay down. Its supposed to be a few degrees cooler in the hut so I put my plastic mat thing on the floor and laid on it and just stared at the ceiling as sweat dripped down my whole body. You have to lay carefully as well, if you have any part of your skin touching any other skin its a sweat trap, so you have to really spread out. I have a bed with a mattress but it is a heat trap and I haven't even laid on it once in a couple of weeks. Anyway after laying for about 20 minutes staring blankly and occasionally shoeing my dog away, who was curious as to why I was on the floor, I gave up trying to sleep and went back outside to sit with my sis and a bunch of other people who were braiding each other. As it turned out it was cooler outside, but only because there was a breeze. If there is no wind it is a lot hotter outside.
At night my sleep schedule is strange. After dinner I lay on a bamboo table with my sis and a kid or two and we kinda chat 9:30 then we go pull water. We have oved to pulling water at night because there are less people. Then we lay back down and fall asleep until about midnight. Then something wakes me up and I go and sleep in my backyard for the rest of the night. It gets cool and pleasant at night. I love sleeping outside. I sleepon a fold out cot. I can basically sleep on any surface now. hard serfices are no problem. Heck, yesterday I took a nap in a pile of leaves behind a rock.
The hot weather doesn't always stop me. A couple of days ago I put on my gardening hat and sunglasses and a and built a bamboo and mosquito net shade structure for my future Chinese cabbage plot. (pictured without net)

It took a good few hours of working in the hottest part of the day. My mom came up to me when I was done and told me that I shouldn't be working in the sun, that it would hurt my body. Oh well. So yeah, I have a cabbage and tomato pepeniere just because. We had planted cabbage several times and something kept eating it so I made a mosquito net cover for it and tried again. Here is my baby cabbage. Perdy, isnt it?

There is regular cabbage which might die in the heat, and there is Chinese cabbage which is supposed to be more heat tolerant. I plan on giving them both shade and when it grows I bet I can get my mom to sell it in our weekly market. Then I will let the family fight over who gets to spend the money. Argh. Oh and then there is the possibility that the heat could kill it anyway, or something else. Oh well.
So April is a special month for us Agroforestry volunteers because that is the time that most of the tree pepineres are started. I started by making my own this week, just because. I got sand (I could write a novel on my sand collecting experiences, but this is all you get), and manure, and mixed it together. I dug a hole. Then it was time to fill the tree sacks so I told my mom one morning, who was sitting around munching on a green mango, that I needed some children to put dirt in bags for me. She called over my little 6 year old brother, spouted off some rapid Pular to him and off he went. He returned with about 15 kids from ages 2-11. They filled about 150 sacks in about 20 minutes. It was an amazing sight. They were all so happy to go into the Tubabs garden area and work for her. They all worked at their own pace, some filling up sacks quickly with no problem and then there was the 2 year old who came up to me crying with an empty sack in his hand. I would help him open the sack, show him how to put dirt in it and he would approach me 5 minutes later with a sack about 25% full. That was pretty darn cute. Here is a pic of the kids filling pots. The little boy standing in the light blue is the 2 year old.

After all the sacks were filled and we moved them into the hole I dug I gave each kid a nice piece of tattoo soccer chewing gum and we had a tattoo chewing gum party. The big kids helped the little kids put their tattoos on and I helped as well. It was a fun day.

So soon hopefully the pepineres will be sprouting up all over the village. Im hoping to do a few large projects and several small ones in my first year. Oh, and I dont think I mentioned this but a couple of weeks ago we had an agroforestry conference where all the Senegal agfo volunteers came together in Kedougou and we all talked about our experiences and got to discuss work and ask questions and we got seeds. It was really helpful.
Life in the village is... happening. It's hot. I've gone on nature adventures (pictured below) a couple of times to get some time away from "o haali tun," (He was just joking) and "a fenay" (You're lying).

My sister keeps reminding me that it's all part of the culture. Still it can be tiring when people constantly try to chose your future husband and when every other word out of their mouth is them asking you for something, including the shirt off your own back. It seems sometimes as if the conversation never goes beyond any of that, which makes one occasionally wonder what worth they are to the villagers. I take my sisters words to heart though and I realize that I'm still adjusting to a new culture, and in turn I am finding out more about myself in seeing how I deal with cultural clashes. Other than wanting time to myself here and there, I generally take it pretty well. It helps to see things from their side as well. Perhaps they don't quite know what to say to a stranger and that is the easiest thing to say. Like when someone is really tall, people tend to say, "Hey, you are really tall."

Just for the record, here is an example of words I hear lots and lots and lots and lots..
I like your panya, give it to me. Give me your shirt. Hi Dienaba (me). How is your garden? When the carrots are ready will you give me some? Oh and some salad seeds to? Good morning. No, I didn't eat breakfast (lie). Can you give me something to eat? Bring me some American food from your room. I had another man try to physically drag me ino my room so I would give him some American food from it ( and no, people don't know I have food in there, they assume). Give me a mango. Help me find a white wife. Marry me. Marry my friend. I twisted my wrist, will you give me a bandage? Give me a stuffed animal. Give me a radio. Let me use your phone. I'm leaving town, give me a present. Hey what are you doing? Watering your garden? Thats nice, can I borrow your knife? Can you give me some soap? When you go to Kedougou, bring me back some phone credit. Yes, I know I can buy it here but I don't have any money and I need to make a call. Buy me an MP3 player. Let me use your knife so I can protect myself. And the list goes on. About 9 out of 10 interactions sometimes it seems starts with "give me this." One of my friends every time I see him, augments what he asks for. The last time it was 500,000francs. I realize that people are joking. But often times they aren't as well. I give all sorts of answers, some work, some don't. I walked by a group of old men one day and one of them shouted me me, "Hey! I want a white wife and I want her to come live here and give me 8 children!" I replied by saying, "That is wonderful, I want 500 million francs and 700 cows and 200 sheep." Then I would look to the man sitting next to him and ask, "And you? What do you want?"

On another note, it's great having a dog. Well it has been great. Though when people see him walking with me down the street they tell me "Hey, give me your dog." Thats awesome because people here don't even like dogs that much. Raising a dog in my village will be a fun experience. He eats rice and peanut butter and corn and beans instead of dog food. He has no fences and leashes don't exist. He is covered in fleas and ticks (I take them off every day but they keep getting back on him). He has no vaccinations, he has all his dew claws and there is no spaying and neutering here, it just doesn't exist. I'm the only one who touches my dog. I always wash my hands afterwards. So far he knows only me and everyone else is a stranger. I think it's a good way for him to start out. He is starting to follow me places like to the store or the health clinic. He is good at walking with me. He gets let out of my yard in the evening and early morning and then he often finds something dead to eat to feed is need for protein. So far he is a good dog. I would say he is only about 9 weeks old right now. This is Fatu, my baby sis and Hendu in my hut.

Thats all for now.

Rambling

2009-03-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

Today I would like to write about random stuff. Nothing big has happened yet I am definitely not bored. Ive been in my village for the most part but have been to Kedougou a couple of times. Work is still in progress, and I learn more every day. When I am in Kedougou I have been going with my friend Alan to different places that have different Agfo techniques. Alan has a super counterpart. I am going to now assume that you guys don't know what a counterpart is, so I guess I will explain it. Every volunteer is assigned a local "friend" who is supposed to help them with either integration into their village or city. There is also professional counterparts who work with the volunteer with work related things. Alan's counterpart has an amazing field that puts several Agfo techniques to use and I got to see that. I also went to Bandafasi, a neighboring village to meet my new counterpart. We discussed that importance and the difficulty of sensitizing the public to the problem of deforestation and the positives of introducing agroforestry techniques into their farms.
There is a mentality in my village and I think it is a mentality that is common in Senegalese villages. While many people are poor and struggling to eat and make a living, they often still have a hard time accepting or showing interest in ideas of improvement. If you tell a local that it is bad to cut down trees without planting some in return he will say, "why?" and point to all of the trees surrounding him. They seem to like the idea of some of the pros of planting trees, like getting fruit or keeping cows out, but it seems to me as though they don't understand the process it takes to get the trees to where we want them to be. That takes years of dedication. Young trees need to be protected and looked after. The best way to teach the people, according to my counterpart, is to show them. You find a dedicated farmer who wants to use our techniques to improve his crop yields, and then a few years later when he gets twice as many corn and peanuts,others will start asking and will have the desire to change as well. So for us volunteers its not the quantity of change we can do while we are here as much as the quanity. When we are done with our service the best outcome would be to have a few farmers that have successfully learned and have put to use trees in their field, and are willing to help others to improve as well.
Sorry, that was just a little work blab.
Oh, here is somethings cool I learned. Cashew trees are one of the fruit trees in Senegal. I never knew what they looked like. They have apples attached to the nut. They are edible and taste kinda like an apple but kinda not. I asked why I haven't seen the fruits sold and my friend's counterpart said that there is a problem with allergies to the fruit, and if you drink milk with the fruit you can get sick. Hmmm.

Ive been trying to stay active here in Senegal. Biking is by far the funnest thing to do here. I actually look forward to riding to or from Kedougou. Now that is the hot dry season I get up as the sun does and dont have much of a problem with the heat. I now know my road very well. I know every hill and every bump. I'm still getting to know the monkeys and birds and lizards and other little critters that cross the road. Ha. Last week I was leaving my village to go to town and I got stuck in a traffic jam of about 400 sheep. They were taking up the entire road and absolutely would not get out of the way. It took a few minutes of "acha"ing them until I actually got to pass. Man, and cows! The cows here are more tame than any cows I know. I think this is because during the dry season people have to water them by hand.
Water. Sorry, Im skipping from one subject to another. Bikes, heat, animals, now water, and cows and bees! Cows are a pain in the butt when I am pulling water. They stand there by the forage waiting to be watered and they just dont move. Here is a mental picture. The forage (I need to post a pic of this) is on a little hill, concrete. Youclimb it to pump the water and then you put the water on your head and walk down the hill. Its not super safe. It can be slippery. Cows like to stand right in the way. Once I was walking down the hill thing with 20 liters of water on my head and there was a cow that didn't move. I just walked into her, and she still didn't move, so I just kinda duked it out with her, using body weight. Eventually she moved. Oh, another fun forage story. Bees. Bees drink at the forage. Every day millions and billions of bees are swarming thee damn thing to get a drink. People get stung all the time. Ive been stung twice now. I think I got stung in one of the worst ways last time. I was walking down the hill with water on my head and a bee got stuck between the bottom of my foot and my flip flop and I stepped on him and of course he stung me. Of course he got stuck there too. So there I was with water on my head hopping around on one foot screaming, spilling water everywhere, surrounded by cows and people just staring at me. The bee was stuck in my foot and very unhappy and every time I put my foot down the stinger just went in deeper. I could do nothing to get the bee off cuz of the water on my head. A man came down and helped me get the water off my head, then he grabbed my foot and brushed the bee off. Everyone around me was laughing, including me. I was soaking wet. It hurt. Anyway, we got the water back on my head and I gimped home. So, I'm limping these days. I don't recommend getting stung on the bottom of the foot.
Our dog had puppies. I love animals, a lot. Well my brother said I could have a puppy and they would take care of it after I leave as long as I got a boy (boys dont have babies). So, I have a puppy.

The whole dog culture here is completely different than it is in the states. The first thing I did to my pup when I brought him into my yard was take about 20 ticks out of his ears, and bathed him to, not only get the filth off, but to drown the 50 something fleas living on him as well. I named the dog Hendu, which means wind in Pular. People dont really touch dogs here. The dogs kinda just hang around the compounds and eat food and protect the people at night. A common activity for kids in neighborhoods is throwing sticks and rocks at dogs. Personally, I prefer throwing sticks and rocks at ducks. When the puppies are ready we just kinda give word out to the people and people come and take them as they please. Of course everyone took only males and all of the females remained. Many people kept coming and asking but when I said that there were only girls left they left without a dog. Life is just hard for female puppies in Africa. If you want to look at it in a positive light, it is a way of controlling dog population. My brother took the female dogs into the "brush" where he thinks they will get eaten by jackals. I think they will starve. Anyway, if every female dog lived and gave birth to 10 puppies twice a year the dog population would boom. That just wouldn't do. there is no food for dogs. Everyone who has a dog gives them leftovers. I look at the dogs wandering the village and about 9 out of 10 dogs are male. I know why now.

So my neighbor slaughtered a goat a couple of weeks ago and I watched the meat harvesting. Meat here is interesting. Meat preservation is interesting. The way they eat meat is interesting. The meat is divided into handy little piles. Anyone can buy a pile for about 1000cfa, or two dollars. Because our neighbor eats with out family we always get some of the meat for free. I always eat the meat if it is cooked the same day it is killed. The second day, maybe. It depends on the smell. There is one point in which the meat starts to have that decayed smell, and while the locals still eat it up, I have a hard time stomaching it. Call me American I guess. My sis and brother were upset with me one day because I couldn't stomach the peanut sauce that tasted like rotten meat, so I didn't eat much of it. They thought I was upset and didn't believe me when I said I didn't like the meat part of it. Oh! And here they eat EVERY part of the animal. Stomach, intestines, liver, heart, you name it. This goat day kinda freaked me out. In the evening the family brought out a pot of food and there was a goats head in it. They took pieces out and chewed the meat off the bones of the skull. Then they each got a handful of the little squishy pieces of meat at the bottom of the pan. It was clearly goats brains. They kept telling me to come try some, how delicious it was. I politely declined. My brother then proceeded to grill the goats feet from the knee down, and then scrapped the hair off the split the hoofs and grilled it some more, then put it in a put of boiling water with some tree roots. He said it was medicine to help with stomach aches.

goat feet.

That is about all the nonsense I feel like writing about today. Hope its not too confusing.
Still loving Senegal.

The Wonderful Things About Growth...

2009-03-04T06:08:00.000-08:00

Well I just spent three weeks away from my village to get trained. Now I have been back for about two weeks, and have been able to follow up on my gardens, and am continuing to find my place in my village. When I made those gardens I had no idea what would happen with them. I kinda of left it up to the people because I figured they had years of experience with growing things.

Well the gardens that came from the ones I made were all over the board. Several gardens started sprouting but were eaten by bugs. Some gardens never sprouted and some have sprouted amazingly and grown faster than weeds. For the gardens that haven't sprouted I have come up with several reasons why. Chickens and birds can get it and dig holes, scattering the seeds. This happened to me before. Bleh. Also, there was a one week period in which the forage was broken and there was a huge water shortage. Two gardens died because people didn't water them at all for three or four days. They told me this. Some of the gardens sprouted some things but not others. This were the strangest cases for me. I am replanting several of the gardens and taking pest control problems more into account.

The attitudes of the people whos gardens didn't succeed were surprisingly good. They were just a big sad and confused, and glad to hear of any suggestions I had and were excited about the idea to replant. Most of the gardens that failed grew a few things, like cucumbers, zuccini and green beans, so they were happy to have something. I swear, those things grew in every single garden, even the worst!

After all this time it's starting to sink in what the most important veggies are for my villagers. At first I just wanted to plant everything for them with the idea that any variety is great for their health. But there are veggies that every single person wants, and wants them bad. So, for anyone super interested in what Senegalese village people want to grow, I made a list of three categories.

Veggies they really, really, really want: Lettuce, Cabbage, Okra, Beans, Manioc, hot peppers, and Jaxatu (a local sort of bitter eggplant).

Veggies they know and love: Tomatoes, Carrots, a giant squash thing, watermelon.

Veggies they don't really know but plant if I have them: Chinese turnip (Nave), Cucumber, Zuccini (They love to eat the leaves of this, ever tried it?), Green/Red/Yellow pepper, and green beans.

Some interesting things that have been happening in my garden. First, a pic of my garden, taken yesterday ;) Oh and that is corn drying in the middle.Our plot was made on a piece of land just outside of our compound, where trash used to be thrown. Heck that may actually be why our garden is growing so well, because of all that compost. Well we had quite a few "mystery weeds" sprout so one day I went to weed and before picking everything that I hadn't planted, I opted to ask my sister what the weeds were. Well, We have about 10 baby baobab trees growing in my lettuce plot. Baobabs, in case you didn't know, is only the most amazing and beautiful tree in the world. We also eat it in our breakfast 'porridge' almost every day, so hundreds of seeds get thrown out every week or so. I wanted to raise some baobabs just to learn, and maybe plant them somewhere. I have lots of seeds for them. Who know they would grow themselves for me!

Anyway, here is a pic of my baby baobab weed.

Big baobab. happens to be the one I climbed in Oct.
Oh and just for fun, this is me and the biggest baobab in the region :) And a random guy who "protected me" the whole way.Another 'weed' that I was about to pick turned out to be Okra. Okra (or Takko in purlar) is the one plant everyone wanted but I didn't have seeds for. They eat it every single day in a common dish, Mafe Tiga. Mafe Tiga is a peanut butter sauce that put on rise or corn (specially prepared corn, crushed and either steamed or boiled.) In the Mafe sauce there is water, little tomatoes, peanut butter, salt, Jumbo (africa's seasoned salt) and okra. Crushed dried okra makes the peanut butter sauce thicker. I guess they throw some of those seeds out, or they just get blown around, because we have Okra sprouting in every plot. Oh, and corn! That just sprouts everywhere! We let that grow as well. All the rest of the things I pick.

So I've learned that you don't always have to go to the store to buy seeds. We eat a sauce with Couscous every day or two that has beans in it. They buy the dried beans in the store and add them to the boiling pot. The beans are seeds. Plant them and they grow. Same with dried Okra. And local fruit trees! Seeds are everywhere here. It's fun to learn how to find your own.
I've been asking my sis in the mornings to save the seeds from the fruit she adds to our breakfast. There are two kinds of fruit that goes in our breakfast porridge, called Mbuiri. One is Bwuey, or baobab fruit, and the other is tamarin. Its all a kind of dried fruit. Well she puts boiling water on the seeds to get the fruit off, which basically cleans them off for me. So I just take them and dry them.

There are lots and lots of fruits here in Senegal that I have never even heard of in the states. Maybe I'll post some pics. Or if you are really interested you can just look them up. One is Baobab fruit. It's great! You wait until it is dry and falls off the tree to eat it. It's covered by a hard shell that you break by hitting against something. Inside is a mess of dry white stuff. It dissolves in water, and if you add sugar to that it is a delicious juice, more delicious than any juice I have ever tasted in America. You can also just suck on it like candy, as it comes in bite sized pieces, and you just spit out the seeds. Another kind of fruit is tamarind. It's brown, kinda looks like tree pea pods. You generally dissolve them in water and they add flavor to food, and you can also make a sort of juice out of it, which tastes kind or like tea, a bit lemony as well. It's really good. Every month or two a new fruit comes into season and they are all over my village. Right now tomboros are in season. They are tiny little berry type things. They are yellowish orange. They don't taste good at all until they dry up and fall on the ground. Then you just pop them in your mouth and chew gently around the seed and it is sweet and really good! They are all over my village and every day old ladies go out and gather them for hours, hoping to send them to the city to sell. One lady passes by my house every day and gives me two big handfuls of tomboros. I love that. I kinda collect the seeds for those too.

There are also fruit here that everyone know.s Mangos here are huge. They come into season in April. They have several kinds of citrus fruits, like oranges, lemons and limes. There are papayas and bananas. Apples are hard to come by but they exist. I think papaya is my new favorite fruit. Those things are absolutely delicious.

Just some real quick village happenings update.

They found gold in my village on a hill about 2 kilometers outside of the village. Lots of mining is on it's way down. I went to see it one day and man is that a dangerous job. They are digging holes straight down into the hill, up to 100 or 150ft deep. They climb down by little handles carved in the rock. They dig with little hand held tools. I have seen some of the gold. Being the only white person around lets you pretty much do whatever you want. Everyone shows me their hole proudly and invites me to descend and do some digging. I politely decline each request, saying I don't feel like dying today. Them man everyone hired to oversee the whole project is a friend of my friend and he shows me all the findings, and tells me what to look at and where to look. Who would have known I'd learn about gold mining in Senegal. There are supposed to be a lot of people coming to my village start their own holes, in the hope of striking it rich. Hmmm.... There are already about 15 holes going on. They deeper ones are just starting to give gold. It's looking good, according to the boss man.

This is my friend leading me around to look at all the mines Each hole has a hand made shade structure above it. The hot season is starting to shade is crucial.

Some guys posing for a picture that I promised to print for them. They are sitting proudly over their hole, which is about 60 feet deep now.

The descent.

Not so exciting, I'm learning to cook. My sister is teaching me to cook so that eventually I'll be able to make a whole meal by myself, without people telling me what to do. We are starting with the peanut butter sauce and rice. There really are so many varieties of things to cook. We have this dish just about every day though, so it's a good one to start with. Considering that I don't really know how to cook in American, I find it interesting that I'mofficially learning in an African village, using African cookies supplies. We stir with a stick instead of a spoon. Everything is made on and ground in a kitchen hut over an open fire. Everything is made from absolute scratch. It really is beautiful if you think about it. There is never any measuring of anything, it's all done with eyes and judgment. I'm learning that as well. Oh and our 9 chickens live in the kitchen, and they sleep there at night. My sis is often making me pick bugs off her that get on her from the chickens and crawl around on her. I had always made fun of her for that. Now that I'm spending so much time in the kitchen, she has been picking them off me as well. I've started preaching the idea of making a miniature house just for the chickens.

Here is Mafe Tiga and rice. And yes, this is how people eat it, with their hands. I'm ust about to dig in as well. I use a spoon ;p

I have lots more to say but I'm going to end this for now because I think I am boring whoever is reading this. Questions and comments welcomed and appreciated.
Until next time.

work?

2009-02-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

So I am new in a village of people and Im trying to learn the language and the culture and to add on to all of that, Im suppose to be starting some sort of work. Well, I am an agroforestry volunteer. During training we learned how to make tree pepenieres, but we also learned how to make gardens. I decided to make a garden in my compound to learn how to a make a garden in Senegal. It turned out that I used everything we learned in training. I made the garden just like I was taught. Before arriving in I had no gardening experience except for the little backyard garden that I made at home before coming here. That turned out to be a blessing here as well. So anyway, I bought a rake, pick, shovel and watering can and biked them out to my village. We got a place fenced off and started the garden. I learned from a little “gardening in senegal”book which plants were transplantable andd which were direct seeded. We did a pepeniere and direct seeded others. Overall the garden was good except something ate the salad and cabbage and the onions sucked. We still had tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, carrots, turnips, greenbeans and zuccini.
Ok so people knew I was making a garden because in village life, people know everything about what is going on. They just do. I wanted to make the garden to learn, but people kept asking to make their own. So, I had this idea. When I was in Dakar I bought a whole bunch of seeds. I went back to my village and anyone who told me they know I had a garden and they wanted one too, I replied by telling them that if they wanted to make a garden, they could make one and I would provide the seeds. I figured, why not? It would give the people an opportunity to have their own vegetables and maybe I would get to know more about how people got things done. I told this to a lot of people. I didn't quite know what this would end up doing because I didn't know much about my people, their customs, their work ethic and I had no idea what they knew or didn't know about gardening.
The first garden we made was at the health center about a week after word started. Two weeks later, the day before leaving my village I did my 15th garden. My small idea turned into me waking up in the morning, walking out of my hut and having women standing outside waiting to discuss gardens. At night I would sit in my sisters hut with her and the whole room would be filled with women wanting to make gardens. People took me seriously! I said to all of them, “get a fenced in place, get some manure and then come get me.” Well, people came.
I did gardens of all shape and sizes. I did several backyard gardens, where people didnt need to get fence. I also had people go all out. The wife of the chief of the village and 4 of her woman friends bought a ton of fence and made the biggest enclosure of everyone. They each have two plots, which makes 10 altogether. One man bought fence and made a lot right next to a well, which is very smart because he doesn't have to carry water. For those two weeks of garden making you could see me on a daily basis walking around the whole village with rake and watering can in hand. I swear every person in the village came to me while I was making my rounds and asking me for a garden. It reminded me kind of a nature show about sharks, when there is meat available. Yes. It was a bit overwhelming but boy did I learn FAST what I can and cant do with people. I got to learn about how much they knew about gardening. Many people who wanted gardens actually knew how to make them and maintain them. I think of all the people I made gardens with, only a small handful had anything beyond basic experience. When I was standing in the plots of people ready to begin working, I would always ask them where they wanted the garden, what they wanted to plant, who would water and stuff like that The answers I got made their mindset clear. Gardens mean you get vegetables. They wanted lots and lots of vegetables. I helped them draw out their plots (they always wanted to make their whole yard one giant garden). I helped with the manure and the watering techniques (I own one of the two watering cans in the village, so there are other methods). I helped dig and plant and left them with instructions. I had a helper for a lot of it. My 15 year old brother came with me for a lot of the gardens and helped translate and work. Alan, another volunteer came and visited me and I put him to work as well. We made lots of gardens. Then I left with 15 other names written down of people who want more gardens. I figured I would come back and survey the gardens I made and continue when I learn more. If a sentence could say a thousand words this one would be a good example. I learned a hell of a lot about the way things work in my village through making these gardens. I look forward to continuing to learn.

Oh and I bet you are asking, "what about trees?" Well tree pepeniere season is coming. I just spent 2 weeks in theis learing about tree stuff. More about that will come soon!

pictures?

2009-02-13T15:57:00.000-08:00

quick note to let you know that i finally posted pics! Here is the link

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047653&id=72202129&l=7a28a

Yeah so those are all from like a 2 day period. I really have a lot more really good ones. its just a start.

A Month part 2: Learning a new culture

2009-02-08T03:06:00.000-08:00

Culture time! There is so much I could say about living in and learning about a new culture.. Its a complicated subject I think. Oh well, here goes nothin.

I've thought about what to write and have decided to touch on the main things about the culture here that are different from American culture. Then I'll kind of say what ive learned by living amongst it, as an American of course.
In ASenegal there is city life and there is village life. The two are very, very different. Many city people have never been to a village and vise versa. I live in a village so I will be talking about village life.

So, some things to talk about.
Lets start with Islam! I am learning about the daily lives of muslims and how they see the world. Low and behold, they are just like normal people! A lot of them pray 5 times a day and many don't. They wear differet clothes. They have different holidays, like Kordite and Tabaski and a strange new year celebration. The way they celebrate their holidays in my village is different because they are poor and dont have electricity and stuff. What they basically do is braid eachothers hair, wear nice clothes and nice jewlery and nice shoes and walk about the village and great people. There is dancing too. African dancing that I know I will never be able to duplicate. I have some African clothes but I dont usually wear them. i like my clothes too much! So, basically living among muslims is great. They are nice. They have different values however and I find some of them to be great and some not so great but that is just my opinion.

I bet you guys are all wondering about polygamy. In the states its only crazy religious cults that have men with multiple wives, right?
Well that isnt so here. Having two wives is normal. Heck, having 3 or 4 is accepted, but more in villages than cities. Honestly though, that part of culture seems to be catching up to western views in cities. But once again, I live in a village. My sister's dad has four wives. Her mom is the first wife. When there are multile wives it is important to know which is the first; second third, etc. It counts and roles change. All my sis's dads' wives have between 5 and 8 kids. So, Dalanda has a ton of siblings, and pretty much all of them live in the village, or in a near by village. Many of the kids are grown and have families of their own. Dalanda's big brother has two wives, both of which are my good friends. Its normal here to have multiple wives, it just is. I pay very close attention to how it works and why it happens because it doesnt exist where I grew up. Here, amonsgt these people, it works. The culture here is different. Men and women have roles that have become rather concrete. The question of love in these marriages is the one that people usually ask about, and its also the most complicated. My answer is, it depends on each person. Cant really explain it here :p

The most important things in these relationships is a sense of traditional family values, and building a community that supports each other. Men have their roles and women have theirs. Oftentimes it is better for both the man and the woman if the man takes a second wife. When there are two wives they share the chores and help with the kids, etc. Men and women often dont spend much time with their spouses. They generally fall into their working roles during the day, and for that it is nice to have help.
Being general, the work roles of men and women are very different. I often see men sitting around doing nothing. I rarely or never see women doing that, except one friend because she has the day off work because her husbands second wife is doing the chores that day. Men do work, some have full time jobs even. But in my village, most have no work to do at all. They gather firewood and do house construction things. They make tea and sit down and chat. Its fun to chat with them.
The women work all the time. American eyes would see them as super athletes, made that way by being housewives the African way. Its hard work, let me tell ya.

Some great things about my village that Americans probably dont take into account. All of the villagers here own their own houses and their property. They made their houses with their bare hands out of sand and mudd and cow poop... Or cement if they can afford it; sometimes nice cinder block brick type things. The majority of the food that the poorest people eat is grown in their own fields. They dont rely on only money to eat. The food they buy makes it taste better, but they cuold eat nonetheless. This is not really a part of the American culture. In America people own houses, sure, but not until struggling for 30 something years of having their house own them. A house is a home no matter how big or small and the houses in my family are enough. Its cool to see that. I tried explaining to my sister how many americans were poor even though they have a house with electricity and running water and she just couldnt understand. The huts here are great. Its just like being in your bedroom. The livingroom and kitchen just happens to be outside which is fine because its warm outside.

Oh, weather. Its not culture but this is how it is. The seasons are basically the same as American seasons; you just add a million degrees. fall and winter are october through february. There is gradually gets "chilly" in the nights. It probably gets as low as 60 degrees. The days are still warm. Its the season of the year where you can be neight hot nor cold. Spring and summer is march through September. Its freaking hot, day and night. I havnet experienced the hottest part yet, which is aparently April. There is hot dry and a hot rainy season. Its painfully hot. People bath three times a day. In the rainy hot season nothing is ever dry, even the air.
So
March-May: Painfuly hot dry season
June-September: Hot rainy season
October-February: Cool dry season (heaven)

The cool dry season is the only time you dont constantly think about how uncomfortable you are, i.e. "man its hot," or "i cant stop sweating," or "if it gets any hotter i think i will die," etc. So, if you want to come here and be mildly comfortable, come in the cool dry season. If you want to come and see the green beautifulness come in the hot rainy season. If you want to feel the heat and see the brown, come in the hot dry.

im feeling finished with this blog. Next up is work.

A Month in My VIllage

2009-02-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

So I just spent the longest time in 11 years that I havent logged onto the internet. I went about 28 days, and it felt great! It's really nice to know that there is a life out there without technology everywhere.

I spent 25 days in my village with the hopes of doing some last moment immersion before doing back to Theis for some more training on Agroforestry. It is normal to spend a week or two in their village and then leave for a few days to catch up on work, good food and other volunteers. It often seems that when you leave your village, and then return all refreshed, you kind of start over there. Life is a lot different when alone in the village than it is at the regional peace corps house.

My month in the village was great. I dont have a lot of time online to type it all out orderly so, thanks to a suggestion from my bro, Ill space it out into three blogs. 1. Settling in, 2. Culture lessons and 3. Work. I will start with settling in.

Each day this month was different, yet lovely. Once you realize that you are staying there, you really start to live. I went back and forth between daily schedules all month. I stayed busy every day. I think I took maybe 2 naps the whole month. I started the month off with a fitness plan. I was worried about being in one place for a long time because I tend to get bored doing that. So, I rode my bike in the mornings before it got hot. I rode 40 kilometers for a few days then took a day off. I only did this for the first few weeks. I must say I got in great shape. I also got auite daring on the road that I took. Eventually I got daring and rode all the way to Kedougou and back. I did that twice. The second time, a day that I rode 80k, was the last day I rode my bike. That is when I started getting distracted by other things in the mornings.

Daily activities are plentiful in my life in the village. Dalanda, my sister, makes every day fun. There is just one thing about our relationship that makes every day great for the both of us. She likes to help me in any way she can, and I like to help her in any way I can. And, we both need a lot of help! My sis has a tough role in the family. She cooks 3 meals a day most days for 8 or more people. She cleans house, washes laundry and draws water for herself, her husband and her kids. She does all the dishes, and more chores that I cant think of right now. Basically she works her butt off from before sunrise to well after sunset. She is exhausted every day. I love helping her with this stuff. She teaches me everything in turn and we basically just brighten each others day. Dalanda has helped me to realize several things;
at first when I got here I was frustrated at how dirty my backyard and douche seemed. I couldnt comprehend why though. In turn I would wake up every morning and see Dalanda sweeping the common area. I sat there every day wondering why the heck anyone would sweep dirt. There is no floor to sweep, only dirt. It took me a while to realize that some dirt it good and some is bad. Anyway, after starting to see how clean the common area seemed after she swept it, I tried my hand at cleaning my back yard. Low and behold, after several hours and some crazy selective dirt sweeping , I had a spic and span back yard and douche! who knew african village life could be so clean! Its strange how the American eye has a different concept of cleanliness than the African eye. After that breakthrough I started to understand how important it is to be clean. There is a way to clean your hutt every day to keep it clean, even if the floor is made with cow poop mixed with water. There is a way to clean your feet even if they do get filthy 5 minutes later. And yes, there is a proper way to take a bucket bath. I now find a super yet simple pleasure in deep cleaning my feet ans scrubbing my flip flops every day. It just makes me feel so clean!

I am learning how darn hard it is to cook here. The most complicated dish is called Laciri and some day I will make a blog about how to prepare it, complete with photos. It takes two days to make it. There are several other dishes too. They are all hard too. I had no idea you could do so much with corn, really. My main jobs with cooking are the same jobs that kids can do. I unugol a lot, which is pounding. I make peanut butter, I take the corn to the machine, I sift, I stir, I mix. I have tried pretty much everything though. And remember, all food here is made completely from scratch! Every time I cook with my sis I learn new ingrediants. Breakfast is the same every day for example, yet different. Its a porridge called Mbuiri. It always has corn in it, and water. The rest is up to what is available. It can have either all or none of: sugar, tamarin, baobab fruit, sour milk, or salt. Oh and the way the corn is prepared also depends on the day. Its best with everything and a double dose of sugar. Breakfast in my home is great!

I have a home garden. My brother and I made it with some help from some of his friends. We started with a pepeniere but now we have several plots that include, lots of carrots, turnips, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, lettuce, eggplant, zuccini and onions. My main motivation in making this garden was to learn about gardening. And learn I did. It was slow and sketchy making it because I didnt know much of what I was doing. I bought a pick, shovel, rake and watering can. We made a large fenced in area. Dalanda and I went to the fields and found some amazing fertalizer. We gathered it with out bare hands and walked it back home half a mile on our heads, singing the numa numa song and laughing to hard we almost fell over. Ever since the garden was planted my brother, Omar and I have had a deal. He waters every morning and I water every evening.

This brings me to my next settling in experience. Drawing water. This is something you definitely dont have to deal with in the states. Want to water your garden? Do Laundry? Wash dished? Drink? turn on the fauct or the hose! Here? Walk a block to the water pump, wait 30 minutes amongst 20 screaming kids fighting over whos turn it is to fill their basines, and then, when you finally get your turn, carry the water back on your head! I carry Between 100 and 120 liters of water on my head every day for that damn garden. My record is 160 liters in one day. Ive gotten pretty good at checking out people water carrying devices. You think you are good and recognizing brands of clothing or types of cars? I can glance at any bucket or basine and tell you what brand it is and how many liters it is! Beat that! I usually carry 20 liters on my head. I had to work up to that and on my last week in the village I upped my capacity to 30 liters. My sister saw me bring that 30 liter basine home and looked me straight in the eye and told me I was going to die. Sure enough, Three days later I couldnt move my damn neck and my back was killing me. Im back to the 20 liter basine.
Going to the forage is crazy. I cant even explain it. Water fights everywhere. Cows surrounding it begging like starving dogs for a drink. Cows fighting over the best spill-over spots. Dogs getting kicked, dead frogs floating about. Kids surrounding the area washing dishes, corn and younger sibling and themselves. And here I am, a toubab in my khaki pants.

This month I have gotten to know a lot of people. Luckily for me, most meetings have been good. I have gotten to know a lot of Dalandas family finally. The first two months I got to know most of Omars family. It turns out that I already met most of her family and just forgot. She has several sisters and brothers, and the wives of her brothers are out and about too. Ive gotten to know a lot of them. I have fun hanging out at the local doctors office. My brother works there as the doctor's assistant. THe doctor's brother is one of my best friends there. We have made gardens there. That will be in the work section of the blog, as will more stories on getting to know people.

Language! All I can say about it is that Im learning a lot! The problem with it though is I am not getting gvery good explanations on how to say things or what im doing wrong. If people understand me they just nod, whether I say it correctly or not. Im getting tutoring sessions from my bro though; which helps a lot.

Kids! Ive never lived with kids before and now I have a ton. I love havings kids as a part of my daily life. I love getting to know each one good and bad. Ill say more about them later.

I am running out of time. cant correct it. sorry! expect the next blog soon!

'Tis the season...

2009-01-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

So I haven't done anything that I originally planned on doing for Christmas or New Years. I was hoping to go back to Kedougou a couple of days after Christmas but we got a text message from our security man saying we had to wait another 6 days to go back (jan 3). So there I was eating cake and watching movies in the Tamba house, anxious to return to my village, but now I had to wait 6 more days. I decided to hop on a 7 places, one of the nicest forms of transportation in Africa, and go to Dakar to spend a few days doing stuff. I thought it would be nice to have a change of scenery and that it would be a good opportunity to learn a bit about Dakar on my own terms. Dakar is the Capital of Senegal in case you didnt know. Its kind of a mixture between big American city culture and African culture. It really is a fascinating place. People are dressed in city clothes and have the same city "coldness" yet there are still goats and horse charettes everywhere and people selling toothbrush sticks and sugar cubes and bananas. And people still balance things on their heads. I walked along the beach one day with a fellow volunteer and we explored the down town area. It was lots of fun, especially when we got ice cream. That is one thing I go crazy craving in my town.

On New Years I didnt do anything, I know that sounds poopy but I wasnt feeling very good, so no new years story, sorry! Other than that I just explored the city and hung around the PC regional house in Dakar. Today I took the ride back in the 7 places. It only took 9 hours which is pretty much a record. This might be because they are gradually paving the roads. There are some roads on the way that are really terrible.
Oh, in case you didnt know, a 7place is a old station wagon that sits 7 passangers and the driver. At every city there is some sort of travel station called a garage, or gare. When you walk into the garage someone always comes up to you and asks you where you are going and they will take you to a car that is going there. There are always a lot of 7 places lined up waiting for business. There is a man that finds people to fill the car and takes the money, and as soon as there are 7 people in the 7 places to sit, the driver takes off.
Each driver has his own way of driving. It can take 9 hours or 12 hours to get from Dakar to Tamba, depending on the driver. This one was kind of scary but heck, he got us there alive so i am happy. You just never know with travel in Senegal. Its kind of a dog eat dog world. If you have to pee just tell the driver and he will stpo by the side of the road. If you are hungry tell him to stop anytime you see people selling things by the side of the road and those people will run up to the car and shove bananas, oranges, nuts, hqrdboiles eggs, and water in your face hoping to make a sale. The road trip snacks here are, i must say, a lot healthier than those in America. It's nice to be able to stop your car and buy a banana through the window. Oh the the driver often stops whenever he wants for random reasons. Once he took the long way through a city to drop off lunch for a friend.

So tomorrow I am heading back to Kedougou. I will probably go back to my village the following day in the morning to beat the heat. I have been away from my village for a long time so I just light stay a while. I will write when I get back!
Hope you all had happy holidays!

Merry Christmas...

2008-12-25T02:28:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everybody!

Oh what a wonderful christmas I have been having in Senegal. You know, christmas doesnt exist for muslims so most people here dont know it exists. On Dec 23rd in my regional town, Kedougou, we had a student protest go down. Apparently the teachers went on strike and the students rioted because there is no work for students in Kedougou and its hard for students to make money and live if they dont work. So the students put red bands on their heads and burned down the government buildings of Kedougou. They burned the Governers house, the Prefects house, the tribunal. They also destroyed the police station and most of their vehicules. Then they got really excited and started tearing up the market place and other random buildings in the city center. The post office was injured; but thankfully not burned. Yes so in the morning of the 23rd my friend and I were biking to town to go to the internet but decided to turn around when we saw the crowds of students and a car and a house on fire. We told the others and we put ourselves under house arrest. The military came eventually and several people were injured and a couple died.
Of course all the volunteers were safe bacause our regional house is outside of the city center and we were a good distance from the riots. On the 24th we ventured out to see the situation and we got to see the military, several different branches, swarming the city. We saw groups of students just waiting. We saw the burned down police station, tribunal, prefecture and the post office damage. Things were still pretty on edge so after reporting to the big boss we were told to leave kedougou. SO now we are in the next city over, Tabacounda. Its nice here, we can go to the market here and buy food without worrying about what is burned down.
What happened is a real setback for the government of kedougou. A lot of documents were burned along with the buildings. A lot of our partners have severe damage to their homes. Its unfortunate.

Christmas in Tamba was nice. We watched Love Actually and Christmas Vacation and we had a big dinner cooked by the Tamba volunteers. I dont know when we will get to go back, hopefully soon.

My week in the village was good. I didnt do a whole lot. I dont have time to talk about it now because I only have 5 minutes till time runs out.

So... I hope you all are having a Merry Christmas :)

A month in.

2008-12-12T03:09:00.000-08:00

Well it's been a month since i have moved into my village, and as of now i find life moving along here quite swimingly! I spent 5 days in town for thanksgiving and found myself eager to get bck to my village for a 10 day stay. I hadn't spent more than five days there and wanted to give it a try.

The first thing I learned when going back to my village is that if you 'move out' of your hut for more than a night or two, it is certain that several things will 'move in.' I had returned home after pedaling weakly for over two hours in blistering heat, and arrived home ready to crash but when i opened my door i found my room to be trashed by a mousr that was standing above my wall staring at me right in the face. I screamed at that little devil and grabbed a shoe and chased it full cirlce around my room until he climbed up to the top of my hutt roof and disappeared out the top. He had used my bed as a toilet and a kitchen table, taking peanuts from the opposite side of my room and carrying them all the way to my wonderfully clean bed to crack them open. Poo and pee everywhere! Dallanda, my sis calmed me down and kinda chuckled at me. She felt bad and washed my sheets for me as i went and pulled water to shower with. She also helped me sweep all the poo and dirt and chewed up stuff off the floor. AAHH! That night as i was sleeping i heard squeeking in my ceiling so i turned on my headlamp and there it was. A big fat well fed male mouse scampering after a petit female mouse, trying to mate with her right above my head! All the ruckus was loostening straw and dirt from my ceiling and it was dropping right in my face. My family loved my histerical outbursts. Apparently they are the only ones i vented to because everywhere i go now people ask me if I still have a mouse problem. When wednesday came i went to the market and bought some poison. I was ready to be liberated from my pesky housemates. Long story short, it took a few days but three mice have been found dead. Well, i guess i could say two and a half. Two were found outside of my room and i found the third dead one right besides my bed, only it was half there. There was no head and all its guts were spilling out on the floor. I found out by waiting over it with my flashlight that a shrew had been eating it. Low and behold now i have shrews. Two night later i was waken by squeeking again and this time i turned my light on to see a big plump male shrew chasing a petit female shrew around the floor of my room. It was the squeaking that woke me and i must say it was earpiercing. I got out of bed and chased them out of my room trying to smash them with yet another shoe. ... I have yet to make peace with the rodents in my room.
I am, however, at relative peace with the bugs. Probably cuz they dont poo ans pee everywhere. There are probably thousands of spiders living in my room, some as big as oh i dunno, the round part of a soda can. i find crickets up my pants and in my bra, things fly into my face all the time... I just brush it off. Oh and dont even get me stqrted on the millions of mosquitos breeding in my douche. I refuse to use it at sunrise or sunset because i get insane amounts of mosquito bites in the most unpleasant places.... i need to do solething about that..

Ok, enough about pests. I love my village and have had a wonderful 10 days there. I spent a couple of days picking peanuts in the field with my neene. Its mindless busy work, just her and i sitting inder a tree picking peanuts from their plants and putting them in a bucket. neene and i talk some but because of my limited pular its hard to talk the whole time. I brought mu ipod though and we listened to some amazing american music and she just loved it.
I also spent a lot of time helping my sis do the cooking and cleaning. That gal works her butt off from sunrise to sunset without much of a rest and without a whole lot of acknowledgement. Sometimes i get frustrated with this part of the culture but i dont know what to do about it so i just help my sis as much as i can. It is a great way to learn the culture by learning about everythins that the women to because here they do so many things that, if you didnt see them do it you wouldnt even know it was done. So much effort goes into making one meal it is almost scary. if i were to write down all the steps it took to make lacciri hakko bantera, a common dish, it would amaze anyone. The food in my village is all made completely from scratch. Considerin the lack of variety of ingrediants, the things they come up with are amazing. The ingrediants used in lost everything is peanuts, corn or rice, yucka, and tomatoes. Then there qre several types of leves, like baobab leaves, bantara leaves, squash leaves, and nebadie leaves. To season there is garlic, salt, and some sort of seasoned salt called jumbo. The things they do with all of these ingredients fascinate me. the first time I ate lacciri hakko bantera i thought it was bland and strange. After cooking it for 5 hours step by step from scratch with my sis, now i appreciate every texture and flavor of it and.. well... love it.

Hmmm... what else did I do. I talked to a lot of people. I visited a neighboring village and met a lot of new people. I am working on getting/making my own map of neighboring village and their resources. We are starting a garden at my household, which will be a great start for me in learning local growing techniques. Oh, haha, and i find one of my favorite 'downtime' passtimes to be watching the animals niteract with each other. Mostly the chickens and dogs. There was a whole soap opera going on with our chicken and her 2 lovers and 5 suitors. I got in on the drama and now my chicken comes and hides behind me whenever she is being estered by a rooster she doesnt like because she knows i will chase him away. My favorite rooster, the only one ive never thrown something at, was killed for tabaski. I was sad. I asked my host brother if they were going to eat out chicken (we have only one chicken who is sitting on 6 eggs now) and he said yes, they would eventually. I told him I liked her and wanted her to live without really expecting much of a reply and he said 'ok, we wont kill her.' I was surprised at that, but im happy because she is kinda my buddy.

Hmm. Well i am still kinda new to Africa so i guess it is normal that i still see so many things through American eyes. I still see almost everything as if it were a postcard. I went to a meeting given by my health clinic for women on the health of their babies. It was the during tabaski and everyone was dressed in their best in my tiny village where they usually dress like villagers and not african beauty queens. I sat in the meeting area and all lined up on the outskirts were 20 women in a line, all with beautiful colorful ourfits and gawdy gold jewlery; each one holding an infant to their breast. The image was powerful to me. I think a lot about the role of women in my village but when i do that is makes me sad and often confused so i try to see it more from their view than an American view.

Tree planting. That wont happen for a few months still. Right now I am in my village as a new and naive volunteer who knows nothing of the language and culture. The Peace Corps gives us an adjustment period in which the first few lonths of life in our village is simply to become comfortable with the culture and learn the language. How can you initiate change and help people if you cant collunicate with them and work with them in a way that gives them the confidence they need to continue the work? By that i mean work with them within their own culture. I cant work with people or even talk to them unless i learn myself, and that is indeed what i am doing. I am speaking as much Pular as I can, talking to as many people as i can while also participating in as many things as possible. A day in the fields, a day learning to cook, a day circling the village and greeting everyone, a day making aataya with the men and chatting about why i dont want to marry a senagalese man. I am getting Pular lessons several times a week and am filling several pages a day with new phrases, words and expressions. The people in my village say that they see improvement. This is good i think. Of course I also have days and moments when i find myself craving the comforts of my own culture and friends at home but that eveltually passes. It passes here in my village because i have acquired quite a good support system. My family has experience with volunteers and they seem to recognize when i need to be left alone and when i need to be invited to circle the village with them.

Thats all for now, my hour is almost up.

Oh man, if anyone out there wants to mail me something, im needing to start a collection of quick prep american food for when i visit the city so i dont have to eat the same thing all the time and purchase meals three times a day. So... campiong type food, just add hot water things, instant things of all kinds would be appreciated. And candy! Not that im expecting this.. but if anyone is feeling generous, it would make a huge difference for me here.

Hope all is well with everyone in the states!

14 Days and I'm walking on the other side of the line.

2008-11-26T03:05:00.000-08:00

There is a line you know, in life, and being only one person, you have to stand on either one side of it or the other. Here in Africa you can be on one side, watching Africa pass you by, as I have been doing these past two months in training, or you can be one of those that stand on the side of the road; watching the other world pass you by. I finally felt like i crossed that line a couple of days ago in my village. I was standing amongst about 20 kids by the water pump, waiting my turn to get water, and turned to watch 6 motorcycles pass us by. They werent the scraggly motos that the locals ride. These were expensive dirt bikes and the riders were pimped up in expensive, colorful gear. I think they were European. Rich, according to my sister, who was standing beside me. All the kids screamed with excitment and waved as the cyclists passed by. The riders waved back. The last one had a video camera and was taking a video of africa going by at 50 miles per hour. I did not wave. Instead i saw a mirror image of myself in these riders. I looked back and remembered my countless rides in Peace Corps cars, riding "in style" from place to place, watching thousands of kids go by, all waving and shouting at us. Is that really Africa, seeing kids wave while flying by? Now that I stand amongst them i realize the answer is no. I now live in a village that any western traveler would just pass by. Actually, I am in a village that westerners probably would never really pass by. I realize how lucky I am to be here and to be a Peace Corps volunteer. I get to experience what most people in my culture could only dream of.

Hehe, how is that for a sappy intro? Its true though, I do feel very lucky to be here and very excited to become a part of my community here in Thiabedji. It still seems, sometimes, that everything i see comes straight from a postcard. In my first two weeks in my village I have had far too mant wonderful experiences to share. Everything is new and everything is a process of adjusting. Overall, it is all going well. I wish I had pics to give but i still dont have a camera. I have one on the way thuogh, thanks Mom and Caitlin!

I'll start with my chair experience. It happened the day after i wrote the last blog, so a while ago, but it is still worth writing about! Anyway, i really wanted a chair for my hut and i heard that there are no furniture makers in my village. Well on my way back to my village i stopped at Bandafasi, a village about 20 kilometers from mine, where another volunteer lives. I inquired there about a chair. I was picturing in my head one of those small stools because i thought it would fit nicely on my bike. Low and behold I was brought to a full sized, hand woven bamboo chair. It was big. I mean huge! i will take a picture eventually. I kinda laughed when i saw it and told them where i lived. He said that it was no problem, that he could put it on my bike without problem. I laughed again. There was no way! I asked, out of curiosity, how much the chair costed. He said it costed 3,000cfa. In case you didnt know, that is the equivalent of 6 american dollars. In a city you can get a banana split for that price, or a cheap shirt made in china. I could not say no to this chair. I told Boubacar, the man who said he could tie it on, that if he could get that chair on my bike, i would buy it. Low and behold, 10 minutes later i was on the road with my bike and a massive chair strapped on the back. I couldnt stop laughing. Really. It was hillarious to me. I guess im still getting used to the culture here, because no one else gave any sort of reaction.

So, 10 days in my village.... what did I do. People say that the pace of life really slows down when you get to your village. I can see this as being true, but also, i think that you can chose how to spend your days. I have had a few slow days but usually i keep myself pretty busy. Maybe its because everything i do is new and exciting still. I have spent a lot of time with my sister learning to cook the local dishes. There are about 4 meals here... and we just switch them off. The main ingredients of everything at my village is corn and peanuts. Man you can do a lot with corn and peanuts! The food is actually very good. I used to think it was rather bland but after seeing what goes into making it, i appreciate the taste a LOT more. We also eat a lot of leaves, crushed to a powder for flavor of boiled in a sauce. Bantara leaves, Nebadie, Baobab leaves, and squash leaves. There is salt, jumbo (a local spice thing.. like bullion), and the only veggies ive seen are tomatoes and ocra and squash and a local eggplant. Yay for food!
There is bread in the village. My familt doesnt eat it, i think its too expensive. I buy it for breakfast sometimes.
I have been getting to know quite a few people. I went to the school and introduced myself to all the students and teachers. I talk to the teachers quite a bit because they speak French. I greet all the kids in the village when I see them, and they greet me as well. They often stop by my house just to sit and stare at me. I try to talk to them and usually fail, but sometimes they understand me. ha! Ive also circled the village several times greeting people, introducing myself and telling them why I am here. I dont know if I have said to you guys what Im here to do. I am an agroforestry volunteer. I will be working with villagers and farmers to plant lots and lots of trees to help with deforestation issues. For farms, also, there is a technique in which you plant fruit yielding trees in your crops so you can get several different types of food out of one field. Yes, anyway, its great that everyone I talk to seems very interested about getting trees. I will be working with people, helping them make and maintain tree nurseries, and also help with the most proper way of planting. I dont know all of the details yet though because the training i went through was more intensive language and less Agroforestry. In my first few months in the village I am simply supposed to work my butt of on the language and meet as many people as I can, basically, set some grassroots here :)

I have made some friends! Yes they are all men so far, except for my sister. And i have established with them that i am not going to marry them nor take them to America. So we just like to sit around after lunch, drink tea and discuss things. They teach me a lot of Pular. One of them is called Saidu and he even took me to some neighboring villages and i introduced myself there. There is one village; Kolon, that is 7 kilometers from my town and has a population of 65. I love this village! there is a teacher there that speaks French and was super excited about getting trees planted.
I have talked to several teachers and they are starting to give me an idea of all the villages that surround mine. There seem to be quite a few in every direction. This is good, hopefully i will have lots and lots of work to do! I hope to be traveling to the, sometime soon.
Hmmmmm what else. I guess I am getting used to no electricity. I am also going through batteries like crazy. AAA and AA... send me some! Oh and im going through lots of candles as well but they arent too expensive here.
I have a little brother named Haruna. He is three and every time i walk by him he runs up to me and hugs me. It melts my heart, really. He likes to come visit me when im sitting by my hutt and just hang out. He doesnt talk a whole lot, but his quietness intrigues me and i am always trying to make him smile by brining something 'American' out to show him. There is a huge medical center in my village and it has solar power. Sometimes i go there with Dallanda and we watch tv in a room crowded with some 30 people. Its fun. last time we watched the last 15 minutes of The Mummy 3.
I had a mouse living in my room. He was huge and leaving poops everywhere. He was noisy and living under my suitcase by my bed. He eats the toads that get into my room under my door to eat the crickets. I dont mind the toads in my room as much as the mouse. I really didnt like it when i found a half eaten toad carcus by my bed covered in ants. Omar, my bro, Dallanda and i had a mouse hut once. He tried to kill it with a stick but it got away. We have chased him out several times but he always comes back. A couple of nights ago at 430 in the morning i heard russtling and got my headlamp and shined it by my suitcase. I saw the tail of th mouse go under it and i lifted my suitcase and slammed it down hard, BOOM! i lifted it an there he was, neck broken, with a huge toad in his mouth; by the head! it was a nasty scene, let me tell ya. But I was so excited, no more mouse poop everywhere! anyway, i wanted to wake dallanda and omar because i knew they would love it but i decided not too. I chucked them both. The toad was still alive and hopped away, ha! So yeah... i killed a mouse with my suitcase.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow! Yay! we here at the Kedougou house have huge plans! I woke up at 630 this morning to the sound of happy men laughing. I walked over to where our pet turkey, named TASTEY, was taking his last breaths. Yes, my fellow volunteers bought a turkey. He has been with us for quite some time and will now be helping to feed 30 something volunteers for our thanksgiving get together. Here in Kedougou there are 16 volunteers. There are 11 men and only 5 girls. Not so even steven. It turns out that the men in our house are amazing cooks. Ill let you know how it was. Anyway, I think there are several people from another area, Tambacounda, who are coming down. Yay!

Oh, yesterday 12 of us were looking for something fun to do so we floated down the Gambia river for a mile or two and got out of the water by a nice hotel where we ate warthog sandwiches. Africa fun.

I got a letter from a friend of my mom asking a couple of questions (hi Mary, thanks for the letter!) One was about fabric here and cotton. Cotton is gown here, ive seen it. Im not sure what they do with it. All of the fabric i have seen here is foreign made. there are also a lot of western style clothes here. If you want to get some local clothes you just buy some fabric and take it to a tailor. The fabric usually costs more than the tailor, and all together it is not very expensive.
I dont get to work with horses here, unfortunately. If i were in a region with a lot of horses, i would have considered getting one. Unfortunately, where I live thee is a problem with the ti tsi fly; which gives 'sleeping sickness' to the horses, killing them. it doesnt affect donkeys though, there are lots here.

Well thats all for now. Questions and comments welcome!
Ill probably post again in the next few days :)

I`ve been installed!

2008-11-13T09:41:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone! I have many amazing things to say today! Im in a cyber cafe so please excuse the typos. Im in a rush, and having issues with the keyboard.

Ok, down to the good stuff. i have started my life as a volunteer! I was sworn in at the ambassadors house on Nov 7th and we were on national news, so i heard. I said goodbye to my host family in Pout and set off qcross the country to start my 2 years of service. Yes, this includes 2 years being the only white person in my village, working on making the lives of the locals better. I am oficially a newbie in the area. there are 16 voluteers in my region and we all consollidate in Kedougou, where there is a peace corps center, just for this purpose. I will be going there every week or two to do this and that.

I was installed nito my village, Thiabedji, on November 11th in the evening. It was a humbling experience being dropped off in a village in which u know nobody, and watching the car drive away knowing that you are about to be on your own for two full years. Well, i realized that i am gratefull for the training i received, and the time i spent with my family in pout because in my new village i made myself right at home! i whipped out the crappiest Pula Futa, all that i know and they loved it. I got some 'me time' to unpack all of my belongings. I have a lot of stuff. Almost too much for my tiny hut. oh yes, my hut! It is so cute! it is small and round. the roundness gives me a bit of a fung shuei feeling. i have my own hole in the ground to potty in, and i have a mostlu private fence, kinda falling apart, tiny back yard. its all mine! I wanted to get a puppy and raise it, but (mom will be happy to hear this), they alredy have a dog, named Aggie, who is very friendly and just like an american dog. She was the dog of a former volunteer that left over 2 years ago. the family loves this dog and take great care of her. and the dog likes me, yay! She is just darling.

Ok, a bit about my family. Right away my favorite members are my sister and her husband who live in the hut right next to me. They both speak French which instantly closes a huge communication gap. I have only spent 1 full day in my village and my sister took me in right away, and we spent the whole day together. She taught me loads of Pula Futa. I got to cqrry water on my head. She taught me to cook and let me help a bit. We talk a lot and if Im quiet she asks me what i'm thinking. I was told that she is 20 years old. She has three kids, ages 6, 3, and 1. Her husbqnd is nice too, and very helpful. My sister's name is Dallanda and my brother is Omar. Last name.... Ba

There are a lot more people in the house. Dallanda and i sat for over an hour going over who everyone is. my host mom is named Adema. She is pretty old and her husband has passed away. She has 7 kids. The older daughters are married and living in other places. I think 2 are in Thiabedji. Some of her younger kids qre in other cities going to school. two of her kids are living in my household, Omar and Kadietou, who is 14 years old. there are two other couples living in the household. I think they are the brother of the diseased dad and the other is rzelated so,ehow but i dont remember. anyway. between those couples there are 5 kids. That makes 9 kids all together. There is one 14 yearold. The next oldest is 9. The rest are 6 and below. Several are 3 or under. In other zords I have rugrats coming out my ears! They are great though. I need more time to get to know them. Usuman, Dienabou and Fatu are my favs so far, they are Dallanda's kids.

My village is breathtaking. The car ride to it was breathtaking. There are mountains everywhere and lush forests. The whole aera just has a great vibe. The bike ride is very hilly! this is the only area in all of senegal that isnt flat! in other words, i am going to get in great shape biking back and forth. i biked to town this morning for a meeting. Its 17 miles away. i got up and left at 6am, before the sun rose. Other than almost biffing it when riding rediculously fast down a hill in the dark and running into a trench, the ride was great. I got to watch the sun rise. It was beautiful and exhausting.

So, i am starting a new life. i have tons of people to get to know. I have a new lanuage to learn. Engligh? It will have to beco,e my third language because it will not be in my village! I love that part a lot. Its quite a test of character being the black sheep. i know there will be hard times. I already got teased by some local lazy guys. They were teasing me for being tired because i dont work like the women. I told them to try to spend 8 hours in a classroom learning english and not being able to speak anything else and see how they felt. ha.

There are two baobab trees in my compound.

well im running out of time. ill be back in town for thanksgiving, so ill prolly write more then!
en ontuma!

my new name is Dienabou Diallo. Named after a village elder.

My last week in Pout

2008-11-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

Hello.

Sorry I haven't written in a while, my schedule hasn't permitted me to be online much these past couple of weeks! Well, not long enough to write a blog.

So, just a quick note to let you all know what I've been up to recently.

I just spent about 9 days in Pout, my language town. It was my last time there and I am now back at the training center for the last couple of days before swear-in. My week in Pout was very interesting. I actually made a list of interesting things that happened in Pout while they were happening, but unfortunately I didn't bring it with me. Oops. I guess I'll just have to wing it.

This week in my host family I lost a member as well as gained one. Miriam Ba, my 16 year old Sister went back to the Kolda area, where she lives with her family. My mom and dad in Pout are her aunt and uncle. The new member is my Pati, and I love her! Pati is grandma in Pula Futa. We bonded pretty quickly as after I got home from school every day she was often the only one home and we just sat together for hours. The first time we sat together it was pretty quiet, we literally just chewed on sticks together and picked our noses. It was quite interesting, actually. My Pati is a really good stick chewer. Her teeth are honestly like a hundred times cleaner than mine. After watching her chew her mango tree stick for a while I went to my room and got mine out and started chewing away. I was struggling. It's not so easy. My Pati laughed at me, took my stick, cu the tip off with a knife and gave it back. It was good after that.
After all the stick chewing and nose picking, we started talking. It turns out my Pati is really good at teaching me Pula Futa. She helped me with my homework every day, letting me ask her questions and answering me slow enough to allow me to learn the new words and write them down. My little sisters often got impatient with me in these situations.
Usually my room is private and I don't really allow people inside. That all changed when I decided I wanted to have my lantern in my room so I could study in it after dark. With the lamp came my twin sisters with their books and school supplies. We all laid on the floor hovering around the lamp and studied. After a few minutes my little brother, Issa came in and started causing a ruckus. He was jumping up and down and dancing and doing everything he could to get us to entertain him. Shortly after, my Pati came into my room and sat there watching us study while keeping Issa from messing us up.
After a while studying all my sisters asked me to play the Numa Numa song on my ipod. They love this song... a LOT. They ask me to play it like 100 times a day and they sing along to it and dance along to it perfectly. Too bad I don't have a camera... what a great video it would make! If you guys don't know what the Numa Numa song is, look it up on youtube!
There was an incident with a kitten this week. it included two more than innocent 4 week old kittens who decided to imprint themselves on us Americans. They ended up in a garbage dump almost being stepped on by a 600lb pig. They tried to follow me home and I was already being followed home by about 20 african kids who thought I was crazy for touching kittens. Don't ask me to explain this, it's complicated. I really wanted the best for the kittens in a world that hates them. I really wanted to adopt one of them but it is not the right time. I don't know if they survived or not the the outcome didn't seem good.
On our last day in Pout I went to a soccer game with my fellow Pula Futa students. It was the biggest game of the season for the people of Pout, and it was very crowded. One scene that was great, were the kids in the baobabs. For kids who couldn't afford to get into the stadium, they found other ways to watch the game. There were two baobabs by the fence and there were probably about 50 kids in each tree watching the game. It was a great site! If you don't know what baobab trees are, look them up! They are amazing trees. The game was fun too. We ate lots of yogurt packs and cheered for our teams. Well, kinda. I was more into watching the vendors than the game. People buying things from the venders literally threw money at them from above (it was too crowded on the stands for venders to climb up to the top). If the money was lost in the crowd someone always found it and gave it to the vender. They were all very honest about it. Then the vendor just tossed the food item to the person. it was great!
Now that I am back at the center we are all very excited about the elections. As I am writing this blog we are all in a rented hotel room watching the election coverage on CNN.
Oh, funny fact. I found out the my Pati is 46 years old, which is fricking hilarious considering that my mom is in her upper 50s. Yes, my granny in Africa is younger than my mom. Here is the real kicker. My mom .. which I found out a couple days later when they asked me to read her birth certificate to her, is only 27 years old! Yes, the mom that feeds me and takes care of me is only two years older than me. How much of a kicker is that!
So, I'm really excited about being installed into my village. I'll tell you about it when the time comes. eh..