Yeeeeeeee haw!

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!