Rambling

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...

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?

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?

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

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

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...

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!