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.
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!
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