almost a drought

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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.