(mis)adventures

whoops!

2009-10-07T17:59:00.002Z

i realize i've really dropped the ball on updating this blog and crap, i'm going home in 10 days!

so quick update:
- i've said goodbye to my village (lots of tears)
- i've met my replacement and think she's amazing
- wolfgang lost his balls (not by accident, of course)
- i'm not traveling to asia and will be back in america by oct. 17, inshallah
- i still don't have a job (in america)
- i have to have 3 MIF kits done by friday and i'm having performance anxiety

i will update from the last time i wrote in august and then delete this post -- it's just a quick post to say that i'm still alive, still in senegal, and still in the peace corps.

hope there are pumpkins and apples in america because i'd really like to see a few of those.

weed battle

2009-08-15T15:28:00.000Z

just had a nice storm for about an hour -- the first day storm that i can recall since last rainy season. 12mm so that should be good for the trees i outplanted this morning.

talla asked me to help him out. since he is so "busy" at the WV pepiniere he hasn't been able to outplant so he asked me to do it. the live fence he planted last year has some gaps that needed to be filled. i don't like him but i agreed to do it because i like tree and outplanting, and i mean, he's a jerk but it's not totally his fault. it's been a two day task -- i started yesterday along the road which didn't have any weeds, just a lot of missing trees so lots of holes to dig. ndey fatou helped me out and got some pleasure out of getting to slice open the sacks with the rusty razor blade i had.

this morning, however, was quite a task. the remaining part of the fence to be worked with was overgrown with weeds. nobody's weeded those trees ever so the rain and neglect led to some weeds as tall as me and so thick that if they could be like that year round, there would be no need for me to fill in the gaps. but, once the rains stop and the grasses dry and die, those gaps will be there -- so in i went. it was an epic battle ripping out clumps of grass and getting torn up by all types of thorns. at the same time, i enjoyed the physical labor and even started to get nostalgic about how never again in my future would i live this life -- weeding a life fence in my little village that i am the only person in north america who of offhand. as eager as i am for my service to end, there is certainly a sadness of never being here again.

anyway, the weeding took a good 2 to 3 hours. thankfully it was cloudy (build up to our storm) and ndey fatou came and helped me out again. but i don't think she found it as fun as yesterday and quickly slipped away when i told her to take a break. eventually it was finished and i outplanted 19 trees into the fence. it should be pretty sufficient by next year, God willing.

today is my last day at the village before Ramadan commenced. my last day to eat normal meals at normal times and to chug as much water as i want, when i want. Ramadan doesn't start for another few days but tomorrow i must go to Dakar.

it's nice and good now and feels like the day is over, but it's not because it's only 3:28pm. strange. i finished my last book so i'm not really sure what to do now. a nap might be nice and hopefully the roads aren't too flooded and i can go for a run later.

the run

2009-08-13T13:26:00.000Z

every day i run a path,
the path is always the same.

today i crossed paths with a boy,
his clothes were very dirty.
he said hello, in a language we knew,
and i said hello --
but in english.

he scratched his bum.
i picked my nose.
and all the while a big white cow
cried frantically for her child.

tadpoles seethed in an evaporating puddle,
and storm clouds gathered in the west.

i guess i was wrong,
it's not always the same.

but i can never beat 25 minutes.

i cook lunch and teach a senegalese wolof

2009-08-12T13:57:00.000Z

yesterday turned out better than it started. thank god. i think the huge storm the night before had really fucked with my head -- living in a collapsing hut can be psychologically draining. i'm refusing to move out of my hut (maybe stupid, but the only thing i can do to keep me from going crazy) so they've put up buttresses against the weakest wall and we'll see who lasts longer -- me or the hut. but last night's rain was very close to the earth and every thunder bolt would make my doors rattle and i cowered all night in bed thinking that the next clap of lightning and thunder would bring the walls tumbling down and the roof onto my head. it didn't so now i have greater faith in the structure.

so yesterday morning i headed to diassoume wilanene to help xadi wilane, aram cisse, and fatou diop outplant but when i got there i found out that they had gone out to the fields. i was a little annoyed because i had told them on sunday that i would bet here tuesday...but i've been here too long to really expect people to keep dates and appointments with me especially when i agree that crops and livelihood come before trees.

so when i got back to the village i was left with nothing to do. i had planned on cooking lunch for the family on wednesday (since i had plans to outplant on tuesday morning) but was bored so decided i would cook lunch that day and try to outplant wednesday morning.

the plan to cook lunch was born out of a conversation i had with fatou a few weeks earlier. i was heading out to dakar and she asked me, "aissatou, when you go to dakar, how do you eat?" i told her that i cook for myself and she was absolutely incredulous. "you can cook???" she asked. she barely believed me. i wanted to be like, "homegirl, i could cook circles around you!" she asked me how come i never cook lunch in the village and i replied because i'm not talla's wife (thank god) but that before i went to america i would cook her a meal to show her that i know how to cook.

so i killed my crazy grey chicken (i did the slaughtering -- to the amazement of the women as women don't kill animals in senegal) and made the family chicken chili over rice for lunch. it was packed with onions (1/4 kilo), green peppers (1/4 kilo), corn, kidney beans, tomato paste, garlic, and tomatoes (1/4 kilo). to my surprise, they really loved it. i was unsure that they would because there are loads of peace corps stories about volunteers who cook their families a meal who then find the meal disgusting and refuse to eat it. there was a lot of hot pepper and cumin in this but man, they wolfed it down. i'm not sure if it was because there was just so much stuff in it (for god's sake -- an entire chicken!) or if they actually liked how it tasted, but regardless they ate it and they ate it all.

i found that i really do love feeding people good, healthy, nutritious food and i think it is my ultimate gesture of care. i made sure there wasn't a bit of unhealthiness in this meal -- no msg, no maggi cubes, nothing unwholesome went into it. the women were very interested that i used ingredients they were familiar with in a totally different way and they were totally impressed that i didn't need a bit of maggi or msg.

but my god, i learned that it is hard to cook in that kitchen. the smoke from a 3 stone fire is unbearable -- even in a mud stove. if you breathe through your mouth it sears your throat. the kitchen hut gets hot and smoky -- was sweating and choking like mad. moreover, both the women were super curious so they squeezed themselves in there with me to watch and ask questions the entire time. i mean, i've always known the kitchen to be a rough hut from helping cook and stuff, but this was the first time i was standing right over it, in the blast of everything. at one point aram, watching me struggle, asked, "is there no smoke when you cook over a gas?" and i emphatically yelled "no!!!"

i was worried there wouldn't be enough food but i managed to feed 16 people for lunch and a dinner bowl for me and talla. plus, a small bowl was sent to yaay fatou for a taste.

of course i received little recognition, praise, or thanks for the food -- it's not in the culture and i think it makes a woman's job even harder. but the empty bowls and seeing the women and children chow down were enough for me to feel satisfied. however, with talla it was a different story. we ate together twice this strange and new food that i guarantee he's never eaten before and he didn't mention a thing. ate it as if it was just another mafe lunch. not even a word about what is this or that i cooked it or that i had killed one of my chickens for lunch. it made me very disgusted with him. i highly doubt that being talla's wife is a very fulfilling job.

later in the afternoon i went out to see yaay fatou in her field because i knew that she was outplanting. i love that woman and will miss her when i leave. she was outplanting in some flooded area so we shlucked around in the mud. yaay mag was there too and i felt bad because she was like, "aissatou, i know nothing about trees! nothing!" because her pepiniere had completely died not once, but twice. yaay fatou retorted, "it's because she doesn't have any luck!" i agreed but then yaay fatou quipped, "she doesn't have any luck because she's ugly! ugly people have no luck!" i thought this was hilarious and laughed for some time. i promised yaay mag i would give her some trees from my pepiniere because she really had tried and really had no luck.

then i was helping yaay fatou plant tomatoes and she was yammering away and goes, "ah! aissatou! aissatou dafa begg nibbi." this is interesting because "begg" means "to want" and she was saying "oh aissatou! aissatou wants to go home." but "begg" is an interesting verb because when somebody needs to go somewhere or has plans to go somewhere, "begg" is used in this context even if there is actually no particularly desire attached to it. i've never liked that because i'll say something like "i have to go to kaolack tomorrow" and actually don't want to because kaolack is gross but in order to say it, i need to use the verb "begg." (god i hope this makes sense.)

i was feeling playful with yaay fatou so i snarked back, "deedet, dafa war nibbi!" which means "no, she has to go home!" i had pointed out the difference between wanting to do something and having to do something and she totally got and she laughed and laughed and repeated the story a million times to anybody who would listen and telling them all that today i beat her in wolof and that "now, now aissatou understands wolof." it was a slightly triumphant moment for me because for two years it was "aissatou, you still don't understand wolof?" and moreover, it was a great laugh and we had a lot of fun.

then i went out to aram cisse and xadi wilane's fields because they had heard i had come in the morning and wanted to outplant. i helped out a little and outplanted some trees. i'm really proud of my farmers. yaay fatou and i had sat in aram cisse's field for a while and the whole time aram babbled all these ideas she had for how she would improve her field with trees and vegetables. it was cool and i should have been hanging out with these old ladies a long time ago. i outplanted trees with them until the sun started to set and they sent me home because i was tired and getting destroyed by mosquitos.

my hut is falling

2009-08-11T09:00:00.000Z

perhaps it is good the rains have been so late. they have now caused my hut to collapse. i'm in too bad of a mood to write about it again so here's the email i sent to my family about it:

"...An unfortunate situation I've found myself in is that on Saturday we had a very big rain and the water flooded next to my hut. For the past two years I've had ants digging under my hut so I'm assuming my hut was sitting on top of a foundation that was more lace-like than solid. The flooded water finally made it's way into there so basically, the ground beneath my hut filled up with water and my split in half and sank. It hasn't broken apart completely but it's definitely split in half and one part of it is sinking into the ground. I can't even close the doors or the windows now. It's a pretty crappy situation because I have such little time left and I have lost the really great comfort and privacy of my hut. The women want me to sleep with them -- use whichever hut Talla's not in for the day (as he alternates which woman he sleeps with every night -- terrible polygamous society) -- but that is like, the very last thing I think I have in my sanity to do. I could not possibly sleep in the same hut as the children, sharing a bed with them or the women. Moreover, that's just totally weird to me, switching among the women as if I'm another husband in the family. They can't rebuild in the rainy season so the next volunteer is going to have to temporarily live in the storage hut for a while. They built this hut a few months ago and use it to store all the horse feed and tools. It's right by the animals and smells terrible. It has two doors but no window and no private yard. I think my only option right now is to move into there for the last few weeks of my service which is a pretty awful situation to me but I guess I have to do it. I'm very annoyed. Obviously they would move everything out when I moved in -- I'm just kind of being a baby about my own space and having my yard and my hut which was comfortable. Guess I just have to suck it up -- it's only a few more weeks and then I'm out of there."

there is literally a crack running through my hut from one side to another. i can't close or open any of my windows or doors now because everything is in the process of submitting to gravity.

the rains are finally here

2009-08-08T08:07:00.000Z

8mm rain last night. it was nice and cold to sleep in. the miracle of good rain -- the crops look significantly bigger and better in just a few days. alxamdoulilah. people are talking about these recent rains with satisfaction and i think we feel safe from drought and bad harvest.

finally, productivity

2009-08-07T21:20:00.000Z

big cold rain blew in this morning at 6am. 10mm. nice to sleep in that. maybe i can still have hopes for rain this season.

amazing -- today was finally productive. the most productive i've been in weeks. started out with that 6am rain which gave a nice, but excusable, slightly late started to the day.

i went up to mbanda peul with all these intentions to goad the women into outplanting their papayas. a nice little boy walked with me and asked me plaintively for wolfgang. i had to refuse.

when i got there i passed by the pepiniere on my way to penda's house and to my amazement -- outplanted thornies and all the papayas gone! penda is THE superstar farmer. with her own initiative she'd gotten a huge chunk of trees outplanted (some of them -- mangoes and lemons -- too soon...oops). i was so incredibly happy with her. i wanted to hug her. she hadn't finished the live fence yet so we agreed for me to help her tomorrow afternoon.

on my way back to the village i passed through the WV pepiniere where talla, diakho, and moussa were transplanting eucalyptus seedlings. i decided to help them for several hours. diakho found out about penda's outplanting and decided this afternoon she would outplant too. hooray for contagious behavior!

for some reason -- maybe i was a little dehydrated -- transplanting really wore me out. i got back to the house around 11:30 and worked on editing the Agfo manual until lunch. lunch was kind of awful but i got over it by taking an hour hap. it was really hot and humid.

i woke up at 4 and headed out to diakho's field. she wasn't there yet, even though she had interrupted my nap at some point (senegalese have absolutely no qualms about waking somebody up from sleep) to remind me to go in the afternoon. her trees were too small to outplant anyway, so while i waited for her, i transplanted some of her thornies (why doesn't anybody ever thing even though i tell them to all the time?!) for her and did some weeding.

she finally showed up -- she had been working in the rice field so excusable and forgiveable. i explained her tree situation to her but we agreed that the sisal was ready to outplant so she dug holes and i outplanted something like 20 sisals at 1 meter apart. it too was exhausting and i got a little sloppy at the end, accidentally slicing some roots. hopefully they will survive. while we were working we got sprinkled on with some .5mm of rain (i checked the guage as soon as i got back) so it felt nice to have some relief from the humidity.

after 2.5 hours of work i headed back to the village and found i was back just in time for a run. even though i was really tired i decided to go since i could still feel that terrible lunch sitting heavy in me and making me burp all afternoon. i figured the run would either make me puke or get rid of that heavy feeling.

it was a decent run -- slower than usual -- and when i got back i was just totally, utterly, pooped. i sweated for a good another 45 minutes-- even after a shower -- and felt like taking my shower sitting down.

the day ended with dame suddenly freaking out screaming, "mom!!! mom!!! there's a bug in my nose!!!!" we all slightly panicked and aram pinned him down with the help of ndey fatou and gouged around in his nostril with a stick while he whimpered. i braced myself for some big, long, white tapeworm but instead aram pulled out something green and smothered in snot. it was a leaf. dame had shoved it up there himself earlier in the day and decided that now was a good time to freak out about it. strange boy.

burden on my back

2009-08-05T10:38:00.000Z

i managed to make it back to site by last night. it was a long and arduous day. all the car rides were hot and stuffy and i got car sick on the way to kaolack. i was scared i was going to puke everywhere.

i had 6 kilos of sesame seed and 2 of Jatropha curcas along with a bunch of books and other things to bring back and for some reason thought that i would be fine walking the 7 kilometers back. i was wrong. it was so freakin' heavy and i hadn't eaten since the morning and it was a late start and threatening to rain. it was pretty terrible. i prayed for a charette and i got one for about 5-10 minutes before they dropped me off at the fork in the road -- i was grateful anyway. i think pinched a nerve in my shoulder carrying all the weight. but eventually -- of course -- i made it back cranky, hungry, exhausted, and bitter.

amazingly, the minute i stepped foot into the village it started to rain which turned into a little downpour that gave us 7mm of rain. otherwise it still hasn't rained in days.

bad water/good water

2009-07-28T20:27:00.003Z

this morning, the water from the robinet has been getting clearer but today i tried to get water from my filter and nothing would come out. i opened the filter and no wonder -- the candles were completely covered in this thick, off white slime. luckily i have a filter so i didn't actually have to drink all of that crap but i can't help but think of everybody else who had to drink the same water without a filter. i can just picture it coating their insides.

gave the candles a good cleaning.

but FINALLY, REAL RAIN! can i be so hopeful to think that the rains are here to stay? it's only been an hour and this is already a significant rain -- of course i would prefer it to go all night than stop after an hour.

if the rains stay consistent now, can it save the harvest? i wonder how the next year of food will be, due to this late start. fatou was annoying again today and said -- in front of a bunch of women -- that in 5 months i HAVE to send them money so that they can eat. she said it in her smug-cat kind of way and i instinctively felt like refusing because of her annoyingness, even though i've been secretly conjuring up a plan to send money to the next volunteer (my replacement) for a sack of millet each month if it was apparent that it would be a very hungry year.

i know it's not sustainable (as it is charity, really) and i have lots of conflicting feelings about it. a part of me feels relieved to be leaving and released from the obligation of feeding this family even though they're not MY wives or my children. i've really spent a ridiculous amount of money on food for them and -- as is almost always the case (and a subsequent problem) with the presence of a PCV -- they've become dependent on me to feed all 12 of them, plus grandma in the other compound. but then how can i go back to america, land of plenty and abundance and food security and ignore the needs of people i've lived with for 2 years, especially with the knowledge of the craptastic rainy season we had? isn't that just cold blooded? simultaneously, i think: but if they had listened to me about savings and spending wisely and rationing and healthy foods, maybe they wouldn't need my help. if they had listened to world vision's advice and stored food away in the silo...but that's unfair of me because behavior change takes years, maybe even generations to occur. and yet again, if i bought them food -- what about the rest of the village? what about the neighboring villages? they all contain people i care about and people who have been hit by this bad weather in the same way -- my family just got lucky that i got placed with them. and lastly, i really don't want to create the dependency that develops between villages and peace corps for PCVs to solve all their financial problems. i'm convinced that sometimes when the see me, all they see are CFA bills with CFA coins for eyes and earrings.

so really, i have no conclusion and in my own small personal struggle we see the overlying problem of "development," especially "grassroots" or "sustainable" development. people want food and money and they want the fastest way to it. they don't want trees or new corps or new vocational skills or lessons in technology, farming, or health -- they want food in their belly and money in their pocket RIGHT NOW. and it might seem a little crass or harsh to put it that way, but for God's sake -- they're poor and for generations have been. who can blame them for wanting the instant gratification of finally getting their share of the world's abundances? i can't.

rain dance!

2009-07-27T21:18:00.003Z

yesterday i participated in "nyaan ndox" with the women. "nyaan ndox" means "praying for rain." a pretty crazy event.

from what i gathered:
1. dress up in men's clothes and paint their faces
2. dance while making the ugliest faces ever
3. scream and sing for rain -- big rain

i want rain so badly i even danced once.

i asked why everybody made such horrible faces while they danced. the answer: "we're praying for rain!" i said, "yes, i understand that part but why the ugly faces?" they said, "we must be ugly so that Yallah* will make it rain." sometimes i wonder why i even bother to ask questions.

more pictures on picasa!
*see entry 7/26 for definition of "Yallah"

almost a drought

2009-07-25T16:23:00.001Z

spent the morning weeding around my 1 year old live fence and direct seeding a second line of living fencing with Jatropha curcas. busy work, really, to keep myself from being bored to death. in the meantime, wolfgang dicked around, chasing the hand hoe, and climbing the baobab tree and falling asleep in the branches. he's a good companion. later, when he woke up, he amazed me by growling at the approaching crowd of kids from the village i can't stand. they came over and annoyed me while he ran off a bit and glared at them through the weeds.

overall though, it was a nice morning since the sky was overcast (not starting to clear up now -- in other words, no rain today) but i feel a little blue. maybe it's because it just won't rain. the crops are small and sad and the soil is far too dry to start outplanting trees. last night -- once again -- clouds and thunder and lightning and all the boastings of a big rain and all we got was .25 mm. in the meantime, something has happened to the water tower and the water is white -- the color of watered down milk. it's a terrible color but doesn't smell or taste different, nor does it have any sediment settled at the bottom of the buckets. strange. luckily i have my water filter which manages to turn the water clear for my drinking.

i remember when i was younger, droughts in new jersey were inconvenient times. it would be hot and lawns would shrivel as suburban men wrung their hands at the moratorium on lawn watering. we couldn't wash cars or run through the sprinklers. people would talk about drought but as a kid, it didn't really feel like there was shortage of water -- it still came out of the faucets and showers, we still had food to eat, and what did a brown lawn really mean to me?

i don't think we're in a drought state here yet, as there have been an occasional substantial rain, but this rainy season is for sure not...rainy. it is DRY here and the crops are suffering. women have started to pray for rain and talk about rain is tinged with worry. what's strange is that almost every day there are rain clouds around and we can see it raining in other villages in the distance. it just seems to keep avoiding us. one can't help but feel a little superstitious and wonder if we've done something wrong. whom have we offended? shall we sacrifice one of our starving, emaciated cows to Yallah*? No rain but instead we are plagued by flies, grasshoppers, and caterpillars. it feels a little like the scourge of God. these days all i can do is hide on my bed using the bed net as a shield from the (literally) hundreds of flies in my hut that crawl all over everything, including me and all my skin infections that come from the scores of mosquito bites that come at night.

now that i write it all -- no wonder i'm depressed.

*Yallah = Allah = God

bored

2009-07-24T08:46:00.001Z

i've been awake for a little over an hour and i'm already done with everything i had planned for today. i'm terribly bored and it refuses to rain so i can't do any outplanting. i SHOULD be outplanting but the earth is still dry and thirsty so there's no chance the trees are getting out of the nursery. i can't believe the lack of rain. it is depressing and stressful. i am so bored. i want to go to the field but nobody ever asks me to go and they leave without me.

clouds that bring no rain:

last tourney ever

2009-07-23T16:01:00.000Z

massaly came for tourney today. in non Peace Corps terms that means my boss (massaly) came and visited my site today to see my work. it went well. i am proud of my work and what i got accomplished and feel like i've set up as best i could a situation for the next volunteer.

some of my farmers have great looking pepinieres (notably mbacki beye, talla niang, and penda diawo) and some others totally flopped on me (one of them i'll blame the goats for -- he was doing great until he let the goats get to them). anyway, i was glad to show massaly my work and feel like i can say i truly, genuinely tried my best.

i don't have too much time left here so i'm going to spend the rest of my time getting these trees outplanted and protected. that is, if it ever rains.

donkey

2009-07-22T22:59:00.000Z

today the donkey cried.
we didn't know why.
we gave him some water
and still he cried.
the flies landed on his tears;
i never felt more sad.

tonight we lit a fire.
the donkey drew near.
he perked up his ear
and looked into the fire.
i think i saw him tremble.

sand dunes and camels

2009-07-20T13:15:00.003Z

yesterday (sunday) chris and i went to loumpoul with JC & her guest, lizzie. i've heard about loumpoul for a while -- it's this place that is in the north/northwest of senegal -- and reportedly has crazy sand dunes and camels. finally we had the chance to go. first we had to go to kebemer and then get a clando taxi to loumpoul village where we were then picked up and brought to the camp/tents. jc & lizzie were coming down from st. louis so we had to meet them in kebemer. we were 4 hours (or more) early because the road between thies and louga (kebemer is in between) is amazing! one forgets how quickly you can get somewhere when the road is decently paved.

i had been a little reluctant to go because a stay at the camp is rather expensive but i've heard it is worth it and it totally was. i don't regret going. the terrain was pretty amazing -- certainly something i haven't seen in senegal, or even in my life yet. real sand dunes -- high and deep and whispering and morphing in the wind. chris and i went kind of nuts -- something about the terrain unleashed the kids in us and we ran around and tumbled and romped and got sand all over ourselves. it took a lot out of me.

we went on camel rides which were more like an upgraded pony ride as it was led by a guide and the camels were utterly bored by us. they also smelled really bad. still, got to see some cool dunes that would have been exhausting to walk out on one's own to. afterwards chris found the camp's snowboards and we used them to sled down the tallest dune. i wiped out and face planted each time (accidentally) and the little french children who were also there cheered and laughed at me. i didn't mind. it was so much fun and i felt like a little kid in the infamous new jersey blizzard of '96 again -- except this was sand and i wasn't freezing my little butt cheeks off.

that night's food was delicious -- couscous and mutton and veggies. i ate a lot and was happy when the meal was capped with a mango. we then went to bed in a low hanging tent that you have to crawl to get into and i promptly passed out. it got hot though and i slept fitfully for the rest of the night.

the morning was splendid. we woke up late but still were the first one's awake (aside from the staff, of course). it was pretty stuffy in the tent by then (how was everybody else still asleep??) so it was a glorious breath of fresh air when we crawled out. the sky threatened rain with low, heavy clouds. i feel like if i climbed the highest dune i could scrape my fingers in the clouds. so we climbed it and sat and stared and listened. loumpoul is close to the ocean so instead of silence i think we were hearing the steady whooshing of the ocean. no waves crashing on the shore but the sound of the ocean's existence far off.

the sand dunes are a remarkable color. a perfect blend of orange and ochre. i had a hard time finding the right words for it. they were also flecked with gray bits of sand -- i'm assuming from the clay that lies below. because of the wind the orange dunes are tipped in swirls of gray that perfectly matched the gray rain heavy clouds. a picture could not capture the beauty so i let it alone and instead drank as much of the scene as i could.

by 9am though, the desert was reminding us that it is a desert and we were HOT. we had breakfast, played some bocce ball (aka 10 minutes of sweating under the scorching sun), took showers (amazing, i could barely leave), and headed out. on the way back to thies it started to rain heavily. it was scary to be on the road but simultaneously exhilarating to be in such intense weather. even though the camp was set up for us in such a manner, i felt reconnected to nature in a way that i haven't been in a while.

more pictures on picasa...

rainy season finally starting?

2009-07-15T07:20:00.002Z

FINALLY a huge storm last night after days and days of waiting for rain! it was pretty awesome. funny, too, because i kept telling myself the build up was just a light storm and would amount to nothing. instead -- 28 millimeters! very exciting. let's just hope it sticks around. AND, the frogs have been awakened! it is the most beautiful sound of the rainy season.

yesterday held a mud stove training for the women. it turned and pretty well -- about 30 women showed up. only problem was that i was convinced to start early -- around 4pm -- by the early arrivers, but the bulk of the women showed up late. still, they all got really excited about it and there was lots of post-chatter about mud stoves and a bunch of them say they will build one. of course, i'll believe it when i see it but i believe it'll get done because everybody the amazing benefit of a mud stove (that being, reducing the wood consumption by 30-40%!).

some news and what comes next

2009-06-30T23:52:00.003Z

news that feels like development:
talla, who was previously illiterate (*education), texted me on his cell phone (*technology) to inform me that he built the latrine (*health) i bought for my family as my going away gift. that is very good news to me.

in the meantime:
COS (close of service) conference was the 22nd to the 24th so all of my training stage was regathered in a nice air-conditioned hotel in dakar to discuss things to help us ease out of our service. it was a milestone in our service -- the acknowledgment that the end is right around the corner.

i have about four months left of service as i have my COS date (somewhat) set -- october 1. then, JC and i will fly out to beijing for an epic trip to explore mongolia, china, the philippines, and taiwan. we've been planning this trip since PST. then i meet my family in taiwan for a family reunion.

what happens next? i'm not entirely sure. i go back to america, i suppose, and search for a job and a place to live. hopefully wolfgang leviticus will be shipped out from dakar and land on the grounds of america the wonderful around january 2010 for a happy reunion. chris has extended his service until around march 2010 so i will eagerly await his return for several months. i hope to be going to grad school (hopefully journalism school) within the next 3 to 5 years but in the meantime i want to fill my days with productivity, good food and cooking, maintaining a healthily throbbing heart, and figuring out my future.

these days most of the routes i am considering point in the direction of writing, food, and agriculture. i have some big dreams and little dreams and some days when the clouds are billowing in the sky and i am running in the company of baobabs and birds i feel like i can have them all and then there are other days when i am running in the company of skeezy dakar guys who try to hit on me while i pant up a hill and i feel like those dreams are impossible and laughable.

it continues to be humid and hot. when i step outside i feel like it's new jersey on summer days of my youth.

the rash spreads, fun with wolof

2009-06-20T08:43:00.000Z

the rash is still here and has spread to my stomach, chin, and thighs. sigh. it hurts more than anything else right now but i am continually thankful it isn't excruciatingly hot outside which would make it ten times worse. in fact, there's a cool breeze that feels amazing on the rash if i sit in just the right way in just the right spot.

for my own amusement with the wolof language:
lebal ma! = sell it to me on credit!
labal ma! = wipe my ass!

the danger of cashews

2009-06-19T14:34:00.000Z

it's amazing how dangerous raw cashews are to me. when they're roasted and salted i can barely control myself from eating myself sick from them but raw cashews are just flat out dangerous. last year i had a pretty terrible incidence with raw cashews so this year had a personal ban on cashews. no cashews in the pepiniere. no working with them, nothing. i gave out dry, raw seeds but otherwise i refused to work with them.

but fatou and aram wanted a pepiniere and filled sacks but since then have done nothing about it (much to my irritation). i figured i would pretreat their seeds for them and then they would seed. so i filled a pot of water and threw in some raw cashew seeds to soak for 24 hours. last night i uncovered the pot just to take a look at them. i didn't touch them or anything but 5 minutes later my hand burst out into a burning, prickly rash. i tried to stay calm about it but now it's spread to the inside of my elbow, the other (left) arm, my neck, hairline, and jaw. it is very painful as it burns and itches and raises my body temperature. luckily it is pretty cool today (due to another disappointingly small and short rain) and everybody can see it so they all understand that despite a busy day i had planned, i just want to lie in bed and sleep it through.

the funny thing is that last year's occurrence was almost exactly a year ago (june 15). strange.

no rain or lunch, unhappy parrot

2009-06-18T15:47:00.000Z

3:47pm and we haven't eaten lunch yet because talla and others are rebuilding the kitchen hut. he spent yesterday afternoon knocking it down and then had the bad luck of a late afternoon rain that ruined lots of the mud bricks.

regardless, the rain was disappointing. several hours of buildup, clouds rolling in with lightning and thunder but only just a few minutes of true, torrential, rainy season rain. then it stopped and the sky seemed as though it would rain again later in the night. it didn't but regardless, was incredibly hot and humid.

i am hungry.

the poor parrot is miserable and unhappy.

maybe his situation is better than that god-awful cardboard box he spent his first two months in but this cage is also pretty depressing. he's become this awful dirty green -- nothing plush or emerald like the pictures of his kind i see in the guidebooks. sometimes they even forget to bring him into the shade and he squawks until i do it.

i try to emphasize that IT'S NOT MY PARROT even though people tried to force him onto me as soon as the novelty of owning him wore off because i personally think it was a waste of 750CFA (when they wouldn't even take the baby to the hospital when he was sick for 500CFA) but i can only be so cold. the little guy is just flat out unhappy. and i hear people say that he's useless because he hasn't learned how to talk which i'm sure he doesn't understand but that just makes me feel bad for him.

so yesterday i let him out (i made sure the kids were out of the compound) and he wandered around a little. in the meantime i made him a toy with a strip of old fabric and an old washer. i also attached a piece of mirror to the cage and gave him one of the cat's fuzzy toy balls that he doesn't play with anymore (probably because wolfgang has his own pair of fuzzy balls now). i've also fed him some Leucaena leucophaela leaves (a tree with lots of protein and great fodder for animals).

i swear to god the parrot turned a little brighter green when he saw his new digs.

turtle attack

2009-06-17T14:24:00.002Z

this early morning i heard something creeping around my fence. i went to investigate and there was definitely some kind of creature lodged between the new and dead part of my fence. i immediately thought "SHREW!" and/or "RAT!" and went running out of the compound with my machete to attack it on the old side of the fence.

a bunch of kids came streaming after me and watched me hack away at the fence -- but nothing came darting out nor did it seem like i was killing anything. no wonder -- after a few minutes one of the boys yelled "stop! stop!" and pulled out a turtle. poor thing hadn't done anything wrong and instead this crazy toubab with a machete tries to chop it to bits. good thing that's a mighty strong shell -- i did no damage and after i yelled at the kids to leave it alone (do as i say, not as i do) it crept off to find a less hostile hiding spot. i could just picture his thought bubble as he rustled away:

otherwise today was an interesting morning of work -- one of those kinds of work days that feel like it's either a miracle or a result of having been here two years. i've been bugging talla to about pruning the trees in the valley for months. he's been reluctant. the day before yesterday, martin and some other WV people came and i told them to tell talla to prune the freakin' trees before the rains started since he is ten times more likely to listen to them than to me. talla did his nervous laugh and said he would do it -- which felt like a lie and i was disheartened. but then diakho (the "president" of the valley) and nefie wilane (of weinde) were there and agreed that we would do it today (wednesday).

i still didn't really believe it but then diakho came looking for me this morning and when we got to the valley talla had actually brought the large pruning shears that i had asked him all morning to find for me. but he still seemed cranky about having to listen to me which made me slightly annoyed. then, looking at the trees i wanted to prune i realized it probably wouldn't make a difference because they're about 4 years old, over 2 meters tall and lignified at the bottom, so how likely would they actually make new shoots at the base? perhaps it was already too late and i could understand talla's resistance because it looked like it was going to be a pain to deal with.

however, last july we had outplanted A. senegal and A. mellifera around the pepiniere area for a live fence and they were very ready to be pruned. i figured it could be a better lesson if i used my time to prune what was ready to be pruned and use the unpruned/impossible prune hedge as a lesson of best practice vs. improper practice.

so i suggested it and at first diakho was scared and said they were too small. but i managed to convince her so we went to it. talla had no part in it but mbaye dia (talla's cousin) and i went and pruned all the trees. mbaye really seemed to understand the purpose of pruning and had no reluctance to lop off any of the terminal buds. the lesson seemed to translate well to those who wanted the lesson and i made a passive aggressive point saying that while it is important to know how to pepiniere, it is more important to know how to plant and take care of trees -- what was the point of putting so much of one's time in baby trees if they were all just going to be improperly planted?

i got many nods and clicks of agreement. i bit my tongue from being a vindictive brat and pointing out that talla is who i was talking about -- he only cares about the pepiniere process but lets his trees grow too tall, doesn't prune, doesn't outplant on time, plants his fruit tees too close, and doesn't protect his trees from destruction (last ramadan i almost passed out in the field planting cashews for him all morning. he promised he would fence them. he didn't and where are they now? gone. eaten by goats and cows.).

once we were done nefie showed up with her machete. she was a little disappointed she missed out on the fun but we hung around for a while and i gave out some limes to some of the farmers i'm working with. diakho and i are getting along these days -- something happened in diakho's head and instead of ignoring me she actually listens to me and likes me a lot and constantly lauds my presence and work to others. funnily enough, it seems to have started since the one day i was so tired of her and was visibly exasperated and pretty much yelled at her. maybe she's scared of me now or maybe she finally just appreciates the fact that i have given her sacks and seeds and that i'm here to help their work and not make it worse.

diakho, nefie, aram signan (from weinde, not the aram signan of my village), a coffee lady named khoudia mbaye, and i all hung out at diakho's field. i seeded her limes and aram ate the leftovers. we talked a lot about trees. WV brought nefie to niger (diakho went last year) to see a bunch of AgFo projects so a lot of what i said had been said to her "officially" in niger. we talked about fences and grafting and that some trees stay in the sack for a year (they didn't know this). it was pleasant and th whole time diakho was putting up a dead fence for her pepiniere. i suggested we do an intensive bareroot bed of Moringa oleifera. she agreed and we will do it tomorrow.

it was a satisfying morning of work but today is hot and i long for rain.

new roof, no rain

2009-06-16T12:28:00.000Z

i finally have a brand new roof! my crappy roof from last year did nothing but leak and ruin things during the rainy season so i paid 9,500CFA to get new hay for a new roof. but for weeks the hay just sat there and talla procrastinated the reparations despite my hand wringing that the rainy season would start before i had a new roof. luck would have that the rains seem to be late this year and the work was done in time. i'm very pleased and it smells great.

and then on the very next day (sunday) it rained! not much but enough to give me lots of false hope. it hasn't rained since even though i hope for it every waking second. it is incredibly hot and humid every moment of the day -- the rain must come.

you're ugly!

2009-06-06T19:09:00.002Z

i've been here since august 2007 and at this point i feel pretty well adjusted and kind of just fit into the fabric of things. sometimes i even forget that i look funny to everybody else.

but every now and then something happens that kind of startles me out of this "used to it" state of mind and i am a little baffled and realize that i still don't fully understand this place.

a couple of days ago i was on a horse cart...

guy on roof of unfinished house: hey! hey! HEY! toubab! TOUBAB!
me: [ignoring]
him: HEY! HEY! ANSWER ME!
me: [ignoring]
him: ANSWER ME!
me: [glances over]
him: YOU'RE UGLY!

i was a little thrown off and could think of no witty comeback and just sat in silence. since he was no clive owen or 1980's robert redford i didn't actually get offended or hurt at the affront but i was just kind of shocked that he would try so hard to get my attention...just to tell me that i'm ugly? i just don't understand it. i really don't. why??

where did all the cement go?!

2009-06-03T17:20:00.002Z

mbirkelane is all out of cement.
kaffrine is all out of cement.

i still have 18 more sacks (900 kilos) of cement to buy for the latrines and the rains are coming!

crap!

pruning

2009-06-02T20:37:00.001Z

i've been in jc's village since yesterday helping her demonstrate/teach pruning to farmers with lime and orange trees. it's been fun -- i absolutely love pruning and i am confident in the technique but i haven't been able to do it at my site since we don't have any fruit trees yet. plus we've gone to two other villages (outside of her own) to do this work and i always love seeing new villages.

farmers are usually really reluctant to prune their trees; it's a practice that they don't really perform. it makes them nervous because it is hard for them to accept that cutting off major parts of the tree will actually help the tree bear more fruit. i can understand that. but, the farmers we've been working with have been awesome and impressive and ballsy and have let us go at it with pruning. and a good thing because their trees were in desperate need of some major maintenance.

my arms and hands are all torn up from the thorns but it was worth it because the trees look totally fantastic and should be greatly improved. i guess i never realized until now that orange trees have some brutal thorns -- you don't see them in the orange juice commercials.

it has been very hot and humid here and i pour sweat doing the smallest activity. it feels like rain is coming. it must rain soon!

latrines for everybody!

2009-06-02T19:47:00.002Z

today i woke up with an agenda -- there were a bunch of people i wanted to see and distribute a second round of seeds to both in this village and another. but then kandji wilane showed up before breakfast as i was watering some trees and said, "aissatou, i'm building my latrine today. you have to come over."

he needed me to show the masons what to do, which was a little bit of a daunting task as i myself didn't really know what to do -- it's not like i've ever built a pit latrine before. on top of this were all these things i had planned to do and now this was a wrench in my plans. i hate wrenches in plans.

regardless, i decided to go with the flow and things turned out great. i didn't want to blow him off because he was the first person to finally start building his latrine when the grant money has been in for months and i've been pushing everybody to get started since the rains could come any day now. so i spent the day trotting back and forth between his compound and mine (which are across the village) and trying to get my other tasks done in between. i did a lot of walking. a few people who kept seeing me walk back and forth between compounds were somewhat bewildered with my back and forthedness and teased me a little but word got out that latrine building had commenced -- so hopefully others will begin soon.

the three masons were incredibly nice even though two of them (the apprentices) were teenagers. i'm usually wary of male teenagers as they're usually the jerks that can ruin my day but these two young men were hard working gentlemen who were very polite and i shared some laughs with. the master mason was great and totally understood the building plans and did a great job. i've recommended him to the others who have yet to build theirs.

1 down, 17 to go!

i'm so happy that people will finally be pooping and peeing in a latrine. until now the adults poop and pee out in the bush and the kids kind of just go wherever. perhaps it is very western/American minded of me but this practice really baffles and astounds me. the public health issues that come from this is innumerous and i personally, just think it is bad and gross. in actuality, most of the villagers do too but it is very expensive to build a latrine -- about 14,000CFA for every pit latrine (about $28USD). i'd be surprised if my family even sees 14,000CFA a month so i can understand why one would continue to do their excrement thing in the bush when 14,000CFA could go towards things (like seeds, horses, food) to which there is no alternative. the money i've been using to pay for the latrines comes from a grant that a few kaolack region volunteers wrote and with this grant money families pay 2,000CFA ($4USD) to get a latrine. at that price, people have been clamoring to get one of the 18 spots. i will definitely encourage the volunteer that follows me to get more grant money to do this.

pictures (and video!) to come soon.

back on my feet

2009-05-30T13:19:00.000Z

yesterday morning was pretty crazy. i woke up from a disturbing dream which kind of put me in a weird place. i opened my door and within minutes, el hadji dia showed up asking me if i was ready. we were going to mbirkelane to buy materials for latrines. ready? i had just gotten out of bed! i told him to wait a little and dashed around my hut to get ready while wolf followed me everywhere whining for attention and breakfast.

after a few mouthfuls of (bad) breakfast, i hopped onto his charette and we headed out. no wonder he wanted to go early -- his donkey was incredibly slow and stubborn. walking would have been faster. babakar wilane showed up behind us on a horse charette in an attempt to catch up with me and get materials with us. during the hour and a half it took us to get there (under the blazing hot sun), i contemplated life's deep questions, like if donkeys are so slow and stubborn then why do people continue to use them as farm animals when they wind up being more trouble than help? and why do horses and donkeys have to stop moving to pee but not to poop? and why are they so gassy?

anyway, we got there and instead of souleymane at the hardware store, a little boy sat in his place. i went to the quincaillerie (hardware store) next door (smart business tactics here) to ask the owner where souleymane was. another boy of about 14 to 15 years old sat in the place of that owner. where was everybody? they had all gone to kaolack that day. damn!

not wanting to have made the trip in vain -- as the purpose of going on saturday was to avoid an all day trip to mbirkelane on market day/sunday for just a few minutes of work -- i called souleymane. he was a little annoyed i wouldn't come on sunday but agreed to have the boy write the receipts for my purchases. (the reason i preferred to have souleymane there is that he and i have had an agreement about the purchase of latrine materials for 18 latrines for a while and he is giving me a discount -- i don't want to bring my business else where.)

long story short, it did not come easily -- the boy was fairly new to things and didn't understand what was going on and insisted on charging me the standard price and we had to call souleymane about 7 times to confirm what i was saying was true and even when we had, it wound up that he hadn't listened to souleymane on the phone and was still charging me the wrong price. and then he couldn't grasp the concept of wanting to buy 8 meters of pipe cut into 2 meter pieces. and then some stupid old man came in and meddled about the price of cement AFTER souleymane had made things clear to the boy over the phone so ultimately he ruined things and there was confusion again. in the meantime el hadji and babakar, my village chief (who works in mbirkelane), and one other guy from my village just stood there and watched me yell and yell at this boy until he finally did things my way. i know that the problem wasn't me -- all the other men understood what i was saying -- this boy just seemed to have too much ear wax or was just really nervous about messing things up. i bet he was expecting an easy day of selling a few items and in comes toubab yelling at him about discounts and large purchases of cement. so while i was pissed at him and annoyed at his stupidity, i pretty much understand.

i've also been pretty productive since my several days of self-imposed confiment. i finally confronted the facts and went out to see all my farmers, documented all their problems, gave massaly (my boss) a call and got some good answers/suggestions, and ultimately, it's not as bad as it had seemed because a lot of farmers are getting good germination rates, just bad survival rates. getting things to survive is a lot easier than getting things to germinate. and, i talked to some other volunteers about these things, and they all say that this is pretty normal -- i'm just not used to it since last year i made one big pepiniere instead of working with individual farmers. so it's crappy that pepinieres are dying but it's not an abnormal crappy and for that i am thankful. alxamdoulilah.

also, have been running everyday and doing crunches. it's a nice way to end the day and running through the bush with the sun setting in the african sky brings back the feelings of romanticism and awe i had in my first year. it's been a while since i've felt that way.

funk

2009-05-26T11:50:00.000Z

i've just wasted a day and a half completely engrossed in john steinbeck's east of eden. what a remarkable book which i now rank with my tops: lolita, one hundred years of solitude, the wind-up bird chronicle, the age of innocence, and the known world. it is such a gem when a book can take your breath away.

in the meantime, i've done nothing with myself and have been an invisible prsence here in the village. i feel pretty worthless which is a pretty shoddy feeling but i am feel blue and can't seem to shake myself out of it. i feel as though i've checked out and with the combination of prcrastinating farmers and "natural disasters" i am struggling to get myself motivated.

i got back only two days ago and came back to a dead pepiniere and everybody elses' accounts of how their pepinieres aren't sprouting or are getting eaten by something. i have very little seeds left so i fear redistributing for reseeding if they are only going to get eaten again. but then, what else can we do? i need to go and see all my farmers but i'm scared to face the facts and i'm scared i look like a joke.

yesterday i did some calisthenics and panted like a fattie which was prviately mortifying and now that mortification and the aches in my muscles are attempting to discourage me from getting myself physically healthy again.

i must pull myself out of this funk.

the P word

2009-05-21T19:03:00.002Z

as a kid my dad would always threaten us about the "P word" -- that is, PROCRASTINATION. he would always ominiously warn us of avoiding it and due to this i've come to despise procrastination. instead i embrace efficiency and punctuality. i like things to happen quickly, on time, even better early!

good thing i wound up in senegal.

that's sarcasm, if you can sense it. it seems like other than americans and chinese, everybody else runsat least 15 minutes behind. i remember my first experience with it was in navajo country where everybody said "oh, you're on navajo time now." then with my african american friends, "we're on black time." there was "guatemala time," "salvador time," "nica time." back in america again, it was "latino time" and now in my present life, it's "africa time." i hate it. i say it admittingly, proudly -- i HATE it. it drives me nuts and i have a hard time coming to terms with things not getting on time.

so it's driving me batty that i started getting ready for pepinieres the first week of march and nobody came to me for sacks until april. i finally got the sacks out and then nobody filled them until about two or three weeks ago. and now people are seeding and more people are coming and demanding tree sacks when i'm out of sacks and i have to explain that i planned things to start in march so that i could get exact numbers of how many sacks we needed so that everybody could get them but yet (and not at my own fault!) it didn't work out. i have no mercy for those who are late but unfortunatly other people's procrastination has gotten in the way of my work and schedule.

i had planned the year around the idea that things would be done around may and that between may and june we could all chill while we waited for our trees to gain strength and grow -- giving me time to work on other projects, have my friend visit, and travel. but of course everybody procrastinated and did not start their work until a few weeks ago -- but then i had the kid's pepiniere day, my latrine-building project (which they've also been procrastinating on), and my friend's visit which shuffled around my priorities and now there is a constant barrage of people demanding seeds and my tree nursery is a mess and others are asking me to supervise pit-digging for the latrines and i am suddenly swamped in what just seems like disaster after disaster as i see the seeds not germinating and running out of seeds and all of my planning and timing of things going to shit. half of this is development work -- program planning and trying it out and most likely finding out that it doesn't work but i was just so...hopeful for a good season. i dared to hope and was disappointed. now i think about going back to site and facing the disaster of the pepinieres when it wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't done everything so last minute and as of now, the only reason i want to go back is to see my cat (which is ultimately -- i know -- a little sad). okay, end rant.

i just wanted so badly for things to go well and i thought it was for a while but now i am discouraged and dragging my feet to get back to the village. of course i love my village and some great things have been happening but i just...i guess i'm just tired and this procrastination crap is getting on my nerves.

we'll see how things go in the next few weeks...

hostess and future mother

2009-05-16T15:54:00.003Z

the past few days i've been playing hostess as a friend from america has come here for a visit. we've been having a good time. he spent a few days in the village where all the children fell in love with him and his soccer ball and coloring books. then we went to stay at a place called keur bamboung which remains my all time favorite place in senegal. i took my sister here last year when she visited and it was still as awesome as it was last time.

because we went to travel around senegal a little bit, i missed a wedding in the compound next door. since it is my next door neighbor, i brought a wedding gift of three kilos of rice to the head of the household. he was thrilled with my gift; so thrilled that it was almost a little embarrassing for me. after he received it he blessed me a few times over -- that i would have a good service, that i would find a good job, that i would have a good husband and many many children. and then -- that i would be the mother of the next great american president!

we care for our village, we plant trees!

2009-05-05T23:50:00.005Z

using USAID grant money, i organized a tree nursery day for the school children. the kids from both the french and koranic schools came to learn how to make and manage a tree nursery.

the kids learned how to mix soil and fill tree sacks properly. then we seeded our trees and then had a talk about personal responsibility for the trees and for our village. i made a connection between planting trees and taking care of the village. after we put our trees in the school nursery we then had snacks -- juice, bananas, and beignets (fried dough).

jc and shelley came a day early to help (i couldn't have done it without them) and wallace and peter came from dakar to see the day's events. chris also came and acted as photographer.

it was lots of fun and the kids were cute and well behaved. lots of men came and helped out during the training. the women had stayed up to 1:30am the night before to make beignets for the kids. wallace bought bananas for the kids. i got to blow a whistle like a p.e. teacher. we now have 200 trees -- 100 papayas and 100 nebadies -- in a "kid's pepiniere." very proud of my kids and admittingly, myself. this is probably one of my proudest moments in peace corps.

pictures tell the story better...

me and the kids from french school and koranic school

jc helping mbaye signan and talla ka sift soil

kids mixing soil

shelley helping kids fill sacks

seeding

some kids and their filled sacks

emmanual -- the french teacher -- helping the kids "sign" the mural

the mural says "we care for our village, we plant trees"

the future

the rest of the pictures are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/angelicakang/WeTakeCareOfOurVillageWePlantTrees#

picture update

2009-04-25T19:37:00.004Z

pictures from the past few weeks.
nice visuals on all the flurry of activity.

http://picasaweb.google.com/angelicakang/WorkAndPlayMostlyWork#

april update

2009-04-11T21:08:00.003Z

it has been a long long time since i've written last and this is mainly due to a smattering of activity, getting stuck in dakar, an agfo summit in kedougou, a free one night trip to saly, hosting some study abroad students for a week in the village, and getting my mind wrapped around what i'll be doing with my life.

work in the village has been really busy but also really fulfilling. this year is a 180 from last year, instead of being totally clueless and creating a 3,000 sack pepiniere of my own, i'm working with 25+ farmers in helping them get personal pepinieres (tree nurseries) established. lots of these farmers are women, which makes me really happy. so these days i'm running around measuring fields, talking to people, and counting out sacks and seeds. it's really exciting work and there's lots of cool projects coming up. my so-far favorite of these is in a little pulaar village next to mine where all the women have decided that they will have a permanent tree nursery established (as they call it, an "always pepiniere"), live fenced, and 20 of every species i can give them. it was an agfo's dream to see all these women show up and plot out the place of the tree nursery -- right next to the well and right under a huge tamarind tree with lots of shade. they even had me taste the well water to see if it was "sweet" enough for their trees.

what is the most exciting of this is that i am really working in wolof. while there is plenty more for me to learn, i am totally comfortable in wolof now and my points come across clearly. i can joke and banter freely and conversations come easily. the other day we had a formation (training) on tree sack filling and i was even able to explain the whys of what we do and able to quiz farmers on what we had covered. while i'm prepared for whatever may happen, i feel really good about my work right now and it is extremely fulfilling to see that my past year of struggle and work has finally worked itself out.

my proposal for a grant through peace corps has come through and next month i'll be having a "kid's pepiniere" day where every school-attending child (both in koranic and french school) will have the opportunity to learn how to fill sacks and seed their own two trees -- one fruit tree and one shade tree. they will learn the maintenance and care of a pepiniere and we will also have a discussion about social responsibility. we'll paint a mural and have snacks and dancing.

in addition i've managed to add a parrot to my animal menagerie. he's a little green senegal parrot. talla bought him as a chick a few weeks ago and it had been living in a miserable little cardboard box in loneliness and darkness and was only let out to be fed. feeling bad for him, i asked jc's family to give me the bird cage that they own (they once had a parrot) which they readily gave to me. it was a little broken but talla and i had a fun time fixing it and after we got the bird established in it...it wound up becoming mine. it's supposed to be talla's bird but every day i take him outside and every night they bring it back to me. i don't really understand it but he now lives in my hut and i feed him old oranges and he cheeps at me. wolfgang is not entirely pleased but has given up on trying to eat our new addition. he poops a lot and i pretend not to like him very much but he's a cute little guy and it's nice to have another little living being in my life.

the past few weeks have been slightly stressful in the fact that i've made a few decisions impacting my next few months to a year of life. i'd been seriously considering extending my service here to a third year based in dakar. i would be working on programmatic agroforestry stuff and there were lots of exciting prospects. there was a time in which i was really set on it and dreaming about my new life in dakar and all the things i would do (learn tennis, volunteer at the orphanage). however, upon some serious consideration and thought, i've decided not to do this and to end my service at two years. this opens up the exciting opportunity to go on a sweet COS (close of service) trip with JC to asia but afterwards, it's all a blank slate. it may be the first time in my life that my future is unknown. it's pretty scary and often keeps me up at night.

surprisingly, at this point, it would be the easy thing to do to stay longer in senegal. i am finally comfortable, know what i'm doing, speak the language, and can cruise through life. ultimately i had to admit to myself that my wanting to stay here was mostly procrastinating the reality of paying off my debts, getting a job while getting myself ready for grad school, and readjusting to american life, culture, and friends. it is time for a new challenge and perhaps this challenge is the abyss of the unknown and uncertain.

even though i don't COS until october, it really feels like my service is winding down. just about every day i think about america and a life there and it ranges from day dreams/visions of landing the perfect job in new york to working a hodge podge of jobs until i go to grad school to grad school ambitions to vacations in california to living in my parents' basement with wolfgang twiddling my thumbs and going through culture shock. maybe i worry too much.

even so, in the meantime all i can do is do my current job and to do it well. april will be a busy month of getting tree nurseries established and working with farmers on project planning for their fields.

may it be a good month and i'll be sure to include pictures soon.

mural mural on the wall

2009-03-12T10:13:00.001Z

the morning of the 9th i woke up early and went straight to the school to start the mural. when tayo and ma'asou showed up, i had already made friends with the groundskeeper's family (although the women wound up being really annoying) and has started on the mural.

ma'asou looked bright and happy, munching on a bean sandwich and excited about having taken her first shower in an actual shower (that is, not a bucket bath). we spent the rest of the day until about 1:30 working on the mural. tayo's friend kim, a tostan volunteer, had joined us to help.

we took a break for lunch and i passed out for a nap. when i woke up chris was there! he had just gotten in from dakar. we had an excellent lunch -- ceeb u yapp (rice and meat) -- for gamou. at one point, juli came scampering into the room and shyly greeted me. the girls awkwardly eyed each other until juli left. it was like two kittens meeting for the first time. when juli left i told ma'asou that she could leave and go hang out until we had to work again and she immediatly left the room with a secret smile.

when we had lunch we went back to the mural from 4:45 to 7pm-ish. it wasn't finished but there was no more daylight and i was ready to go home after a day of mural painting which was a bit more difficult than expected because of the goopy, glossy, oil-based paint we were using and the constant throngs of people bugging us.

me, chris, and ma'asou went out to dinner. i had told her about hamburgers the night before and i promised her one. this time i bought her non-carbonated mango juice in a little glass bottle and she loved it. whe she was done, she lovingly rinsed out the bottle and asked me to fill it with water for her to keep. she seemed to really enjoy the hamburger and she and i talked about a picture alphabet book -- translating things into wolof -- and also about kaolack and th evillage and what she wanted to do with her life.

there's talk of her going to kaffrine next year to further her arabic school studies. we're not a very pious family or anything close so i wonder about this decision. i asked her if she wants to go. she said no. i asked her why. she thinks it's too far away. i asked her if she wanted to stay in the village. she shook her head. i asked her where she wants to go. she said, "anywhere." to this, i asked her if she wants to get married (the only way to get "anywhere") and she shook her head. interesting.

i dropped her off at tayo's and told her to go to bed because tomorrow morning i was dropping her off at a neighborhood where our villagers who had come to kaolack for gamou celebrations were to catch a car to go home. she nodded, we departed, chris and i walked back to the house, and i promptly passed out when i got to the house.

the following morning before heading out to the mural, i found out from tayo that ma'asou had not gone to bed (as instructed) but had been invited by her new friend juli to go pray at the mosque in celebration of gamou. so, she was oversleeping -- something i've never seen her do once in hte village. when she woke up, i left tayo and chris to wokr on the mural and carted her to the neighborhood of sam, where she met up with her relatives. sam was nuts -- the post-gamou flurry was insane. it was also pretty crazy to see my villagers outside of the village. i droppd her off, did some greeting, and then bounced so i could finish the moto. as much as i enjoyed having ma'asou around, it was a relief.

we finished the mural at a decent hour, took a bunch of pictures, and then went back to the house. went out to lunch with chris, hawes, jaime, and mark and had a few, well-deserved beers.

the next morning we went again to the mural and wrote the names of the women we had painted and signed it. we were very pleased with it. pictures will come soon...

country mouse, big city

2009-03-08T23:26:00.000Z

i'm currently in kaolack working on a mural project that tayo asked me to do for international women's day. i took the opportunity to invite ma'asou to come with me and see what city life is like, what i do in kaolack, and also to possibliy instill in her some sense of how there's a bigger world outside of the village and that she is totally capable of being a part of it if she chooses.

she was very excited for this trip and had her hair braided and a new complet (pants!) made for the occasion. she was very cute and endearing...but what also scares me is that the more i look at her, the more she is becoming a little lady and growing up quite rapidly. it also means that i don't have that much time before she becomes marriage material and stuck in a situation that stunts her potential to become something great. she's like 9 or 10 now so she has 6-7 years left before she gets claimed by some stinky old dude for a wife.

anyway, we left for kaolack on sunday, passing through the market to pick up an ndaa (a clay pot made to cool and store water) for shelley. it was a lot heavier than i expected it would be and it made me sweat when i had to carry it from outside of the garage to karim's, where i was meeting with tayo to buy paints for the mural. from the moment we got fof the car in kaolack, ma'asou was shocked by how many cars, motos, and people were there. i kind of forgot about her and how this all must've been totally ne to her and walked quickly through the city with her gripping onto my nalgene with wide eyes. my hugest error was trying to cross a street while cars were approaching. the city in my skittered in between cars and ma'asou was terrified yelling, "AISSATOU, A CAR'S COMINGGGG!!" and got stuck in the middle of it all and like, straight out of cartoon, was spun like a top by the whizzing cars. oops. from that point on i slowed down a bit and remembered that i had wiht me a little girl who was experiencing a gazillion new things at the same time.

we got to karim's and i bought her a coke. she was intrigued by the television, the glass door refrigerator, and thought karim's assistant was a volunteer because he's not black (he's moroccan). the her coke somewhat erupted and fizzed over and her face had a look of pure terror and what the hell is happening?! i realized it was probably her first carbonated drink but didn't even try to explain what just happened. i figured i'd let her mull over that one...much because i don't even know if i can explain carbonation in english.

tayo showed up and drank the rest of her coke because she didn't want any more (much to my surprise, as i thought she would like it) and then we headed out to buy paint. we sped through the market and i had to call out to tayo to slow down a bit because she was almost aimlessly walking, unaware or unsure of how to dodge motos and squeeze herself between the hordes of walking people. eventually i had to physically guide her around by the shoulders and i could feel how tense her little body was.

we took care of the paint business and grabbed a direct cab to the peace corps house. she seemed relieved to be able to view the city from the confines of a car. when we got to the house there was a ton of poeple there, which was a little shocking to me, as i was not expecting it. i had a meeting to attend so sarah lent me her computer and we put on whale rider for her to watch, even though it was in english. she was intrigued for a while but then grew bored. i gave her an animal picture book and paper and crayons. this occupied her while we discussed the latrine project (a kaolack regional stratgey attempt to get latrines in all of our villages).

afterwards, tayo, me, kari, and matt had to prerecord the radio show that was to be played in conjunction with international women's day. ma'asou joined us and giggled at the plot and our attempts to speak wolof. it took us a lot longer than we expected it to and she would up passing out for a nap while my stomach grumbled for lunch. when she finally woke up we headed downtown again to get lunch. it was 4pm by now. i held her hand as we walked to the restaurant and she jumped every time a moto honked and whizzed by us. at lunch she sat awkwardly at the table on the chair. i realized she's probably ever sta at a table for a meal before. i had to get up and push her chair in for her. when we went to go wash our hands she forgot her shoes. my poor little country mouse.

i got her a fanta. she made a face of disgust when she drank it. it finally made sense to me that she probably doesn't like carbonated drinks, especially because these were her first fizzy drinks. but i ordered us a half cicken, fries, and salad to share and she ate to her heart's content. it was seriously a case of eyes bigger than the stomach -- she just ate and ate. i don't think she's ever had so muhc chicken to herself before and while i was happy to provide the food, there was the sad realization that while we in the village aren't starving, there is a serious lack of nutrition and fulfillment in the food.

speaking of which, while we were eating (and she was learning to eat with a fork and knife), she told me about the jackal that everybody had seen the day before. it turns out that it had attacked a goat and eaten a huge chunk out of the goat but it lived on and staggered around a while birds pecked at its wound until it was finally killed by somebody in the village. that morning i had eaten goat for breakfast and was so thrilled with it and touched that they had made me meat for brekafast, probably because i was going to miss the big holiday of gamou (the prophet's birthday) by being in kaolack. no...it jus tturns out that i'm at the bottom of the food chain.

after dinner we went to tayo's house where she was spending the night and where i figured she could feel a little comfortable again after hanging out with me and other english speakers all day. wrong. tayo's house, first and foremost, is HUGE and filled with the best senegalese luxury. it's two stories and plush. it is also run by a woman, a matriarch, who also rents out a bunch of toher rooms and small buildings within the compound. it's practically a mansion of sorts and it was PACKED with people, especially because tomorrow would be gamou. there were tvs blaring, phones ringing, people running arond everywhere, and vats of food being prepared for the next day. i was even a bit overwhelmed by it all. when people asked her name she could barely squeak it out -- world's away from the loud, bossy, vivacious girl she is in the village.

i spent a good hour being grilled by these men who lived there, lounging around with their zippers undone, watching tv and insisting on how i don't physically look american (which i argued until they sucuumbed) and pounding me with questions that i was determined to answer with full confidance and authority because i knew they were playing their stupid seneagelse male game with me. ma'asou's eyes were glued to the huge flat screen tv that had a soccer game on.

around 7 we headed out to work on the mural. we had obtained a projector and to save ourselves lots of time were going to project the images on the wall and trace them with charcoal. it was a little worrisome at first because we didn't have enough extension cords for everything to work out but eventually we fiddled around enough and adjusted our plans so that it was possible. ma'asou was thrilled when the projector finally came on and threw images on the wall. a bunch of others were as well and we got ourselves a small audience as i charcoaled imagies on the decrepit wall.

when i was done we went back to tayo's and i found myself incredibly exhausted from the day of traveling, meetings, murals, talking, and baby sitting. i also figured ma'asou was exhausted so i elft her at tayo's and went back to the PC house. i'd decided on having her stay at a senegalese house for her own comfort and mine. i felt a little bad at first, almost as if i was abandoning her but then, it was probably the first time she's ever been completely on her own and i thought the taste of independence would be good for her. when i left her she still had a look of shock and overwhelm on her face, but we had introduced her to some family members who promised to care for her, including a sweet girl of around the same age named juli.

tomorrow we start painting the mural. ma'asou will help out. the day after tomorrow she will go home. i'm tired. this is a new experience for the both of us -- her first experience in the big city, my first as a big sister.

legitimize, recognize

2009-03-06T16:25:00.000Z

there's much to write about but my writing's been a little lackluster recently and my motivation to write is wilting. i'll blame it on the weather. it is hot. i had almost forgotten about the days where sitting makes you sweat.

yesterday i had to go to kaffrine to see baay keba mbengue (jc's host dad) in the hospital. jc has left for a vacation in america, but keba's been quite ill recently -- an infected foot which has led to other problems -- and was taken to the hospital on tuesday. jc left her family my phone number in case they needed anything an on wednesday evening her brother called me about going to the hospital for a "meeting." i was caught a bit off=guard. i hadn't actually expected them to call me and i was worried that perhaps they would be asking me for money or to make some kind of assumed-informed crucial decision regarding his health.

i called shelley and asked her if she would go with me -- combined forces. she, thankfully, agrees despite her village being a bit further than mine (although she has a car that goes directly from her village to kaffrine, as opposed to my wild-goose chase for a charette out of my village).

the next morning (thursday) after catching a charette all the way to kaffrine, we met up at the hospital. a bunch of keba's relatives were there, including a woman i mistakenly thought was his wife for quite a while. it was interesting how much they trsuted me and saw me as somebody who could help. i guess they can also tell that jc and i are good friends and have each others' backs.

there was difficulty getting into the hospital. there was a very stubborn guard who insisted we could not enter until 1pm (it was 10:30am). there was even a scuffle between a man and the guard and a bum rush and crowded chaos that i got caught up in because i was trying to pull the woman-i-thought-was-jc's-mom-but-was-actually-xadi-wilane out of the way from the crowd and an approaching car. finally she managed to coax the guard, telling him that we were here to buy the medicine. aha! so we were here for our wallets, but i didn't mind too much because the last time i saw keba, he was really ill and it was quite worrisome.

we got in and i was rather impressed with the strutcutre and cleanliness of the hospital. the only other hospital i've been to was in thies when anne marie (my then-host sister) had malaria and that place was rather cruddy and hot and filled with flies. keba was in room 3 and we entered. keba hastened to sit up, which was really much easier for him than the last time i saw him, but he was shirtless and we saw how skinny this already skinny man had gotten. but he truly looked far better and healthier. he had had an operation on his foot (there had even been talk of amputation!) and was now in the recovery stages. there was a bunch of other family members -- including the real wife/mom -- and they were happy to see us.

after much discussion, we each lent 10mille to pay for the medicines he needed. it was not an easy loan but it would be foolish of us to not pay for his medications so that his healing would reverse and take a turn for the worse. it was teh right thing to do but medicine is truly expensive and they -- and i say this with no intention of boasting or disdain -- are lucky to have a community of american volunteers who may be poor in the eyes of other americans (my father laughed at my w-2) but are terribly wealthy in the eyes of villagers.

i spent the afternoon hiding from the heat of the day at lindsay's (the volunteer in kaffrine). ben was there too. as was rumi (jc's cat). i ate a very small amount of lunch because the little boy across from me had a lot of snot and was coughing into the bowl and the little girl next to me kept smearing her hand around in my place at the bowl. pretty gross.

i headed home around 5pm and squeezed myself into a very hot mini car that was loaded with people and 2 huge sheep as well as an entire roofrack crammed with sheep and goats that kicked screamed the whole ride home. one of the ladies from the hospital party was in the car too and she was very happy i was there and it impressed everybody else in the car that i had some kind of business beyond greetings with this woman.

talla and i had agreed that we would meet at the world vision office in mbirkelane where he would pick me up. so i went, and of course, i was early. luckily marin was there and we wound up having an impromptu meeting. i told him about my big village meeting on monday and how i was disappointed that nobody had come to speak to me about pepineres yet. he's very no-nonsense and doesn't take any crap or village-excuses. he's senegaelse so i guess he can do that without seeming too pompous or elitist -- i think he just tired of the crap and because he's senegalese, is ermitted to be a hard ass. maybe PCVs are too soft, but that's probably because we don't want to be culturally inappropriate or rude.

anyway, i told him my plans and thoughts for this year and gleaned a bunch of information from him about their work this year -- info that i would have never been able to get from talla. he was very encouraging and told me that we would have another meeting in the village to discuss my work. another gentleman working there was extremely impressed with my wolof (!!!) and said i spoke like i had been here 3 years instead of almost 2 (!!!). i was flattered and prettly pleased. i told him i was happy and he said that he understands how hard it is to learn wolof. that was a great acknowledgment to hear. i twas also great how muhc martin wants to help me because for so long WV has been a presence in my service here but now we are actually full throttle in a working relationship now. synergy is happening and it feels great -- especially since last year i secretly harbored unwarrented made up feelings of competition with WV.

when talla showed up, martin -- whom talla respects very much -- told him he must help me and that i had good work to do and totally legitimized me by putting me on the same plan as him (martin, not talla). i think talla is finally starting to see me as something substantial instead of some dumb little girl who wandered into africa. the whole charetted ride home we discussed work and found much common ground.

translating for gabe last week helped me a lot because i had to focus so carefully on wolof and i've recenlty felt like i've spoken very clearly. my language is not very complicated or grammaically sophisticated but it is clear and correct and lots of people are understanding me.

what was also amusing was that we picked up mansour diop on the way home -- the man who drove me home on his donkey charette the night i freaked out about riding my bike at night in the bush and could go no further than his village. all this time he's been a name and a saint but never a face (because it was dark) and i finally got to see what he looks like.

later in the evening martin called me and told me that he'd be coming tomorrow (today). i was surprised but again, pleased -- it feels so good to be taken seriously!

so today he showed up and had a small meeting with some village leaders in the valley and lectured them about me and my work and how nobody has taken me seriously about pepinieres. what was awesome was that muhc of what he said was verbtain what i told him -- that the WV trees would not be enough for individual needs. i even dared to speak up a few times which showed that not only was i following the conversation but that i was also serious about all this. it became quite an interesting discussion and i am indebted to martin and WV a thousand times over for helping me out. people were impressed with what was said and i think the point is finally being driven home -- people must have their own pepinieres and learn how to do it themselves. they can't just rely on WV and must acquire the knowledge for themselves.

afterwards talla came to talk to me. he says a man from another village wants his own pepiniere. talla is also finally owning up to his role as my counterpart -- he gets what i want to do and is offering help. tomorrow we're having one more meeting with everybody at the valley and we will start signing people up. talla knows of a few people in his mind who are good potentials -- many of them come from other villages and he offered to take me to these places to do pepinieres. we shall see what the outcome is tomorrow but i really feel like things are coming together and this year can't possibly be as much of a clusterfuck as it was last year.

but i won't get too excited yet and we'll see how tomorrow goes. however, i really think i've finally got my point across -- i was disappointed for a while because i felt like everyubody was just humoring me and not really seeing my purpose or point -- and i am finally being legitimized. i am also so thankful for all the people who have been helping me out -- trees for the future, world vision, and people like jc who have been encouraging me and understanding and giving me ideas about how to achieve this breakthrought.

i also harvested and ate my first papaya off of my tree today. the fruits are very small but it was delicious. i saved the seeds for this year's pepiniere. i'm starting to feel like a real farmer.

my first village meeting!

2009-03-04T13:35:00.001Z

the hot days of the dry season have definitely started. the mornings are still cool but the heat starts to creep in around noon and by this late part of the day, i'm sweating by just sitting down.

on monday, ethan, gabe, omar, jc, ben (a volunteer who lives outside of kaffrine), and el-hadji (a charette driver) showed up in my village around 2pm. they showed up for my first village-wide meeting in which i was planning on explaining how this year everybody could have their own pepiniere (if they wanted it) and then have omar talk a bit about agroforestry and the technologies we could implement.

i was very nervous about not only the meeting but also felt like this would be a test of my wolof and knowledge of senegalese hospitality. turns out i've imbibed more information that i thought and knew to get my guests soow (curdled cow's milk with sugar -- the best stuff ever), a great lunch with of rice with fish, carrots, eggplant, cabbage, pataase (a kind of sweet potato), jaaxatu (bitter tomato), and tamarind sauce (a very expensive lunch), tea and sugar for them and all the meeting attendees. i even remembered to have lunches brought to the neighbors on both sides of our compound. the women were rather pleased with my ability to entertain.

the meeting itself was short and quick. it was a bit of a big deal for me because it was my first village meeting. everybody showed up dressed nicely and ready to hear what i had to say. i spoke for a while in wolof, first making mention that i was nervous about speaking wolof in front of all of them and that i hoped it would be clear. after i spoke there was a murmer of approval, claps, and several exclamation of how i now understand wolof. omar spoke for a bit and then there was a few short speeches from the village...and then it was over. there had been a lot of anticipation and build up on my behalf and just like that it was over and after a tour of the valley, my guests were whisked away on the charette.

ben stayed behind to hang out. i like him and we had fun chatting and talking about familiar places as he is from nyc and went to school at princeton. he also provided a nice break and excuse to fill my day with not doing muhc after a few days of what felt like the longest days ever of my service.

up until now (today) nobody has showed up to talk about pepinieres, which is a little discouraging and makes me feel that i will soon have to travel door to door selling the idea of a personal pepinere, which is something i'm not really thrilled about doing as i don't want people to have pepinieres of of obligation to me but because they actually want it. but maybe i am just being american impatient.

trees for the future

2009-03-02T10:20:00.000Z

after WAIST in dakar, wolfgang and i eventually got home on thursday morning but after a day there i had to leave on friday morning for a meeting with didier at world vision and to go to kaffrine/JC's village/ngodiba to help JC out with a trees for the future formation (training).

i left wolfie in the village, filled up his bowls, and left the back door open a smidgen. i had decided to bike to mbirkelane which was a stupid idea because so much of the road is sand sand sand. i was huffing and puffing within the first ten minutes. it took me nearly half an hour to get a bit beyond mbanda peul and iw as already infuriated the bike ride because it wasn't so much of a bike ride but my jumping on and off the bike, hitting 2 seconds of bikable road only to then hit a sand dune. turns out, abdou dia (the village chief) was behind me the whole time and finally sidled up to me as i was pushing my bike, snickering at me and remarking about how the road is sandy. we walked together for a while and discussed the latrine project but finally a stretch of good road showed up and he sent me off since we were both concerned about my being late for my 9am meeting.

i eventually got to WV at 9:34am, washed my face, and commenced my meeting with didier. it was cool because he treated me like a colleague, introducing me to everybody who works an important office and truly seeking a partnership between our two organizations. i was a little worn out and flustered from the bike ride so had a hard time understanding everything but we managed to discuss what i would like to do and what he would like to do in regards to health work in the area. there are lots of good ideas but i tink the best solution is for me to work with him a little but to really try and push for a health volunteer to be placed there, since there is so much work that can be done. he wants me to do all this stuff that i don't think i am really trained fopr and moreover, th enext few months i want to focus on trees, but simultaneously, i didn't want to disappoint and ruin the chance for a good partnership. we are going to have another meeting with his boss on the 16th.

after the meeting i hopped onto an al-hum to go to kaffrine where i met up with jc and after running a few errands, we headed back to her village. we had luch and then made a porridge for her dad who has been very ill with a foot infection recently. the porridge is packed full of nutrients and is supposed to be for malnourished children but i 'm sure was equally beneficial to the ailing keba (her dad). it had peanut butter, bananas, a little sugar, water, and oil and was mixed into millet flour.

we then headed out to ngodiba -- an hours walk through the bush in the heat -- to help ethan and gabe, two guys from trees for the future, with wolof translations. they had come (from the states) to do some filming, attend the big training, and to check up on how the ngo is doing in country. jc's been their liason for a good chunk of time and working her tail off with/for them but she asked me to come out and help her for the training. both ethan and gabe are returned peace corps volunteers so of course there was an instant camraderie.

most of the afternoon involved walking to different fields all over the gigantic village of ngodiba and translating. when we got back we were totally tired but omar (the senegalese trees for the future relais) insisted on giving us dinner which took hours to prepare even though it was just eggs and macaroni. i'll have to admit that most of the evening was rather agitating and i couldn't adopt my american mentality to senegalese hospitality. by the time jc and i got out of there and walked through the bush in the dark night, it was past 11pm. i was pooped from what felt like the longest day ever and promptly passed out.

the next morning we got up super early and again walked an hour to ngodiba where things were getting set up for the training. i got a TFTF t-shirt and felt rather official. i spent the whole day sitting next to and muttering translations into gabe's ear, which -- though tiring -- helped the day go by faster than if i had just been there for the PCV presence (made up by all the volunteers in the area -- shelley, ian, susannah, matt, ben, and lindsay). later in the afternoon i read out names and materials for the "giving out of materials" period. by the time the training was over at 6pm-ish, jc and i were pretty spent.

still, there was a bit more work to be done -- we were going to interview omar in his field -- so it wasn't time to go home yet. i called the village to tell them that i wouldn't be getting back that day, but the next (sunday) and that i would meet up with them at the market. at that point, talla, in a rather panicked voice, asked me if i had brought my cat with me. i told him no, thinking it was an odd question. this threw him into a frenzy of fast wolof -- he hadn't seen my cat since i left and he was certain that it was gone, it had run, left, disappeared. my heart sank and i liked through my teeth, telling him that it would be okay, the cat would come back, while my mind conjured up images of a dead wolfgang leviticus, eaten by snakes or hyenas or buzzards.

i got off the phone and panicked, called chris, my sister, my parents. jc tried her best to comfort me. it was hard though because i wanted to be freaking out about wolfgang but there was work to be done and moreover, there was nothing i could possibly do about the situation. eventually the day came to a close, jc and i trekked another hour home, had dinner, and then after some giggly girl talk (interspersed with mourning for wolf), fell asleep.

sunday i made my way out of her village, through kaffrine, and then on to mbirkelane where i met up with fatou and a bunch of other women from the village. i immediatly asked fatou about wolfgang and she started giggling and told me that talla was stupid and totally wrong. apparently, shortly after the phone call, wolfgang showed up and romped around for some time. what a relief. i spent the rest of the day buying lot of vegetables, sugar, and tea in preparation of ethan, gabe, omar, and jc's coming to my illage to help me out with my first big village-wide meeting.

when i finally got home, wolfgang came zooming up to me and happily greeted me. home sweet home.

cold is over...

2009-02-22T13:51:00.004Z

the 10 day weather forecast (according to weather.com) for kaolack, senegal (the city closest to my village):

Today
Feb 22

Mostly Sunny

101°

Mon
Feb 23

Partly Cloudy

100°

Tue
Feb 24

Sunny

99°

Wed
Feb 25

Partly Cloudy

97°

Thu
Feb 26

Partly Cloudy

95°

Fri
Feb 27

Sunny

97°

Sat
Feb 28

Sunny

98°

Sun
Mar 1

Sunny

98°

Mon
Mar 2

Sunny

97°

Tue
Mar 3

Sunny

100°

i don't think you're ready for my gellies

2009-02-12T22:46:00.002Z

after two extremely productive weeks, i'm in dakar getting ready for WAIST! WAIST is a big west african ex-pat softball tournament that goes for the president's day weekend. it's pretty much the party of the year.

upon leaving the village i felt an extreme satisfaction, i got so much work done. i was in the fields almost everyday, held meetings with teachers, planned a big project for the spring, had my first art class (and established a schedule for more), had a meeting with my village chief about a latrine project i want to do, went to the louma on sunday, worked on drawings for a training manual, planned a village meeting for when i get back, and even got my hair braided.

there's still a bunch of work to be done in dakar and that is also a nice feeling. i have a few letters and proposals to write so i don't feel like i am only here to play. moreover, i'll be volunteering to do kid's facepainting on saturday and also helping run the oceanium party -- which is, according to last year's experience, the ultimate party.

today chris, jc, and i went out and about downtown getting errands done and even managed to find facepaint for the kaolack team theme (braveheart = kilts, blue & white warpaint). i also found a fun conductor hat that i splurged on getting. oh and, maybe i'm a few seasons late but i've heard that gellies are back and all the fashion rage in america. well guess what i found for 1,000CFA ($2USD) on the streets of dakar?!

yay new shoes! (i've been here too long...)

update: wolfgang!

2009-02-08T15:08:00.000Z

wolfgang and my little sister, ndey fatou, have learned how to play fetch. they just did so for about a good 15 minutes. she throws his little pillow toy i sewed him across the room, he dashes off to get it, and then brings it back to her for her to wrestle away from him and then throw across the room again. amazing.

he's getting pretty big these days. my mom (my real one, in america) doesn't like his name so calls him waffle. i think that's pretty appropriate too.

he's fun but a bundle of stereotypical boy. he burps, farts, and refuses to be cuddled until night time when we got to sleep.

here is wolfgang and himself:

and here is 44 seconds of a 2 hour battle with a quaker oats granola bar wrapper:

(he went back to it...)

art in the village!

2009-02-06T16:57:00.000Z

i've always felt that one of the keys to development is developing creativity within children. this hasn't been made any clearer than in senegal. there is a style of "this is the way things have always been done" in senegal which makes venturing into new ideas or projects somewhat difficult at times. education in this country is not the best nor does it focus on giving children options or choices or stimulus in creativity. kids learn to write the same, recite the same, often, think the same. therefore, i feel like if we start encouraging creativity in kids, start prodding them to think outside of the box, when they get older, they may be more apt to new ideas and new ways of doing things.

i had a talk with emmanuel, the new french teacher who has been affecte'ed (sent) to our village, about this and asked if i could start working with his students doing some art classes. he heartily agreed.

i just had my first art class and it was lots of fun and i'm in love with all 31 of the students (ranging in ages 4 to 11). for our first project, i decided to do an "evaluation" project -- i wanted to see where they were at in terms of creativity, ability, independence , and willingness. so we wrote our names, drew ourselves, and a few things about ourselves. for an example, i drew myself, a book, a cat, a carrot (things i like to eat), and a tree.

at first they were completely befuddled. even writing their names was a process -- most of them didn't even know how (shows the quality of the french school...). when it came to drawing themselves, they all claimed they didn't know how...which i guess makes sense since barely anybody has a mirror, and if they do, it is just a small piece of one. so emmanuel drew a generic one on the board and that got them started -- although some of them actually went their own route.

one kid, ablaye, was even drawing and talking to himself and at one point exclaimed, "ey wey! xoolal sama tank baram!" ("hey, wow! look at my toes!) as he was drawing his feet. i wanted to scoop him up and hug him.

they were again stumped when it came to drawing things about themselves -- i had to list things they might want to draw: huts, soccer balls, mortars and pestles (the little girls pound millet and other things in gigantic wooden mortars and pestles). it is hard for them, i guess, to think of their "favorite" things as they aren't given much choice in their lives, but after a stall they all got really into it. they were very diligent and there was a hushed clamoring for sharing crayons and erasers and rulers (some of them are perfectionists).

every now and then there was a sparkle, a hint of creativity -- basically something nobody else hadn't dawn yet like a cow, a car, a bowl of ceeb u jen (fish and rice), somebody making tea, a dress. as soon as i would comment on the new item, everybody else would scramble to draw it as well.

of course there were a few cats, but no books (disappointingly). ultimately i was happy because nobody drew themselves as a chinois with a lip ring. they were so cute! i totally enjoyed that class and can't wait to have the next.

earlier in the day i was moping around my room because i have a horrible cough that really hurts and it was cold and grey when the world vision car came up to the house with talla and malick -- they had come to get me because the health person from mbirkelane had come all the way out to come meet me. he works for world vision in partnership with USAID and when he heard there was a PCV in the bush, he said he had to come and meet me so that we could start working together. he speaks a little english, which makes me feel a bit more relaxed, as we both speak broken versions of each other's language. i guess it makes me feel a little less like an idiot. we have a temporary meeting planned for the 20th. i'm excited -- now i can get mosquito nets and have health related projects.

fire!

2009-02-04T18:21:00.000Z

last night was quite pleasant. dame ka, talla's dad, was spending the night in the village so it was kind of a special night. he and i chatted a bit -- he used to have a volunteer so totally understands the peace corps thing and is great to talk to. then i sat with the kids and a lady named adji signan on a basan with dame and we hung out. i got quite talkative and yammered away with them, talking about american money, my hair, softball, etc. emmanuel, the new french teacher stopped by to talk. i think this is his first year teaching and he is eager and fresh-faced. then we had chicken for dinner! it was very salty, but amazing and totally a treat. dame should come visit more often.

this morning dame left to go back to toune but he truly seemed sad to go. i found out (from him) that he was born here in my village. i didn't know that. he kept saying that our village was better than his and that he should come back home here. it was kind of sad to see the old man long for the place he was born. i imagined him reliving his childhood days, running around in the sandy corridors of the village, meanwhile surrounded by his grandchildren, a reminder of his age. i say, why not? he should come back here and hang out.

the rest of the morning i spent shelling peanuts -- i pretty much shelled half of fatou's quota for the day. my fingers hurt.

after lunch i settled inside of my hut and was just sitting around reading over my journal when women started whooping and everything seemed to explode into noise. you could just feel the atmosphere change. at first i thought they were just messing around but then it intensified and aram ran out of the compound yelling, "NDOX! NDOX!!!!" ("WATER! WATER!!!!")

i ran out of my hut and saw what i've dreaded to see in this grassy dry village -- FIRE.

turns out some kids were dicking around with matches and set baye sene's entire stock of hay and feed on fire. the wind didn't help the really dry conditions and it accelerated quickly. all the women ran out with buckets and the men were trying to salvage what they could. i ran out with my bucket -- which was totally hevy -- and ran into ma'asou who then helped me carry it over. we went to the robinet to refill. women were swarming with water and men were raking and trying to control the blazing fire. i was scared. we all then ran out to the well where two men and a horse were pulling water.

despite the chaos of the fire, i couldn't help but notice how quickly everybody fell into place and winthin an hour we got the fire down to just a few flickering and smoldering piles. still, the air is thick with smoke.

it's funny, perhaps ironic is the more appropriate word, though because just yesterday i was marveling over how lackadaisicle the women are about children and fire. even dame is allowed to stoke the fire and i began to think that perhaps it is american paranoia that keeps children from fire and that it is its mystery that causes american children to start fires or get themselves burned. guess i was wrong. fire safety is something i strongly believe in. smokey the bear, ya'll.

drive

2009-02-03T05:04:00.001Z

i sit in this rusty automobile
tossed and jostled down burdened roads,
catching glimpses of the glittering sine saloum river.
its salty waters call my name.

the train tracks beckon me east.
the baobabs urge me to stay --
telling me that i will be safe lying deep beneath their roots.

yet wisps of a life i once knew reach me too --
blown in from across the atlantic ocean.

i am covered in a film of sweat and dust.
i lean my forehead against the window,
dreaming of east coast windows that are cold and frosty.
but this one brings me no relief
and instead, my head bounces against the smudged glass
as the car hurtles mercilessly down a path i've grown to know.
like i once knew the subways of new york.

we pass through towns and villages,
names and facades i know but have never known.
sometimes when i am traveling down this road --
exhausted from days of trying,
i pretend that i am never coming back.
and then --
my heart aches.

they say -- you don't remember me? you don't remember my name?
and i -- tired and frustrated and clawing at memory to remember,
wish i could just say -- yet you never even really learned mine.
who is this person you've made for me?!
dumb and mute and unaware of your annals of history.

i've come to know you
and what i wanted from you, i never got.
but, i have learned to love you.

you tired me
you exhaust me
you berate me, humiliate me, sicken me.

but you also thrill me
and show me
and teach me
and incite within me
a wisdom i would not have learned
in the slush filled asphalt streets
of modern cities with narrow passageways and looming shadows.

it could not have come from the mechanized world --
the place that i call home.

it can only come from.
you, the sine-saloum, the people, the battered road,
you.

ill

2009-01-31T18:26:00.000Z

the wonders of medicine are amazing. overnight, with the first few doses of medication, fallou's eyes have greatly improved. he can actually open them now. and his whimpering has gone down. i do not regret buying him those meds. moreover, they've administered the eye drops to the rest of the kids who wake up pink-eye crusty so maybe we will finally get rid of this nasty little disease that's been plaguing the compound.

i, on th eother hand, have fallen ill to some kind of flu or sinus infection sor something. i have a fever, congestion, and a sore throat. my head throbs and i am weak. i was supposed to go to toune today but instead have been in bed all day. i slept through most of it but the waking moments have been rather unpleasant. all the noises are amplified and unfortunately, i am surrounded by shrill, noisy children. the women have been worried but have given me my space, although at one point aram came in and rubbed my head in quite a motherly way and straightened up my hut a bit. i was in too much of a stupor to be embarassed at the state of my hut and myself and found it rather comforting, actually.

i must have jinxed myself because just the other day i was thinking about how i haven't been majorly ill in the village for quite some time. spoke too soon, i guess (even if it was just in my head).

medicine ain't cheap

2009-01-30T11:30:00.001Z

fallou went to the hospital today. the whimpering was too much -- he was clearly suffering from something. so i told fatou if she would pay the 100CFA doctor's fee, i would pay for any medicine needed. fatou then asked talla who seemed a little sheepish but appreciative. he tried to get me to go because he claimed he had work to do in the pepiniere but i said no. it's not my baby and talla was not getting out of the responsibility of taking his wife and the child he spawned to the hospital! moreover, i didn't want the doctors/staff to see their toubab benefactor -- making us susceptible to unnecessary prescriptions or unpleasant talk.

they just came back with almost 4,000CFA worth of meds. it seems that he has bronchitis (as one medication indicated). there was also some medicine for his eyes and some other syrup with a picture of lungs on the packaging (can't understand the french). seems like he will be okay.

i wonder though, what would have happened had i not provided the money? that's a lot of money and i can't see anybody in the being able to afford 4,000CFA for medication. a part of me regrets having to be the one to provide the money, as if i were the head of the household, but could i really let the poor thing suffer like that and do nothing when i had the means to help him? perhaps it wasn't "sustainable" nor did it do anyhting to teach about savings but i'd have to be a stone cold bitch to let the littlest member of my family -- who can't even speak or fully express his hurt -- stay ill so i could teach a lesson. nor can i even the the lesson now as an afterthought, as i've just found out that we ran out of rice and don't have the money for any more. how do i tell them to save money for emergencies when we can't even have money for daily life?

also, dame has learned how to say NO and the significance of the word. everybody always teases me because it is all i say to the cat. they asked me what it means and i told them. the other day aram (his mom) commanded dame to take off his pants and instead of doing so, i heard him yell "NO!" and then stomp around saying "no, no, no, no, NO!" (with his pants still on). oops. maybe i should start saying "yes" more often. or maybe the next time they ask me for money for rice i can just stomp around and yell no, too.

thieves and pinkeye

2009-01-29T08:38:00.000Z

last night around midnight we were awoken by nefie ba (next door neighbor) who barely ever lifts her voice -- yelling and whooping at the top of her lungs and banging on doors. "SAAAACO!!!!" another attempted burglary in my little village.

the first thing that crossed my mind was a mental sigh and the thought "the poor stealing from the poor." the next thing was to get annoyed and pissed -- don't steal from my people who work so incredibly hard for the meager living they make! at least there is some justifiability in the poor stealing from the rich (not that i condone it) but don't thieve from people who've decided to continue plodding along instead of resorting to thievery and tricks to make money. the burglar got away empty handed -- alxamdoulilah.

in other news, fallou (the baby) has been sick. he's been sick for over a week now. his eyes have completely crusted over, he can't open them, he can't breathe clearly, and he has a rattling cough. he whimpers every waking moment and it is absolutely terrible to hear. they have no medicine for him nor do they really know what it is. ma'asou had pink eye a few months ago and since then it's kind of stuck around, being passed from child to child. i've tried my best to tell them that whatever it is, it is probably contagious -- i'll see fatou or aram clear the eyes and snot of one kid and then move on to the next kid with the same hand. they don't seem to understand or believe me. i'm starting to think that i should pay to take fallou to the health post in mbirkelane or kaffrine if he's not showing signs of getting better in a few days.

welcome to the technological frontier

2009-01-25T23:18:00.002Z

i've finally discovered skype.

it's pretty amazing.

where are you sarah?

2009-01-22T12:20:00.002Z

anybody notice that sarah palin has not been in the news at all?

she wasn't even invited to the dinner obama hosted for mccain (pre-inauguration) nor did i catch a glimpse of her at the inauguration. was she even there?

not like i miss her that much, it's just a curious thing to me.

dakar is so nice. it can be so hard to leave sometimes. although...i do miss wolfgang.

what a day!

2009-01-20T22:58:00.005Z

just came back from watching the inauguration at ganalle's in downtown dakar with a bunch of other peace corps volunteers. they opened early for us and we all showed up around 3pm, giddy with anticipation and marveling over the gigantic crowds in washington, dc. even though i was awed by the size of the audience there in america, i was glad to be in senegal, in dakar, with my peace corps community, watching from across the ocean and experiencing this moment in history in a strange corner of the world.

and even though we were in a little bar tucked away in dakar, far away from it all, when the inauguration began, we cheered and whooped and clapped. we stood and sang and held our hands over hearts and mostly, we celebrated the inauguration of barack hussein obama as our 44th president as citizens and servants of the united states of america. it was really thrilling. my heart swelled and was close to bursting.

as i watched the pomp and circumstance and marveled over the "traditions" of the way inaugurations go, i suddenly realized just how big of a deal it is that this transition of power is so peaceful and smooth. as silly as it may seem that certain figures march out with the other or that the process of one family moving in and the other moving out at nearly the same exact moment is precisely orchestrated, it is simply amazing that this transition occurs with no blood running in the streets or buildings being charred or crowds being trampled. the pomp and circumstance is -- in a way -- a blessing and a testimony to what our country stands for. i guess i never even bothered to truly think about it until in a country on a continent where these kinds of things (changes/transitions of power) hardly ever happen without a coup d'etat (mauritania), fraud (zimbabwe), violence (kenya), angry public protest (guinea), or at least days of contention or delay about who actually won (ghana). (granted we had the whole bush/gore debacle but other then chads littering the floor -- or the lack thereof -- there was no blood streaming the grounds.)

it was really an amazing moment and i can't even believe that i had originally planned to skip the whole thing and stay in the village -- where i don't even have a radio! -- and just read the speech later. silly. it was definitely worth watching and i will be glued to the news for the next few days to see what will happen.

and the speech! what a punch it packed. what sent chills up my spine was when he said, "To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy." what wise words -- and i don't see them applying only to the leaders of countries or nations but to all people.

will i be one who builds or one who destroys?

obama, i can't do much right now then chant, "obama! obama!" from here across the atlantic and drink to your health and i doubt you can hear me or the tons of others here that are cheering for you but we are and will and look to the day “when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead man and when white would embrace what is right.”

obama!

2009-01-19T16:16:00.007Z

tomorrow's the big day!

everybody in senegal is very excited -- even those in my little village. they were all very understanding of my need to leave the village and come up to dakar to watch the inauguration.

there's a big club in dakar hosting a big inauguration party tomorrow. on my stipend, there's no way i can afford to go but at least i can sneak a picture. as you can see, obama and i are touching hands. maybe i can get some of his charisma through osmosis.

it's history in the making!

*update* the new york times was calling for readers' photos of the inauguration buzz so i sent one in...and they posted it! i'm in the new york times! check it out.

door repair

2009-01-06T15:23:00.001Z

my front screen door has been terribly broken for some time and on sunday, i finally went to the quincallerie (hardware store) in mbirkelane and bought some material to repair it with. i even managed to make friends with the owner. since the kids push on the bottom half of the door and the cats (jamm rekk [rip], rumi, and wolfgang) like to climb the screen, i decided to put wood on the second half of the door.

i've never repaired anything like this before and memories of struggling in shop class made me helplessly long for talla or chris to fix my door. as a consequence, i let the door remain as it was for quite some time until it was finally just torn to shreds and kept together with string and duct tape. this morning bouba ndiaye said some stuff to me about my "productivity" that was completely wrong (he doesn't even live in the village!) but regardless, it made me feel terrible about myself and my service so i sat on my bed and brooded and stared at my broken door. suddenly -- as if to prove bouba ndiaye wrong -- i decided to quit being a damsel in distress and fix the damn thing myself!

chris had given me a good idea of how to go about fixing it so i proceeded to dismantle the pieces (making a racket) and then cut and glue and nail things together. after 2.5 hours...i did it! despite nailing my own thumb a few times, it came out quite well and i'm very satisfied with the job that i did. it reminded me of my childhood when momma gave me (for christmas) a real (that is, not a kiddie-type) toolbox fully equipped with hammer, screwdrivers, nails, wrenched, etc. and i would spend hours in the basement tinkering around -- never really making anything, but just getting pleasure out of nailing nails into wood. thanks for the training, ma!

i totally failed to take a "before" picture, but this is kind of what the door used to look like. it's actually the back door of my hut but they were constructed the same way. except, imagine the door with the screen falling out (both top and bottom), the screen ripping (cats & children), and the door sagging down on the right corner (dinky wood, i guess).

now, this is the "new" door! because of all the extra support from the bottom half, the door doesn't sag anymore and satisfingly slams shut anytime i open it.

every seems rather impressed of my door and all think it a wise upgrade. it feels good to be handy.

playing in mud

2009-01-06T08:21:00.000Z

the other day (friday) when chris was here, we decided to build a mud stove. i learned this skill back during PST (or was it IST?) and have been meaning to do this in the village but it is a lot of work to collect materials and therefore never got around to it. but since chris was here, he managed to convince me and the women were looking forward to having a mud stove so chris and i spent a day collecting and preparing materials. this required us to go to the old swimming hole (that is now dried up) and collecting 2.5 bennoirs (a bennoir is a really big bucket) of clay and me putting it on my head and carrying it all the way back to the compound. that stuff is heavy!!! i was exhausted. it had to be "clay soil" so we sat there for 2 hours -- me with a hammer, chris with a big rock -- breaking big chunks of clay up into little pieces. at one point chris asked, "isn't this what they do in prison? take this big rock and give me smaller rocks." i seem to recall that nelson mandela did some work like this on robben island so i'm glad that he and i have could have a slightly similiar experience in life.

after that it was 1 bennoir of dry horse manure (also a thrill to break into smaller pieces). i managed to breath in too deeply and got a bunch of manure dust up my nose and down my throat. then it was 1 bennoir of millet chaff (the leftover from when the women pound the millet heads). we then mixed it up, added a bennoir of water, and i got to stomp around in it -- which i found was quite beneficial to my dry feet (like a quickie spa!) -- until it was all muddy and squishy. we set some rice sacks over it and let it sit overnight.

the next morning we built the oven. first i had to cut off the unopened end of a tomato can, so i learned how to use a manual can opener on my pocket knife (after 23 years of life i finally know how to use a manual can opener) and cut it off. then i realized the can was far too small (the can is for where you enter the firewood) and had wasted a perfectly good can and had to run all around the village looking for one. finally yaay fatou (always to my rescue) asked me what i was looking for her and when i told her, dug around her boutique and found me one that was big enough. so we built the oven and now it sits and dries for two weeks and then the women can use it. since the clay insulates the pot and keeps in the heat, the use of a mud stove should decrease wood consumption by as much as 30-40%. it's pretty cool and i've been meaning to build one for the family for a while. my neighbor has already requested one (though i think i'll have to make the condition that materials be collected and arranged before i come and build). the women are pretty excited about -- they had one once (probably built by the peace corps volunteer who started my site -- he lived with talla's dad in another village) but it broke. hopefully this one stays together for some time.

the kitchen hut is pretty dark so i couldn't get a proper picture but i'll try again when the women can finally use it. ours isn't as big as the one in the illustration above but it's still pretty nice.

money matters

2009-01-05T11:35:00.000Z

it's really hard for me to not get annoyed at the women sometimes. fatou, especially. it's like we're related: i care about her but she gets drives me nuts with her loudness, obnoxiousness, and constant need to use my things. this morning she's been relentless in coming to my door and asking me for things.

it is a constant barrage of demands. aissatou, give me money for fish. aissatou, give me money for oil. aissatou, give me money for vegetables. aissatou, i want sugar. buy us some? aissatou, i need matches. aissatou, lend me a needle. aissatou, where is your string? give me some. aissatou, cut these onions. aissatou, give me a plastic bag. i could easily save up my plastic bags too but no, instead i'll give it to the kids to tear into shreds and throw into the bush and then come and ask you for the bags that you carefully save up for yourself in the future. aissatou, give me a nail. aissatou, lend me your tool even though i have one too. aissatou, take pictures o fme and then print them out for us. aaargh.

today specifically it's been money for fish, money for oil, matches, for me to pick rice, for me to babysit, and for a needle. she either comes herself or sends one of her kids, which makes it even more aggravating because the kids are always unclear and then i can't express my dismay. what is even more irritating is that they (because this is not to say that aram doesn't do this either, she just happens to be less annoying) use the word "abel," meaning "to lend." they use this even for the asking of things like matches (especially matches!!!), plastic bags, or nails, when in reality, it's not lending at all! it's annoying because it happens everyday and because matches are cheap (25CFA a box), but they refuse to buy them, because they know that i have them and am a pushover and will give them (because how do i get out of it?) matches when they ask for them. how come then can constantly afford to buy incense (about the same price) or toothcaps (500CFA) or beignets (50CFA) but they can't afford 25CFA for a box of matches that will last them 2 weeks?! what is most upsetting is that recently they've taken the liberty to entering my hut on their own and taking my matches. it drives me crazy.

i've been here for over a year now and i still can't solve this problem or that of money. i give money to talla for food and my water but instead he treats it like it is his slary and does god knows what with it. (this is a common issue that volunteers have with their monetary contributions.) the women come to me for money and i either refuse them and tell them that i've given talla money already but more times than others, i succumb because i feel bad and/or can't stand another day of eating the same damn crap we eat everyday and if i give some money, there is at least the chance of being fish or vegetables.

i can't directly give them the 20,000CFA/month i give talla because of cultural things and it causes conflicts. (i've tried, it was awkward and uncomfortable and ultimately did not work out.) if i don't give money but instead buy vegetables on my own in the market, they wind up selling the nice vegetables i buy them so that they can get money to buy crappier vegetables and use the leftover money to buy sugar or tea or candy and still come to me for money for fish or oil. it's overall one bug fucked up situations that happens over and over again and never ceases to make my stomach turn. i dread the sound of footsteps at my door because i know it means somebody's coming to ask for something and it can be so hard for me to refuse. sometimes i just want to scream at them to stop asking me for money but i'm pretty sure that won't be helpful. money matters is already something that i find difficult to talk about and then to have to talk about it in wolof and then there is always the nagging feeling that in comparison to them, i'm freakin' filthy rich and can totally afford to give them everything they want/need. but i didn't come all the way here just to be a money machine. that's not my job.

it's so incredibly awful and i'm so disgusted at this system of men controlling the money and therefore the women having no income of their own and their subsequent powerlessness and the lack of "shame" of having to ask somebody else for money everyday.

pigeons for the new year

2009-01-03T12:28:00.000Z

i suppose i should mention that i eventually got to light some fireworks. on new year's day i was determined to light the fireworks. after all, thay had cost me 2,500CFA! up until new year's eve i kept envisioning some beautiful bonding moment between me and the village -- all of us out in the darkness and lighting fireworks and oohing and aahing as they burst over our tiny village in a "forgotten corner of the world."

but by the evening i was in a bad mood because fatou had pissed me off and i -- in turn -- had pissed her off and the sour air was permeating into everybody. (sidenote: this was the first time in my year or so of being here that i ever snapped at her and while i felt bad about it, i also felt kind of relieved that i've finally stopped being such a pushover and am a bit more...myself. that is, i have expressed myself as somebody who gets angry or annoyed or can have my limits pushed. that's not to say that all this time i've been the "happy" volunteer -- i am often grumpy or sad or far from chipper. it is just that for so long, in my attempts to be a "good" volunteer, i have shied away from putting my foot down in various situations that i would never had a problem with in america or an all-english speaking contetxt.) the whole compound seemed bitchy and angry and i didn't feel like lighting the damn fireworks now or ever. but i had to! they were just sitting there and i had gotten them for the village.

so after dinner i took out 3 and announced that i was going to go light some fireworks (not pigeons). talla immediatly began to panic, clearly thinking that i was going to light the compound on fire. even though i had this fear as well, i got annoyed at him. i felt old feelings of teenage rebellion gurgling up inside of me -- who was he to tell me what to do? i could do what i wanted! why doesn't he ever think i'm capable of anything?! i grumpily said "bay ko, rekk" (forget it, then) and that if he was scared i would just wait until i got to kaolack or dakar. but he insisted i light them but proceeded to ask me a million questions about whether or now i would be putting the village in peril. i was just about to give up when he decided i go into a field and light them. so we went and i set up the first firework. i lit it and we all (me, talla, chris, and ma'asou) took a step back. the firework launched and was a total fart of a firework. a total dud. it went like, 10 feet into the air before sputtering out and dying. i was disappointed and talla was relieved. we set up another and chris lit it. this time it shot up a bit higher but exploded into all kinds of color. pretty. we set up the third and i offered talla the lighter. he lit it and it shott off into the sky ablaze with color, making the perfect whizzing firewcracker noise, reaching marvelous heights, and exploding into a dazzle. talla was delighted and cheered like a little kid and gloated about how his firework was better than both of ours.

it is therapeutic lighting things on fire so i felt a bit better after that, talla was in a good mood, fatou and aram thought they wre pretty, and children were tittering away in excitement over the fireworks so things started to feel a little more normal again. now i just need to figure out what to do with the remaining 9...

happy new year

2009-01-01T09:01:00.001Z

before i left site for christmas, all the women made a big stink about me leaving and made me promise that i would be here and celebrate the 31st with them in the village. so i promised them and subsequently dragged chris back with me here. i bought 12 fireworks in dakar to celebrate the new year with and was really excited about sharing them with village and kept telling everybody that i brought "pitax" back with me from dakar. people were pretty impressed. i didn't find out until much later that they're called "pitar" not "pitax." in fact, "pitax" is a pigeon -- so everybody thinks i brought pigeon (and not just one but twelve!). whoops. no wonder they think i have so much money.

anyway, i figured new year's eve -- which they call "the 31st" -- would be kind of a big deal since the women had been talking about it for so long. but the day was rather normal and uneventful until around 7pm when fatou asked me for 500CFA (around $1USD). she and aram and some other women were pooling 500CFA each for a "really good dinner." i eagerly gave the money because the food at site has been so terrible recently and figured it would all work out well -- we'd have a yummy dinner and then light fireworks and we would all be happy and celebratory together, ringing in the new year.

around 8pm a bunch of women came over and started cooking. i helped cut a few soggy overdue potatoes and onions that had begun to sprout and complained with the women that our (total) 2,500CFA bought such shoddy vegetables. even so i was excited -- potatoes and onions are always likely to be a good thing. but then at 8:30ish, aram brought out dinner. i was slightly confused -- weren't we cooking it? weren't we going to eat potatoes and onions and instead this was just millet and leaf sauce. i figured that this was just to tide us over until the big dinner so we ate just enough to curb over hunger but left plenty of room for more food.

9pm -- no food. 10 pm -- no food. at this point chris and i are really tired -- it's bed time in the village -- but dinner still hasn't come and we want to be awake for the new year and light fireworks. i am growing increasingly impatient and irritated and wish somebody would tell me what's going on, but in the meantime the women are all crammed into fatou's hut screaming and laughing and drinking tea and having a hell of a time. chris and i fall asleep but in the half-quasi-anticipatory kind so it's nothing substantial and most of all, we are hungry!! i wake up at 11 and still no food so i wander around my hut until 11:20 when i decide that i'm giving up, closing my door, screwing the fireworks, and getting some real sleep. i am mad and hungry and cranky and annoyed that once again, i've been kept out of the loop and that this is the stupidest new year's ever and i have no idea when i even let them convince me to be here for new year's if NOTHING is going to happen. i think of all the other places i could be. i think of the champagne i could be drinking. finally, it's 11:30 and just as i am about to shut my door, aram sows up wtih a bowl and tells me that "dinner is here" (even though it had been sitting there in the kitchen for the few hours -- it's not like it takes hours to cook up some potatoes, onions, and macaroni pasta). she also mentions that there was no bread but we should eat until we are full. at this point we aren't even hungry anymore -- just really sleepy and disappointed -- but we settled down to eat. it was cooked in so much oil and salt that we could only stomach a few bites before essentially giving up. had there been bread (or coke) i suppose it would have soaked up the oil and lessened the saltiness. overall pretty disappointing.

despite having had dinner we nixed the idea of fireworks because other than the women in fatou's hut who were now also eating and still screaming and laughing their heads off, everybody else in the village was asleep. minus them, the place was silent. what's the point of fireworks if everybody is asleep?

chris and i stayed up until midnight, said happy new year to each other, i hummed "auld lang syne" (because i don't know -- nor will i ever -- the words) and we promptly passed out.

i realize now that the women probably don't even know the significance of new year's eve. they call it "the 31st" but made no mention of the new year or anything along those lines. i figure they just know the 31st as some holiday that in recent times has been increasingly celebrated and see it as an excuse to be festive. they don't care about the calendar or date, nobody said happy new year or cared when i mentioned that 2008 is over and 2009 has started. to them, tamxarit is the new year (or 10 days after the first day of the new muslim year), so why would my new year mean anything? i still don't understand why they needed me to be there, but oh well. happy new year. we'll see what kind of crazy adventures await me in this new year.

holidays in dakar

2008-12-28T16:28:00.002Z

merry late christmas!

so i am in dakar celebrating the holidays and even though i was going to head back to the village today as i promised them i would spend the 31st there, i am still here because i got a nice little christmas present -- some kind of bug that has been making my stomach turn circles and have made traveling pretty much impossible at this point because i need to run to the bathroom every hour or so. oh well, i'm still in good spirits because at this point i'm just used to these kinds of things and it could be so much worse.

i got up here late in the evening on christmas eve and it was quite the epic adventure. so i woke up regular time (7:30am -- late for village life) and did all my morning chores, prepared my bags, and packed up my hut in preparation for a hasty departure. i was already a little bummed out because a bunch of people were already up in dakar or other places around senegal or west africa and celebrating christmas eve. i felt like i was the only person in peace corps senegal working that day and i was lonely, sad, and eager to be with others who actually cared that it was christmas (disadvantage of living in a muslim village). but, i made the choice to stay so i cheered myself up with thoughts of christmas cheer and potatoes and got ready for a day of potato planting and travel. turns out, the day was a lot more intense than i expected it would be.

talla left for the field first and i stuck around the compound until the women were ready to leave. i was getting rather impatient and annoyed because i knew that the women were done with their errands were just sitting around and procrastinating. it was already 10 am and i wanted to be at the field already! finally they called me and we headed out and just as we left the compound, adja came running from across the village yelling/screaming, "ARAM! ARAM!" when she got up to us, she opened up her skirt, flashed her panties at us, aram and fatou started screaming, and they all collapsed into a heap of laughter. i internally rolled my eyes and thought "here we go again." for some reason the women find it really amusing to flash each other (often sans panties) and these antics is often lasts for a while so i waited for it to pass.

next thing i know, they've gone from flashing each other to picking out lice from aram's hair. i leaned on my shovel and sighed deeply, feeling like an impatient boyfriend. picking lice from each other's hair is a common social occurrence among the women -- it took me a while to get used to this practice and to correct myself from thinking it primitive or crass. it's just what they do. i'm used to it by now but at this time i was so annoyed and frustrated and i thought it was absolutely ridiculous that we had places to go, things to do and they were standing around gossiping and picking out lice from aram's braids. i nearly stormed off on my own but instead just waited it out, trying not to get annoyed, and thinking of silly american things american women do that could be comparable to delaying important activity in order to pick lice.

finally the women were ready and we headed down to the valley. everybody who was there already remarked about how late i was. i had plenty of snarky retorts to say in english about it being no delay of my own but in Wolof, had nothing to say other than muttering, "yes, i'm late today." we started watering and after about an hour and a half's time, world vision had not yet shown up so we sat around in the shade (it was hot!), harassed each other's children, and gossiped. at noon WV showed up and potato planting commenced. it was a lot of work and everybody was bustling -- digging trenches, raking, marking holes, selecting potatoes, planting potatoes, watering. i was marking holes for the potatoes that were about 30-40 cm apart. this required me to be bent over the whole time and i had to work quickly because there were more people planting than marking so i was trying not to hold things up. sweat was pouring in my eyes and my back was aching by the time i was done. it was extremely hot and i was so extremely thirsty i drank water from a watering can (sand, twigs, and leaves).

around 1:30PM the WV guys were heading out so -- dirty, hungry, and sweaty -- i jumped into the car. i got lucky -- they were going all the way to kaolack (instead of just mbirkelane) and were willing to tote me along. it was nice -- there was air-conditioning and the car was fast. we chatted about our christmas plans (one of them is a catholic) and shared in our excitement for the holidays.

we got into kaolack around 2:45 and i ran off to kaolack house, dropped off some stuff, picked up some others and headed out to the dakar garage in hopes to get into a car, out of kaolack, and into dakar before the infamous rush hour dakar traffic started (there is only one road in and out of dakar, so you can imagine how congested it gets during rush hour in the morning and in the evening). unfortunately, 3PM is the hottest part of the day and there was not a single cab out so i walked about 20 minutes in the dead heat hating life until a christmas miracle occurred -- a cab with a nice cabbie who did not even try to overcharge me. i got to the garage and got the last seat of the last car which was a triumph but also basically just an uneven metal plate and quite possibly the worst seat i've ever had in a sept-palaas.

regardless, i was on my way and trying my best to stay in good spirits but then we -- despite my attempts to avoid it -- got stuck in traffic for two hours and i kept hearing from chris who was at a christmas eve party and i was livid that i was stuck in traffic, dirty, tired, hungry, and my butt hurt like nobody's business when all i wanted to do was to be out of the car, clean, and drinking a glass of red wine. i really wanted to head straight to my homestay rather than the party since i was disgusting and cranky but chris managed to convince me to go to justin's (a third year volunteer) apartment where the party was.

i finally got to justin's around 9pm and was just about fed up with everything. i was beat, exhausted, and was ashamed of how dirty and disgusting i was. everybody greeted me kindly and in the christmas spirit but i guess i was just emotionally drained, so after walking in, walked out of the apartment and broke into tears in the dark hallway. i just wanted to...i didn't even know. i was just flat out tired and it was such a long day and everybody seemed like they had spent the last 10 hours playing and having a good time and i was wallowing in self pity and crying about how i had gone through hell and back. chris managed to calm me down, i went back into the apartment, took a shower, had some eggnog, and started to feel a lot better -- much due to the fact that top gun was playing.

the next day -- christmas day -- chris and i headed out to goree island where some other peace corps volunteers had rented out some rooms at an auberge (inn) and were planning a nice christmas dinner. we took the ferry with mandi and her boyfriend terry who had just flown in from england to visit her and got to goree where it was stuffed full of tourists, very cold, and overrun with cats. i hadn't seen some of those folks in a while so it was a happy reunion and we made candy cane reindeer (thanks to a care package) and sipped on grey goose screwdrivers. chris and i also took a walk around the island and by the time we came back, there was quiche to be eaten. it was yummy. kira -- who had coordinated much of the day -- and mandi had bought a bunch of yummy food and christmas dinner (which we ate around 2pm) consisted of a pineapple glazed ham and mashed potatoes. even though i don't eat much pork product, the ham was quite tasty and it felt like christmas. terry had even brought christmas crackers from london and we enjoyed getting our prizes and wearing paper crowns.

unfortunately, i got quite ill -- probably food poisoning from some street food i had eaten for breakfast -- and threw up a bit afterwards. that pretty much sucked -- mostly because there went christmas dinner. since i wasn't feeling great, chris and i decided to head back to mainland dakar earlier than we had planned, said our goodbyes, merry christmases, and happy new years, and got back to the homestay around 8pm. chris made some cinnamon rolls (with icing!) which smelled delicious but i was still throwing up so i had to opt out. even so, christmas was a nice affair despite the weird little stomach bug i got. it's always nice to spend christmas with friends, regardless of where you are or what happens.

the next day -- boxing day -- i was feeling a bit better and had promised to make up for the lack of a christmas eve dinner with a big boxing day dinner. we decided on squash soup and vegetable lasagna so i spent most of the day preparing that. jc had just gotten back from a trip to sierra leone and was heading out to ghana to meet up with her boyfriend so she came up to dakar and got to wallace's house just in time for dinner. it was nice. chris, wallace, jc, and i had a nice dinner together and the lasagna was not just a lasagna but a lasagna monster. i have developed this fear of never having enough food (i attribute it to living in the village and not having much money) so i went a little overboard with the veggies but it was stuffed full of zucchini, carrots, spinach, eggplant, tomatoes, and mushrooms and smothered in ricotta, parmesan (brought from italy!), and mozzarella. thankfully i was feeling a bit better that day (although still extremely weak from emptying the contents of my stomach the entire night prior) and could eat some of the food.

hopefully i can get rid of this stomach bug by tomorrow and head back to the village. chris is coming with me and then we are spending new year's with my villagers who have made me promise to celebrate with them. last year we didn't do anything -- or at least i didn't, i went to bed at 10 -- so i'm curious as to what will happen this year. i am thinking about buying firecrackers as a present and setting those up on new year's eve. that could be fun! (or disastrous...)

i have a few pictures up from the village and of christmas, you can check out candy cane reindeers, cinnamon buns, and christmas crackers here. (oh and, there are also pictures from thanksgiving in america -- a bit overdue-- here.)

well, that's about it for now. happy 2009 everybody! 2008 has been a crazy year and i look forward to the craziness that 2009 will grant me. hope it is a wonderful year for you all. i'll see you soon -- it's my COS year. :)

merry christmas!

2008-12-27T14:00:00.002Z

for your entertainment:

ant bite on the butt

2008-12-27T13:57:00.002Z

an ant bit my butt yesterday during lunch. it was not a very pleasant experience and now i can't stop scratching at my butt and the bite's swollen to the size of a golf ball.

yesterday after lunch some guys from world vision showed up to give talla seeds and instructions for the dry season garden project. the timing worked out well because just at that time ousmane (my teenage neighbor who has a crush on me) had asked me to change the time on his cell phone for him and i had to step outside to give it to him. martin -- one of the WV guys -- saw me and very enthusiastically started to talk to me about so and so and whatever. i always enjoy dealing with the WV guys because they take me seriously -- that is, they treat me like a colleague and seem to know and/or appreciate that i'm not just some dummy who wound up in a different country but that i am actually trying to achieve something (although the longer i am here, the less i am certain of the "something"). i suppose because we are all working together in "development" we can understand and respect each other.

they were heading out to the valley so talla -- whom i am getting along with more and more everyday -- invited me to go with them. i've been spending my days doing chores in the morning and obsessively reading tolstoy's anna karenina in the afternoons so i was like, hell yeah!! and practically bounded over to the truck. we went to the valley and talla was instructed in potato planting and i listened in -- more amazed as to how much i understand now without effort than just how much goes into planting a potato.

so we have to do all this soil and seed preparation and then on wednesday, they're coming to help us seed the potatoes. it was clear that they wanted me to participate as well, which made me happy until i realized wednesday is christmas eve and i had plans to go to dakar and to make a nice christmas eve dinner with chris. i was a bit sad that i would miss potato planting but then thought more and more about how i've managed to miss several "big" agriculture/agroforestry days because of a combination of being misinformed, out of the loop, or simply away from site and that i was fully in the loop this time and there was no major excuse for missing this. so i -- reluctantly -- chose work over play and decided that i would stay in the village until potato planting day, plant potatoes in the morning, head out to dakar as soon as possible, and instead of a christmas eve dinner, would make a big boxing day dinner.

i've recently been feeling a lot better about my service -- it helps to have had a vacation and i think in the meantime, i had my breakthrough with language and culture. it feels as if everything has suddenly fallen into place and i am finally relaxed and comfortable in the village. wolof comes rather quickly to me these days and i've been a little more chatty than usual. behaviors that used to upset or frustrate me are no longer so and i actually find myself behaving in the same way at times. it probably helps that i am off the mefloquine now and really, my anxiety has amazingly vanished (who would have known that it would have had such an affect on me?)

moreover, i've finally started coming to terms with myself and the fact that my service didn't wind up the way i had "expected" it to. before coming to senegal, i imagined myself as the rockstar volunteer, speaking the language fluently, talking with everybody, loving everybody all the time, carrying babies on my back, single-handedly reforesting the country, making big and wonderful things happen in my village, etc. and when i couldn't be that volunteer i pictured myself as, i was sorely disappointed and frustrated and kept knocking myself for being a crappy volunteer. but i realize now that those were fairy tale expectations for myself and the more of that kind of pressure i put on myself, the more i'm just going to keep on feeling like i'm failing...when in fact, i haven't really. i can only do what i can and while i keep comparing myself to other volunteers, my village isn't comparing me to anybody. i'm just aissatou to them. and these days i'm becoming more and more comfortable with aissatou.

working hard

2008-12-22T15:38:00.001Z

i'm really lucky to have such a motivated village -- they really work hard and i'm always impressed with the way they all show up for community gardening and pepiniering.

today we spent several hours watering, double digging, and applying (chemical) fertilizer to the beds for the community garden. there are plans to grow potatoes, onions, lettuce, carrots, two types of radishes and beets (even though nobody knows what radishes or beets are so i don't really know why WV gave us the seeds but at the same time it's good for them to grow new types of crops and i'm glad to see that the villagers are willing to try something new), parsley, and fudden (a plant they use to make henna).

it was hot and rather late in the day but tons of people showed up and all the women watered while the men did the digging. the old me would have been resentful of the strict gender roles and would have been spiteful of watering but i guess i've changed or adjusted and enjoyed watering with the women. there are always those several women who work their tails off -- never taking a break and really eager to participate in the process. i like hanging out with them and working with them and we worked and chatted and joked around. it felt good to work hard and sweat with the community. i was even able to sass this one guy who drives me insane because he always asks me stupid questions and bugs me and my posse of women were absolutely delighted that i was able to get him to shut up. there's also this one little old pulaar lady from the neighboring pulaar village and she is too old to carry water or the watering cans but stands around with a little bucket and diligently refills any empty watering can by her and we absolutely love each other even though we can barely speak to each other because she does not speak much wolof and i know one phrase ("i don't speak pulaar") and one word ("goat") in pulaar.

now i'm back in the village and this douchy man has showed up and is as glib and fast talking as the most stereotypical salesman. he's raking in the dough by putting cheap "silver" caps on women's teeth with a crappy battery powered drill and super glue. they are 500 CFA each -- aram got one, fatou got two and there are a bunch of other women running up to him to get their teeth done as well. where does this money come from? they come asking me for money practically everyday and constantly tell me that there's not enough money for oil or vegetables or fish or whatever and i fork over the money and then tooth-cap man comes into town and suddenly we have 500 CFA pieces to toss around. i feel extremely suspicious of this man and he is annoying and rude. i don't like him and am feeling protective of my women, but what can i do about it? (other than sit in the corner and glare at him and refuse to laugh at this jokes.) i want to judge the women for the frivolous waste of money, but then again i spent a good amount of money getting my lip pierced in america so what right do i have to judge them about spending money on silly cosmetic changes to the body?

rain?

2008-12-19T11:19:00.000Z

woke up at 2am to a familiar noise at an unfamiliar time -- rain? i lay in bed in the darkness listening to the wind and the subtle plopping of rain drops. my mind cleared and i realized that i had clothes on the line so hopped out of bed (amongst mewling protests of the kittens who had managed to sneak back onto the bed after i had kicked them off a few dozen times). when i got outside it was truly raining and there was a cold breath of wind rattling the crunchy leaves of the baobabs together. i got the clothes down but then i stood there for a few minutes, mesmerized and shivering but strangely comforted by this unusual dry season rain. i went back to bed unsure if i was dreaming, but then woke up again at 6 still to the sound of light rain. it was quite unexpected.

now today is grey and cloudy and cold. it feels like a proper december day, which is funny because just yesterday while i was walking through the bush with fatou, i was thinking how much it did not feel like december or winter, for that matter. it certainly is colder now that the rainy season is over -- i need a long sleeve shirt or sweater at night and in the mornings, but during the day it is still hot and the african sun makes its presence known. but today it is chilly, dreary, the leaves are falling, and i realize that yes, it is december, almost the end of the year, and that things are coming to a close.

i sat in the yard and smoked a cigarillo while doing a crossword with the kittens in my lap and wasn't sure if i felt sad or at peace.

kittens galore!

2008-12-18T12:38:00.005Z

a few days before i left for america, i was at chris's site, i was still mourning for my loss of jamm rekk (still am) so it was rather exciting when chris's little brother came running up and telling us that there are kittens that are just like sacckat (chris's strange black and white runty cat) and would we want to go and see them? being the crazy cat lady that i am, of course i did and it turns out that the kittens were in chris's garden -- 4 tiny kittens meowing their heads off for their mother. they weren't at all like sacckat -- they were striped (or at least parts of them were) and they were absolutely adorable (that's not to say that sacckat isn't cute).

of course i cooed over them and a fuzzy little brown stripped one came tottering out from their hiding place straight into my hands. nothing gets me better than a kitten who chooses me. i immediately felt that i had to have him but it was terrible timing as i was leaving for america. considering the increased amount of foot traffic since the discovery of the kittens (seemed like all the kids of the town had come to see what was going on) there was a huge chance that the mommy cat would come and whisk them away to a new hiding place and i would once again be in a sad, lonely, catless world. a plan had to be hatched.

i called jc who had been wanting a kitten as well and gushed about the adorable kittens and did she want one? she said yes -- but the timing was bad, she would soon be going away for almost a month so there would be nobody to care for her kitten. being that she would leave when i got back i suggested we cat-sit for each other. it was a tempting offer and she agreed to it -- especially because there was a little grey striped one just for her -- but we still needed somebody to watch the cats for the week between my finding them and when she could get out of site again to pick them up. i began a desperate string of phone calls to see if anybody would cat-sit (failing to mention that they were extremely tiny and helpless) but everybody had a really good reason as to why they couldn't take 2 kittens under their care (especially with no particular incentive or reward). i called karim and offered him a kitten, which he heartily agreed to but then when i asked him if he would take 2 more for the week, he said, "oh no...3 kittens is way too much work." i was disappointed that i had now committed myself to 3 cats but only had a home for one of them. i was stressed out. finally, i called laura who was hesitant at first but then giggled and said, "sure! it'll be fun." i was elated and laura is a saint.

so operation kitty grab was in full gear and i went off to buy a bucket for cat transport and some food. as we came back to the compound we could hear the cats screaming. what was happening?? kids came running up to us telling us that the cats were crying and when we went over to see what was up, we realized that the poor things were smothered in ants! an anthill must have been knocked over or something and the ants were retaliating in anger on the kittens, swarming and biting. we grabbed the kittens and tried shaking and brushing off the ants but there were so many and cats were screaming, children were yelling, and everything felt chaotic. what was supposed to be a light and easy affair became a few minutes of crazy. it was dark by now so all i could see was whatever was in the beam of the flashlight -- a kitten covered in ants, a kid trying to get into the garden, the mom cat staring at us from under an eggplant bush. finally, we grabbed 3, leaving the runty one behind so to decrease his competition and i,prove his chances (i felt horrible about it but this was the justification), and ran into chris's room and put them in a big bucket. suddenly everything was calm again and we (cats and humans) were all exhausted from too much excitement.

the next point of worry was that now that we had them, i realized just how small they were and that perhaps it was too soon to take them from their mom. i felt awful -- in my attempt to help them i might have made things worse! though they ate some fish offered to them, they couldn't lap water out of a bowl and they suddenly seemed so small and helpless. i felt helpless too and was terribly worried that they wouldn't poo on their own. i'd seen a kitten die during PST from a failure to poo and it was a terrible sight and i didn't want to see it again. so i stressed all night about whether or not they could poo and told them that all i wanted for them was to poo (foreshadowing).

the morning following -- no poo and disappointment. nonetheless, it was time to bring them to kaolack to be picked up by laura in a day and a half. because they were so small it was pretty painless -- they sat in the bucket quite silently and caused no ruckus. we stopped by karim's who knows towns about kittens he told us that they were 2 weeks old and were still drinking milk but just about done. he gave us a bunch of advice, lunch, and after managing to feed them some milk with an eyedropper (after much coaxing) we left, depositing the kittens in the kaolack house bathtub and left for dakar.

long story short, they were picked up by laura, adored by everybody who passed through the house, brought to sokone, then back to kaolack for thanksgiving and turned over to jc, once again adored by everybody, fed some turkey and Takabski meat, got off of milk, and were still alive and kicking when i got back from america and jc turned them over to me. they -- especially mine -- suffered from diarrhea and pooped themselves a bunch of times (after all, i had begged them to poop) and suffered a bunch of traumatic baths. as they've gotten bigger, they've become more to manage -- they are demanding now and noisy and will scream until i cave into their demands. it's like having a child -- they must be fed and washed and trained and they live their lives in 3 hours cycles: play play play sleep wake pee eat play play play poo sleep wake poo play play play sleep and i have become inextricably bound to this cycle because when they wake they pounce and romp all over me and bite me and then they scream for food or poo on the floor so i must wake to take care o these things. it is a lot of work -- i've never had a kitten so young and it often makes me miss jammo and how easy it was to take care of her. but it's too late for regrets now, so wolfgang leviticus (mine) and rumi (jc's) remain here and have dominion over my life. like a real mom i now find joy in being able to lock them into the hut and run away and love them when they're sleeping and purring or playing with each other but really hate them as soon as they wake and beg for food. oh well, at least it's something to do during the dry season...

say hello:

welcome back to the village

2008-12-16T14:16:00.005Z

the gifts were a success! talla immediately used his new razor, the hoodie fit ma'asou perfectly, everybody has nail polish on (including the boys who now have pink toenails), the women are obsessed with looking at themselves in their pictures, and the little boys keep getting yelled at for dragging their new clothes on the ground every time they are asked to show off their new (nintendo-themed) clothes.

here are my (suddenly) camera shy boys in their new clothes:

so i'm back in the village and yes, i realize it's been nearly a month since i've written and yes, i am ashamed. i guess it is a lot easier to sit down and write when there are several hours of the day to kill. actually, i don't know how true that is since i had several hours a day to kill while i was in america. i guess it's because in america there are things like tv and internet and places to go to distract one's self.

but on that note -- america was awesome. it came and went like a flash but it was truly wonderful to be back for a little bit -- i had missed it more than i thought i would and not in the ways i had expected either. i had definitely missed my family, my friends, the good food and spirits, but the glittering aspects of america that make america so great in the eyes of others -- the houses, the cars, the money, the array of this and that and everything -- were overwhelming and it was rather confusing at times. at first i was shocked at the reminder of just how much we have in america, then disgusted, and then easily fell back into the routine (i knew this when i bought a $1.75 cup of coffee that i only drank a third of before i threw it out). i kept getting torn between feelings of loving america for its abundance of options and then despising the place for its lack of simplicity.

i suppose the lesson is that it's utterly impossible to place the label of "good" or "bad" on the place. i love america for what it is and am more than grateful for having the bonne chance of being born there and having the plethora of options and opportunities i've had since i was a little girl. but i also realize the little beauties of life in senegal and can see where the glittering lights of america have blinded me. i guess i'm pretty lucky to have the chance of living in two worlds that are so opposite of each other.

counting the cars on the new jersey turnpike they've all gone to look for america

2008-11-22T14:28:00.001Z

home!

after a relatively painless 8 hour flight (minus some motion sickness during landing) i was greeted by my father, mother, and sister at JFK airport. it was a wonderful feeling to see them and to squeal and to hug and to feel them in my arms again.

i yammered away to them in the car on the drive home and they fed me a toasted sesame bagel with cream cheese. i've been craving that since i left america over a year ago.

after a hot shower and changing into clothes that i haven't worn in ages, my dad took us out to dim sum and i stuffed myself silly. little did they know that the past few weeks i have secretly been hoping that my first meals in america would be a bagel and dim sum. they know me so well.

one thing that sucks is that i am so freaking cold!!! i'd been saying that i was looking forward to the cold and autumn and stuff but this is just ridiculous cold and i take it all back. i have on more layers than i thought was imaginable.

on an unrelated note,
now that i have unlimited wireless, i've switched over to picasa for pictures. flickr is great and all but i've run out of room on there and i am too poor/cheap to pay for an upgrade. head over there for all my pictures since entering country.

currently

2008-11-22T01:22:00.002Z

at leopold senghor international airport waiting for the next few hours to fly home to america.

it was pretty sweet because i was all friendly in wolof and stuff and got to cut lines and made lots of friends. apparently living in a hut in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere will pay off...at least at the airport where people are amused at your ability to communicate in their local language. sad thing is -- i'll probably lose it all in the next two weeks.

i've been fighting a really nasty cold and skin rash so i'm looking quite forward to getting away from all the conditions that lead to my weird illnesses and being cold and maybe getting the flu in america.

i am so incredibly excited to be home for the next two weeks.

if you want to see me, shoot me an email! i'm in america until the 7th of december.

america, here i come!

home!

2008-11-21T15:07:00.000Z

i fly home in 12 hours.

can't wait!

waaw, men nanu!

2008-11-12T10:34:00.003Z

the other day i was on a horse cart going through the bush and a man saw me and shouted (in english) "hey, toubab!" ("toubab" means white person/foreigner/frenchie/non-seneaglese)

i yelled back, "i'm not a toubab, i'm an american!"

he yelled back, "where are you from?"

i responded, "americans are from america!"

and he pumped his fist in the air and hollered "OBAMA IS YOUR PRESIDENT!"

i cheered.

it's been amazing to see the response that obama's win has garnered here. the range of knowledge varies but everybody is excited about this man, this american with african roots, that has been elected the president of america. they associate ideas of peace, hope, the end of war, a new era with his name.

my villagers were giddy and eager to ask me about obama. i talked about politics for the first time in my village after a year of living there because people are finally interested. even fatou -- who is so not interested in things that don't involve new earrings or a dance-off or village gossip -- asked me if i voted and who i voted for. how excited would they all be to know that when obama spoke, "and to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world...", he was talking to them!

of course i am thrilled too and am eager to see if this man will live up to the expectations he has made for himself. everybody calls him the first african-american president, but i consider him the first president of color. it really seems to me that he understands multiculturalism and pushes for diversity and understanding. this is one of several (personal) reasons why i voted for obama. (i could go into the political reasons, but that would make my blog just like every other soapbox blog, wouldn't it?)

simultaneously, i am cautious. i know that we cannot put all of our hopes for a better world on one man (as it is everybody's responsibility) nor do i think that simply because we've elected him in a momentous spot in time does that mean the entire world has changed. it makes me cringe when i read audacious statements made by the media about the end of racism or that "the election of barack hussein obama as the 44th president of the united states swept away the last racial barrier in american politics..." (international herald tribune, 6 nov 2008) when it is clear and obvious that there is still a lot more work to be done. i worry about those who will use obama's win as evidence of the fact that america is no longer discriminatory or that equal opportunity exists for all.

anyway, i seldom use this blog as a sounding board of my opinions but want to throw out my caution and reluctance to fully embrace obama as the answer to all of our country's wretched problems. as excited as i am about him and as much as i get that rockstar admiration for him, i know that it is personal responsibility that moves this world. we can cheer him on and swoon at his speeches, but if we don't actually live personal lives of active effort, compassion, and understanding (or at least the attempt to understand) all this "yes we can" stuff and hope in a better tomorrow is all just a lot of talk.

("waaw, men nanu" is "yes we can" in wolof)

special surprise

2008-11-11T20:23:00.002Z

i got the seed taken out today.

the dentist laughed at me and then after some digging around, plucked it out. it made a nice squishy popping sound. he then made me rinse and as i swished, i felt something else come loose.

turns out there wasn't one seed but two!

he told me not to eat watermelon anymore. that's kind of disappointing...

attack of the watermelon

2008-11-10T12:31:00.008Z

so guess where i am?

DAKAR.

again.

on saturday i was happily eating a watermelon and as i bit into it, there was this sinking feeling of "oh shit."

i managed to bite into the watermelon JUST right so that the seed slipped into the little hole left from my wisdom tooth extraction. the seed is wedged in the hole, a perfect fit, and i struggled to get it out for an hour and a half before i finally called dr. savage and told him my ridiculous plight.

the seed is deep down in there and happy as a clam and no amount of swishing or attempt to fish it out with tweezers (two types, i might add) is getting it close to leaving so i had to come back up to dakar to see the dentist who will hopefully extract it tomorrow morning.

my goodness. what are the chances?! sheesh.

the culprit

snake kill #2

2008-11-08T19:39:00.000Z

just as i was writing and complaining about having a dull day -- i spent the morning shelling peanuts and hunting wasp's nests in my hut -- i caught a glimmer of goldish-green out of the corner of my eye. i looked to my left and there was a huge snake slithering into my hut through a hole in my screen door and heading towards a little hole in the ground. i slipped away to grab my machete and when i got back it spotted me and froze. i did too and we stared at each other for some time -- was i even breathing? i won the standoff and it started to creep into the hole (funny thing about this hole is that i've continually been trying to fill it up with clay and it would get reopened and i would get so annoyed). it was an awkward spot since it was in between the wall and the leg of my bed but i decided it was now or never and struck. i missed. it bolted in the other direction and i went for it a few more times (gashing up my "cement" floor) and finally cut of a bit of its tail and then chopped it in half at the mid-section. blood sprayed everywhere (in a nice writhing pattern, i might add) and i ran outside to find talla. aram and talla helped clean up the blood but it's still all over the wood frame -- i don't think that stain is coming out.

considering how perfectly snaked sized the hole in my screen door is, i wonder how long the snake and i have lived in harmony with each other.

i like my little hut but i look forward to the day that i don't have to constantly be battling and worrying about ants, crickets, wasps, earwigs, flies, mice, scorpions, frogs, gigantic beetles, lizards, and snakes taking oevr my hut while i sleep. these infestations come in cycles and it drives me crazy -- but i'll count my blessings and be glad that i don't have termites or bed bugs. yet.

a few days in palmarin

2008-11-07T13:56:00.000Z

i'm still incredibly sad about jamm rekk. there was a really sad and empty moment this morning when i opened my door and there was no little kitty zooming across the compound to greet me and scamper into my hut for 10 minutes of cuddle time. losing a pet is a really terribly, awful feeling -- especially when she was one of the strands of sanity in my topsy-turvy life in the bush. she was one of the best cats you could ask for -- super smart, cute, affectionate, friendly, social, a great mouse hunter, independent, and everybody in the village liked her. i am really going to miss her presence in my life.

in other -- less sad and tragic -- news, i am finally out of dakar and back in the village. dakar was quite nice -- with all the luxuries and amenities one could ask for. my home-stay host was super kind and generous and hospitable and let us full access to his house, kitchen, and everything we needed. one of my last days there i made pork and shrimp dumplings from scratch! chris made the dough and i made the filling and they turned out pretty delicious and enough to feed 7 people.

jc's parents flew into town earlier this week and invited me to go to palmarin with them. of course i agreed so i said goodbye to dakar, chris, and the 1.5 weeks of wisdom tooth extraction and fun and headed out to the delta with the kollmorgen's. palmarin was quite nice and the hotel we stayed at was really impressive. the first night jc and i stayed in the famous (and worthily so) baobab tree houses and her parents stayed out in a "lagoon house" (a house on stilts in the water). the entire grounds of the hotel was very beautiful, neat, well landscaped, and each hut was creatively designed and well decorated. the french owners of the place had really invested a lot of time and care to create a little oasis and we found out later that it was solar powered (enough to power computers, washing machines, and all the lights, fans, fridges, etc very reliably), environmentally friendly, and the local community was highly involved in its building and running. the tasty and pretty food was all prepared by local women who had been trained by the owners and very few of the senegalese staff had ever been to hospitality school. the owners and the staff seemed to have a very friendly relationship with each other and jed (the eco-t volunteer there) seemed to think very highly of them.

the treehouse we stayed in was so neat -- the bathroom built around the base of the tree (one showers in the groove of two gigantic roots), a second floor balcony/terrace at the middle of the tree for a hammock and finely crafted table and chairs, and the third and final level up amongst the branches housed a little room with gigantic west-facing windows and a terribly comfortable bed. the entire place was magical. the first night jc and i stayed up late on the second floor balcony with a bottle of wine (her early birthday present) and chatted and caught up, as we hadn't seen each other in some time. we also anxiously waited for news about the election, but alas, even what we thought was late was too early in america and we headed to sleep drowsy from south african wine, american and filipino treats, and the talk of deep friendship.

at 4am i woke up to pee and made me way down the precarious steps in my sleep daze, having to stumble over a fat dog who had climbed up to the stairs between the second and third levels and was sleeping and snoring on a step. when i was done and back up in the tree, i checked my phone for election updates (i had commissioned several people with internet/tv access to text me updates throughout the evening) and found that my phone had no more space for new messages. i promptly deleted them and my phone was then flooded with news of the election. it was very exciting and just as i was finished reading them, i got a text declaring barry the victor. i was elated! after an hour or so of texting excitement i fell back asleep.

when i woke up later that day, there was a feeling of great excitement over obama's win. the french owners were quite elated as well and invited us to celebrate with them and we drank 2 bottles of champagne and discussed politics with our new friends (the owners spoke a little english and their daughter and son-in-law were fluent). it was amazing to see how invested they were in our american election and it really helped me see just how negative of an impression we've managed to make ourselves abroad in the past few years.

later that evening jed stopped by to say goodbye to the owners -- he's cos'ing and out of the country soon. he was with his dad (american/real dad) who was a really interesting guy to talk to. we all had dinner together - the owners, their daughter and son-in-law, jed and his dad, jc and the kollmorgens, and me. the dinner was delicious and the owners were generous with 2 bottles of (free) white wine and we all had a lovely evening together.

the next morning it was away from vacation and back to site and i found that despite feeling a bit apprehensive about being back in the village, i was looking forward to it. i met this cool guy who i hired to take me home and we had a nice talk. i found out he is from a village right by mine and i asked him about trees and if he wanted to make his own pepiniere next year. he seemed very interested and gave me his phone number and a watermelon as a gift. i am getting excited about next year's work season and i kind of just want to fast forward through the next few months.

of course i then came home to the saddest news i've received in country and it quickly took muc hof the past few days' joy from me. i called chris and cried and then called mommy and sobbed (both handled it very well). i wasn't at all expecting to lose my little cat and as old as i am and as much as i've been through, the loss of a pet is still absolutely devastating to me. it's also been really frustrating because there's no word for "sad" in wolof and i haven't been able to express to anybody in my village just how much of a loss this is to me. they don't understand the attachment americans develop to our animals. well, i hope she's having fun in kitty heaven -- maybe scampering around with all the cats we've lost in this country. raising a pet is hard in africa.

the saddest news

2008-11-07T00:26:00.001Z

sad news. terrible news, really.

i came back to the village today and was looking forward to finally being back home in my hut with my people, my kids, and my cat. and then i found out that jamm rekk died while i was away. apparently she was sick for a day and then died in the compound. they buried her for me.

i'm pretty devastated. it's so incredibly sad and i loved that cat a lot and my experience here will be totally different now that my little striped cat is no longer around to follow me, meow at me, and mingle with my villagers. she was a special kitty and it is really, truly, upsetting.

i will miss her very much.

jamm rekk ka rip

still in dakar...

2008-10-29T22:09:00.002Z

i was supposed to get my stitches out today.

i've been here in dakar -- land of plenty and luxury -- for way too long. it's super nice and there's a large part of me that wants to stay because the digs are nice, the company better, and frankly, now that tree season is over, there isn't much to do in the village right now other than pick peanuts and that gets old fast.

so i headed out to the dentist this morning and he took a look at me, snipped out two stitches and then told me that i need to stay here until saturday. everything's alright in mouthtown but i guess my gums aren't totally healed yet (as i can still taste blood every now and then, blegh). it wouldn't be so bad if i wasn't so overwhelmed by this feeling of anxiety and guilt for having been away from the village for as long as i have.

my hut is threatening to collapse and my cat is pregnant and i kind of want to be in the village in the event that the hut actually collapses or that my cat actually has kittens and instead i am stuck here in dakar having fun, sleeping in air conditioning, taking hot showers, watching tv, reading up-to-date magazines, and eating good food. and just in case people think i am doing nothing but having fun, it's not true -- the ice cream place was closed today AND i've been working very hard on creating a new logo for SeneGAD and editing SeneGAD's new edition of a cookbook.

then there is the whole election-on-tuesday thing and there are a bunch of election viewing parties going on in a few major venues and i don't know if i can stand getting updates about the election via text message out in the bush and therefore, am very tempted to attend. and then jc's parents are coming to visit and have invited me to a few nights in palmarin (a popular beach town) with them and then i'm flying out to the states for thanksgiving so in the next few weeks i feel as though i might only have a few days in the village.

the guilt is killing me!!!

on the plus side, i wandered around marche kermel today and found great cuts of beef AND spinach and made chinese beef noodle stew (niu ro mien) and it was really freakin' delicious.

oooh and i get to hand out halloween candy to expat kids on friday night (remember how awesome it was when halloween fell on a friday night?!). the embassy (or rather, a representative of it) stopped by my homestay today and dropped off a gigantic bag of candy. i'm pretty sure that there's more candy in the bag than kids who will be stopping by...

no more wisdom

2008-10-23T13:59:00.003Z

i'm currently sitting in the very nice house a very nice expat in dakar, gingerly spooning mashed potatoes into my mouth and wincing at the fact that my cheeks look like the saggy jowls of john mccain. the nice thing about all of this is that i just woke up 30 minutes ago and its the first time i've slept in in ages and the house is air conditioned and there are hot showers. the negative thing about all of this is that yesterday i got two (i was only born with two) wisdom teeth removed and call me a wuss, but it was slightly traumatizing.

i've been trying to get my teeth removed for about 5 months now, but the teeth sprouted at the worst possible time -- the middle of the rainy season. so i bit the bullet and procrastinated the surgery because undergoing this procedure would require me to leave site for a stretch of time and it didn't seem like a good time to do that. by august my teeth didn't hurt as much anymore and i thought maybe i could even wait another year until i got home to get the teeth removed. but then sometime two weeks ago the throbbing pain of teeth pushing their way to the surface remained and i decided that since i was going to dakar for some time to perform my mid-service medical exams, i would go and get these teeth taken out once and for all.

i arrived in dakar monday afternoon and it was quite pleasant -- i got to see a bunch of people i haven't seen in a while and consumed sam adams beer (!!), grilled chicken salad, ice cream, hummus, tabouleh. basically lots of good food and good friends. and then there were the perks of staying at this expat's house. he's incredibly generous and the house is so nice and it is amazing to take a hot shower and step out into cool, air conditioned air and not sweat immediatly afterwards, and then pad over to bed where it is nice and cold and the mattress is perfectly firm and not cavernous or lumpy (or made of cheap foam). i was happy to be in dakar.

but then yesterday morning came around and i was on my way to get a panoramic done so that dr. savage -- the head peace corps doctor of west africa-- could decide whether i would get one or two teeth removed. i suppose one could say that dr. savage has a reputation for being no-nonsense. he's got a lot of shit to take care of so i suppose he doesn't really appreciate petty business that drags him down. because of this, i was kind of nervous that the panoramic would show up and pronounce that my teeth were absolutely fine and that i was just making up the pain in my head and he had just wasted his time and money on my neurotic make-believes. but no, the panoramic revealed that yes, the teeth were to be removed.

i wasn't sure if i was to be relieved or not because of course, since the first day 5 months ago that my teeth made signs of wanting out, i have been hearing everybody's personal horror story of their wisdom teeth removal. i also remembered the time when my sister got hers out and got terribly ill and vomited a concotion of pink slim fast and blood a dozen times and i was compassionatly horrified. moreover, there's been one scary peace corps story of wisdom teeth removal that has quickly circulated among the volunteer social circle and of course every time somebody heard that i was getting my teeth removed, they would be sure to ask me if i had heard the story. i knew that all of this was in jest or teasing but it secretly made my heart anxious and i was freaked out. my family was also freaked out and my dad had simultaneous horror images of what the surgery would be like. overall, i suppose my ignorance and spoiled american mind thought that oral surgery in a developing nation would be a big terrible bloodfest and i was scared. real real scared.

so after the panoramic we made our way to the oral surgeon's office which was a nice hospital green and had a lovely fish tank that i amused myself with. then...it was surgery time. i left chris (who had come with me for moral support) in the waiting room and dr. savage led me into the chamber of doom. it was very nice and clean and well lit. organized, non-threatening, i was clearly in good hands. moreover, dr. savage was going to be sitting next to me throughout the surgery, participating even, so there wasn't anything to worry about. dr. savage, the oral surgeon -- who i have still to learn the name of -- and his dental assistants all spoke french. i spoke french a long long time ago but have forgotten it all and especially now that i speak wolof most of the time, i can't really do anything but speak wolof (albeit crappily) -- so i didn't really have a very solid idea of what was going on around me. its a little daunting to be performed on in a different language...

it was decided that both teeth would be removed because both sides of the gums were inflammed. it also turned out that i wouldn't be administered a general anesthesia aka i would be awake for all of this. of course they would numb my mouth to the point of not feeling the pain, but i would be fully aware of everything going on. i had known that this was probably the case but had given myself the false hope that they would maybe give me the option or courtesy of unconsciousness. the only other time i ever had oral surgery i was knocked out for that and i was under the assumption that all oral surgeries did this. (turns out that this is no longer a practice.) anyway, the doctor/dentist was a very hyper man and was all ready to go and was bouncing all around the room getting set up. there were lots of people in the room -- the doctor/dentist, dr. savage, two dental assistants, and a dentist-in-training. and me, of course, quivering in my dental chair, covered in two (blood-stained) sheets and a shower cap, sweating profusely.

i'm not a big fan of dentists. i take good care of my teeth and go to the dentist every 6 months but something about opening my mouth -- a very vulnerable place of the human body -- to a stranger with pokey tools has always been a bit disconcerting and this was that fear amplified by ten. the dentist started to poke around my mouth and all of a sudden i was injected with a needle on the inside of my cheek and a searing pain. it was totally unexpected -- i didn't even know we were starting! the pain was immense. this, coupled with the shock, was a bit much and for some reason -- maybe it was just the culmination of fears or all the freaky sounds or the idea that i'd be awake for this or the mefloquine-induced anxiety or whatever -- i started to cry!!! and i couldn't stop. my left cheek was numbing up and i felt like it was swollen to the size of a baseball and i just couldn't crying and soon i was sobbing. it was pretty ridiculous and it pretty much freaked out everybody in the room. it was like they'd never seen a person cry before. it was also slightly embarassing. dr. savage -- who was incredibly calm and supportive throughout all of this -- changed his mind about things and told me that we would just take one tooth out and when the other one started to hurt i could come back and get it removed. i adamently insisted that no, i would calm down soon, and that there was no way i could do this a second time. go big or go home, right? the dentist felt incredibly bad and tried to make jokes in poor english about how my "pretty make up was no more" -- it wasn't just no more, it was streaming everywhere -- and i weakly smiled and mustered up the strength to go on. i haven't felt that kind of fear in a really long time, in fact, i can't even remember the last time i was so terrified.

anyhow, after a few really deep breaths, i managed to get myself to stop crying and asked (as well as one can with one numb cheek) dr. savage to translate the most important things being discussed and if he would kindly keep me up to date on the steps towards the extraction. he readily agreed. we then proceeded and after an hour and a half of cutting and drilling and pulling and sewing, my two wisdom teeth were removed without a glitch. it was quite swift and easy. (as dr. savage put it -- "you've just delivered two healthy babies!" although i suspect that childbirth is probably a million times worse and therefore, not something i am too enthusiastic about...) there wasn't any pain although it was quite stressful and halfway through i began to feel the urge to pee so i was trying to tolerate it all and hold my pee in at the same time. there was no way that i was going to pee my pants in front of everybody, especially after i had broken into tears like some kind of crazy, neurotic pansy.

the swelling went down rather fast, but the pain is quite incredible. it is rather obvious that somebody has drilled away my teeth from my jaw but i think i am healing pretty quickly. although i haven't had the bowls of ice cream promised to me yet, chris made me mashed potatoes though i secretly envied his hamburger and my homestay host has generously offered me every soft food he has in his pantry and refrigerator (including raspberry sorbet!). the codeine makes me incredibly nauseous and i've thrown up a few times this morning so i've weaned myself off of that and am just surviving off of ibuprofen 800.

so that's it. i am two teeth less and the trial is finally over. i know that everybody and their mom gets their wisdom teeth removed and i was just a really big baby about all of this but it still felt like a good story to write home about and will make a lasting memory of my time here. its a shame because dakar is the epicenter of good food in senegal and i'm totally missing out -- nor can i drink -- but i won't complain anymore because i'm healing up pretty fast and things could have wound up so much worse. i wanted to ask to keep my teeth so i could make it into a gris-gris (kind of like a charm/talisman) and show it off to my village but i was too loopy and numb to properly ask so i truly am separated from those teeth forever. i wonder...what are they going to do with them??

vermin everywhere

2008-10-15T00:38:00.001Z

it might be the 14th. or the 13th. i've lost track of the exact day. there's a tendency for that to happen in the village. chris has been here for the past few days in the village and today was a long and crazy day, which i found kind of amusing because i've just been complaining about how everything is predictable and the same.

after getting up and eating breakfast, we went down to the valley to visit my struggling garden. the squash and watermelon are doing fine but for some reason my eggplant, carrots, and chinese turnip refuse to sprout even though i've reseeded three times already. chris dug a compost pit for me, after our first failed attempt in which we enthusiastically dug where fatou's plot once was. once upon a time, i had given her carrot seeds and she planted them but then abandoned the plot and let it grow over with weeds because she thought they weren't sprouting. anyway, midway through our digging i discovered carrots growing there so we stopped, but not after destroying a good amount of seedlings. i made a lame attempt to save them but they'll probably died. i pulled water from the valley (and probably got schisto) and watered my beds. after we filled the compost pit with all the weeds from my Ramadan work, i decided to reseed once more with crossed fingers. we then harvested some tomatoes to bring home to aram and fatou and headed back to the compound.

we got back, took showers, and hung around. during my shower, chris spied a mouse and i was horrified and angry. last night i had spotted one and he brought jammo (the cat) into the room and she instantly killed it. i had hoped that that was the end of my mouse troubles as i hate those damn things and am absolutely disgusted at the idea of cohabiting with them. we decided that after lunch we would hunt around under the bed for the suspected hiding spot...and then promptly fell asleep for a nap.

lunch came and it was mediocre (and the same thing we've had for the past two days) and we were left pretty hungry. for some reason we fell asleep again afterwards but i was then awoken by aram asking me to do something for her. i followed her out of the hut but we were interrupted by a snake sighting in the kitchen hut! of course everybody freaked out and i ran to get my machete yelling at chris to wake up for a snake kill. aram stood by the hut with a big stick yelling "oh my god oh my god oh my god" and i went to go kill the snake but he was climbing up the wall (how do they do that with no legs?!) and aram stopped me because the walls are weak and they think the hut will collapse soon (makes sense as there are gigantic cracks in the walls). she knocked the snake down with the big stick and told me to run -- so i did (i'm not really sure why) and chris grabbed the machete and managed to chop off a bit of its tail. it came darting out of the hut (straight at me), all the women and children scattered, and he then hacked it in half and then crushed its head. nice. i gave him a high five and we amused ourselves with its twitching, dying body for a while and then went back to my hut.

jammo was lounging inside with her very pregnant belly splayed out around her so we decided that it was time to start the mouse hunt. i had a thought that they were living inside of an old postal box that i had filled with old pepineer sacks. there was a bunch of other crap under the bed and a huge crack along the floor and wall that needed to be fixed so it was a good time to remove everything from under the bed anyway. jammo was immediately interested.

as we (and by we, i mean chris as i sat in the far corner with my legs up in a chair) moved the box, a mouse jumped out and ran for its life. jamm rekk, caught it and ate it whole. when chris opened the box, he saw at least one more mouse but instead of dumping it and all the sacks out, he thought it better to remove the sacks out one at a time with the machete. as he poked around, another mouse jumped out and jammo caught it. chris asked her, "isn't this game fun?" she licked her chops. this happened THREE more times with baby mice jumping out of the box and jammo catching them and chowing down. one even ran straight at chris -- almost up his shorts -- but he managed to jump up and kick it straight to jamm rekk for the assist. at the end, i thought i saw one more dart off but chris said it was a cricket so we congratulated a satiated jamm rekk and praised her hunting abilities. i kept wondering though where the mother mouse was, as all the ones the cat had caught were little ones. the one from last night was rather large, so maybe that was it.

i went on to the clean up the "rondal" (Wolof for "the space under a bed") and to fill in the large cracks with clay. ma'asou came in to help and sweep. at one point, chris went outside to do something and ma'asou was bustling around and i happened to look up at a pair of my pants hanging on a nail by my back door. i saw something black and slithery vanish into a fold and my heart froze -- another snake?

i went to the pants and started to shake them out hoping that it was just a cricket again or something harmless when something bit my middle finger! i yelped and a mouse appeared and ran up to the nail and sat there shivering as i screamed and pointed. ma'asou freaked out and was like, "WHAT? WHAT??! A FROG?!!?!" and i was so freaked out that i couldn't get the words out of my mouth and ran out of the hut while chris ran in. i was still yelling (i am a huge wuss when it comes to rodents) while ma'asou (who is like, 10 years old) took the broom and beat it to death. chris grabbed it by the tail and looked all over the compound for jammo but couldn't find her so he threw it out into the bush. i think it was the mother mouse and felt kind of bad that she had to watch the slaughter of her children before being pummeled to death herself but at the same time, i wasn't going to let 6 or 7 mice live under my bed like that. the bite didn't puncture the skin so i probably don't have rabies. but we'll find out...

i needed to leave the hut for a while after all that excitement so we went to help the kids shuck some corn. when i came back in, i went to my yard to go pee and there was a snake slithering along my fence!!! i yelled for chris -- who had the machete -- just as it slipped out of the yard so he jumped out my window to go after it. it escaped. as he was making his way back into the compound (since he had jumped out the window he had left the compound completely and had to walk around it to get back inside) i tried to go pee again and ANOTHER SNAKE RIGHT BY MY DOUCHE!! i yelled "oh my god oh my god oh my god" and since my machete was in his hands i could do nothing but yell for chris and watch the snake desperately try to find a hole in my fence to escape. it slipped away just as chris ran into my yard. what the hell?! it was pretty bizarre.

after that, things kind of settled down but we marveled at the day of 3 snakes and 6 mice. we then went with the kids to the swimming hole and we waded in with them. it was cute, the kids all looked like little frogs -- the water is pretty shallow so they sit until it reaches their chins and are just a bunch of little heads bobbing around the lillies. i tried to start a water fight but failed -- the kids just took it from me (why??) and i got bored so i went to play with dame who was at the bank. he looked the most like a fat little frog and i picked him up and pretended to toss him into the water and he giggled. he then sat down so i dragged him through the mud and he got excited or something and popped and this little brown turd (with corn in it) floated to the surface of the water and i started to yell and all the women started to yell and holler for him to get out of the water and go home. so we were evicted and he started to cry and didn't want to leave but all the women yelled at us to leave so ndey fatou (his big sister who is kind of designated baby sitter) had to whip him all the way home with a lilly reed yelling "go home! go home!" it was pretty amusing.

we got home, pulled water, and spent the rest of the night shelling peanuts with the kids until dinner. but now it seems like a big storm is coming in -- which is interesting because i thought rainy season was pretty much over. its nice but also shitty because i JUST reseeded and every time i reseed it rains in the evening and washes everything away. my garden will never grow!!!

tomorrow is the last day here for a while -- i then head out to dakar to do my midservice medical exam, help redesign the senegad website, and...GET MY WISDOM TEETH REMOVED! dunh dunh dunh. this will be an interesting experience....

a day in the life of a baby goat

2008-10-05T17:08:00.001Z

6:32AM Wake up mother by plaintive cries of hunger. Feed voraciously.

7:11AM Mother still tied up. Wander off into compound. Nibble on unedibles and cause racket by knocking over drying bowls. Drink water from the laundry.

8:23AM Get shooed out of kitchen.

9:17AM Enter unknown hut.

9:23AM Exit unknown hut, after having eaten most of the nebadie leaves picked for tonight's leaf sauce.

10:43AM King of the hill with neighborhood goats!!!

11:54AM Wander back to mother. (Still tied up!) Feed voraciously.

12:00PM Mother untied and taken by the Pulaar! (Where does she go during the day?!) Run aimlessly through village crying for mother.

12:07PM King of the hill!!!

1:52PM Race through several compounds chasing the goat from next door. Butt heads a few times. Be sure to knock over anything possible -- small children included.

2:22PM Break into pepiniere. Eat lots of delicious baby trees.

4:04PM King of the hill!!!

5:07PM Oooh, peanut field! Munch on crunchy greens.

6:48PM Enter toubab's hut for a looksie. Run from thrown items, feigning terror and "accidentally" pooping on the way out.

7:00PM Mother should be back! Run around in desperate search and bleat piteously for the 15 minutes it takes her to amble home.

7:15PM Mother arrives! Feed voraciously.

7:18PM Get chased by children, tackled, and then dragged on 3 legs across compound to pen. Mother's there! Second helping.

8:24PM Sleep.

1:58AM Wake up and for no apparent reason -- mostly for the fun of it -- wail continuously as if all hell has broken loose with no concern of who or what may be sleeping. Keep up histrionics until sleepy again.

6:29AM Another glorious day in the village!

NORMAL

2008-10-02T11:58:00.000Z

so yesterday was korite, meaning the end of ramadan and the first day we could eat regularly. it was okay. i am officially part of the village and fully participated in preparations. they had me do a lot of cooking -- peeled all the potatoes and onions, diced them (without a cutting board or a sharp knife), and then helped hack up the share of (freshly slaughtered) beef we bought from the village. good thing i'm not squeamish (or a vegetarian) because it was a messy and bloody affair that not all would be able to handle. it was slippery, bloody, gristly, and i found myself elbow deep in bloody water cleaning off unidentifiable bits of meat of marrow, dirt, and bits of bone. in the end, the food wasn't even good, despite the eager wait. it was really salty and somehow both tough and mushy at the same time. i suppose the thing that i liked about ramadan was that it alleviated me from the pressures of eating three meals of food that i'm not really the biggest fan of. i can't wait for thanksgiving in america when the food will actually match (probably exceed) the anticipation.

i've been so bored lately and my mind's been wandering to ideas of vacations or the next place i'll live. life here has recently been so mind-numbingly monotonous -- both at site and out of site. i realized last ngiht that this newfound boredom is because everything's finally nromal t me now. the adventure in things is gone and there's little left to discvoer. life has become unvaried because teh wide-eyed thrill of living in a new country and culture as a PCV has just become, well, regular life.

as frustrating as it once was to be confused, in the dark, unsure, and new to everything, i miss the feeling of novelty and adventure and exhaustion from the overload of new experiences. when i wasn't surprised by a single thing during the day of korite, i realized that now, i can practically predict what's going to happen.

i know that i should appreciate the normalcy and adjustment i have reached but the problem with being a romantic is that the feelings of awe and inspiration that so quickly overwhelm the heart, just as rapidly sour and fade. we disdain those with little fervor and stale passion but our fickle hearts keep us from a staple state of content.

then again, it's probably just a stage and the adjustment pains of the work season being over and finding myself with no trees to work with or anything to do. time to get cracking on initiating secondary projects. or maybe i just need a vacation...

tv on the radio in the bush

2008-09-28T00:41:00.001Z

have i mentioned TV On The Radio's new album "Dear Science"? It's freakin' amazing. Itunes has a bonus track edition that was released early so I forked over the $12.99 (USD) and it was sooo worth it. granted i can't really keep up with this kind of stuff right now but it's one of the best albums i've heard. it is so finely crafted and i've been listening to it nonstop (on my ipod -- thank God for technology!) out here in the middle of nowhere, senegal. the other night i felt myself feeling crushed by village life so i turned in early, shut the door to my hut and had a crazy, sweaty dance party to it by myself in my candlelit hut. it was totally cathartic and after i danced to all 16 tracks and was dripping in sweat i went outside into my yard to cool down and basked under the great sky and stars as a the wind brought in clouds and impending rain.

crazy cat lady talks about her cat again

2008-09-27T00:04:00.000Z

around 4PM i headed out to the valley to check up on my garden that i've neglected for over two weeks now. as i headed out, i saw jamm rekk bumming around at the entrance of the compound. i said "HI" to her and she meowed back. then she started to follow me.

i went past fallou dia's compound (the last compound at the edge of the village) and into the bush and she continued to follow me, meowing all along. of course, i talked back to her and asked if she was coming. she meowed back and looked at me with earnest eyes. so i kept going. every few steps she would stop and sniff around and meow at me until i stopped. i kept expecting her to give up and go home but every time i did, she would suddenly burst into a leaping bound towards me, full speed and her tail all puffed up. then she would stop (a few times she ran straight into me), look at me expectantly and meow. we did this all the way to the valley -- me walking, her stopping and then galloping over the high weeds to catch up with me. the sand was hot and a few times she had a rest in the shade. since i wanted to see if she would actually follow me all the way there, i stopped and waited for her. i don't think she's ever been this far out into the bush before because at times she seemed hesitant and unsure of her surroundings.

when we got to the bissap field she either got tired or scared because she laid down and didn't want to get up. since we were almost at the field and i didn't want to leave her in a place that is known to have snakes, i picked her up and carried her for a bit until she started to squirm and decided to walk again. i was pretty pumped that she follow me like that. i mean, she's followed me around the compound and to the robinet and the other side of the village -- but never like this, with the faithfulness and companionship of say, a dog. moreover, she talked to me the entire time! meowing and chirping and looking at me communicatively. it was pretty amazing -- this high level of interaction.

anyway, got to the field and it was a mess. weeds everywhere and a whole bunch of stuff dead. whoops. in a sense i had to restart a lot of my work but i didn't mind because the solitude was nice and because i was alone, could work at my own pace and comfort. there were starlings, kites and hornbills everywhere and it was really nice -- me, the birds singing, and my faithful cat.

she was pretty pooped out and hot and immediately went to lie in the bushes for shade and rest. every now and then she came to see what i was up to, meowing and sniffing the weeds and chewing on some grass. the she would go catch and eat some grasshoppers and find another place to rest. she got up and followed me every time i got up to go to a different part of the field.

eventually she seemed to be getting a little bored and impatient and started to get in my way -- rubbing against my legs and hands while i tried to reseed. i think she was trying to tell me she wanted to go home. she kept this up for a while, purring like mad, and marking my garden bed with her little paw prints.

when it was time to go home she seemed to know and immediately got up and trotted out ahead of me while i shut the gate and took a last look at the bush just as the sun started to set. she raced me home this time. instead of trailing after me and catching up, she tore off into the bush, plowing through the high grasses and millet stalks and hiding in them until i showed up and then jumping out and racing ahead again. she was having a blast and i laughed at her crazy sideways bounding and frizzed up tail with her ears flat against her head. she was happy though and i could hear her purring as she waited for me in anticipation.

when we got back to the village she slowed down and seemed really tired. everybody saw us and asked me where i had gone. when i told them the valley they then asked if Jammo (the nickname they've given her) had gone with me there. when i said "yes," they were amazed that she followed me and accompanied me all the way there and back. they all laughed at how tired out she was and even when i was back at my hut showering, i could still hear them discussing how she had followed me all the way out there.

not to get all crazy cat lady or anything, but it was pretty amazing that a cat would do this. considering that life in the village can get pretty lonesome, i'm not afraid to admit that she's probably one of my closest friends and i am going to miss her like mad when i go back to america for good. what a little cutie!

...and i think she's pregnant...?

one year in

2008-09-17T04:05:00.000Z

on september 13, i celebrated my one year anniversary in senegal. a year ago i entered this country practically crawling on my hands and knees after puking out my brains on the airplane for nearly 4 hours. i still recall the feeling of all that illness and terror and arriving into the country around 4AM, dragging myself onto the bus that awaited us, and passing out for a few dark hours. i woke up feeling much better and peered out the window and saw senegal for the first time.

the red sand was damp with a recent rain and i saw my first baobab trees. i saw donkeys and skinny horses and people walking along the streets in beautiful fabrics and colors. i strained my eyes in hopes of seeing a monkey (not for another few months). we passed through little villages bisected by the main road and i saw the streetside huts, with their sagging straw roofs and collapsing saket fences. i held my breath as i gazed out into the world that i would soon be a part of.

so one year later and i was up north -- practically in mauritania -- hanging out with a few other volunteers for a ramadan break. (note: it is so freakin' unnecessarily hot in the north!!!! and i thought it was hot here...) i was with 3 other fellow stage members and we toasted our one year over somewhat cold gazelle beers.

i guess i am supposed to be somewhat reflective now that i am a year into my time being here. i'm not yet a year into my service -- that anniversary happens in november -- but it is still a big deal that i've been here for quite some time now and the new group of trainees arrived a week or so ago. we are definitely not the baby volunteers anymore. we are now officially considered "anciennes" and the new kids look to us for answers. i found myself dispensing advise to a few of them (from the recent march '08 group) even though i felt totally unqualified to be doing so.

anyway, how do i feel a year later? i feel old and tired and seasoned and ready for my next work season. i feel ready for a vacation in america in a few months. i feel like i miss home a lot and i feel like i understand myself better. i feel like maybe i can finally speak some wolof and tell you a little bit about trees.

i had a hell of a year -- it was way harder than i ever expected and i got my ass kicked a few times. i got sick more times than i can count, frustrated than more times i could imagine, cried enough tears to fill up the atlantic. early on, i got really hurt by another volunteer with false hopes of a relationship with him (something i never really mentioned and something i didn't really look for when entering my service) which wound up really affecting my first few months here. when i finally separated myself from that and refocused on my job as a volunteer in the village, i struggled with language and gender roles and my job as an agroforestry volunteer. i knew little -- if anything -- about trees. i felt like i was unadjusted, slow, stupid, lagging behind other volunteers, and failing in my job. as the first volunteer at my site, i often had no idea what i was doing and of course, my village had little idea what to do with me. things between me and my counterpart sucked -- he made my life miserable. i very nearly gave up and went home.

but, my family and friends back at home rooted for me and prayed for me and wrote me letters and sent me packages and believed in me. my family was amazing and called me (and continue to) every sunday with words of love and encouragement and advice. my friends within the peace corps community stood by my side and gave me good advice and told me when i was being too hard on myself (and when i wasn't). my trainers and supervisors at peace corps were attentive and helpful. most importantly, people were praying for me and you know, i think God listened. i plodded on -- perhaps a mixture of pride, stubbornness, and true desire to accomplish something with the peace corps -- and things gradually changed. these days i continue to struggle a bit with the language but it's not all so terrible. my relationship with my counterpart has improved greatly -- we might even be friends? -- but not by any means through anything i did. because this past year was one full of failures and mess up and flukes and mistakes, i have a terribly clear idea of how i want to conduct my next work season. i finally feel adjusted, when i get back into the village i often sigh a sigh of relief and feel that warm feeling of being back at home. there's not so much "village guilt" these days. i have made some of the greatest friends i will ever have and was surprised by the pleasant emergence of a new relationship in my life with a volunteer who has been my friend from the start. i am beginning to understand my role as a female volunteer in a male dominated society. i have ideas for dry season secondary projects. i am excited for this next year.

this is not to say that i've stopped struggling and that there aren't days that i hate it all and just want to go home to america and a time when things were easy but they are definitely picking up and i'm pretty sure that i can finish my service and make an impact in my village and senegal. i'm happy to be here. i'm glad to be here. i want to be here. this is a great change and after a year of struggling, i'm glad that i got the experience because as trite as it is, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and there's a whole lot of shit that nearly killed me but didn't and i'm still here.

fasting

2008-09-07T12:43:00.000Z

ramadan/fasting has been an interesting experience.
a day of fasting usually goes something like this:

i usually wake up a little later these days -- almost at 8 since there's no breakfast to be eaten or water to pull (i'm not even going through one bennoir of water since i drink -- and pee -- so little). i'm supposed to eat "breakfast" at 5AMish, but this hasn't happened. i've woken up for it but haven't been offered breakfast or anything so i've just given up on the idea of that happening and enjoy the extra hour of sleep. i putz around the hut and if i haven't been convinced to go out to the field and work (which i cave into more often than i ought to), i sit around and read a book or color in my coloring book. sometimes i go into my yard and attempt to weed but usually just wind up staring at my trees and plants. a two hour nap at some point in the day helps the hours go by. i never thought i would complain about this, but my villagers work TOO hard -- even when fasting they are out working at least until noon and some people all day (including talla, my counterpart). so much for the rumors that ramadan is about naps and lying around.

by 5PM (and usually after a nap) i am really freakin' thirsty and have to keep away from my water filter. i battle temptations to cheat. bread and beignet (fried dough) sellers start to come around -- this is the only time of the year my village has bread come to every day, it is usually a luxury/novelty item -- and it is hard to buy food and then put it away for the next two and a half hours. around 6:30 i shower to kill time and count down the minutes to fast breaking. they crawl by.

the sun starts its descent around 7 and we all sit in the compound and wait and talk about how much we want to drink water. we anxiously wait for the call to prayer that comes around some time between 7:15 and 7:30PM. as soon as the sunset call to prayer begins, we break fast with bread and cafe touba (spiced coffee). then we have jolly jus (a sugary drink packet), beignets, and lots and lots of water. dinner -- which is really lunch -- happens around 8 to 8:30PM and i am surprisingly not very hungry. the food actually usually makes me feel ill and i have to hold back from throwing up.

what IS amazing though is to drink. i drink water until i feel as if it is going to come out of my ears. water is never as delicious as it is after it has been denied for an entire day in hot hot senegal. around 10PM, they serve dinner but by then i just want to go to bed so i typically decline. i pay for all the water drinking throughout the night as i have to wake up a million and six times to go pee. it's worth it.

on a religious level, i'm not entirely sure as to what fasting achieves. i haven't received any epiphanies from God and even if i did, i'd sooner call it a hallucination from the lightheadedness caused by no food/water and standing up too quickly.

i suppose that fasting teaches me will power. there's water and food readily available but i have to resist the temptation of taking it. there are several camps of thought within the volunteer community: 1) some don't feel the need to fast, 2) some fast but drink water, 3) others fast food and water, and 4) a few even go through the religious aspects of ramadan (praying) as well. i guess i fall into the third camp because (though i'm not really sure why, considering that i'm not doing this for religious reasons) i would feel guilty partaking in fast breaking if i cheated. bread and coffee and all the other little treats that come with fast breaking is costly and our meals are a slightly nicer than usual (i suppose because we deny ourselves food all day, it may as well be extra "good), so i feel that if i cheated in fasting, i would be costing my family unnecessary money. i guess it's slightly silly because much of the money used for fast breaking is my contribution but the principle gets to me. my friend says it's not principle but pride. maybe he's right.

however, on an experiential level, this is an important lesson. they say that part of the ramadan experience is for followers to relate to the hungry of the world and if that is the case, then hunger makes a lot more sense to me now. i've never before lived off of one meal a day. i never even really thought about it being a possibility in my life before. but now that i am fasting, i see how quickly i become tired, irritable, and lethargic (another reason why i don't see how this can help me spiritually). food is no longer an epicurean pursuit. it is now just energy, sustenance, elements of nature that keep me from taking a nap and not waking up again.

fasting certainly isn't as hard as i thought it would be. i'm not very hungry, it's just the weakness, drain, and THIRST that gets to me. i want to do little else than just lie in bed all day but even though i am fasting, there are trees to look after, fields to tend to, and beans to pick. i reflect on stories of hunger and exodus -- what is the what, a long way gone, moses and the israelites, the trail of tears -- and i see an entirely new element to the struggle. we forget -- or rather, we JUST DON'T KNOW -- how hunger affects the body, weakens the spirit. we say we're "starving" at moments when we're really hungry -- maybe we missed breakfast or lunch -- but are we really?

talibe

2008-09-05T15:29:00.000Z

READ THIS:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24229321/

this article from april 2008 describes the condition of talibe, boy beggers, that are a constant part of my life here in senegal. there are no talibe in my village but any time i step outside of my village i am encountered by small boys in rags with tomato paste cans asking me for money. you have to be a cold stone bitch to not have your heart torn to pieces when this happens, but it is virtually impossible to help them all. moreover, i am torn with the conviction that when i give them money, i am only furthering this awful industry. usually i try to buy bread or fruit to give to the boys, but certainly there needs to be long term solutions.

there is a little talibe i know named sidi. he is a bright little boy with big eyes and a nice smile and he helps take care of all the other boys -- especially the ones that don't speak Wolof -- in the Kaffrine garage. the most heartbreaking moment at the garage was when the car was about to leave and he came up to me and asked me quietly if i would take him with me, if i could take him away from there. of course i couldn't. i haven't seen him in a very long time but i think about him often and wish so badly i could do something for him. but what??

one also must remember that not all instances of talibe-marabout relationships are bad. my friend lives in a site with a marabout (who also happens to be her "dad) who has about 15 to 20 talibe living with him. these boys are quite happy and have never been asked or forced to beg. they help their marabout with work in the fields and are well fed and taken care of. they are treated like members of the family and are not forced to stay. i am told that if their families need help in the fields, they are free to leave and come back. i've met them and heard plenty of anecdotes about their silly antics in the field and at home.

Some Islamic schools produce beggars
Billion-dollar industry springs from religious system based on servitude

By Rukmini Callimachi
The Associated Press
updated 5:55 p.m. ET April 20, 2008

This story, part of a yearlong investigation, is the first in an occasional series on trafficking and exploitation of children in West and Central Africa. Related stories will move in the coming months.

DAKAR, Senegal - On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat.

Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. His T-shirt was damp with the dew that seeped through the thin walls. The older boys had yanked away the square of cloth he used to protect himself from the draft. He shivered.

It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars.

Coli padded barefoot between the stopped cars, his head reaching only halfway up the windows. His scrawny body disappeared under a ragged T-shirt that grazed his knees. He held up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.

There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

It’s big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.

Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli’s life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam’s holy book.

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Coli’s head hurt with hunger. He could already feel the slice of the wire on his back.

He slipped away, losing himself in a tide of honking cars. He had 20 cents in his tomato can.

Children seen as entry to paradise
Three years ago, a man wearing a skullcap came to Coli’s village in the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau and asked for him.

Coli’s parents immediately addressed the man as “Serigne,” a term of respect for Muslim leaders on Africa’s western coast. Many poor villagers believe that giving a Muslim holy man a child to educate will gain an entire family entrance to paradise.

Since the 11th century, families have sent their sons to study at the Quranic schools that flourished on Africa’s western seaboard with the rise of Islam. It is forbidden to charge for an Islamic education, so the students, known as talibe, studied for free with their marabouts, or spiritual teachers. In return, the children worked in the marabout’s fields.

The droughts of the late 1970s and ’80s forced many schools to move to cities, where their income began to revolve around begging. Today, children continue to flock to the cities, as food and work in villages run short.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

“If you do the math, you’ll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary,” said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. “It’s why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate.”

Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It’s become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don’t know the name of their village or how to return home.

One of the largest clusters of Quranic schools lies in the poor, sand-enveloped neighborhoods on either side of the freeway leading into Dakar.

This is where Coli’s marabout squats in a half-finished house whose floor stirs with flies. Amadu Buwaro sleeps on a mattress covered in white linens. The 30 children in his care sleep in another room with dirty blankets on the floor. It smells rotten and wet, like a soaked rag.

Buwaro is a thin man in his 30s who wears a pressed olive robe and digital watch. The children wear T-shirts black with filth. He expects them to beg to pay the rent, because there are no fields here to till.

But their earnings far exceed his rent of $50. If the boys meet their quotas, they bring in around $650 a month in a nation where the average person earns $150.

Buwaro expects the children to suffer to learn the Quran, just as he did at the hands of his teacher.

So when Coli failed to return, Buwaro was furious. He flipped open his flashy silver cell phone and called another marabout who kept a blue planner with names of runaway boys. The list stretched down the page. He added Coli’s name.

His tomato can tucked under one arm, Coli jumped on the back of a bus, holding on to the swinging rear door. He was hundreds of miles from the village where he grew up speaking Peuhl, a language not commonly heard in Dakar.

He could not ask the Senegalese for help. So he got directions in Peuhl from other child beggars, who like him were trafficked here from the zone of green savannah just outside Senegal.

Coli made his way to a neighborhood where he had heard of a place that gave free food to children like him.

“Do you know where you come from?” asked the kind-faced woman at Empire des Enfants. The shelter’s capacity is 30 children, but it usually houses at least 50.

Coli knew the name of his mother, but not how to reach her. He knew the name of the region where he was born, but not his village. “My mother is black,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll recognize her.”

The shelter worker told Coli what to do if his marabout came. We will protect you, she said. If he tries to grab you, scream.

Days went by. Maybe weeks.

Then Coli’s marabout arrived.

In 2005, Senegal made it a crime punishable by five years in prison to force a child to beg. But the same law makes an exception for children begging for religious reasons. Few dare to cross marabouts for fear of supernatural retaliation.

Coli’s marabout entered the shelter flanked by a column of religious leaders in cascading robes that tumbled onto the ground. One of them stabbed his finger at the clouds and yelled out, “The sky will fall down on you if you don’t hand over our children.”

The shelter is used to such threats. But this time the marabouts had discovered the center’s legal paperwork was not complete. They threatened to close the shelter if it did not hand over 11 boys.

To save more than 40 others, the shelter handed over the 11. Coli was on the list.

Back at the school, they beat the 9-year-old until he thought he was going to faint. At night, they dragged him off the floor, doused him in water and beat him again.

Three days later, he ran away again. When he arrived at the shelter, he said: “I want to go home to my mom.”

Radio used to find parents
To find Coli’s mother, aid workers broadcast his name on the radio in Guinea-Bissau. The names of over a dozen children also from Guinea-Bissau played in a continuous loop, like sonic homing pigeons trying to find their target.

No response. Some boys worried their parents might be dead.

“I’m sure my mother is still alive,” Coli reasoned. “When I left her she was well, so why wouldn’t she be well now?” Underneath his bright eyes is another worry. Will she be angry that he disobeyed his teacher?

Over the past two years, the International Organization for Migration has returned over 600 child beggars to their homes. Several had been hit by cars. Some had scars on their backs. One 10-year-old was so hungry he ate out of the trash. Soon after he returned home, he vomited worms and died.

Almost all the boys had begged on behalf of Quranic instructors in Senegal.

“Cultural habits have been manipulated for the sake of exploitation,” said the IOM’s Laurent de Boeck, deputy regional representative for West and Central Africa.

Two months went by before a shelter worker pulled Coli aside. His parents were alive.

The 13 boys from Guinea-Bissau pile into a bus. Coli screams with glee as it takes off for the airport.

“Is this Guinea-Bissau?” one of them asks as they descend onto the cracked runway and enter the small airport of the nation’s capital. “Senegal looks better,” says another.

Though Senegal is among the world’s poorest nations, it’s visibly more developed than Guinea-Bissau, listed 160th out of 177 countries on the U.N.’s human development index. The capital they left had streets clogged with taxis and flashy 4-by-4s. The buildings were tall. The capital they returned to has squat, low buildings and crumbling colonial villas.

“I’m not sure I like it,” Coli confides.

As the bus leaves the capital, they pass villages of cone-shaped huts and fields where boys herd bulls. They sing songs, clapping their hands. As they pull into the shelter where their parents were told to expect them, the boys fall silent.

Timidly, they file off the bus. A few of the 12- and 13-year-olds recognize their families. They approach them respectfully, shaking hands.

Coli’s mother is not there.

Judge admonishes parents
A judge tells the parents they will be jailed if they send their children away to beg again. They have to sign a statement promising to protect their boys from traffickers. Most are illiterate, so they leave a thumbprint in blue ink next to their names.

“You sent your kids to hell,” the judge says. “You can’t say that because you are poor you’re going to allow your kids to be abused.”

His booming voice ricochets off the cracked walls of the building. The parents stare straight ahead.

But the conditions that made these families send their children to hell still persist.

Many of the villages do not have enough food. Few have schools. In one, the schoolhouse is a bamboo enclosure that doubles as an animal corral. “We haven’t had classes here in over a year,” an elderly man says as he ducks into the classroom and skirts a pile of bull manure.

The aid group pays for school fees and supplies. But the stipend cannot cover the economic worth of a child. Some of the children returned in previous months now work as bricklayers and goatherds. Others have already been sent back to the marabouts by their parents. The idea of child trafficking as a crime is so new in the region that no African language has a word for it, experts say.

With each passing day, more parents and relatives come, but not Coli’s.

On the third day, the shelter pays for another radio address.

By the fourth, half the 13 children are gone.

The others become increasingly agitated. Maybe the radio is broken, Coli muses. His wet eyes fill with the invisible color of worry.

Coli's mom arrives
Early on the fifth morning, a woman in a pressed peach robe walks up to the shelter.

Coli rushes outside. He stands a few feet away as tears topple down his cheeks. She covers her face with her veil and weeps.

The two sit side-by-side in plastic chairs. Coli’s mother looks at her feet. Her family is poor, she says, and she wanted Coli to get an education. It took her several days to reach the shelter because she didn’t have $2 for the bus fare.

For more than an hour, Coli cries. Tears run down either side of his cheeks, forming two watery garlands. They meet at his chin and plop down on his collar bone, pooling above his shirt.

She stands up and wipes his chin. They leave, crossing the dusty boulevard.

Her arm reaches around his shoulder and the long sleeve of her robe falls around the little boy. It hides him from the remaining children, who silently watch Coli go home.

EPILOGUE: Soon after Coli left, his marabout traveled to Guinea-Bissau. He angrily demanded to know why Coli had run away. Ashamed, Coli’s father promised to make up for the boy’s bad behavior. He is sending the marabout two more sons.

© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/24229321/
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ramadan

2008-09-02T12:53:00.003Z

today begins ramadan -- 30 days of fasting (no food or water) between sunrise and sundown.

i'm not a muslim but i will be participating in the fasting when i am at the village. why? part of the reason is that my villagers kind of just assumed i would be fasting alongside them and secondly, it wasn't until a few months ago that people truly started treating me like an adult. children are exempt from fasting so i don't really want to take a few steps backwards and be treated like a kid again.

since i'll be fasting, i'm going to try to use this time to reflect/meditate/pray on certain things in my life -- lots of things regarding my future (aka post-Peace Corps life) and my work here.

so we'll see how things turn out. since i'm not religiously bound to fasting during ramadan, i figure that if after the first few days or so i am truly miserable i'll stop. wish me luck. this should be an interesting/enlightening experience.

in other news, my dad bought me a plane ticket home for thanksgiving! i'll be home
from november 22 to december 7. i'm so excited!

also: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LEANNE!

me & jammo

2008-08-22T18:10:00.006Z

it rained the other day for several hours so me and jamm rekk were trapped indoors.

she sat at the door for a while contemplating going outside and then gave up and took a nap.

i got bored so i decided to take some pictures.

...needless to say, i think she was annoyed.

outplanting spree

2008-08-20T19:12:00.000Z

more rain! hooray. i am almost regretful of the fact that i'm getting out of the village on friday.

this morning -- when it wasn't raining (it started about an hour ago) -- i went out and dug holes for 20 trees. i sweated a lot but it was good. i came back exhausted and dirty and covered in grime, showered, and then chilled (including a nap) until lunch. right before lunch a strong wind started to blow in -- a little freaky (remnants of my childhood fear of wind)-- and heavy clouds started to enter the sky.

we had lunch (which was actually good!) and the doors were getting slammed shut by the wind and everybody was running around getting ready for the rain. i was worried that the rain would ruin the holes i had spent all morning measuring and digging so i started to look for trees for outplanting. it started to drizzle.

talla came and helped me get my trees together. they've gotten so big that their roots are bursting out of the bag and desperately need to be clipped before outplanted and somebody gave him a great pair of pruning shears (i wish i had a pair!) which was far better than the quasi-sharp knife i was planning on using. we then went on an outplanting spree as the rain fell on us and everybody came out to watch.

it was slightly thrilling...and slightly obnoxious because the kids were noisy and i was cold and it was rushed and i generally like to outplant slowly and methodically. nonetheless, it got done and the trees were in their new homes being watered by the sweet rain. talla and i are like best friends now, which is great...although he still takes on an instructional tone with me. but maybe i am growing as a person -- i've learned to deal with it and while i notice it, it doesn't really bother me unless i am in a cantankerous mood (usually caused these days by my allergies to the flowering crops and/or the ceaseless crying from the 3 youngest children in the family).

it feels good to work and amazing to plant trees in the African soil...and years from now i can remember that the trees i planted are still growing and still providing beautiful benefits to my village (Inshallah...if the goats don't get to them). its been such a saga with these trees -- the pepineer, the struggles with talla, the lack of rain, the task (plant trees in senegal) in and of itself was daunting...and now it's finally come together and i have an incredibly clear idea of how i will conduct next year's work.

after we were done planting trees, talla stopped by my hut -- he can see my papaya growing taller than my fence now and wanted to see it. he also got to see all the trees in my yard that i've lovingly made into a little haven of trees when it was once only sand and cement. he seemed quite delighted by my 1 papaya (which is actually not a tree), 2 Leucaena leucaephala, 1 Moringa oleifera, 2 bombardiers (i forget the latin name), 1 flamboyant (Delonix regia), 4 mangoes (Mangifera indica), 5 tebananes (Jatropha curcas), a patch of basil, and a wall of cucumber plants. no doubt he'll probably move into this hut when it ceases to house volunteers so he will have a beautiful little yard to grow old in...and i feel like that's the best gift of thanks i can give.

aside from smelling bad (i'm still in my work clothes with hopes that the rain will stop in an hour or two and let me have a few more hours of labor -- i want to start my garden in the valley) and being badgered by flies and my wisdom tooth (the other one is coming in!) -- i'm quite happy and content right now and the two years i've given in lieu of making money and going to grad school and the comforts of urban life and cosmopolitan luxury feel worth it. its moments like this that i really love my job and wouldn't give this up for all the good food in the world.

it's finally raining!!

2008-08-20T00:21:00.001Z

and i'm pooped.

after nearly two weeks of no rain, we finally had a real, significant rain. alxamdoulilah. for those two weeks i just sat around on my ass staring hopefully at the sky, since no rain means no tree planting even though my trees were crying out to be planted.

after the rain ended (it was about 4 hours!) i started clearing the field and measuring holes out for a live fence at about 4PM. i did a line of 19 Prosipus juliflora and Ziziphus mauritania. it felt good to work. i got off of work about an hour ago and i'm ready for bed.

hooray for trees.

panic in the bush!!!

2008-08-13T15:45:00.002Z

i spent the past few days out at JC's site helping her out with some outplanting and her girl's group meeting. we had a good time.

however, getting back was a mess of a day (yesterday). i tried to leave in the morning but left too late -- all the charettes going to kaffrine (where i had to catch a car to mbirkelane and then bike 7k back home) had gone already. we sat and waited for several hours until we gave up and decided we'd try again after lunch. after all, the sun is hot. (actually, "naaj bi, dafa tang" which is something that senegalese people say all the time.) i was a little bit worried because getting out of kaffrine is always a pain in the ass and takes longer than i estimate and i didn't want to be out in the bush during/after sunset. at 3 we started to wait for charettes again and i finally caught a slow donkey charette at about 4:30.

got into kaffrine after an hour on the donkey charette and sped walked to the garage (on the other side of town) and waited for it to fill up until a bit past 6. i was increasingly nervous - how was i going to make it back before dark? the ride wasn't all that bad -- probably one of the better rides of my life here -- but because i was pressed for time, the trip was excruciatingly slow and my apprehension was building. not only was the sun setting, but it was also getting very cloudy -- either rain or blocking of the near-half moon would occur.

arrived in mbirkelane and practically ran (ignoring the thorn in my shoe) to moussa's shop (where i leave my bike) and he asked me if i wanted to stay over at his house until the morning , as it was getting dark. i should have said yes, but am a coward about sleeping over a senegalese person's house and dealing with that kind of social situation, so i declined. i hopped onto my bike and sped off into the bush. i started out at an insane pace -- probably from the adrenaline of trying to get home before dark -- and managed quite well but by the time i was 2/3 of the way there, the sun was gone and a dark cloud loomed over me and it started to rain lightly. it was dark and scary. then i heard the call of prayer emanating from some loudspeaker from some village off in the distance and suddenly felt terribly alone and vulnerable in the bush. i was tired, thirsty, sweaty, far from home, and desperately had to pee. i started to hear things -- was somebody following me? what was that rustling in the bush? what was that creaking over there?

finally i stopped to pee under a kaad tree (Acacia albida) and tried to gather myself. i got back on the bike and tried to push on towards home but for some reason, started to imagine up all the terrible things that could happen to me -- alone in the bush at dusk with 70 mille on me, a phone with barely any battery power left, and a tiny bit of water. terrible thoughts of robbery, machete hacking, rape, wild dogs, and silent, lonely deaths were conjured up in my mind. (it didn't help that there has been a recent influx of violence in the area, including somebody going after talla with a machete in the middle of the night.) i guess my mentality started to fall apart and i lost my composure. i was panicking. i got all wobbly on my bike and kept getting stuck in the sand and falling over and my bike chain started to give me problems. i was getting nowhere and almost in tears -- why was i panicking like this?!

i tried to go on for a while -- wobbly and meandering and losing control of my bike or my footing on the pedals and falling. i must have looked like an idiot. i berated myself for my stupid decisions and was shaking from this strange fear that had suddenly so strongly possessed me.

finally, i saw the familiar walls of mbanda wolof -- a village i've never been to or met anybody (formally) from --but know of my name because it is a landmark and close (enough) to my village. i decided i couldn't bike anymore in the horrifying darkness and entered the village, sweaty and exhausted and still stricken with panic. i went into the first compound i saw, certain that they knew my village. i greeted several times and was ignored until an old man looked up and saw me. i announced that i was "aissatou" and he told me he knew that (i guess there aren't that many other chinese-americans in the area). i asked if he could help me in a quavery voice, blurting out "i don't want to ride my bike in the dark anymore!!" could i sit in his compound while i called talla to come and get me? i guess he could sense my panic because he immediately came bustling over to help me with my bike, repeatedly told me to sit down, and ordering one of the kids to go and get me some water.

i called talla twice but it wasn't getting through. i sent him a text message telling him where i was and could he come and get me? and then my battery died. i was disheartened and groaned audibly. the old man asked me what was wrong and i practically wailed to him that my battery was dead. when this happened he said, "come on, i'll tie up my charette and bring you home." so he and his son got their little donkey charette together, roped my bike on, and drove me the remaining distance home -- even though i've never met them nor talked to them. i gave him a little box of tea (that i had intended to give to my family) and thanked him profusely. my panic made me at a loss of words so all i could keep muttering was "thank you so much. thank you. thank you!!!"

it was a totally weird and bizarre experience but i guess i did the right thing (although i'm sure nothing would have happened to me had i grown some balls and gone on) and the old man was so nice and kind. the bush is scary at night!!!! and i am never venturing out there alone at dark again. i can't explain the panic but i'll just say that the genies got to me...?

leanne's pictures

2008-08-08T11:37:00.002Z

pictures from leanne's trip to senegal (and then ghana...without me...sniff) are up! i was an idiot and forgot my camera cord somewhere so couldn't charge my camera and couldn't take any of my own pictures.

check them out at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/treesaverphotos/sets/72157606540341440/

story of a cucumber

2008-08-07T10:47:00.000Z

my obsession with cucumbers continues...

i think they look more like melons than vegetables.

who knew that's how cucumbers grew?

the wild mess that are my cucumber plants.

cucumber and fly.

first harvest!

BIG LIZARD MEAT

2008-08-06T15:30:00.003Z

yesterday afternoon the kids caught one of those gigantic lizard things and chopped off its head and cooked it. i -- after a lot of thought -- ate some. not bad. i expected it to be rubbery or mushy or tough or something...lizardy? but it was the consistency and taste of the dark meat on chicken. not something that i'll suddenly crave when i'm back in america ("god i could go for some gigantic lizard meat right now") but definitely worth trying and not something i would refuse in the future. (especially with the food scarcity we're facing right now...)

ma'asou and dey roke show off the kill

eggs and organs!!!

kids posing with the headless lizard

morning musings

2008-08-05T09:05:00.000Z

strange hour to be awake; i woke up at 2am and haven't been able to sleep since. its humid (not unbearable though) and i am getting chewed up by mosquitoes. i can just feel the malaria running through my veins (thank God and the government for prophylaxis!)

somewhat out of the early-morning-hours boredom, i decided to i eat my first cucumber. i harvested it a few days ago -- entirely by accident. i was pruning the wild tangle that has become my cucumber plants when i cut a "doom" ("doom" means either "child" or "the fruit of a tree/plant" in wolof) off. it was just about ready so i had it sitting in my room a for while as i contemplated what to do with it.

i mean, yes, EAT it, but how? very limited resources to do anything with the cucumber in the village -- salt, olive oil, vinegar. or did i want to wait until kaolack and put it in a salad or even try something creative with it? or, give it away? share it with others? who could have thought that a single plump cucumber could cause me to over-think like this.

finally it was just time to do it and eat it -- plain as it was with no additives (5:14AM -- i hear jackals hunting!!) or anything. i don't think i've ever just eaten a cucumber singularly, just as it is, by itself. i've somehow magically managed to grow HUGE cucumbers that are twice the size of the ones i get at the market for about 100-250CFA. these cucumbers are THICK and deeply soaked in green and could easily fetch 350-400CFA). for the first time, i realized that cucumbers are much like melons -- more fruit than vegetable. my god, being raied with produce aisles has really led me to some major ignorance about food and sustenance.

i grabbed a knife and sunk in -- that in itself was an experience. the cucumber was at its very freshest, the knife glided right through with just the right hint of resistance. i've never eaten a cucumber at such freshness (no in between time trapped in a crate or cardboard box). needless to say, it was delicious -- juicy and crisp and perfectly, well...cucumber.

now my head is churning with ideas on what to do with all of this upcoming cucumber (there is going to be a shit ton -- there are LOADS of flowers and developing cucumbers) from pickling to soaking in a mix of citrus and vinegar (something i learned from karim, my moroccan-store owner friend who speaks impeccable English) to combining with soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil (precious import from dakar) and garlic to a cold soup to a variation of tea time cucumber sandwiches (village bread, sheep cheese, and cucumber slices). i have a feeling i'm going to have a lot of fun with the cucumbers but by the end of all of this -- will be sick of them.

i know its ridiculous to be so thrilled about growing a vegetable but i've never been a complete part of a food cycle -- i've never had to raise my food before -- and now that i'm doing so, i'm completely with the idea.

i'm starting to feel like working in agriculture (plus trees) -- something that i've never even been close to doing before aside from gardening flowers and helping mom maintain the yard -- is changing my interests. i am increasingly interested in...the "growing of things." i want to grow more vegetables, raise my own chickens for eggs and meat, hell, maybe i even want to go milk a cow. this, coupled with my increasing interest is cooking is making me think that maybe...maybe...i don't want to spend my life in what i thought i wanted to spend my life in.

social science was once really interesting to me -- i could read voraciously about studies and policy and history but now that my life has become so much more about activity opposed to work i'm starting to think that maybe social science is something that should be an interest and not a career choice. where policy or social work or law or study was once what i thought would be my way of living a purposeful life, i think i am now interested in seeing how i can impact the world through more creative avenues -- writing? food? farming? maybe i am interested in nutrition? now that i am in the field and get to wake up to the great outdoors everyday, i don't know how much i want to return to a world of desks and world schedules.

i am definitely reevaluating my plans and goals and career ambitions.

the single post in july

2008-07-30T11:45:00.004Z

rooftops of kaolack at sunset

this has been a busy, fun, and successful month but my blog has suffered as a consequence of it. sorry!

my sister came to visit me from july 7 to the 25th and we had a blast. after our happy reunion we hung out in dakar for a few days, where i took her around on a little food based tour of the city (she didn't understand my excitement over
being in a place of gastronomic abundance).

after that we went to an ecolodge in toubakouta in the sine saloum delta. it was totally gorgeous and fun and exciting because we got to go on these nature walks where we waded waist high in water through mangroves and felt like we were in an indiana jones movie or something. we joked about how we spent our childhoods pretending this stuff happened when the suburbs flooded and now we were actually living it out (no poisonous snakes though).

we then spent a week in the village, where she became "ouly ka" and had a great time with my villagers. she helped me begin outplanting my trees -- the trees have homes now! we began a live fence of various thorny species in my compound and then helped outplant a live fence in the valley with trees from the world vision pepineer. it is exciting to see my baby trees being move out into the big wild world and i am crossing my fingers and hoping that they will make it despite all the dangers of goats and cows and children and drought and heat and all the brutalities of the bush. i took advantage of her teacher skills and had her help me teach the english classes with the girls and she was amazing, my girls are now able to read silly sentences like "the fat cat on the mat eats meat." jamm rekk (my cat) was a great help...she would sit in the middle of the class (my hut) and nap and purr while we spelled out C A T and proclaimed "cat!"

we left the village with leanne crying on the charette and then went out to saly, a beach/resort area on the coast that i've heard makes one feel as though they've left africa. while i wasn't entirely looking for that experience, we tried it out for a spin and found a wonderful hotel in the village section of the town. by doing so we got to hang out with other senegalese but still have the sweet experience of a pool and nice beds and hot water and good plumbing and totally excellent food. chris and JC joined us for this leg of the trip which was great because it was all my favorite people and we all got along and i was a very happy girl. the town itself is wild and truly does make one feel like they are no longer in senegal, it is especially worlds away from rural senegal and while it was a little bit jarring, it was a welcome change in scenery. while i love the village, it is nice to get away and appreciate the other ways of life -- like happy hour and kir royals and pizza and the beach and good food and staying out late at night because there is electricity to light the bocce ball game we played with our new friends we made with the hotel staff.

leanne left senegal to trace the slave trade route in ghana which sounds totally awesome and i wish i could have gone with her but alas, i have work here in senegal. trees must be planted and girls must be taught and radio shows must be done. two days ago (monday) JC and i broadcast peace corps first radio show in the kaolack region. tayo set up a peace corps radio show with Radio Communitaire Sine-Salom FM (96.4) every monday afternoon. we have an hour of air time to discuss peace corps and whatever other topics we feel are relevant to the kaolack community. he asked JC and me to do the first show, to introduce peace corps and our intentions for the radio show. we were at first a little nervous to do so but agreed nonetheless and wound up having a great time. we got to feel super cool in a radio recording studio with fancy microphones (but no headphones) and we talked about peace corps (our work, the different sectors, cleared up myths about the peace corps organization) and ourselves (brought up issues about women, education, ethnicity) and differences between american culture and senegalese culture. i also got to play a bunch of music and rocked out kaolack with a playlist that included elvis presley, salt n' pepa, phil collins, michael jackson, the fugees, and creedence clearwater revival.

heading back to the village today and hoping to stay there for a good chunk of time, since i've been traveling in and out for the whole month of july. i'm a little reluctant to leave but i think it is just merely because i've been spoiled by the luxuries of electricity and running water and food. things at site have really been improving since the rains have come and my work in the pepineer hasn't been completely ruined. leanne also helped me realize that i've come a long way in terms of my language skills and integration into the culture and that my village and i are having a great time with each other and i am thinking more and more these days that i am actually making an impact. its exciting. i'm almost a year into my service and things are finally feeling like they are coming together.

KANGSTAs back together!

frogs

2008-07-01T01:57:00.000Z

a pretty intense storm is coming in from both ends of the village. its been 3 hours of impending storm and totally awesome to watch in the great expanse of african sky. the clouds have been rolling in and its been an endless light show, lightning dancing among the churning clouds, crawling in from the edges of the village while we've been standing under a perfectly clear, star-filled hole in the clouds. seeing sights like this almost makes all the frustration worth it alone.

but actually, things are really starting to get better. i don't want to say anything TOO soon, but i feel as if my wolof has finally gotten to the point where i understand a good part of what is going on around me, what is being said to me, and what more, i am speaking up more and being understood. this makes a world of difference.

moreover, the rains have really improved the shape of my pepineer -- attesting much to my primary problem having been the salty robinet water - and there's been more work. my transplants have all survived and i guess that proved to talla that i do have some idea of what to do and how to do it (especially ecause i did it on my own initiative) and he actually asked me -- kindly! -- to "gontu" (wolof for the verb "to go to work in the afternoon") in the world vision pepineer.

i gladly accepted but didn't go immediately because my girls had come for english lessons and i wasn't about to abandon them for him when they have become so committed to learning. we had an one and a half hour lesson today and i really am so proud of how fast they are picking up. even writing the alphabet is new to them and i have watched their progress -- what was once chicken scratch sprawled disorderly across a page is now becoming neat, straight, and even includes a hint of their personalities. we learned lower-case letters today and the sounds of the first 10 letters and when i had them piece together B, A, D and D, A, D they all lit up when they discovered that they had just read their first english words (odd word choice, i know, but i only had A through J to work with...)

after the lesson i went to the WV pepineer and helped talla, mbaye, and penda transplant xot u buteel (Eucalyptus cameldulensis) under the blazing sun. nobody treated me like an idiot and that was enough to make my day. talla even told them all about my i had asked him to stop working in my pepineer the other day because i like to work that much. that might be the first time i've ever heard him brag about me. (i am perfectly aware of the contradiction of despising this man as much as i do but wanting his acceptance and approval as much as i do...)

we were there until the sun started its descent and i then headed back with fatou and aram (who had come to the valley to seed bissap) who carried two watering cans full of sweet rain water from the valley for my pepineer. everybody now seems to get that i DID know what i was doing all along, i just got majorly screwed with our salty water which killed all my trees.

on the way back i saw a bunch of frogs catching and eating grasshoppers and decided that i would bring some back and put them in the pepineer to eat the grasshoppers that have been ravaging my baby trees. i'm not a fan of chemical pesticides so i figured that i would try my hand with integrated pest management with ash and frogs (termites hate ash). problem is, i, realized i'm kind of afraid of frogs and wound up flinching and squealing away at the last minute as i tired to catch them. all the women laughed at me and were at first utterly confused at my lame attempts to catch frogs but once i explained to them my intentions they caught on and started to point out every single from they saw. fatou volunteered to go after them and was such a funny sight running around the field with fallou sleeping and strapped to her back giggling and catching frogs. she kept telling me that there was nothing to be afraid of and tried to convince me by saying that they're nice and cool and pressed a croaking frog to her forehead. she offered to do the same for me but i declined. regardless, she forced me to take the frog from her and put him into the watering can and i'll admit i felt somewhat queasy the first time i had the little dude in my hand, cold and kicking and croaking. we eventually got 5 big ones -- rejecting the little ones because fatou said that they themselves would get eaten by grasshoppers and put them inthe cans and headed home.

the frogs were persistent little buggers though and the whole walk home, kept leaping out of the watering cans in a suicide leap, as the cans were all the way up on the heads of the women. they would splat onto the ground and sit stunned for a second (surely they weren't expecting such a long fall) and then go jumping off into the fields. aram and fatou made me go after them and since this happened the entire way home, i finally got over my fear of touching frogs -- although its still a weird and gross sensation to me. i also got peed on twice. i put them in my pepineer and hopefully they will be of use and do some bug killing.

anyway, the storm is upon us now and it is a slow and steady downpour. its a big, slow, heavy storm -- it feels like i live in the floor under God's and he's moving in new furniture or something -- the thunder is absolutely an endless rumbling and cracking and we live in an apartment on times square (a nice one, too) because of the constant flashes of lightning. i can't say i've ever experienced a rain like this, there are no tall buildings or trees to keep this storm from practically sitting on our heads and its as if we're actually in the clouds (albeit, enclosed in a box) as the very action of clashing charges of electricity or whatever it is that is happening up there. i don't really know, i used to have no interest in meteorology other than how it would affect my day and what to wear in preparation for it (as one hates to be unprepared for a storm).

i am noticing these days that being raised a suburbanite-turned-city inhabitant has kept me very ignorant of how people actually interact with weather -- rather than just have it affect them. the first time it rained here, i was totally unprepared -- ending up with drenched clothes on the line, soggy floors, and no foretelling of what was going to happen. this time when the storm came, i didn't go fleeing inside 10 minutes before it was going to start (out of fear like i did last rain) but i did go in to take the clothes down, open the lids of my bucket, set out my big buckets under the eaves of my neighbor's tin roofs (one of the few tin roofs in the village) to catch water and thus save myself an entire day of getting water, and half shut the door so that i could catch the breeze but not soak the floors. now i just haven't had the american foresight to get hot chocolate for this because it would totally be appropriate for a moment like this.

it's a nawet (rainy season) miracle!

2008-06-28T23:55:00.001Z

rain outside my window

i woke up at 6:30 to the sound of rain and had a pot of tea while i waited for the sky to clear up. when it finally was reduced to a scarce drizzle i did my laundry and swept up my hut.

after breakfast, i went out to the pepineer and it was like a freakin' nawet miracle -- the pepineer is sprouting and totally reinvigorated by the downpour. because of the rain, the soil in the sacks was thoroughly dry, making it prime for stransplanting (transplanting = moving seedlings from sacks with more than one seedling to sacks with seeds that have no germinated). i spent the entire morning transplanting and exhilerated at the thought that my pepineer still has a chance. it got pretty humid and the clouds stayed ominously low and heavy and i sweated up a storm which was gross but also a good feeling.

when i was done -- around 11:30 -- i cleaned p and then helped aram cook lunch (she is finally better after being bedriddenly ill for like, 2 weeks). i chopped onions, sifted millet, cleaned rice, made the bissap sauce, and pounded spices -- overall pretty helpful and while being in the kitchen fulfills certain gender role expectations, i like helping and cooking.

we then had lunch and afterwards i went out to buy sugar for my soow (milk that has been set out in the heat for a day so that it sours and is then mixed with sugar) and gum for the wives and kids. i socialized and chatted and it was good to get out of the compound.

at 3, my 5 girls came for english lessons -- diarra, aida, dey fatou, fatou and ma'astou (mamasou/mame astou/whatever). they are such bright girls and are very serious about learning -- today they finished learning the whole alphabet (capital letters) and passed their exam with flying colors. aside from a few mix ups between S and C and J and G, they got them all right and i am so proud of them, especially considering that all of them but one girl have been educated in arabic school and have never learned to write or read letters. we will now start to learn how to put the sounds together and read. they are very excited.

the lessen ended at 5, just as the rain picked up again and we ran about putting out buckets for rain and i transplanted a few more trees -- taking advantage of not having to water with our salt infected water and letting the rain do the job for me.

then i cuddled up in my hut and while a cool wind came in along with the rain. i showered with soap and rain and felt refreshed and peaceful -- aside from the fact that the rain (for some reason) causes the male termites to emerge from the mound they built in my room and invade the walls and floor. i hid from them in my mosquito net but they weren't really as bad as the earwigs that fell from the roof yesterday.

to make the day even better, i asserted myself with talla and it actually worked! he went into my pepineer and saw me transplanting and started to do so as well, even though it was pouring rain and sent me inside. i despairingly watched from my door him do MY work and after a few minutes of hesitation i went over and asked him to leave it alone so that i could have work to do tomorrow. i explained that today i was really happy because i had work to do all morning in my pepineer and he laughed and actually stopped.

it was an incredibly good day and i felt so normal and busy and adjusted. i understood all the wolof that was spoken to me today and i felt like ME -- busy, social, even humorous (in wolof). it was one of the best days i've had here at site and its as if the rain brought in both a revitalization of my trees and my motivation.

storming

2008-06-28T00:53:00.000Z

just stormed for over an hour and it was amazing. it was impending rain all day but i wasn't getting my hopes up. i reseeded a whole shitload of Parkinsonia and minutes later the sky dumped a wallop of a storm on top of us. it was a thrilling storm, low and heavy and what felt like mere inches above the roof of my hut. i never really thought i would experience something like this in person -- flickers of lightning rushing through the wide, expansive sky while patches of clouds revealed the ongoing sunset.

after the storm was reduced to a drizzle i ran outside to check on my reseeded sacks -- thank God, everything had stayed put. the kids came outside and frolicked through the puddles. i got to watch a newly shaved dame (i guess it was something to do during the storm?) experience puddles. i assume it was one of the first large puddles he's experienced 00 as he was an infant his last rainy season and he was absolutely thrilled to run through a gigantic puddle cat came up to his knees! he was filled with absolute glee and excitement -- running back and forth through the puddles and laughing the entire time. i was glad aram let him do so and a bunch of us had a blast watching him experience rain in a way we would never again be able to since our first rain (which by now we don't remember). he came running towards me at one point and just as i was telling him not to fall, he tripped and fell, belly-flopping into the puddle, before i could finish my sentence. perhaps that the best way to experience a deep puddle -- as it certainly wouldn't be to step around it. i was tempted to do so too but was scared i was not setting a good example so i went into my yard to privately jump around.

meanwhile remnants of the storm flickered by as the sky cleared up and gave us a last glimpse of the day before night descended and the bush exploded into frog song.

one of my vegetable beds was flooded so i proceeded to dig little channels for the water to run out of and as i was doing so, a little frog dug his way out of the mud, jumped into the water for a swim, and upon exiting then hopped off to join the wild symphony of amphibians. its totally wild and straight out of the freakin' discovery channel but this time its not on tv but in my backyard!! its nuts.

today's humidity has been washed away and the dark evening sky (we are approaching the end of the moon cycle so it won't show up for another few hours) is littered with stars now and the bush is alive with new sounds of frgus and bugs brought on by the storm, animals protesting their dampness, and growls of the storm making its way east towards kaffrine. this is truly fucking beautiful and we needed this rain so badly as it hadn't rained for nearly two weeks and our crops were just sprouting and in danger of drying in the blazing sun.

granted we have 4 seasons in ny/nj but i have never felt so a part of the earth's cycles...be it the moon or the rains or the crops or even the life cycle of frogs. there has never been a feeling like this.

reasons i can't go home

2008-06-26T18:23:00.000Z

sometimes i can hardly wait for my post peace corps life although i have no idea what will become of me or where i will go or even how i will be able to afford to sustain myself in america considering that i am going 2 years without pay and i only have like, $1000 in my savings account at home.

the idea of a life after this is both terrifying and exhilarating, though i often have to remind myself that the novelty of being back in american luxury will probably wear off after a few months and i'll once again be bored and/or unhappy here with my circumstances.

that's much part of why i can't go home now. can't pack my bags and peace out of the bush because as often as i feel unhappy here, that's not to say that i wouldn't be unhappy back at home. its the whole, life-doesn't-come-edited things and there's a whole lot of worthless nothing in between life's major and pivotal scenes. nothing happening is nothing happening, regardless of whether one is in new york city or the senegalese bush or paris or princeton or ulan bator.

i also can't go home because i didn't get this far just to go home. i didn't go through all the shit and illness and frustration and tears and anger and learning just to pick up when i'm not even halfway through to go home. what would have been the point? would i just give up and go back to a mindless 9-5 and dicking around the suburbs (because God knows i wouldn't be able to move back to the city).

another reason: talla owes me 30 mille.

lastly, i can't go home because next year i want to do everything i didn't do this year and not do everything i did this year. i want to fix my mistakes and learn from all of this year's mishaps and shit storms. did i mention that the main problem with the pepineer was the WATER?? i didn't do anything wrong!! the water is salt and there's sediment that's' deposited from the barrels. that, and over-watering. none of what in fact was suspected by talla and co.

confession

2008-06-26T04:04:00.000Z

i have failed to upkeep my relationship with God when i so often claim christianity as my main reason for being here. perhaps that is why i am struggling so much -- because i have been untrue and so much of my being here is because i want to be here and not because God wants me to be here. i have forgotten how to trust and rely on God, how to love the unlovable, and to faithfully work for change because God calls for it. i have even forgotten that my work in agroforestry is stewardship of God's creation and instead have been trying to measure things by my own definitions of personal success and failure. these days, i am simply pursuing mediocre goals of personal achievement instead of the grandiose objective of caring for God's creation -- the world, its environment, its people, its societies, and its cultures. of course, my pursuit of success is futile -- i am defining my success on such an earthly and trivial level that i am blinded to my work in the greater scheme -- not my greater scheme, or peace corps', or development's, but God's. what is it that GOD wants for Senegal, for my village, for my peace corps community, for me?

i wouldn't call myself a "religious" person but i do want to be a person who is deeply convicted by God's calling for social justice. i have forgotten God and have reduced this experience to being about me. it's time for my own personal transformation before anything else can change. my spirit must be renewed.

shit's on fire!!!

2008-06-21T17:52:00.003Z

so should we even talk about the past few days?

that erratic rash mentioned in the previous post turned out to be one of the hardest trials of my time here in senegal (i feel like i say that often...) and at one point i was about 5 seconds away from packing my bags and going home.

a few days ago, i reseeded my cashew trees. the pretreatment for cashews is a 24 hour cold water soak, so i had over 100 cashew seeds sopping in a bucket of water for some time. while reseeding, i immersed my hand over the course of an hour or two into this water in order to grab seeds for reseeding. turns out, BAD IDEA. if i had been thinking, i would have remembered that cashew water is totally acidic and causes a terrible rash that blisters and burns and spreads worse than poison ivy (to which i am totally allergic to).

on top of that, because of the new rains i guess my body freaked out over the new humidity after 9 months of no rain or moisture and i developed a vicious heat rash that spread from my hands (along with the cashew burn) to my arms to my inner elbows to my neck to the back of my neck to my thighs and inner thighs, down my legs and all over my back. basically about 80% of my body was covered in one of two kinds of rash.

basically, i felt like i was on fire 24/7 and for a couple of days i had no idea what was happening to me. it itched and burned and the blisters were weeping and i was terribly stressed out (which probably only increased the spreading of the rash) and i will admit that the pain was so torturous that it drove me to tears (sobs, not just a little crying) several times.

in the meantime, i had to travel down to sokone because i had a small project to work on over there and i was itching and burning and overheating and was ill with a fever and chills for most of the time there. thankfully my colleagues were really understanding and helpful and after we finally called med (and confirmed the cashew and heat rash), i was able to take lots of benadryl and wash myself in hibiclens and cover myself in salvatis powder in an attempt to alleviate the pain. there wasn't really any cure for the issue other than waiting it out and trying not to ask God, "WHY ME???"

i honestly felt like job (from the bible) for a while -- discouraged with my work, i've felt like i've lost all my dignity and pride with the crappy way agroforestry work has been going and my relationship with my counterpart at site continues to disintegrate more and more. site has been really hard for me recently and i often question what i am doing and if i should stay (i want to stay more than anything else). just when i felt at such a low point, suddenly i had to lose my physical health and i wasn't just sick...but sick with something i have never before experienced and was absolute pure torturous pain. i didn't feel like i had anything left, i felt totally broken and totally beat and i was just about ready to quit.

i guess due to a mix of my stubborn pride and the support and belief of my friends and colleagues in my current work here, i am still here and after a week of burning, the rashes have finally started to settle down. i am still covered in small red bumps that itch, but at least the burning has gone down and a good percentage of them have gone away.

in the meantime, i guess it was good that i was away from site because being in sokone allowed me to be near a pharmacy (to get the powder) and to be in an area that had electricity and thus, a fan to keep me cool. it was also good to be distracted by a different kind of project and the company of my friends and colleagues. after sokone we took a short break to go to the beach, which i think was really good for me because the cold saltwater really helped cool me down and made the burn of the rash go away. also amazing: we went swimming at night (after setting up a nice campfire on the beach) and everytime you dove underwater, you could hear the clicking and songs of a pod of dolphins or some kind of porpoise! it was amazing and unlike anything i've ever heard before.

i then headed down to chris's site to experience some senegalese wrestling...which turned out to be really cool but also a few hours of watching really gigantic and perfectly constructed and oiled up (and scantily clad) men strut and parade and dance around with some wrestling done in between. it's hard to explain and i can't really say anything other than that. in the meantime, chris and i attempted a to make an anti-mosquito neem lotion for his family using soap, neem leaves (from the Azadirachta indica tree), a little bit of oil, and hot water. it turned out fine and his family was really excited to use it and we will see if it actually works. i'm planning on trying it out in my village too.

tomorrow i am going back to my village and chris is coming with me so that we can build a chicken coop/chicken tractor (depending on how much money i have to spend on this project) so that i can start trying to get my village started on eating eggs, rather than letting their chickens constantly get knocked up. one of my sisters is convinced that the eggs we eat come from the eggs that the chickens sit on for more than 5 weeks and don't result in a chick -- which is somewhat true...although it happens once in a blue moon (if there's a rooster hanging around the hens) and it also means that we are eating 5 week old eggs.

anyway, it's been a trying past few days, weeks, months? i don't know. i'm having a really hard time here and often feel like i am hanging by a thread. i've certainly been pushed to all my limits and i am trying my all out best to do a good job here and to stay and be positive and be a creative influence here in senegal. i am often told that i am too hard on myself, so maybe i haven't completely failed at my agroforestry work and i pray to God that tomorrow when i go back to site my pepineer is still alive and thriving and maybe the cucumbers, lettuce, eggplant, basil, tebanane (wolof for Jatropha curcas), and "fanta" vines (i don't know the scientific name or the english name, but it is a climbing vine with flowers used for medicine) will all be doing well and will make me feel like i am not a murderer of plants.

leanne comes in a few weeks. i can't wait!

happy father's day!

2008-06-15T17:25:00.002Z

as my first year in what i consider true adulthood (and also my first whilst in africa), this father's day is special because i am recalling that my dad has been so much a part of why i am here and why i remain here, despite the trials, troubles, and difficulties of being a volunteer here in rural senegal.

also, the new-found distance simply just makes me miss him so much and i can't wait to see him again (november?).

i've always been a rather emotional person and my father has always been able to keep me grounded as the rational, logical argument in any bout of desperate anxiety fueled by my crazy array of emotions and feelings.

in the past recent years, my father and i have come to know each other much better and it makes me so incredibly happy that we are no longer just bound to each other by just a blood relationship but one of friendship and love and understanding.

happy father's day!

(in other news, my arms and legs are covered in a strange and erratic rash. it's rained 5 times here, which has given life to the dry land of senegal and brought about a new set of wonders -- and mosquitos. i've reseeded but only my cashews seems to want to make it. tomorrow i will be going out to sokone to work on a landscaping project and then down to karang to see some wrestling and then back to site to build a chicken coop and have my supervisor come down and see what i've been up to in the village. leanne is coming to visit july 7 and i can't freakin' wait!!!)