I hope everybody had a fantastic Christmas and a wonderful New Year’s celebration! Thank you so much to everybody who has sent me packages and letters…it makes me so happy and I really appreciate them!! I put all the cards I get up on my wall and it makes me smile when I think about the people who sent them :)
I spent my Christmas in St. Louis, which is a city on the NW coast. It used to be the capital of Senegal before the capital moved to Dakar, and it was also the capital of French West Africa. The European influence is obvious, but the mix of Senegalese culture gives the city a really interesting vibe. I really liked the city (and the beach we went to was amazing….that always helps!) and I hope I can make it back every once in a while.
I met up with 5 other volunteers in my stage, and we did our best to make Christmas as festive as possible. One of the volunteers, Bryn, made stockings and filled them with goodies she’d gotten in a care package (which was extremely nice and we all loved it…thanks, Bryn!), I made Santa hats, Megan brought a fake Christmas tree, Krista brought some Christmas CD’s, and the boys, well, they helped spread the Christmas spirit I guess. Preparing Christmas Eve dinner was fun, but it was an all day process for several reasons. First of all, believe it or not, Ukrop’s hasn’t made it to Senegal yet, and it took a while to gather all the ingredients we needed. The main reason it was a long process though is that we only had one gas to cook everything on, so we could only cook one thing at a time. We ate when something was done, then started cooking the next item. We had mashed potatoes, pasta, green beans, chicken, apple cider and smores for desert. Everything was fantastic! Plus, we cooked outside where we had an awesome ocean view, and the company was even better. It was really nice to hang out with friends from my stage and compare experiences. We’d only been at our sites for about a month…but that month was a big adjustment period and we had plenty to talk about!
Tabaski
Tabaski is probably the biggest Muslim holiday, and this year Tabaski fell on New Year’s Eve (Muslims follow the lunar calendar, so the date changes every year). Tabaski is also called the “fete des moutons,” because every family kills a sheep. No joke, it’s a big deal. I saw a lot of sheep being transported the last couple of weeks, and I’m pretty sure it was because of Tabaski. “How does one transport sheep?” you might wonder. It’s easy. Step 1: Wait on the site of the road for an “Alham” (a big van/bus thing that’s the most common form of transport. Most Alhams seat about 30 people. Toubabs call them Alhams because the front of every one has “Alhamdouliliah” written on it, which means ‘praise be to god.’ I don’t really know what the Senegalese call them, I think to them everything is an ‘oto’). Step 2: When an Alham stops to pick up you and your herd, you start tying up the sheep. You wouldn’t want to have the sheep already tied up when the Alham comes, because that would make things efficient. It’s better to make the 30 people inside the Alham wait for you to tie up your sheep. Step 3: Somebody climbs on the roof of the Alham where the baggage (and sheep) go, and others help hoist up the sheep one by one. Step 4: Tie them to the roof, only after you’ve made each animal incredibly uncomfortable so they’re all bleating at their maximum volume the entire rest of their journey. Some people prefer the method of putting each sheep in a bag instead of tying the legs up. Maybe the bag method is the less humane way, I don’t know. Or maybe some people just don’t want to eat a wind burned sheep on Tabaski.
So anyway, besides getting a sheep there are lots of other preparations, especially for the women. My cousin told me that on Tabaski, “everybody is beautiful.” Everybody gets a new fancy outfit to wear, but I’m not really sure where people get the money for it. New hair do’s are also a necessity. All the women get their hair braided especially nice, and most of the women get hair extensions, too. The women also do a henna (temporary tattoo) thing on their hands and feet. Between trips to the tailor’s, getting hair braided and getting henna, the women are pretty busy the days before Tabaski.
The actual day of Tabaski was fun. In the morning lots of onions and potatoes are peeled, a sheep in slaughtered and the food is prepared. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day here, so around lunch a bunch of old women came to my house and ate with my mom. My sisters and I went over to the compound next to ours where a ton of other women and children were gathered and we ate there. In the late afternoon/early evening everybody put on their new outfits and got all decked out. Then, groups of friends go around to their other friends and families’ houses just to greet each other. I put on the one dressy Senegalese outfit I have and I went around with my sisters and cousin. It was fun, but it seemed kinda dumb to me. At each compound we greeted the people there (which means shaking hands and mumbling ‘how are you’s’ and ‘i’m doing well’ without really speaking to or answering one specific person). After the greetings the family says we are welcome in their home, and we say thanks and move on to the next house. That’s it. And it was dark so you couldn’t really even appreciate all the effort people made to look nice. It was still fun though and a nice break in the normal routine.
So what is it that I’m doing here? Good question. There are several different sectors within Peace Corps. Senegal has volunteers working in the following sectors: Small Enterprise Development (SED), Ecotourism, Sustainable Agriculture (Ag), Agro-Forestry (AgFo), Urban Agriculture, Environmental Education and Health. My sector is Small Enterprise Development, which is very broad but it is basically business development. Projects vary from site to site, and I don’t know specifically what projects I will be working on yet. There is a large women’s group in my town and I will probably be working with them, and I would also like to work with local shop owners (teaching basic business skills like accounting or marketing).
Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal have 8 weeks of ‘pre-service training (PST), 3 months at site, then 3 more weeks of training, called ‘in service training’ (IST). PST focused mainly on language and culture/safety, and during our first 3 months at site we are supposed to focus on learning the language and getting to know our town and the people we hope to work with. We are not supposed to start any work related projects during the first 3 months. Training at IST is mostly technical training, where we will actually learn how to do our jobs. We’re supposed to start ‘working’ after IST, although it may take several more months at site before we have a clear idea of what we want our main projects to be. So right now I spend most of my days just hanging out trying to listen and understand Pulaar, which is easier said than done! People speak really fast and it’s really easy to space out and lose focus when you can’t understand anything! I just try to learn a few new words everyday and try to listen as hard as I can. There’s not a whole lot to do besides going to visit people, and trips to the post office are usually the highlight of my day. I used to go to the store every once in a while and treat myself to a soda and some cookies until one of my cousins saw the cookies in my room and told me most people in my town couldn’t afford to buy cookies. Ouch. I felt about 5 inches tall. A pack of cookies costs about the equivalent of 80 cents. I knew that my town was poor, but she put it so bluntly and I wasn’t expecting a comment like that and it totally caught me off guard. I haven’t bought too many cookies since then.
Random Africa Moment:
There are these little red fruits that everybody eats called jaabe. My family occasionally snacks on them, and I’d never questioned where they came from. A couple weeks ago my sister was doing something in the back yard and I went back there to see what she was doing. It turns out the tree in our back yard is a jaabe tree, and that’s where the fruit had been coming from. My sister was shaking the fruit out of the tree and picking up the fruit. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, perfect temperature. I decided to help.
What’s so random about that?
My family has 23 cows. They pretty much live in my back yard. Needless to say, my back yard is pretty much dirt and cow poo. And the jaabe tree. Which means the jaabe fruit drops on the ground amongst the cow poo, and then we eat it. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure they don’t wash the fruit before they eat it.
When I realized what was going on, I thought to myself, “AWESOME. I’ve been eating fruit that’s been hanging out with dried cow poo.” Then I shrugged, figured ‘when in Africa…’ and starting picking out the jaabe out of all the cow poo, trying to suppress my giggles.
Here's a photo of one jaabe on the ground (the little orange-ish round thing in the middle):
It takes a long time to upload pics, but here are a few! I'll try to upload more sometime soon!
My Pulaar class at our swearing in ceremony in Dakar.
Bryn, Pete and I on Christmas Eve in St. Louis
Megan and I on Christmas morning
My neighbor, my sisters (Banal and Fati), Fati's daugher and my mom on Tabaski.
Kygel, my sister's adorable 3 year old daughter.
View of the sunset from my roof.
View of part of my town from my roof.
This is my house. Pretty ridiculous, eh? Especially compared to the previous picture.
I spent my Christmas in St. Louis, which is a city on the NW coast. It used to be the capital of Senegal before the capital moved to Dakar, and it was also the capital of French West Africa. The European influence is obvious, but the mix of Senegalese culture gives the city a really interesting vibe. I really liked the city (and the beach we went to was amazing….that always helps!) and I hope I can make it back every once in a while.
I met up with 5 other volunteers in my stage, and we did our best to make Christmas as festive as possible. One of the volunteers, Bryn, made stockings and filled them with goodies she’d gotten in a care package (which was extremely nice and we all loved it…thanks, Bryn!), I made Santa hats, Megan brought a fake Christmas tree, Krista brought some Christmas CD’s, and the boys, well, they helped spread the Christmas spirit I guess. Preparing Christmas Eve dinner was fun, but it was an all day process for several reasons. First of all, believe it or not, Ukrop’s hasn’t made it to Senegal yet, and it took a while to gather all the ingredients we needed. The main reason it was a long process though is that we only had one gas to cook everything on, so we could only cook one thing at a time. We ate when something was done, then started cooking the next item. We had mashed potatoes, pasta, green beans, chicken, apple cider and smores for desert. Everything was fantastic! Plus, we cooked outside where we had an awesome ocean view, and the company was even better. It was really nice to hang out with friends from my stage and compare experiences. We’d only been at our sites for about a month…but that month was a big adjustment period and we had plenty to talk about!
Tabaski
Tabaski is probably the biggest Muslim holiday, and this year Tabaski fell on New Year’s Eve (Muslims follow the lunar calendar, so the date changes every year). Tabaski is also called the “fete des moutons,” because every family kills a sheep. No joke, it’s a big deal. I saw a lot of sheep being transported the last couple of weeks, and I’m pretty sure it was because of Tabaski. “How does one transport sheep?” you might wonder. It’s easy. Step 1: Wait on the site of the road for an “Alham” (a big van/bus thing that’s the most common form of transport. Most Alhams seat about 30 people. Toubabs call them Alhams because the front of every one has “Alhamdouliliah” written on it, which means ‘praise be to god.’ I don’t really know what the Senegalese call them, I think to them everything is an ‘oto’). Step 2: When an Alham stops to pick up you and your herd, you start tying up the sheep. You wouldn’t want to have the sheep already tied up when the Alham comes, because that would make things efficient. It’s better to make the 30 people inside the Alham wait for you to tie up your sheep. Step 3: Somebody climbs on the roof of the Alham where the baggage (and sheep) go, and others help hoist up the sheep one by one. Step 4: Tie them to the roof, only after you’ve made each animal incredibly uncomfortable so they’re all bleating at their maximum volume the entire rest of their journey. Some people prefer the method of putting each sheep in a bag instead of tying the legs up. Maybe the bag method is the less humane way, I don’t know. Or maybe some people just don’t want to eat a wind burned sheep on Tabaski.
So anyway, besides getting a sheep there are lots of other preparations, especially for the women. My cousin told me that on Tabaski, “everybody is beautiful.” Everybody gets a new fancy outfit to wear, but I’m not really sure where people get the money for it. New hair do’s are also a necessity. All the women get their hair braided especially nice, and most of the women get hair extensions, too. The women also do a henna (temporary tattoo) thing on their hands and feet. Between trips to the tailor’s, getting hair braided and getting henna, the women are pretty busy the days before Tabaski.
The actual day of Tabaski was fun. In the morning lots of onions and potatoes are peeled, a sheep in slaughtered and the food is prepared. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day here, so around lunch a bunch of old women came to my house and ate with my mom. My sisters and I went over to the compound next to ours where a ton of other women and children were gathered and we ate there. In the late afternoon/early evening everybody put on their new outfits and got all decked out. Then, groups of friends go around to their other friends and families’ houses just to greet each other. I put on the one dressy Senegalese outfit I have and I went around with my sisters and cousin. It was fun, but it seemed kinda dumb to me. At each compound we greeted the people there (which means shaking hands and mumbling ‘how are you’s’ and ‘i’m doing well’ without really speaking to or answering one specific person). After the greetings the family says we are welcome in their home, and we say thanks and move on to the next house. That’s it. And it was dark so you couldn’t really even appreciate all the effort people made to look nice. It was still fun though and a nice break in the normal routine.
So what is it that I’m doing here? Good question. There are several different sectors within Peace Corps. Senegal has volunteers working in the following sectors: Small Enterprise Development (SED), Ecotourism, Sustainable Agriculture (Ag), Agro-Forestry (AgFo), Urban Agriculture, Environmental Education and Health. My sector is Small Enterprise Development, which is very broad but it is basically business development. Projects vary from site to site, and I don’t know specifically what projects I will be working on yet. There is a large women’s group in my town and I will probably be working with them, and I would also like to work with local shop owners (teaching basic business skills like accounting or marketing).
Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal have 8 weeks of ‘pre-service training (PST), 3 months at site, then 3 more weeks of training, called ‘in service training’ (IST). PST focused mainly on language and culture/safety, and during our first 3 months at site we are supposed to focus on learning the language and getting to know our town and the people we hope to work with. We are not supposed to start any work related projects during the first 3 months. Training at IST is mostly technical training, where we will actually learn how to do our jobs. We’re supposed to start ‘working’ after IST, although it may take several more months at site before we have a clear idea of what we want our main projects to be. So right now I spend most of my days just hanging out trying to listen and understand Pulaar, which is easier said than done! People speak really fast and it’s really easy to space out and lose focus when you can’t understand anything! I just try to learn a few new words everyday and try to listen as hard as I can. There’s not a whole lot to do besides going to visit people, and trips to the post office are usually the highlight of my day. I used to go to the store every once in a while and treat myself to a soda and some cookies until one of my cousins saw the cookies in my room and told me most people in my town couldn’t afford to buy cookies. Ouch. I felt about 5 inches tall. A pack of cookies costs about the equivalent of 80 cents. I knew that my town was poor, but she put it so bluntly and I wasn’t expecting a comment like that and it totally caught me off guard. I haven’t bought too many cookies since then.
Random Africa Moment:
There are these little red fruits that everybody eats called jaabe. My family occasionally snacks on them, and I’d never questioned where they came from. A couple weeks ago my sister was doing something in the back yard and I went back there to see what she was doing. It turns out the tree in our back yard is a jaabe tree, and that’s where the fruit had been coming from. My sister was shaking the fruit out of the tree and picking up the fruit. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, perfect temperature. I decided to help.
What’s so random about that?
My family has 23 cows. They pretty much live in my back yard. Needless to say, my back yard is pretty much dirt and cow poo. And the jaabe tree. Which means the jaabe fruit drops on the ground amongst the cow poo, and then we eat it. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure they don’t wash the fruit before they eat it.
When I realized what was going on, I thought to myself, “AWESOME. I’ve been eating fruit that’s been hanging out with dried cow poo.” Then I shrugged, figured ‘when in Africa…’ and starting picking out the jaabe out of all the cow poo, trying to suppress my giggles.
Here's a photo of one jaabe on the ground (the little orange-ish round thing in the middle):
It takes a long time to upload pics, but here are a few! I'll try to upload more sometime soon!
My Pulaar class at our swearing in ceremony in Dakar.
Bryn, Pete and I on Christmas Eve in St. Louis
Megan and I on Christmas morning
My neighbor, my sisters (Banal and Fati), Fati's daugher and my mom on Tabaski.
Kygel, my sister's adorable 3 year old daughter.
View of the sunset from my roof.
View of part of my town from my roof.
This is my house. Pretty ridiculous, eh? Especially compared to the previous picture.posted by Sandy at
2:51 AM
1 Comments:
1. "Tabaski" sounds like how my grandpa pronounces "tabasco" ...haha
2. I think you picking fruit out of cow poo (and supressing giggles) is the best visual EVER hahaha...LOVE it. love YOU!
3. Um, that house is pretty much super nice.
By
.lc., at 11:59 PM
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