the saddest news

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?