The Life of Sandy: Adventures in a Mud Hut

2008-06-04T04:36:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I am actually still alive!! The funny thing is....Ive been at internet more in the last couple months than I have the rest of my service. We finally got an internet cafe in my town! It's so great. Not only can I check my email and feel connected on a regular basis, it's a nice hang out spot. Before the internet cafe opened there wasn't really a place to sit and hang out and chat with people...but there is now! There's really only a handful of people who come in to use internet, but it is also a phone store so a lot of people are in and out dealing with their cell phones. It has fairly dramatically changed my daily life...and for the better! Alhamdoulilahi!

I just got back from vacation in Italy, which was awesome. My parents and my brother met me, and we had a great time. We spent some time in Cinaque Terre, about a week in Tuscany, and then Rome for a couple of days. May/June is the hottest time of the year in Senegal, so it was super nice to be in Italy and be able to wear jeans and long sleeves (not to mention the good food, wine, ice cream, beautiful scenery and great company!) It was a much needed break, and I'm definitely ready to handle my last five months (and it is really weird to say that I only have 5 months left!)

Ok now I have some moderately humorous...

Random Africa Moments:

One weekend I had another Peace Corps volunteer visit me at site, right after the internet cafe opened. It was a Sunday morning and we both decided to bring our laptops. However, after we set up and tried to connect we realized it wasn't working. I asked one of the workers what was going on and he just replied "I don't know. It's Sunday though, internet doesn't really work on Sunday." What?? Internet doesn't work on Sundays?! That's a new one. I never new that the internet needed a day of rest. I guess it has just been too overworked recently and finally put its foot down and demanded a day off a week.
Psssshhh. Not to sound incredibly cynical, but if that doesn't demonstrate people's work ethic I don't know what does. Yeah of course internet isn't working, it needs a day off too, just like the rest of us. And half days on Friday...

Last night I sat down with my family for dinner and my sister took the lid off the bowl to reveal mushy rice...but no fish or meat (we've never had a meal without at least some meat of fish). She caught me looking at it in a confused manner and she asked me if I knew where the fish was. I said nooo but I know you do and you're about to tell me. She started laughing and said that the cows had eaten the dinner fish!! Haha. I was all "really?!?" and she just nodded her head. I turned to my mom and she was shaking her head and started explaining that if you leave the kitchen door open the cows will come in and eat everything. I asked if they beat the cows to teach them a lesson (because that's what they do to children when children misbehave). My mom didn't really get the sarcasm and just said no. My sister got it and laughed. Anyway, I just sat there eating my mushy rice trying to imagine cows eating humans' dinner anywhere else but Africa...and I couldn't.

2008-03-14T09:18:00.000-07:00

Baptisms…

….are a lot like other Senegalese holidays. However, my host sister (who is also one of my best friends at site) gave birth a few weeks ago, so the baptism for her baby girl will stand out in my mind more than others.
It all started when I was in Dakar for W.A.I.S.T., the West African Invitational Softball Tournament. I wrote about WAIST last year I think, but it’s an annual tournament in Dakar over President’s Day weekend and it’s pretty much the most fun weekend of the year. Anyway, I knew my sister was about to pop any day, so before I left for Dakar I told her not to give birth until I got back. She didn’t listen. One of the days at the tournament I looked at my phone and Ihad 5 missed calls from my host sister. At first I was kinda like good lord what could she possibly want, then I realized that she’d probably had her kid. I was right!
I got back to site the day before the baptisms. When I walked into my compound it was cute because before we even did the standard greetings my family said "go see the baby!" Everybody seemed a bit on the tired side, but happy to have a new addition to the family. I’m not really sure what newborns are supposed to look like, but she looked pretty normal to me! It turns out that the baby has the same name as me, Aissata. They call her "Azzie" though, which is a common nickname for Aissata. It also turns out that my sister was in labor from Wednesday to Saturday! Ugh! I can’t imagine.
The next day was the baptism, and the actual ceremonial part happened in the morning. In fact, I almost missed it. A bunch of older dudes came over around 8ish, sat in a circle for a while and then left. I’m not really sure what happened exactly, but I do know that it’s more of a naming ceremony than a christening type thing. One of the dudes was the marabout (religious leader) who leads the ceremony, and he’s also the one responsible for officially giving the name. They also shaved the baby’s head. I took one picture of the dudes sitting around in a circle, then before I knew it they were up and gone!
The rest of the day was just party time. My sister got all done up in fancy Senegalese clothes and sat in her room all day, and received guests. People (mostly women) would come in her room, greet, ask the baby’s name, give my sister some change or gift (usually soap), and then maybe give the baby a little blessing. Tons of people were in and out of her room all day. After people greeted my sister they would go and sit outside and hang out.
My other host sister and tons of neighbors came over and were busy preparing ridiculous amounts of rice for lunch. It was quite an operation. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a massive amount of cooked rice in one place. It was pretty amazing. It’s also what they were most proud of and most excited about. My friend took my camera at one point and took a bunch of pictures. When she was showing people later the pictures she’d taken, they were most interested in the pictures she took of the food!
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but names are really important here. When someone has the same name as you (which is a pretty frequent occurrence, considering there’s about 8 names in my whole town….I exaggerate, but really there’s not much variety), you are that person’s "tokorone," or namesake. Oftentimes if you see a friend who has your same name, you might not even say the name you would just call them "tokorone." It’s kinda funny. It’d be like a person named Sarah seeing another friend named Sarah and saying "heyyyy namesake, how’s things?" Anyway. Since the baby has the same name as me everybody kept asking me if I’d seen my namesake that day, or if I’d given my namesake any clothes yet. Even now when I’m out and about and I see a friend of the family, they will ask me how my namesake is doing. It’s kinda cool.
It’s also interesting seeing how they take care of their newborns differently. One day I was holding baby Aissata and I got up and started to leave (just to walk around with her a bit). I don’t know where my host sister was, but a neighbor was in the room with me, and she asked where I was going. I told her I was just going to go walk around a bit. She said, "uhhhh don’t do that." I asked her why, and she said that they don’t take the babies out at all. I was kinda confused, but I figured I should respect the way they do things…so I sat down again. When my sister came back in the room my neighbor told my sister that I wanted to take the baby out, and they both laughed like it was one of the crazier ideas they’d ever heard. Ha ha ha. Silly toubab wants to show the baby someplace other than this one little room. Is she ever gonna learn? Yep, I’m crazy allright! Can’t imagine why I wouldn’t want to sit in the same room day in and day out. And they pretty much do stay in the same room…the baby (and my sister for the most part) stays in my sister’s room all day, then my sister takes her to a bigger common room at night where they all sleep.
Going along with the baby not leaving the room thing…the other day my sister had her hair braided in a really traditional way. I’d never seen her (or anyone in my family) with her hair braided in this particular fashion. It’s very Pulaar. The only women I’ve seen with braids in this particular fashion are the super duper rural Pulaars. The name city folk give these rural people is "kaw kaw." It’s kindof an insult to be called a kaw kaw, but only in the way it would be insulting for a city person in America to be called a redneck. It’s kind of a joke. Anyway, I asked who braided her hair, and she laughed. She could tell I was confused/amused at her hair-do. She told me that when you give birth you get your hair braided in this traditional, kaw kaw way once a week for 3-4 weeks. After the third of fourth time that you get your hair braided, it’s time to take the baby out. I think it’s more complicated than that, though. I overheard my sister and her friend talking about it yesterday. I didn’t completely understand what they were saying, but I’m pretty sure they were talking about different ways to braid hair and which ways were good luck after you’ve had a baby and which ones were bad luck!
The superstitions might seem kind of dumb to Americans, but it’s the kind of thing I love about Pulaar culture and being a Peace Corps volunteer! Getting your hair braided in a traditional fashion after giving birth isn’t exactly a cultural aspect that jumps out at you when you walk off a plane, but it’s the kind of thing I get to see and learn by living here. Yay for cultural exchange.
It works both ways, too. Having the baby around prompts lots of questions about babies in America. For example, I was snapping my fingers in front of the baby’s face to see if she could focus on where the sound was coming from. My sister noticed me doing it and told me that babies in Senegal didn’t really see until about 2 weeks after they were born. Not having been around newborns much, I didn’t really know how true that statement was, so I just gave her a blank stare. She realized that her statement wasn’t really computing with me, so she asked "do babies in America see?" Ha. I didn’t really know how to respond, and I can’t even explain why that is such a funny question. But it is. I know that newborns still have a lot to develop, but when she asked me that question I kinda wanted to give her a smart response back, like "yeah, they poop too. Do Senegalese babies poop?" But I didn’t. Instead I confused myself about whether or not American babies can see. Sigh. Sometimes I think I’ve gotten way dumber since I’ve been here. Maybe it’s not so much of a cultural exchange as Senegalese culture entering one side of my brain and slowly pushing out all things I knew about America. A cultural slide. I’m slowly sliding…..
But then something else will happen that will bring me back to the western word, which bring me to my….

Random [western influence in] Africa Moment

Recently there were 20 French toubabs in my town, but that’s not my random western influence in Africa moment. It was kinda weird having them here…I’m not used to seeing other white people. Plus, it’s always weird seeing other toubabs here, because whatever you do it’s awkward. If you see another toubab you don’t know and you say hi, you both know that you’re both only saying hi because you’re white. That’s kinda weird. But then if you don’t say hi it’s weird because then you’re both avoiding the fact that it’s abnormal to have white people in this part of the world.
Anyway, I had no idea that this group of Frenchies were coming. The first day they got here all the kids were running up to me and saying "Aissata! Aissata! Did you see your "koreeji?" (koreeji means family). I eventually went to the house where they were all staying and introduced myself. Turns out they’re a group of nursing students, and they stayed here for 3 weeks to do health related work.
It got kind of annoying because literally everyday several people would come up to me and ask if I’d greeted my koreeji that day. Sometimes I’d just say yes, but if I was in an argumentative move I’d say "they’re not my koreeji!" Whenever I said that people would get really confused until I explained that I’m American and they’re French. Some people would say "ohhhh" and let it go. Some people, however, would persist that we were still family! That really bugged me. One night I got into a discussion about it with this one dude, Mamadou, who’s always trying to get into annoying discussions with me. I asked him if all black people were his family just because they were black. He kinda said yes, but was a little hesitant. Then I asked him, "if a group of Kenyans came to Senegal would you consider them your family?!?" There were a couple other people in the room at the time and when I asked that question they all got quiet. Then, Mamadou finally conceded that he in fact would NOT consider Kenyans his family just because they’re black. Everybody went "oooooo!!" Aissata got you! Ha! It was a good feeling. I’d won a discussion in Pulaar! Then after that if someone who present during my discussion with Mamadou was around when people asked me if I’d greeted my family that day, they would tell the story about how I’d told Mamadou whats’up!!
Anyway, towards the end of the Frenchies’ stay, the director of their program stayed at my house for a couple of nights. As a thank you gift, she gave my host mom a bag of goodies. Not being able to read, my sisters were going through the bag but didn’t know what anything was. They called me over and asked me what everything was. They were all sample size packets, so I picked up the first one and tried to read the small print. My sisters were crowded around excitedly asking: "Aissata Aissata what is it? Is it lotion?" I finally found the English on the packet. It said "Firming Body Concentrate." So I said yeah, that’s lotion. I picked up the next one. "Ultimate Hydrating Revitilizer."
My sisters: "What’s that one? Lotion?"
Me: ultimate hydrating revilitzer…hmmm..how do I say tat in Pulaar. Oh wait. Yeah that’s lotion.
My sisters: What’s this one?
Me: reading the next label, ‘hydrating gel mask’…translation to Pulaar…Lotion.
My sisters: Is this one lotion too?
Me: next label: Intense moisture boost. Yep, that’s lotion too.
My sisters: All the packages are different, how is it possible they’re all lotion?
Me: I wish my language teacher was here, then he could tell me how to say "Cream with Grape Polyphends and Nutrients" in Pulaar. He’s not here though, so I’m gonna go with…lotion. Yeah, they’re all lotion I think.
My sisters: Please tell me this one isn’t lotion, I’m getting bored.
Me: Good lord! "Body Balm – lipid restoring, anti-irritant body care severe skin dryness/cutaneous irritation???" Seriously? Why is this necessary? But riiiight, people in Europe/America probably wouldn’t buy this unless it sounded fancy and high tech. Still so ludicrous in this context!! But all I can say is: Yup, that one is lotion, too.

2008-02-13T04:36:00.000-08:00

I wish I could say that for the past month or two I have been extremely busy and productive, and thats the reason I havn't updated my blog. But I can't. Such is life. I went to America for Christmas (which was fabulous), and since then I've pretty much been hanging out at site a whole bunch! Work is still slow. Meh. Let's see...what else has happened? Oh, I know, this is kinda funny...

A couple days ago my sisters were doing serious cleaning, and that usually means that my host uncle is coming to town. I asked if he was, and they said that he and a bunch of other people were coming to town for a meeting. That seemed pretty normal, so I didnt really give it another thought. Then the first day all these "patron" (word we use for rich, posh people...and they really are. They show up in fancy new suv's and expensive clothes and stuff. Thats all fine and dandy, but its just kinda crazy seeing them roll in when the rest of the village lives in crumbling houses and are just straight up poor.) Anyway, they show up and my sisters were all fussing about getting ready for them and cooking special food. That also isnt a huge deal, because we always eat better when my uncle comes to town. Then the second day they were here was even crazier...everybody was in full on party mode. Kids were dressed in their nice clothes, all the neighbors were over helping with the cooking, and the atmosphere was just festive! So then I started asking some people what was going on, because clearly it was more than just a meeting.

Turns out the President of Senegal had asked people to pray for him, and that's what this 'meeting' was!!! There's an Islamic conference in Senegal in March, where leaders or reps of all the Muslim countries are meeting to discuss...whatever it is they need to discuss. So the Pres asked people to gather and pray for him to do well at this conference! Ha! Can you imagine if our president asked people to pray for him? Oh man. Ok I have 1 min left gotta go!

2007-12-15T02:39:00.000-08:00

HO HO HO!!! Happy Holidays!!! I can’t believe it’s almost Christmas again! I’ll be going to America for Christmas, and I’m super stoked. I’ve already put in a request for what I want my mom to bring me (food wise) to the airport when they pick me up. Woo!

Sooooo…..what have I been doing? Hmm. Good question. Well, the major thing that comes to mind is Emily’s visit! Emily is one of my best friends from college, and she made the trek from Boston to Senegal to see me. What a trooper. She was here for about two weeks and it was lots of fun. She got to experience a lot of Senegal. Highlights: We were on our way to a Halloween party on a car ride that’s supposed to be 8 hours. It took us 14. Not one complaint from Emily….thanks dude! It was a pretty miserable car ride, but it was nice having a happy friend there!
After the Halloween party we made our way to my site. We went to my tailor’s to hang out for a bit, and he winds up confessing his love for Emily. Keep in mind that he doesn’t really speak French, much less English, and obviously Emily doesn’t speak Pulaar or Wolof. He didn’t really understand how that would be a barrier in a relationship. Anyway, they compromised and decided that if my tailor ever made it to America he would call Emily and Emily would have to hang out with him. I hope that actually happens, it would be fun to witness :) After being at my site for a bit we went to St. Louis, which was amazing. We stayed in a nice hotel, ate lots of good food and hung out on the beach. It was a great way to end the trip. Thanks again for coming, Em!

I went to my regional house for Thanksgiving, which was pretty fun. Somehow people managed to cook really good American food even with our limited supply here! We even had pies. Mmmmm.

Other than that I've just been hanging out at site. Work with the Womens Group has been slow, but I started giving computer lessons to kids on my laptop. So far only a couple kids have come, but it has been really fun! These kids had never even seen a computer in person before, so needless to say they had no idea about anything. Im perfectly happy to start explaining the basics to them, but that was harder than expected in another language! I'm not sure they totally understood what i was trying to explain about things like the CPU and hard drive, but they keep coming! They ask some cute questions, too. For example, one kid wanted to know if it was possible to print the color green. At the school they only have black and white print-outs, so he didn't really understand that it was possible to print all colors from a computer if you have a color printer! He also wanted to know things like why the keys on the keyboard weren't in alphabetical order. I think that's a great question, and I don't know if I would have noticed that if I were him. Anyway, I started them on typing lessons, and they seem to be really into that. When they come they are super focused and try really hard. It's great! Hopefully when I get back from vacation I will be able to get more kids to come. We shall see!

Random Africa Moment

I have two today actually. They're related, and they also have to do with animals. Surprise surprise.

So Tabaski is just a few days away. Tabaski is the holiday when every family slaughters a sheep, which means during the weeks leading up to Tabaski tons of sheep are being transported. Well, a couple of weeks ago I was waiting in a minicar (which is pretty much like a minivan) for enough people to fill it up before we could leave. We were about full and a guy shows up with a bunch of sheep. Nothing abnormal about that, and they tied up the sheeps' legs and hoisted them up on to the roof. I had a window seat and had the window open with my elbow hanging out a bit. Not long after the sheep were hoisted up on to the roof I felt some wetness all over my arm. I looked over and realized that a freaking sheep had peed on me!!! Ahhh. I immediately slammed the window shut, which was kinda loud. The guy in front of me turned around kinda startled, but found me looking around trying to find something to wipe my arm off with. Comprehension spread across his face and he said to me in Pulaar, "Sheep pee?" I said "yeahhhh." Then he said, "Yeahh, we're in the Fouta!" Like yup, it happens, suck it up. Then he follows it up with "C'est bon!" Ha. I don't know how being peed on by a sheep could be classified as being "bon," but at that point after the inital shock I realized that it was pretty funny. I proceeded to text 2 other volunteers, and their responses were pretty funny, too. One said "Ha! gotta keep those windows shut during Tabaski season!" She didn't even have to ask how it happened. The other sais "Yeah you'll have that sometimes, bummer dude!" So I realized that being peed on by a sheep really isnt a bit deal, its just kind of an occupational hazard!

So then yesterday I was in an Alham (big, bus-like public trqnsport vehicle) and it happened again! Only this time it didn't come in through the window...it came in through a leak in the roof! I was kinda confused for about a half a second then realized No way!!! AGAIN? Grooooosssss it's on my head this time!! Eww. Luckily it wasnt crowded so I was able to move seats immediately.

And there you have it folks. I've been peed on by a sheep. Twice. Now I know that during Tabaski season I need to beware of open windows and leaks in the roof. Oh the things you learn while living in Africa...

2007-12-04T04:22:00.000-08:00

So now I truly understand the meaning of the expression “til the cows come home”. It’s probably my favorite part of the day. The cows really do come home. I’ll try to explain.

Pulaars, the ethnic group in my area, are traditionally herders. They herd cows, goats and sheep. Animals are everywhere. They’re usually making noise. My family owns 20+ cows, and 6 or 7 goats. A lot of mornings I wake up to moo-ing. It can be really loud. Anyway, every morning my host mom and every other herder in the town take their animals out to the fields. It’s pretty hilarious to witness.

One day I told my host mom that I wanted to go with her when she took the cows out. She laughed and said ok, like yeah right you’re gonna take the cows out. Turns out the next day I didn’t, because I had some minor stomach issues. I felt kinda dumb that I hadn’t kept my word, but a few days later I woke up to moo-ing and felt great, so I decided I’d go out with my mom. The cows sleep in the ‘back yard’ tied up to posts in the ground, so I went back there and found my mom untying them. She smiled, and I didn’t have to explain what I was doing…she just pointed at her walking stick and told me to pick it up. At this point I’m beside myself with giddiness, but I’m not sure why the prospect of taking some cows out was so exciting. It was though, and I was singing to myself “I’m becoming a herd-er, doo da, doo da, I’m becoming a herd-er, I could herd all day long!” I followed my mom around while she was untying all the cows and pretty much just stood there. She opened up the back gate and shooed out the cows, and I told her that my stomach didn’t hurt anymore and that I felt better. She laughed and said she was glad.

Our house is kind of on the far end of town, so it’s not far to the where the houses stop and the field/nothingness starts. When we got out there, several other herders were there with their herds. We walk up to them and greet and they start chatting. Some of them were kind of amazed that "Aissatoubab" (what many people around town call me) had come out, and my mom told them that I came out just to see the cows. She also told them what I had said about my stomach not hurting and feeling healthy today. They laughed. Thanks mom, now they all know that I’ve had the poos the last few days, not that it’s anything to be ashamed of. Neat. I appreciate it.

But that’s beside the point. The whole scene was pretty hilarious. It was like a bunch of moms and dads taking their kids to the bus stop in the morning. The little kids (sheep and goats) were hanging out together in one area, and the big kids (cows) were hanging out together, while the parents (the herders) were grouped together chatting. Of course at one point two of the big kids started fighting, and my mom had to go break them up (this really happened…two cows were starting to ram each other and my mom ran over and broke them up!). Then there’s always a little kid who’s afraid of getting on the bus and the mom has to drag him to the bus stop. Only instead of a mom pulling on a kid’s hand, I turned around and saw a lady literally dragging a sheep by its horn. I don’t know what its problem was, but it wasn’t budging and the woman had to put forth a decent amount of effort to drag this dumb animal along to the bus stop.

Eventually somebody drove off the animals and they meandered into the distance. It was kind of anticlimactic…I thought we’d have to do more. But that’s just the when the cows are going. It’s way better they come back. Everyday around 6ish the cows come home. That might not sound too exciting, but it puts a smile on my face everyday.

The cows come home everyday through the front door. It’s hilarious. They usually announce their presence with a loud moooooo as they’re scrambling up the front steps. Sometimes the ones with really big horns have to turn their head sideways so they can fit through the door. Most of the time they walk straight through to the back, but a lot of times the more curious ones kinda wander around our courtyard area. They sniff and lick at dirty dishes until somebody shoes them off. Some days when I’m really bored I give them names and personalities. Here’s some pics:

Ok I'm about out of time...hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving!! Later!

2007-09-30T05:22:00.000-07:00

I've been back from vacation about a month now and it seems like kind of a lot has hapened! I'll try to give you the highlights...

The new stage has arrived! One of the big things every new stage does is demystification, which is when the new Peace Corps trainees go out to second year volunteers' sites for a couple days. It's the first opporutnity trainees have to see what a volunteer's daily life is like, and it's a pretty memorable experience. I had a blast on my demyst, so I decided I wanted to host a new trainee. I wasn't sure if I would get one, since I live so far away, but Peace Corps sent one trainee all the way out to my town! We had a good time, and it made me realize how much I've learned in the past year, so I'm glad I got to host somebody.

The other big thing that's been going on is Ramadan. Ramadan kinda really sucks. It's a month of fasting. It affects everything! Nobody (no muslims) can drink anything or eat anything from the time the sun rises til the sun sets. Nothing! I could handle not eating, but it's crazy not to drink anything, especially when it's so freaking hot! It's so unhealthy and everybody is (understandably) miserable and tired all the time. And it's really great that everyday they complain about having headaches and ask me for meds all the time. Uhhh I can't imagine why! Maybe, just maybe, the reason your head hurts it has to do with the fact that you're not drinking any water and are starving yourself half to death. So ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is that some people actually think it's good for their health! A couple nights ago this guy told me that fasting was really good for you. He's all "during the other months of the year I can't sleep, but during Ramadan I sleep perfectly well!" You idiot, of course you can sleep, you don't have any energy to do anything else cuz you're not eating or drinking at all! Well, there you have my little rant on Ramadan. I could keep going but I'll spare you, and leave you with some Random Africa Moments.

Random Africa Moments:

So I don’t know if these will be particularly funny to you, but they were definitely moments that made me realize I’m not in Kansas anymore. They all happen to involve my host mom, too.

1) It took me a while to realize this, but people here don’t really use our calendar. I don’t know why I thought they would. Anyway, I think I’ve mentioned before that the Senegalese call white people ‘toubabs.’ A few nights ago, my host mom says to me “Hey Aissata, no foti balde lewru toubab?,” which literally translated means, “how many days toubab month?” I thought she was asking how many days were in a month, so I told her 30 or 31. She laughed and told me I didn’t understand, which is true, I didn’t really know what she was getting at. I thought she wanted to know how many days were in a month…turns out she wanted to know the date (Senegalese people get paid at the end of every ‘toubab’ month, so if they have a relative working out of town the relative will send money at the end of the month, which is pretty much the only reason people here care about the date). Either way, she calls our system of dates “toubab months,” which I thought was funny. I mean, when you hear somebody say “today is September 29,” you might think “OK. Cool. A couple more days until October. I wonder if there’s any good football games on this weekend. Halloween is soon!” That’s what my thought process used to be like. Now I’m just going to think “September 29^th. Hmm. Ninth month of the toubab. 29^th day of the ninth month of toubab. Close to the end of the toubab month. Tenth month of toubab starts soon. Money comes soon. Hooray for the end of toubab month. I can buy even MORE rice. AWESOME. ”

2) During demyst, I was sitting outside with my host family and my demyster (the new Peace Corps trainee who came to visit), whose name is Kasha McGuffis. My host mom comes up and asks my demyster what her last name was, so Kasha replies, “McGuffis.” My mom grunts, “huhh???” so Kasha repeats it again, and this time my mom goes “Huh? Nescafe?!?” Close lady, close. I think the best part was that everybody absolutely burst out laughing, because ‘Nescafe’ is obviously not even close to ‘McGuffis,’ but that’s just what came to my host mom’s mind. She laughed at herself, too, and it still makes me chuckle to think about her saying "Nescafe" in an attempt to say "McGuffis." That's probably how my Pulaar sounds to them...

3) I don’t think I’ve really talked about all the animals too much yet….but there’s a lot of them. Lots of goats and cows. They all go out to the fields in the morning, and come back in the late afternoon. Frequently the goats run around the front of my family’s compound, where they’re not supposed to be. It’s not a huge deal, somebody just has to shoe them away, but sometimes they’re kind of obnoxious. They climb up on everything and try to eat everything. One afternoon I was sitting in my room and I hear my mom making all kinds of noise trying to shoe off the goats. I could tell she was in the middle of doing her prayer beads, because she doesn’t talk when she’s doing them, she only makes grunt-like noises. It’s funny to hear her grunt her way through a conversation, but it’s even funnier when she’s mad and can only express herself through grunts.

So on this particular afternoon I could hear my host mom’s angry grunts and I hear the scurrying sound of multiple goat hooves. I got up and looked out the door just in time to see my mom pick up a goat that was on a stick bed (low table-like thing used to sleep/sit on) and just totally chuck it on the ground! There was a huge thud, and a reactionary ‘baaaa.’ Hilarious! It was one of those jaw-to-the-floor followed by a surge of insuppressible laughter moments. It kinda looked like a scene from a movie when some chick is mad at her boyfriend and she picks up a pile of his clothes and then chucks them on the floor in anger…only this was a fairly sizeable animal picked up by a praying, grunting, old Senegalese woman. And to complete the moment, the goat landed on its back and couldn’t get up, so my mom gives it a couple of good kicks to help it up. So funny. I wonder what the goat was thinking. He was probably just praying to make it to the end of the toubab month when my mom will be in a better mood.

2007-09-20T05:22:00.000-07:00

Part I

Hey folks. Long time no talk. I think from now on you can just assume that I apologize for not having updated my blog in a while, instead of me apologizing and making excuses every time. Deal? Cool beans.

I will say one thing, though. One of the reasons I don’t get around to writing that often is that I try to put some thought into my entries, and sometimes I have to wait a bit to be inspired. Well, just a few minutes ago I received an inspirational text from Bryn, one of my best Peace Corps friends, and closest neighbor from my stage (she’s only about 200k away!). Anyway, her text mentioned that the new stage is gathering today in Atlanta, which is where they will have a few days orientation and then depart to the motherland of good ‘ol Ahhfreekah!! Obviously I’ve known that the one-year mark was approaching, but for some reason knowing that the next group of volunteers is officially on their way makes it seem real. So that, my friends, was my inspiration to opening up my computer and writing a blog entry.

And now this is the paragraph where I say something profound. And this is the part where you have to insert your own profound thoughts, cuz now that I’m here I don’t have any.

As I’ve been sitting here trying to decide what to write, I decided I would have a celebratory Fun Dip…you know, the candy that has a stick of pretty much pure sugar that you use to dip into more sugar? It didn’t have the desired affect. It didn’t elicit any profound or even remotely intelligent thoughts. My tongue is just a little more raw than it was before. Sigh.

I guess the reason I’m having a hard time putting words to my thoughts is that my thoughts are seemingly contradictory and probably don’t make much sense. Recently, I’ve been amazed at how comfortable I’ve gotten living here. I’ve also realized that at times I’ve almost resisted getting comfortable, for fear of….I don’t really know…getting too comfortable maybe? Preferring Senegal over America? Losing a sense of what’s “normal?” Losing western ways? Or just becoming straight up weird and crazy?

A few weeks ago I took a vacation and went back to the States (more details on the trip to follow). I think what made me realize my resistance to getting too comfortable in Senegal was my relief to still feel normal and at home in America. I was really afraid that I would be totally freaked out by...everything. Freaked out by America, the fast pace, white people everywhere, the cleanliness, speaking English, freezing in an air-conditioned house, grass, trees. I was afraid my stomach would be freaked out by not eating oily rice for nearly every meal, which I guess was a pretty legitimate concern! I’m sure you will all be relieved to know that neither my stomach nor I as a whole was freaked out by America. My stomach welcomed the balanced diet and I definitely appreciate everything America has to offer even more now. But being in America and talking about Senegal and trying to explain it to people made me appreciate Senegal, the culture and my experience here more, too. The culture in Senegal is just really cool! Really different, and sometimes really frustrating, but still really cool. It’s not the kind of culture that jumps out in your face, like ridiculously scary piercings and tribal war songs and dances and clicking languages that sometimes stereotypically define Africa. It’s the kind of culture that you can only learn by living and experiencing daily life here. Being in America made me realize how much I’ve learned in a year, and how much more comfortable I’ve grown to be here, how normal it is for me to go about my daily life here.

And then, the vacation was over. As always it was hard to say bye to family and friends, but the transition back to Senegal was pretty easy, too. I’ve come to the conclusion that America is what it is and Senegal is what it is. I don’t need to overanalyze my being in one place over the other. Instead of counting down days until I leave hoping that I’ll make it and still want to be here in a few months, I have more of the attitude that I only have a year left, and I want to enjoy it and make the most out of it. I think that’s good, right? I can do my thing and just be :)

Now the contradictory part. As I said I’m comfortable in Senegal, it’s been a great experience, and I feel at home and normal here. However, when I got the text about the new group of volunteers coming to Senegal, I thought, “WHAT A BUNCH OF CRAZY PEOPLE!! They’re voluntarily coming to Africa for two years! Why? They have no idea what they’re getting themselves into! I wonder if they’re feeling the same way I did this time last year?!?” And then all of the sudden I understood why so many people thought I was crazy for wanting to do this, and how they didn’t really understand why I did want to do it.

Maybe it does make sense. Now that I know what’s gone into this past year and I realize how different American culture is from Senegalese culture, I see that it might seem strange to intentionally take yourself out of your element and be plopped down in another, completely different world. It’s really great though most of the time! I promise!

So now you know the inner workings of my mind. Not quite sure why I’m putting this on a public website.

Next topic: America!! I went home in August for a short vacation, and it was fabulous. I was home for less than two weeks, and I was pretty busy most of the time! I got to have a couple dinners with family and friends, which were great, and week of it was spent at the beach on the Outer Banks, North Carolina. I had several friends from college and high school fly in from various locations to spend some time with me and my family at the beach….it was so great! Thank you to everybody who came, it meant so much to see you guys :) Everybody helped me celebrate my 23rd birthday while we were at the beach, too. The week at the beach went by pretty quickly, and after only one more day in Richmond I was back at the airport, heading back to Senegal.

So Im back now, and I feel like a lot is happening! Im planning on coming back to internet after lunch, so I will hopefully write Part II very soon and fill you in!

2007-06-25T04:47:00.000-07:00

Howdy folks!

I know I’ve mentioned the heat before, but it’s hot. Ridiculously hot. My mom sent me a thermometer in the mail and on an average day it’s about 105 degrees…in my room! So outside in the sun it’s probably 120 easy. I’m not exaggerating when I say that some days I really don’t stop sweating. However, I’ve made peace with the heat. At first I was trying to outsmart it. I had countless strategies to try to keep my room as cool as possible…move the fan here at night, here in the morning, keep my door shut at this time, close it at this time, open the window this much and put the fan here, etc. You get the point. But it turns out you can’t outsmart the heat here. It just knows. It knows how to seep into every corner of a house and stay there. It knows how to linger in the air and be carried by the wind. It knows how to stick around at night, even when the sun has been set for hours. It knows how to saturate a mattress and sheets so you want to sleep standing up because it’s cooler than laying on a mattress. It knows how to keep chap stick constantly melted and make the thought of a hot shower revolting. It knows how to make you hot through to your bones. I’m telling ya, it just knows. Either that or I’m just dumber (quite possible).

Anyway, my turning point came when I was at a friend’s house and met her grandfather, who seemed to be at least 75. The grand father’s grand father was the guy who first settled and started my town (another story all together). Even before he started talking much, he just struck me as one of those old people who’s seen a lot and has processed it all, so that now every time he opens his mouth he says something wise and meaningful. He asked me how I was doing with the heat, and I said that it was hot. He chuckled and told me that you just have to accept it. He said if you accept it you’ll be all right, but if you don’t accept it, you won’t make it. My first thought was, yeah okay buddy, easy for you to say, you’ve probably never lived in an air conditioned country, you don’t understand the glory that is air condition. Then I realized, duhhhhhhh, of course he’s right, he’s the wise old man who’s grand father started this town, why didn’t I believe him at first? And why havn’t I figured that out for myself yet? Must be the heat that’s making me dumb. Damn it, can’t use that as an excuse anymore, gotta accept it…

So I guess the whole concept of accepting things you can’t change isn’t particularly earth shattering or even new, but ever since then the heat hasn’t really bothered me! Alhamdouliliah!

Work wise things are kinda sorta starting to almost maybe be starting to go. This is an example of why I say kinda sorta almost maybe: I went to a week long training in Thies (the city I had my other main training) with the president of the women’s group, named Aissata. The training was about starting a project like the project the women’s group wants to do, but it didn’t turn out to be as relevant as I had hoped. We spent at least two days discussing the difference between a vision, goal, objectives and activities. That’s all fine and dandy, but I was hoping to learn more specific stuff like how to go about getting funding for projects. Regardless, the training ended on a Saturday, and after the training Aissata went to Dakar. That’s also fine and dandy, because I stopped in St. Louis on the way back. However, the next weekend I had to go to a meeting for all the volunteers in my region, and when I left that Friday she still hadn’t returned from Dakar. I got back on a Monday, and went to talk to her on a Tuesday. I asked when she wanted to meet to discuss the project. She couldn’t Wednesday, so she said Thursday. I went to her house on Thursday with all my stuff ready to start work, but she had visitors so she said “tomorrow.” Ok. I went back the next day, but she had visitors again. She said “tomorrow.” I went back again, and we actually discussed the project a bit. Now we need to have a meeting with the other presidents of the group. So yesterday she was supposed to talk to the others and decide on a day to meet. I’m at internet today, so tomorrow hopefully I’ll know when the meeting will be. It will probably be a similar process with the next meeting….a few days delay here, a few days delay there, only a few people will show up so we’ll have to have another meeting, then another few more delays, etc. After several weeks we’d basically just established that we needed to have another meeting. It’s nobody’s fault, it’s just how things are done here. And that’s why I say things with work are kinda sorta almost maybe starting.

There’s other random stuff I’d like to do, but a lot of it will take funding. There’s another women’s group in a village about 2k from my town that wants funding for a water pump, so I’m working on that.

And here’s a classic developing country scenario: I was at the town’s “college” (basically the equivalent of middle school), and I was talking to the headmaster dude. I was asking him about the computer situation (if there were any available for the school to use), and he told me that somebody had just donated 10 computers to their school. That sounds pretty amazing, right? It is amazing, considering the school doesn’t even have electricity or a room to put the computers in! He assured me that it would be easy to get electricity to the school if we had a building for the computers, so I told him I would look for funding. A few days ago I was at the college again and it looked like some construction was about to take place. I asked him what it was, and he said a building for two new classrooms. Then I asked if they were going to be able to build a computer room, and he just responded, “No, that’s what you’re gonna do for us, right?!?” Eeeeeeeeeeeeee. No pressure there! I also found out that the guy who donated the computers just happens to be a candidate in the upcoming legislative elections. Tut tut tut. It all makes sense now.

Peace Corps gives out a scholarship for one girl per college who has the minimum g.p.a. and who needs the financial assistance. Twelve girls from each school are chosen to apply, and they have to write an essay, do an interview with the Peace Corps Volunteer in their town, and have a teacher write a letter of recommendation. After I'd conducted all the interviews I chose to visit 5 girls at their homes to further assess their financial need. It’s been really fun working with these girls, and it’s kept me busy. Of the 12 girls, only 3 are actually from my town. The others are from surrounding towns and either commute daily or live with a relative or friend in town during the week. The other day when school let out I went home with one girl, who lives about 5-6k away. I already respected these girls, but I respect them even more knowing that they have to wait around in the hot hot sun for a vehicle to come, and pay money both ways everyday! And it’s not like taking a big yellow school bus in the states. There’s no organization or regularity, students just have to go to the road and wait. When a car comes there’s a huge scramble to get on. We didn’t get in a car until the third one came, and it’s mayhem getting on and off….lots of good natured pushing and shoving among the students competing to get in the car, but pushing and shoving nonetheless. After we made it to her town we walked around a little bit. When people would first look at us, they’d be like “who’s this toubab?” Then the student, named Suoudou, would explain the scholarship. I think the moments when she would explain the scholarship were some of the most rewarding I’ve had….this girl is so cute but so very modest and shy, so she explained the scholarship in a very matter of fact way, but I could tell she was glowing and so proud, as she should be! I tried to emphasize that I came because she was smart and worked hard, and she was so modestly proud that I just wanted to give her a hug and shout it for everybody to hear so she could get the recognition she deserved! I don’t think many people from her town go to school, so they probably don’t really appreciate what she does everyday. Plus, she doesn’t really have anybody to practice her French with or study with, which I think is an extra challenge to getting good grades. I can’t imagine going to school and learning everything in a language that I never hear or speak outside of the school walls. I hope that even if she doesn’t win the scholarship she still stays proud of the work she’s done!

Random Africa Moment:

I don't know if this will be all that funny to you guys, but it was still a random Africa moment for me....

Right now is the end of the dry season, and older volunteers say that now is the time for dust storms. They're right.

It's usually pretty windy here, but a few weeks ago I was sitting in my room and there was a GINORMOUS gust of wind...absolutely howling and kinda scary. I shut my window, but I thought I was overreacting at first. Then I looked outside my room into the foyer area and it looked all cloudy. Then I realized that it was dust from the one huge gust of wind, and a second later my sister came running in the house and started shutting everything up. Things were a bit frantic and a bit scary, because the wind was still howling and there was some thunder and lightning. After the windows and doors were shut everybody went back outside. I thought it was a bit odd, and wondered if I'd just imagined all the dust. Then I stuck my head outside and was immediately assaulted by sand and dust, so I went back inside for a minute. Then I decided that I wanted to experience my first storm in Senegal, so I went back outside. It was still ridiculously windy and I was covered in dust pretty instantly, but everyone in my faily was just lazily sitting around outside still. My family was laughing at me cuz I must have been pretty wide eyed and marveling at the storm. Eventually it started sprinkling a bit, but the dust continued to assault me. I just say 'me' because nobody else seemed bothered by it. I dont mind being dirty, but sitting around getting pailed by dust isnt my idea of fun, and I started to question how strong my desire was to witness this storm. Right then my mom told me to go inside to get a headwrap. You want me to go inside just to get a head wrap? Screw that, Im going inside...and staying there!! Have fun getting pelted by dust!

As I walked inside I was thinking to myself how crazy my family was for staying outside during a storm when we have 2 beautiful buildings to go into! Then I realized that I was in Africa, and that maybe getting pelted by dust is a cherished past time. Okay, its probably not. But my family still stayed outside for the duration of the storm. Whatever floats your boat.

2007-06-10T04:54:00.000-07:00

Vacation in Ghana

Howdy folks! I hope summer is starting off well for everybody! As you can probably guess from the title, I've recently taken a vacation in Ghana! I have a friend from college who is currently living and working there, and I took my first vacation to go and see him. Two other friends from college flew in as well from the states. It didn’t start off that great, but it turned out to be a blast!

I was scheduled to fly out of Dakar around 2:30, so I got to the airport around noon, only to find that the flight was delayed. I had a layover in Cote D’Ivoire, and I knew I’d miss the connection if it was delayed too long. I stood around (along with everybody else on the flight) wondering what exactly was going on, but the airline wasn’t really telling us anything, so we continued to wait. Eventually, after at least 2 hours of waiting around and when it was obvious that those of us who had connections were going to miss them, the airline tells us we’d have to come back the next day and they’d put us on a flight with a different airline. I was not a happy camper. I was only planning on being in Ghana for 6 days, now I was stuck in Dakar for another day and my time in Ghana was down to just 5 days.

So the next day I went back to the airport, and the first flight was actually on time. I boarded the plane, got all settled in my seat, then noticed two flight attendants hovering next to my seat. They asked me my name, then if I knew Captain Halasz. When I said no they looked confused and walked away. A minute later one came back and I couldn’t really understand what she said, but I thought she asked my nationality. I said American. Then she said something about Hungarian, so I said my last name was Hungarian. She didn’t really understand, so she just said “come here, come here.” I was totally confused and had no idea what was going on. I followed the flight attendant up toward the cockpit, then she pointed at the pilot. The pilot asked I if I was Sandy Halasz. I said yes. He asked if I was Hungarian. I said yes. Then he asked if I knew Captain Halasz. I said no. Then he told me that he was Hungarian too, and that there were 5 or so Hungarian pilots for the airline I was on. I said cool.

I didn’t really understand that it was a big deal to be Hungarian, but to this guy it was. The next thing he asked was if I wanted to come sit in the cock pit for take off!! Of course I did!! I don’t know much about planes, but I do know if they’re big or small…and this was a pretty big plane! I got all buckled in and wound up staying in the cock pit the entire flight! It was awesome to see the take off and then watch the two pilots mess with all the buttons (there’s a ton of 'em!). The coolest part was probably the landing though. We were flying into Cote D’Ivoire, which is really lush and green, and the airport is right by the water. It looked like paradise!It was late afternoon so the sun was low and the light was beautiful...you could see individual rays poking through clouds, and there's a river that parallels the coast and it was so green and lush and so beautiful! I wish I’d had my camera! It was quite a contrast to all the sand I'm used to looking at everyday. The pilot said that it wasn’t very often that they had views like that, so I was very lucky! I guess that wouldn’t have happened if my first flight hadn’t gotten messed up!

So I'm running out of time at the internet cafe, but basically I had a blast in Ghana! We went to the beach, national park, and hung out in the capital city, Accra. I'll put up pictures eventually!

Random Africa Moment:

It really sucked that I got stuck in Dakar an extra day when my flights got messed up, but fortunately I had 3 other friends who happened to be in Dakar at the same time. I left the airport and met up with them and got some ice cream. We’d heard about a little seafood joint way out on the edge of Dakar that was right on the water. We decided to go there for dinner, and I’m glad we did!

The restaurant itself was pretty much a shack with some shade structures and tables underneath. But, it was right on the water, and I’m pretty sure it’s the most western part of Africa. So that's pretty cool. Anyway, after trying to translate the seafood menu into English, we decided to order a bunch of plates and share them. One of the things we ordered was sea urchin…yeah, the round, black spiky things! (not my idea…I’m not exactly the most adventurous eater!). When we ordered the sea urchin, the waiter told us that they were raw. Hmmmm I don’t know about that guys. My friends decided to go for it anyway. A few minutes later we saw the waiter go around the side of the restaurant and walk around on the rocks and hand pick the sea urchins right then and there! A few minutes later a tray of sea urchins came out, and it looked like all they had done to prepare them was cut them in half. Eeeeeee. Gross. Maybe they kinda gutted them, too, I don’t know. Somebody tried it and said it was good, but I wasn’t ready to eat raw sea urchin. I was focused on eating something else, when one of my friends shrieks and jumps. I was kind of annoyed by the sudden high pitch shriek, because I couldn’t imagine what possibly could have happened. Then I looked over at the plate….the damn sea urchin was still moving!! I almost shrieked too! Not only were my friends eating raw sea urchin…they were eating raw, still moving sea urchin! Double eeeeeeeee. I was eventually talked into trying it, and there was enough lime squeezed on it that it tasted mostly like lime, but now I can say I’ve eaten live raw sea urchin. I guess I wouldn’t be able to say that if my stupid flight to Ghana hadn’t been cancelled!

2007-04-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

ok so i uploaded a few pictures, but it takes forever so i didn't get to upload many. here's the website: http://community.webshots.com/user/sandyhalasz

these pictures are of a cultural fair type thing at the school and concert of a singer named Baaba Mal. i'll elaborate later...gotta go now! hope all is well at home :)

2007-04-16T03:29:00.000-07:00

The hot season has arrived, and guess what. It’s freaking hot. It’s only gonna get hotter though apparently. A few days ago it had already gotten to 100 degrees before noon. Older volunteers say that it’s normal to get to 120 degrees. I’m lucky to have electricity, but even with a fan blowing directly at me, my room is still pretty hot at night. Call me crazy, but I don’t really enjoy waking up in pools of my own sweat, so I’ve taken to sleeping on my roof. Now instead of waking up in a pool of sweat, I wake up to the massive mosque that’s about 30 yards from my house. Before I started sleeping on the roof, the mosque would occasionally wake me up, but when I’m outside it’s MUCH louder. I havn’t figured out the pattern, but some nights/mornings are worse than others.

Last night was horrible. I’d gone to bed kinda late, and then about 4:30am I hear, “ALLAH AKBARRR LETS MAKE SURE SANDY WAKES UP AND STAYS UP ALONG WITH THE REST OF THE PEOPLE IN SENEGAL WHO ARENT MUSLIM CUZ IT SURE DOESN’T SEEM LIKE ANYBODY ACTUALLY GETS UP THIS EARLY BLAH BLAH RAARRRR RARRR ALLAH THIS ALLAH THAT DO YOUR EARS HURT YET CUZ THEY SHOULD RAAR RAAR GOD IS GREAT ESPECIALLY AT 4:30 IN THE MORNING AFTER 3 HOURS OF SLEEP.” That’s what it sounds like to me at least. If it was music, singing, or even somewhat melodious, I don’t think I’d mind. However, it’s neither melodious nor anything close to music. It’s pretty much just yelling. Whoever was in control of the mosque last night must’ve been feeling really peppy cuz it was loud, it didn’t stop, and to sum it up it was just pissing me off. All I kept thinking was “There’s no way I can put up with this for another year and a half. That’s all there is to it. I’m done. I’m calling Peace Corps tomorrow and telling them that I’m going home.”

When I woke up this morning I was thinking much more clearly. I decided that I should just get used to it instead of getting upset over one night of bad sleep. I also decided that I’d write a blog entry with a religious theme.

Religion is such a huge part of the culture here that I don’t even know where to start. Ok, so daily life…you probably know that there are five pillars of Islam, one of which is praying five times a day. First off, that means that the mosque goes off at least 5 times a day, but it seems like more than that because there are multiple mosques in my town. When I’m already awake I don’t pay much attention to the mosque, but there’s a window of time when you’re supposed to pray, and I think the mosque sounds at the beginning and end of each time period. If my math serves me right, 5 times 2 is 10. At least 10 times a day the mosque sounds. That’s a lot of noise if you ask me.

Besides being noisy, it affects work. For example, sometimes if I’m traveling during prayer time the driver will just pull over to the side of the road, whip out a bottle of water, do his cleansing routine before he prays, then pray. It’s not that long of a process, but when you’re sandwiched in a hot van between two massive Senegalese people on an already long trip home, you can’t help but think that God might forgive the driver if he just kept going and skipped or delayed this one prayer. Or, if you hold a meeting in the afternoon an hour or so before prayer time, people inevitably will come about an hour late, which means they get to the meeting at prayer time, which means the first segment of the meeting is dedicated to people praying. Then there are these prayer beads that are kinda like the Islam equivalent of a Rosary. It’s just a string of beads, and people run their fingers down the beads while muttering prayers. I find this extremely entertaining because people will be doing the prayer beads, but they will be paying attention to what’s going on around them as well. However, you can’t talk when you’re doing the prayer beads, so people wind up grunting and pointing until the person they’re talking to figures out what to do. It’s like charades without categories and acting….just grunting and simple gestures.

Example: my mom will be sitting outside doing her prayer beads and a neighbor will come in looking for my sister.

The neighbor will walk by my mom, shake her hand, ask “no mbad daa? Ada selli? Bad daa e nguleeki?” (how are you doing? Are you in good health? How are you doing with the heat?)

My mom will grunt replies, then flip out her hand with a “huh hUH?” meaning, “what do you need?”

Neighbor: “where’s Fatimata.”

Mom: Points and grunts.

Neighbor: “in her room?”

Mom: “uh uh” (no)

Neighbor: “cooking?”

Mom: “uh uh” (no)

Neighbor: “in the back messing with the cows and goats”

Mom: “uh huh.” (yes)

Neighbor: “ok” and starts to walk away

Mom: “uhhuh huh huh” (I’m not done talking to you yet) and points

Neighbor: “yeah?”

Mom: grunts and points again to the water container

Neighbor: “Fatimata needs water?”

Mom: “uh uh” (no)

Neighbor: “the cows need water?”

Mom: “uh uh” (no)

Neighbor: “the goats need water?”

Mom: “uh uh” and makes a drinking motion

Neighbor: “you want water?”

Mom: “uh huuuuuh” (thank you for finally figuring it out)

Neighbor: hands my mom water and starts to walk away

Mom: “heeeeeeh?” (You’re gonna leave me drinking? Wait for me to finish drinking, then put the cup back.)

Neighbor: Complies willingly and totally un-phased.

You are probably also aware that Muslims are polygamists, which obviously has a huge effect on life here. I still can’t quite get my head around the idea of polygamy. I don’t live with any men and I only have one host mom, so sometimes I forget that it exists. When I first got here a lot of people would come in my room and look at my pictures. When I pointed out a picture of my brothers people would almost always ask if we had the same mother and the same father. At first I had no idea what they were talking about, cuz that’s what a brother is, right? A boy who has the same parents as you? Otherwise they’d be a step or half brother. Then I realized that in Senegal it is entirely possible to have the same father but different mother, so asking if you have the same parents is a totally legitimate question here.

As for what the Senegalese women think of polygamy….it seems like the views can vary substantially. Co-wives (understandably) can be very competitive with each other. Sometimes it’s friendly, sometimes it’s not. Co-wives may compete over attention from their husband, or they may compete with each other in other things, totally independent of their husband. For example, i have a volunteer friend has two host moms, and he says that he winds up eating two dinners every night because his moms are competitive over who’s a better cook. He can’t pick one mom’s dinner, because the other mom would be hurt/insulted, so he just eats two dinners. I’ve heard other volunteers say that it can get pretty tense having two host moms, but sometimes their moms get along.

On the flip side, some women want their husband to marry a second wife, because that means their work is cut in half. Having a co-wife means you share you husband, but you also share the housework. In more poor, rural villages when women have lots of kids and an immense amount of housework, a co-wife is sometimes welcome.

Then there’s my uncle’s second wife. She (along with my uncle and their family) were in town recently for a holiday. Even before I found out she was my uncle’s second wife, she struck me as being confident, happy and totally comfortable in her life situation. She asked me on multiple occasions if I wanted her husband, because she would give him to me if I wanted him. When she would ask me if I wanted her husband, she had a half serious tone that made it seem like she had a ‘take it or leave it’ kind of attitude towards her husband. I’m not quite sure what to make of that, except that maybe lots of women just accept that polygamy is a part of life.

What do the men think? I’ve had a couple conversations with men about polygamy recently, and it’s a little infuriating. First off, men here don’t understand why it’s not fair that a man can have multiple wives, but women can only have one husband. They think that if a married Senegalese man moves to Europe to work he ‘needs’ a second wife there, but his Senegalese wife is perfectly happy staying home alone without a husband. And according to Islam, the wife can’t have another husband, even though a man can have up to 4 wives. Maybe it’s the language barrier, but they really don’t see how that’s unfair. My supervisor said that women couldn’t have multiple husbands, because the husbands would fight. Riiiiight, cuz co-wives are ALWAYS happy and NEVER fight.

Women also get married very young here. If a woman is over 30 and unmarried, she basically never will be because men don’t want a wife over 30, which seems to be the universal cut-off. I asked my supervisor about this, and his response was “Well, when you buy clothes, do you buy new clothes or old clothes?” I was very tempted to say that I shop at the Salvation Army most of the time, but I knew where he was going with the question and I was curious to see if he was actually going to say what I thought he was going to say….and he did. He said that women were merchandise and you want a young wife just like you want new clothes….new and unused. GASP. My supervisor just told me that women are merchandise. I was speechless.

Another mind-boggling aspect of religion and life here is the the people's complete and total submission to 'God's Will.' It's one thing to have faith in God, but it's another to leave EVERYTHING up to allah. People here don't seem to believe that they have control over their lives, everything is done "Inchallah," which means, "God willing." If you ask somebody if they're planning on doing something, they will answer your question and then tack on "Inchallah."

Sometimes they use "inchallah" when they don't want to tell you "no"directly, which is really annoying at times. But I can't lie, I use it too when I don't want to do something but I don't have the heart to tell somebody no.

However, in general, I think they really do believe that everything is up to 'allah.' For example, during training we went to visit some local businesses. I visited a very successful metal worker. He'd had many apprentices who have moved on and become his competition. I asked him if it was weird having his former students taking his business now, and if he did any marketing to try to win back some business. His response was that if god willed the competition to be there, then it wasn't up to him to try to do anything to combat the competition.

RANDOM AFRICA MOMENTS:

There’s been a soccer tournament going on in my town, and it’s been really fun to go watch the games. It feels like the equivalent of a high school football game – the actual sporting part is somewhat amateur, and it’s mostly a social event.

First off, I’ve felt like an exhibition at the zoo more at these games than I ever have before. Lots of people come in from surrounding towns, and when I walk around the field pretty much everybody’s head turns and they stare at the white thing. It’s pretty awesome. I mean, it’s one thing to turn heads because you’re just stunningly beautiful or graceful, but it’s another to turn heads because you’re the goofy looking white girl wearing pants and a t-shirt instead of a wild colored skirt, matching top and massive head wrap. It’s also really sweet to turn heads because you’re the funny looking white girl who decided to try to be culturally sensitive and wear Senegalese clothes…then everybody turns and stares with an amused look like, “Hey! Look at the toubab, she’s trying to be African! Ha!”

So anyway, the two other main amusing things about the soccer games: the field is totally dirt, which isn’t anything special. However, because it’s dirt, whenever a player has a free kick, he first makes a little pile of dirt as a platform for the ball. Then he puts the ball on the mound and kicks it! It’s hilarious! You definitely can’t just build a little mound on a grass field!

Secondly: all you girls out there- remember those jelly shoes we used to think were really cool when we were kids? Welp, they have them in Senegal too, only grown Senegalese men wear them to play sports. It’s hilarious. They’re usually a size too small, so the end of their heel is hanging off the shoes, and they wear tall socks, too. It’s fantastic, and it cracks me up.

I also went to my first English club meeting, and it was hilaroius. The kids are great, and they seem to really enjoy it. Senegalese people are always making fun of each other and laughing at one another's expense, so the kids aren't as bashful about trying to speak in front of a class. Senegalese also like to point out the very obvious. For example, if you're reading they'll walk up to you and tell you that you're reading. If you have a zit or something, they will point to it and ask what's wrong. It's not malicious, it's just what they do.

So anyway, the English club played a game called 'hot seat,' where a student sits in front of the class and the class gets to ask any questions they want. This one kid gets up there who happens to be very dark skinned, which is a contrast to a lot of Pulaars, who are typically lighter skinned. A girl raises her hand and asks, "why are you very black?" Everybody started laughing, and I was cracking up too, then everybody started laughing at me laughing. Then when everybody calmed down the student in the hot seat responded, 'because it is God's will.' Everybody then said 'alhamdouliliah' (praise be to god), and laughed and applauded. It was a funny series of events in and of itself, but it was so typical of the Senegalese people that it was especially funny for me.

So the English club meeting was already entertaining, but then as a transition between games the teacher would have somebody sing. Towards the end of the class the teacher started singing the ''if you're happy and you know it clap your hands" song. I clapped my hands at the appropriate time, and the teacher got really excited that I knew the song. He tried making me get up and sing in front of everybody, and I tried to resist....to no avail. Before I knew it I had thirty Senegalese kids staring/smiling/laughing at me while I sang ''....if you're happy and you know it clap your hands." I just kept thinking, unbelievable. I got a decent amount of applause though at least. The next day i was walking with my neighbor who's in school, and she said that she'd heard that I sang at the English club. Fantastic, the entire town is gonna be talking about how the crazy toubab likes to sing at the English club. Only in Africa. Chuckle chuckle.

2007-03-11T04:59:00.000-07:00

Hello! Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote. I hope everybody had a good February and a happy Valentine’s Day :)

As I mentioned before, I had my last three weeks of training in Thies, and it was great. It had only been about two months since our group had been together, but that felt like a looong time! It was really interesting to hear about everybody else’s sites and compare notes. It also gave me perspective on how great my site is – running water, electricity and cell phone reception make a world of difference.

Our training schedule was the same as during pre service training; I left my house at 7 every morning, then basically had class from 8-6. I wound up eating dinner at restaurants most nights, and I definitely tried to fatten up and get my fill of pizza and ice cream!

Some highlights of PST were a weekend beach trip and some epic games of capture the flag, but the main highlight was W.A.I.S.T., which stands for West African Intramural Softball Tournament. It’s an annual tournament held in Dakar on President’s Day weekend. Lots of expats come every year, and lots of Peace Corps volunteers come, too. This year pretty much all the volunteers from Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and the Gambia came. Most volunteers are in their 20’s, so it was a very social atmosphere, especially coupled with the hot dogs, American candy and beer at that are sold at the games. Needless to say, WAIST was a blast!

There’s a club with a swimming pool and lounge area by the softball fields where we played, so in between games we’d usually go hang out by the pool. One afternoon I was sitting in the lounge and a couple of Mauritanian volunteers walked in. I didn’t really pay much attention to them, but I took a second glance and saw a very familiar face. My jaw dropped, this guy pointed at me and we both said, “you went to Miami!” In college we both hung out at the same bar a lot, and recognized each other from that and because we have mutual friends. One of his friends is even dating one of mine. We were both business majors, too. Go figure – we both travel miles and miles and miles to officially meet each other in Africa, when we probably lived less than a mile away from each other for 4 years of college.

After IST ended my parents and brother came to visit! It was awesome! They met me in St. Louis, a city on the NW coast. I think my parents were pretty overwhelmed at first, but they were great sports. We spent a day on the beach, spent a couple days going to some national parks where some other volunteers live and work, and had a day or two of just hanging out and relaxing in St. Louis. Then we made the trek out to my town! When I came back with my parents and brother it was the first time I’d been back since before training, so it had been about a month since I’d seen my host family. It was quite a scene – lots of neighbors came by to meet my family, but without a common language (most of my neighbors only speak Pulaar, a language my parents and bro obviously don’t speak), it was very entertaining. There was lots of smiling and laughing and gestures indicating that people didn’t understand the language but that everybody was happy to be together. My family was only at my site for one night, but I’m really glad they got to see where I live and meet my host family!
Mom, Dad and Steve – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING!!!

So now that training is done I’m supposed to be starting ‘work.’ I'll probably be working with the women’s group here starting or helping them with an ‘income generating project.’ Other than that, I’m not too sure what I’ll be doing. I think a lot of people in my town are still confused as to why I’m here, so the next month or so I probably will focus on meeting and getting to know people. Maybe eventually they will want to work with me, but getting projects started is going to be a long, slow process.

I wish I could leave you with a really good “Random Africa Moment,” but there have been so many that I don’t know what to pick. A lot of them were only funny if you were there, but here are a few quick examples: mom getting attacked by a monkey ( no blood, just some scratch marks), mom almost getting run over by a charette (horse drawn carriage), dad in the front seat of the car approached by a girl trying to sell fruit then asked if he needed a maid and dad just smiling and replying ‘bonjour! merci!’, old ladies dancing for my parents, etc. etc.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Miami students: hope you had an awesome GBD! :)

2007-01-28T08:47:00.000-08:00

THE RETURN OF ROUGIE

In just a few days’ time I will be back in Thies for three more weeks of training, and my name will once again be Rougie Sow. I’m really excited about this for a multitude of reasons.

Reason #1: I’m really excited to see all the people in my stage again. I’ve been able to see a few who live up north, but not many. There are plenty of volunteers in my region, just none in my stage, and I miss seeing people I know well.

Reason #2: FOOD. Thies is a large city with toubab restaurants, which means I’ll be able to eat hamburgers, pizza and ICE CREAM!!! Yayyyy!!! I mean, eating rice for lunch and dinner everyday is pretty cool and all, but I am really looking forward to a little variety.

Reason #3: My name will be Rougie again (pronounced like “lougie” with an ‘r,’ as in the variety you hock out of your mouth. Some people in my stage even call me Lougie, cuz that’s what they thought I said my name was at first, and I guess it is kind of a funny nickname too). Anyway, I just like the name Rougie and I think it suits me. My name at site is Aissata Ly (pronounced like ‘eye-sa-ta leigh’), which is just kinda nasal and I don’t like very much. I’m getting used to it though.

Reason #4: At the end of training my parents and brother are coming to visit!

There are lots of other reasons, but I’ll stop there. I’ll be in Thies for 3 weeks of “In Service Training (IST)” which is focused on technical training. That basically means that we’ll actually learn how to do our jobs. When we get back from IST we’ll be able to start projects. I’m definitely looking forward to working.

Not much has been going on here, I’m still pretty much just hanging out trying to learn Pulaar and meet people. I guess one thing that happened is that the two Peace Corps people who are in charge of the Small Enterprise Development program came to my town to visit me (they visited all new volunteers). They’re both middle-aged males, but one is American and the other is Senegalese. They pulled up in a Peace Corps car right outside my house, and I came outside to greet them. All the little kids in the surrounding compounds came out too, and they kept yelling to me “Aissata, baaba ma artii! Baaba ma artii!!” which means “your dad came back.” I had no idea what they were talking about, but I knew that’s what they were saying. Eventually I figured out that they thought the one American Peace Corps dude was my dad. It’s possible they were using the word for ‘dad’ just because he’s older than me, but I’m pretty sure they actually thought he was my dad. I mean, come on, he’s white, he’s gotta be Aissata’s dad! I got a good chuckle out of that.

I’m going to be pretty busy during training, but I should have more regular internet access, so I will try to post again soon. Let me know if there are any topics you’d like to hear about!

Aaaand nowwwww, it’s time for a

Random Africa Moment:

I don’t remember if I’ve explained regional houses or not, sorry for the repetition if I have. There are 5 regional houses in Senegal, and they’re primarily intended to be transit houses, just places for volunteers to stay on their way to and from other places. They’re also a place for volunteers to gather to work on projects together, or just to take personal days away from site.

A few weeks ago I met up with some other volunteers at the regional house, and we decided that we wanted to cook chicken for dinner. One of the families that live next to our regional house has chickens, so we went over to buy one. Luckily I was with some volunteers who have been here a while and have much better Pulaar than I do, so they haggled for a price (which is customary) and eventually settled on one. Then we decided that we’d rather pay them to do the dirty work (actually killing the chicken and plucking its feathers and whatever else you have to do to a chicken). Kris, one of the other volunteers, handed some change over to the woman with whom we’d been doing most of the negotiating.

Sidenote: Senegalese call pretty much any friend a brother or sister. If a person is older than you are, then you call them mother or father. If a person is younger than you are, then you call them your son or daughter. When a woman wants to convey that she is somebody’s mother, a common (and to me absolutely hilarious) method for doing so is for the woman to grab one of her breasts and shake it with one hand, while pointing with the other to the person she wants to say is her son/daughter. Older Senegalese women also wear clothes that don’t do a great job of covering their boobs. Picture a long piece of fabric about twice as long as a person is tall. Now fold that piece of fabric in half, and cut a hole in the middle of the fold and put it over somebody’s head. Then, from the waist down sew the fabric together. The resulting side view is often a saggy boob.

Anyway, back to the story. Kris paid the woman, who’s probably at least 60 years old, to kill the chicken. She looked at the money, and apparently was incredibly excited about the amount because she got really animated, reached in her very open "shirt," grabbed her boob, started shaking it and saying that Kris was her son and blah blah blah. A lot of people were sitting around, including another man, who I would say was at least in his mid 30’s. As the woman was busy celebrating the money and shaking her boob, this man knelt down to where she was sitting and freaking sucked on her boob! We all pretty much had the same reaction: “AAAAAAHHHH!!!” followed by quickly turning around, saying thanks, walking away and cracking up. All we could manage to say was “What? Did he really just do that? I don’t get it! Why did he do that? That’s disgusting!!” We never figured it out.

I saw Kris again recently at the regional house. We were just sitting around hanging out, and he says, “Hey Sandy, remember when that guy sucked on that lady’s boob?” I said “yeah.” We both were quiet for a split second, then of course we busted out laughing again, and started asking the same questions “What WAS that? Why did he do that? Can you imagine somebody in the states doing that?” At this point we’d sort of gotten over the shock of it and we discussed it a little bit. We concluded two things: 1) The guy must have just done it for show, and to get a reaction out of us 2) People just do weird stuff like that here.

In case you were wondering, the chicken we had that night was de-LICIOUS! And well worth the horrifying scene.

2007-01-06T02:51:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-12-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

This turned out to be really long, sorry if it’s boring. I have some time on my hands. Anyway, here’s an example of how slowly things work here:

I haven’t really been homesick yet, but when I first got to site one of the first things I really wanted to do was get a P.O. box. I was really eager to get an address, I guess because it’s a link to home that I really wanted. I got to site on a weekend, so the first Monday I was here my supervisor told me to come to his office in the late afternoon and then we’d go to the post office. The first week or so my family didn’t think I was capable or going anywhere by myself, and I always had to have somebody accompany me. That probably wouldn’t have bothered me if the girl who was always sent to go with, named Hawa, me didn’t annoy the crap out of me. She has no malicious intentions, but she’s the kind of person who always has to have her mouth going. That’s one of my pet peeves anyway, but it was even more annoying because half of what came out of her mouth was an imitation of me. She mocked me constantly. I still don’t understand much, but those first few days all I said was “mi famaani,” which means, “I don’t understand.” Whenever we’d go somewhere together she’d just keep repeating “mi famaani, mi famaaaaaani” in the universal nasal tone that I’m finding out people all over world use when they’re mocking another person. I bet even the African tribes that uses clicks instead of words manage to make a more nasal sounding click when they’re imitating a fellow clicker. Anyway.

Another thing I dislike: close physical proximity to other humans who I don’t know very well. I guess you could say I have a big space bubble. In my opinion, unless you’re a cute boy, a family member or a close friend, there’s no need to get too close to me. There’s especially no need to hold my hand. The Senegalese feel differently. I don’t know if there’s one word I could use to describe Senegalese culture, but if I had to pick one it would be “contradictory.” They haven’t struck me as being particularly sensitive, yet it’s totally fine to hold each other’s hands. Men hold other men’s hands, women hold other women’s hands…holding hands is totally normal. I don’t know when I took my first steps as a baby, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been capable of walking on my own for at least 20 years now. Needless to say, holding hands isn’t my thing, especially when I’m holding hands with somebody who’s constantly mocking me.

Eventually the glorious moment came when I was going to the post office to get an address so my mom and family and friends could send me cards and care packages. Hawa’s mocking and handholding didn’t even bother me too much. We met up with my supervisor and we went to the post office, only to have the guy at the post office say I needed a copy of my i.d. card, and I’d have to come back tomorrow with it. I thought to myself, “OK. That’s reasonable. Where’s the nearest Kinko’s? Even in Africa they should be open this time of day. Oh right, I’m in Africa. I could literally walk to the edge of the Sahara Desert in a few hours. I bet I’m pretty freaking far from the closest Kinko’s. Is there even a photocopy machine in my town? Why would somebody in my town even need a photocopy of something? I’ve never even seen anybody, apart from my supervisor, read anything. So why would they need to copy anything?” Then I realized my supervisor was telling Hawa to take me to some guy’s house to get a photocopy of my i.d. I was excited and surprised at the prospect of getting a photocopy right then and there.

My supervisor left, and Hawa took my hand and started leading me all over the place trying to find Amadou, the guy who could photocopy my i.d. We never found him. Hawa’s handholding got annoying again. I tried to find ways to use my hands so I wouldn’t have to hold her hand. That backfired, however, because another thing the Senegalese like to do is to state what you’re currently doing. I pulled my hand away so I could get my water bottle out and have my hands occupied. I took a sip. Hawa says to me “a yarat?” which means, “you are drinking?” I’m thinking to myself, “no you weird hand holder, I’m putting water in my mouth and swallowing, but I’m not drinking,” but in response I said, “eey, mi yarat” (yes, I am drinking). Well apparently that’s exactly what Hawa needed to add to her repertoire, because all the way home Hawa threw “eeeeh mi yarat” into the mix of “mi famaani’s” when she mimicked me. I took a mental note to keep to smiles and nods around Hawa.

The next morning I went to my supervisor’s office and told him we never got the photocopy. He didn’t seem upset or surprised about it, and we set off to see the elusive Amadou who I thought was an integral part in my quest to get a permanent address in Senegal. Amadou turned out to be a dude with a scanner and a printer/copier, and a dude lacking the ability to recognize a printer’s need for new ink. My supervisor and I sat around for probably 20-30 minutes watching Amadou play with the computer and printer. The first couple of times he tried copying my i.d nothing really turned out, but I hadn’t been paying too much attention cuz I was looking at one of his family photo albums (a past time that seems pretty common here). Then he scanned my i.d. and tried to print it in color. The color showed up, but not the black and grays. Amadou looked pretty stumped, but I have to give him credit for not giving up. He tried at least one more time before admitting that he couldn’t do it. “You just need new ink, buddy.” Too bad I have no idea how to say that in Pulaar.

We left Amadou’s and it was about 11:30. People eat lunch here around 2. My supervisor suggested I spend the day and eat lunch at/around his office. Ok, sure, why not. Sitting at Amadou’s was pretty exhausting, we wouldn’t want to go to another place to try to get a photocopy of my i.d. right away. I wasn’t anxious to get letters from home to make me feel a little more connected, a little less like I was the only normal person on this side of the Atlantic. No biggie, I can wait. The east coast hasn’t even really woken up yet, anyway.

My supervisor eats lunch with a family who lives right next to his office, and that’s where he left me until lunch. I was totally fine with that, there were some cute kids I got to play with. Lunch finally happened around 2. We finished eating and the men went to pray. I figured when they were done praying we’d go get the stupid photocopy. Nope. My supervisor comes back and says that we should rest. He goes into the TV room that has two beds, lays down and was snoring in under 3 minutes. No joke. I figured, “when in Rome….” So I laid down on the other bed and tried to ignore the snores. About an hour later the mom of the household came in and turned the TV on. She sifted through a pile of DVD’s, and decided on some awful Kung Fu movie that was dubbed in French. It was awful, but it was so awful it was funny. Some other people came in to watch it, and their reactions to the movie were more entertaining than the movie itself. The movie was one bad fight scene after another. Every scene was painfully fake, but everybody else winced at every punch, gave a sympathetic “ooooo” with every kick or a shocked “eeeee” with every explosion. The best was when the father figure in the movie got his hand cut off and everybody clutched their own hand, even though the actor’s nub was the exact same length as arm that still had a hand. I think everybody else was convinced it was real.

The movie ended happily, and my supervisor disappeared for a little while. I was pleasantly surprised when he came back with a photocopy of my i.d.! I was really excited to go back to the post office and get my address, but when we got there they guy gave us some b.s. about not having the proper forms. I had to come back again the next day. As we left I told my supervisor I didn’t understand what was going on, and he replied “c’est comme ca.” “It’s like that.” I walked back home muttering “it’s like that” to myself. I felt like a pouting 3 year old-I just wanted a letter from my mommy! Is that so much to ask?!

The guy at the post office had told me to come back the next day around 4 or 5. I waited around all day, and when the late afternoon rolled around I wasn’t even excited about going to the post office. I was over it. I kinda figured it wouldn’t happen for another couple of days. When I got to the post office the guy started talking about not having forms or something again. I just let him talk while I stared at the scraggly mustache he was trying to grow. The wannabe mustache didn’t even look like it needed shaving-the hairs were too few and far between. I was sure I could fix it up with a pair of tweezers. I decided that’s what his upper lip needed-a good pluck. Don’t bother with shaving cream. They probably don’t even have that here. I dragged myself out my thoughts about a makeover for the post office guy, and realized that he was telling me I could still have letters sent to me without the paper work. I almost didn’t believe him. I asked him what my address was and he was and he said “B.P. 2, my town, Senegal.” I was sure I hadn’t gotten that right. He repeated it again. “B.P. 2, my town, Senegal.” One word kept going through my head, “seriously?? SERIOUSLY!? Seriously. Ser-I-ous-ly? I went through all kinds of mocking and handholding, Amadou’s ink-less printer, snores, a ridiculously bad kung fu movie, and even more waiting…..for B.P. TWO!!! There’s only one address I can think of that would be easier than that: B.P. 1. Seriously? B.P. 2? That’s it??” The words of my supervisor came back to me, “C’est comme ca.” I guess it is. I was grateful to have an address.

And I’m even more grateful to have gotten letters from friends and family! It makes me really really happy, and I appreciate it! Keep them coming! I hope everybody has a wonderful Christmas and fun New Year celebrations!!

2006-12-22T08:32:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!! HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

I hope everyone is doing well. I typed up a long post on my laptop and had it ready to load, but this computers usb port apparently isnt working. Hopefully Ill have another chance to update soon. But i dont have much time left, so just wanted to say merry christmas and i miss everybody!! hope all is well at home!

2006-12-06T02:31:00.000-08:00

Think back to when you were a kid and you used to drink milk through a straw. Remember blowing bubbles in the milk? Close your eyes and imagine the sound the bubbles made……got it? Can you hear it? Now imagine that sound coming from a bunch of Senegalese peoples’ mouths. That’s about how Pulaar sounds to me right now. I’ve been at my site for about two weeks, and a lot of days I feel like I’m never going to speak or even understand Pulaar. Here’s why: it’s a totally ridiculous language!!

Examples:
First major difference: there are verbs for everything. There’s a verb “to eat” (in general), but there’s a verb “to eat breakfast,” a different verb “to eat lunch” and a different verb “to eat dinner.” I’m looking at a list of verbs that my language trainer gave me, and here are some of my favorites: to draw a line, to smell bad, to smell good, to be dizzy, to wash dishes, to wash clothes, to dry clothes, to dry something, to protect against, to separate liquids, so separate solids, to be intelligent, to be clever, to be ‘unclever’. All different verbs.

Like many other languages, the end of the verbs change when you conjugate them. “Yahde” is the verb “to go.” “I went” in Pulaar is “Mi yahii.” That’s fine and dandy, I can handle that. However, when the subject is plural, or when the subject comes after the verb (which happens when you ask questions) you also conjugate the front of the verb. For example, “we went” turns into “min njahii.” (And by the way, that’s ‘we’ exclusive-there’s two kinds of 'we,' inclusive and exclusive. The exclusive is used most of the time, but it’s another fun thing to be confused about). If I want to ask, “where are you going?” that’s “holto njahataa?” Now I’m no math expert, but the way I count it, there’s only two letters that stayed the same from the infinitive of “yahde” and “njahataa.” When a lot of the infinitives sound pretty similar to each other, such as yebde, yobde, yeeyde, yeewde, yeewnude, yeywude, only having two letters to recognize a verb is a little tricky. Especially when there are verbs for everything!

As if conjugating the front and end of a verb isn’t enough, Pulaars like stick letters into the middle of the verb as well. They’re called ‘infixes.’ For example, there isn’t really a word for “with” in Pulaar. Instead you add a “d” or “du” in the middle of the verb to say that you’re doing something with somebody/something. If I want to say “I went with Megan” I say “Mi yahdii e Megan.” That doesn’t sound too different, but there’s infixes for a lot of things! Another example:
Hangaade = to be crazy
O hangoto = he is crazy
Be kangoto = they are crazy
Be kangiima = they were crazy
Be kanginkiniima = they were pretending to be crazy

Yep, just throw in an “inkin” and that means you’re pretending to do something.
Hangaade --> kanginkiniima. At least there are three letters that stay the same for that verb. Piece of cake.

Anyway. Next topic.

I think I need to change the title of my blog to “The Life of Sandy: Adventures in a Palace Surrounded by Mud Huts with Thatched Roofs.” That would pretty much sum it up. My host family has a large compound with a couple of buildings, complete with a front (concrete) yard that has a big shade structure and stick beds, and a back yard big enough for about twenty cows and several sheep and goats. The house has electricity and running water. They have two tv’s and a dvd player. My bedroom has a white tile floor and two electrical outlets. My bathroom has a shower. The water from the shower even gets warm after a couple minutes (usually). The bathroom also has a western toilet. But here’s the clincher: the toilet flushes! I couldn’t believe it. I am incredibly spoiled. Most volunteers just have a hole in the ground. Probably the best part of my house is the roof. It’ big and nobody really uses it, so it’s a good place to go if I don’t want to be bothered. Most nights I sit on the roof and watch the sunset and watch the stars and moon come out, and I start every morning by going on the roof and doing some push ups and crunches and stretches and stuff. It’s neat to see the village getting started in the morning and then later seeing it getting settled in for the night.

I was wrong about living with my counterpart, she lives in another compound not far from mine. I was also wrong about my dad being the village chief. Bummer. But! It turns out that my grand-father (who’s deceased) was the village chief for 36 years or something crazy like that. So that’s pretty cool. My dad is also deceased, so it’s basically just my mom and two sisters who live in this big ‘ol compound. I have one other sibling who lives in another house in my town, and the remaining siblings (I think there are 3 others) live in other cities, so I havn’t met them yet. My mom’s name is Fatimata, and my sisters’ names are Fatima, Banal and Mariem. I live with Fatima and Banal. Fatima has a 3 year old named Kagel, who’s absolutely adorable. She was scared of me until recently. I guess white people are pretty scary looking if you’ve never really seen one before. I mean, I’d probably be scared of me if I was three years old and had only ever seen black people.

Ok I’m starting to ramble, so I think I’m going to wrap it up with a Random Africa Moment (Warning: this one is kind of on the gross side): My supervisor eats lunch at the vet’s house, and the other day I ate there with my supervisor, the vet and the vet’s family. I’d just finished eating and I heard a goat making a lot of noise (which is an incredibly common thing, but it was particularly loud this day). I looked out the door and saw a goat lying on the ground with something coming out of its rear end. I don’t know why it took me so long to figure out what was going on, but my first thought was “Good Lord! That’s the gnarliest looking terd I’ve ever seen, no wonder that goat looks like it’s in so much pain. What are they feeding this thing?” Then, it lifted up its tail a bit more and a bunch of dark little pellets came out of another hole above where the gnarliness was coming out. My next thought was “now that’s what goat poo normally looks like.” Then I took another look at what I thought was a really gnarly terd and realized that there was a hoof inside it. Then I thought “I’m pretty sure goats don’t eat other goats…..so that must mean…!!!” Yep, you guessed it, the goat was giving birth. After I figured that out, I saw the vet casually go into his room and come back out with a pair of rubber gloves. I got up to watch the rest of the birth, and as I got up I was kinda fixing my skirt. The vet’s wife intercepted me as I was walking out the door, and she stopped me and taught me how to properly tie my skirt. I pretty much felt like a 5 year old, but hey, now I know how the Senegalese wear their wrap-around skirts. Anyway, by the time I stepped outside the goat had finished delivering and all the narstiness was spread all over the ground, but it was neat to see the mom taking care of her newborn. I expected the process to be a lot longer. Who knew a goat could give birth in the time it takes a toubab to learn how to wear a wrap-around skirt? And who knew a goat could poo and give birth at the same time?

2006-11-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

The last couple of weeks have been pretty eventful, and I apologize for being slow with updating my blog. Anyway, where to start?

I guess the biggest news is that I found out where I’m going now that training is over (I'll actually be there tomorrow!!). The process of finding out our sites was pretty overwhelming, especially for me, and I’ll tell you why. I’m actually really excited about my site now, but at first I was pretty bummed. Here’s how it went down:

Everybody was pretty anxious about finding out where we would be living for the next two years. At this point in time we’d been in training for 4 weeks, which isn’t that long, but given the amount of time we spend together, most people had made some good friends, myself included. I didn’t really care where my site was, all I wanted was to have one or two volunteers near me who I liked, or at least didn’t mind having a conversation with. I didn’t think that was too much to hope for.

We found out about our sites on a Friday after lunch, which meant the 4 hours of language class in the morning were pretty torturous…everyone just wanted to find out where we’d be going! Anyway, there’s a small basketball court in the peace corps compound that has a map of Senegal painted on it. So after lunch we went to the basketball court, and we all got blindfolded. The language trainers and other staff took us individually to the spot on the map where our sites are. My language trainer took my hand and I swear we only took 4 steps and we stopped and then he let go of my hand and went to get another person. I could hear other trainees on the court talking with each other, but everybody sounded really far away. At first I thought my teacher hadn’t taken me all the way to the right place on the map, cuz there was nobody else near me. When he didn’t come back after a few minutes I kinda started to laugh (I’m glad laughing was my reaction instead of crying) as I slowly realized that my site wasn’t near ANYBODY ELSE. Eventually the trainers told us we could take off our blind folds, and I’ll never forget looking around at everybody else on the map far, far away from me and gasping for air b/c I was laughing so hard…out of pure emotional discomfort. I don’t know if that makes sense, but I was so stunned to not have anybody near me that I just didn’t know what to do with myself, so I just started laughing really hard. I really like so many people in my stage that I was really hoping to be near SOMEBODY. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I was hoping to be near somebody in my stage that I’d made good friends with, and I just assumed I’d be near somebody. It never even crossed my mind that my closest neighbor in my stage would be a 4 hour drive away (most people will live under an hour away from another volunteer in our stage, and some are just a bike ride away). It was pretty hard to swallow, but no worries, I'm over it now.

There are other volunteers near me, just none in my stage…so I don’t mean to harp on this experience, but it just really sticks out in my mind. I also vividly remember the moment when I started getting excited about my site. It was "koritay," which is the holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Koritay was the Monday after we found out our sites, so and we had the day off. I was hanging out at my house and talking to my host dad about my site, and he told me that my town is a good town. I asked him why, and he said that it’s a good town because it has electricity, running water and it’s on a main road. My first thoughts in reaction to that were "whoop-dee-freakin-doo. Is that all it takes to be considered a good town here? It’s still pretty much a desert and I’m going to be the only non-african around for miles. Sweet." Then a few seconds I thought, "wait a minute, why aren’t those my standards?? I’m in Africa, and I didn’t come to Africa to hang out with other Americans. I’m also in one of the poorest countries in the worlds, yet I’ll be living in a place with electricity, running water and relatively easy access to other towns…that’s pretty amazing. I’ve got a pretty sweet site, and damn it, I’m gonna like it!." Since then I’ve been excited about getting to my site.

So where is my site? Good question. I think I mentioned on my last post that I’m not allowed to post online the name of my town, but it’s a town in the northeast, practically on the border of Mauritania. Three thousand people live there, so it’s actually considered to be a big village. There’s a weekly market that is supposed to be a big deal…apparently a lot of people from the surrounding rural communities come to the market every week, and there’s a good chance that I’ll be doing a lot of work with the market. People even come from Mauritania (which is just across the Senegal river and then a 3 hour walk to my town).

I’ve also been a lot more excited about my site since "counterpart workshop." Each volunteer is assigned "counterpart," who is a member of the community where the volunteer will be working. Counterparts are supposed to help volunteers integrate, introduce volunteers to the community, and be a "go to" person. SED volunteers have one counterpart and also a supervisor. A supervisor is a government worker and has a similar role as our counterparts, but they have more of an administrative role. For example, we’re supposed to give monthly reports to them, and then I guess they turn those reports in to the govt (I think. Something like that.) Ag and AgFo volunteers have two counterparts I think, instead of one counterpart and one supervisor.

Anyway, counterpart workshop was very interesting. First of all, the trainees were supposed to organize a lot of the workshop. Everybody was happy to help, but we weren’t really aware of how much we were supposed to do until the day before the workshop started, so we were sorta scrambling around putting skits together, making nametags, figuring out room assignments (the counterparts stayed at the peace corps center), and things like that. The room assignments turned out to be a complete disaster. Luckily I wasn’t on the "welcome committee," but they had to deal with a lot. From what I understand, there were two main problems: females showed up when a male was supposed to come and vice versa, so those people had to be put in a different room. The second main issue was that certain counterparts didn't want to be in rooms with certain people because they weren't of the same socio-economic class/caste. For example, a mayor of a town wouldn't want to share a room with a village farmer, so the mayor would demand to be put in a different room. In general, it was very obvious who were SED counterparts and who were agriculture or agro forestry counterparts. The SED counterparts were usually the ones who thought they were too good for other people, and they were better dressed, and generally the ones ones who wore western clothes. Senegalese have a word for snobby, wealthy people who think they're better than other people, and that word in "patrone." Patrone literally means "boss," but it implies that a person is snobby and materialistic. Basically a lot of the SED counterparts were called "patrone" by a lot of the volunteers.

My counterpart and supervisor seemed really cool though. My counterpart is going to be my host mom, and she's the head of the women's group in town, so I think she is a pretty important/respected person in the community. My supervisor seemed like he was really interested in being involved with my projects, and he seemed like a hard worker, so that's good. I also think that my mom told me that my host dad is the village chief. Haha. I think it would be really funny if I lived with a village chief. I'll let you know. I'll find out tomorrow, cuz tomorrow I'm offically moving to my site! I've been on the road for about a day and a half now, cuz the logistics of getting people moved in is kinda crazy.

Ok I don't have much time left online, but here's another Random Africa Moment: Yesterday morning (around 6am) I was watching the driver of our vehicle pack up the car with all of my crap and the crap of the two other volunteers I came up north with. All that was left to pack were our bikes (which are brand new and really awesome, by the way), and he needed to put them on the roof. However, the driver didn't have any rope, and I thought at first that we'd have to wait for him to go get some. Nope. I thought wrong. Instead he reaches in the car and pulls out a seatbelt. You might think that a seatbelt is too short to strap in three bikes on the roof of a car. It is. But it's not too short if you cut the seatbelt in half, and that's what he did. The driver whipped out a pocket knive and ripped the seatbelt in half, but left about an inch at the bottom to keep it together. He starts strapping everything in, and gives the seatbelt a good yank, and of course it rips completely through and he was left with two narrow strips of seatbelt (i think everyone but the driver saw this coming, but we also knew he'd figure it out soon enough, and we were all too tired to try to think of how to say "hey dude, that's totally gonna rip in half, u gotta tie it together first" in french or wolof, so we continued to stare at him with our puffy, half open eyes). It didn't take the driver long to realize that he needed to tie the two pieces of seatbelt together, and before we knew it the bikes were tied in and we were on the way. We thought we were gonna stop once we got on the road to get some rope, and we did stop at one point and he turns around to us and says "give me a 1,000 CFA" (which sounds like a lot, but it's the equivalent of two dollars). So we obliged and thought he'd come back with some rope. Wrong again. He came back with a pack of cigarettes and a pack of cookies. When we realized what he'd bought, we looked at each other, laughed, and continued on our merry way up north. The bikes made it without a scratch. So did we. Alhamduliliah.

2006-11-16T10:47:00.000-08:00

so i had a pretty long blog entry typed out and saved on my removable hard drive thingy, but this computer is really old and i don't think it has a usb port. so anyway, here's a quick update: tomorrow i get sworn in as an official peace corps volunteer!! yayy!! we're going to dakar, the capital city, for a ceremony, and the american ambassador to senegal is swearing us in. i guess it's a pretty big deal, we have to get dressed up and stuff. i got a new outfit, traditional senegalese style. i'll put some pictures up eventually. people will start moving to their sites this weekend, and i start making my way to my site on monday. i'm not allowed to put online where my site is exactly (or the name of it) for security reasons i guess....but i can tell you that it's way up north, practically on the mauritanian border. it's a small town of 3,000, with a pretty large surrounding rural community. i'm pretty excited about it. i only have a few minutes of internet time left, so i'll writ emore about the end of training and my site and sutff later! hope all is well at home!

2006-11-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

RANDOM AFRICA MOMENT OF THE DAY:

after being here for about a month somtimes i think im used to everything and i forget that im in an incredibly different place. however, i have moments that bring me back to the reality that im in africa and people just do things differently.

today i as walking to the bathroom at the training center, in which there are two normal western toilet stalls complete with toilet paper, i saw a janitor/cleaner lady enter the bathroom just before i got there. i knew that senegalese dont use toilet paper (they just use water and their left hand to rinse...eating with your left hand is a huge no no b/c of this), but this situation still made me laugh: one stall was occupied when the cleaning lady got there, so naturally she went to the stall that was open. however, i expected her to enter the stall like an american would do, so i turn to start looking in the mirror or do something to occupy my time. stupid me. the woman simply lifted up her skirt and sat down on the toilet with the door wide open. that was shock number one. so she starts tinkling, and i try to act like it didn't phase me. i don't think i did a very good job acting, but it didn't matter cuz then she picked up an empty bottle of bleach that was by the toilet and hands it to me and says "un peu de l'eau" (a little water) in a rather commanding way. that was shock number 2. i wish i could tell you what was going through my mind at that point in time, but i don't think anything was going through my mind at all. it was pretty much a total blank and disbelief. i'd like to think that i recovered quickly. anyway, i simply grabbed the bottle and started filling it up in the sink. after a few seconds of filling the bottle up, she goes "c'est bon?" (it's good?). at that point my brain started working again i can definitely tell you waht i was thinking then: "how the hell am i supposed to know lady?!? i'm white, i use toilet paper! and by the way, thanks for shutting the door, and i don't think i saw you pull down your underwear....do you always go commando?!?" and then i had to try really really hard to suppress the laughter that was about to burst out.

after having a good laugh about it with some fellow trainees, i just came to the conclusion, yep, i'm in africa, random stuff will happen.

2006-10-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

CALL ME!!!!

from the states dial: 011 221 447 4010 and you will reach my cell! i have not set up voicemail yet, but feel free to call anytime! senegal is 4 hours ahead of the east coast time wise just fyi. peace out.

2006-10-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

Life as Peace Corps Trainee

6:30am: Wake up for the first time (sometimes I wake up to the call to prayers around 4:30 or 5:30…Senegal is a Muslim country and Muslims pray 5 times a day….starting very early) If the electricity is working I get up and shower. But by shower I mean filling up a bucket and going in the designated stall to pour the water from the bucket over me to try and get clean. It’s surprisingly effective and almost enjoyable.

7am: Walk to the bus stop and wait with a few other trainees for the peace corps bus to pick us up and go to the peace corps compound. The first couple of days my host mom/brother walked me…but I’ve graduated to big kid status and I can now walk to the bus stop by myself.

7-7:30: Bus ride picking up other peace corps trainers (pct’s) and time for sharing crazy Larium induced (our malaria med) dreams and sharing stories about our crazy Senegalese host families. Based on other pct’s stories about their families, my family seems incredibly chill in comparison. One day when I understand who all the people are who come in and out of my house I’ll write about my family. I havn’t quite figured everything out, but here’s a brief description: I have a mom, dad, and approximately 8 siblings, some of whom are married/have kids.

Once we arrive at the center we eat breakfast that consists of baguettes with jelly, nutella-ish stuff and butter. Every day. At our very first breakfast there were hard boiled eggs, but that was apparently just to get our hopes up. We definitely havn’t had anything but baguettes since then. Oh well. Baguettes are the new pancake.

8-12: Language class with 1 half hour break, and two shorter breaks.

12:30-2:30: Lunch and break. We eat lunch Senegalese style: 4-5 people sit around a big bowl of food on the ground and we just go at it. It’s usually fish and rice, sometimes we get chicken or some other kind of meat. During this break I usually play ping pong or throw a Frisbee around or just hang out. The lunch break is the time to do laundry too….our host families do most of our laundry (which is really nice) but we’re supposed to wash our own socks and underwear, and it actually is dry by the time we’re done with all of our classes for the day. A lot of people have started to nap or go to the internet cafe during this break (which is what i'm currently using the break for).

2:30-6: More class…..usually a variety of topics ranging from Senegalese culture to safety to medical info. The afternoon classes are usually pretty boring and I’m always counting down the minutes to the half hour break. The half hour break in the afternoon is usually when people go to the guard station at the compound and buy some “boisson sucre” a.k.a. soft drinks. There are 3 choices: Coke, Fanta Orange, and Fanta Cocktail. Fanta Cocktail seems to be the overwhelming favorite, seeing as its incredibly tasty and new to us. I’m sure they have it other places in the world, but I’d never had it before. There’s also some cookie things called “biscrum” that are good for a little sugar boost.

Apres class: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays have been designated as “sport days.” On these days all interested pct’s walk to the track that’s about a block away from the peace corps compound and play either soccer or ultimate frisbee or just run on the track. There’s a “field” in the middle of the track, but it’s more an open sandy area than an actual field. “Track” is also a loose term….it’s pretty much just sand/dirt. All the “toubabs” (foreigner/white person) usually create quite a scene and the locals at the track just kinda stare at us.

We’re supposed to be home by 7 so we can break the fast with our families (and also cuz it’s not so safe walking around town after dark by yourself). At my house, when we break the fast we first have 2 dates right at 7. A few minutes later I usually get a massive baguette with meat surprise on it. I call it meat surprise cuz every bite is a surprise…sometimes it’s a chunk of meat, sometimes it’s a potato, and sometimes it’s a massive chunk of fat. On a good day I’ll only have to swallow one massive wad of random animal fat, but on a bad day I’ll have to swallow about 3 wads of fat. We also drink Nescafe or some tea-ish drink….I havn’t quite figured out what the tea stuff is exactly. After the fast is broken, people usually just sit around-usually outside because it’s much cooler outside. If I have homework I’ll do my homework, if not, I just sit. If I try to read anything my siblings usually take whatever I’m trying to read from me and look at it or ask me questions about it, so no reading actually happens. Sometimes one of my siblings will talk to me in French (amongst the family they speak pulaar and/or wolof), which is nice and sometimes frustrating cuz my French is still pretty rusty. Oh well, I think its getting better. I should probably just be trying to speak in pulaar anyway (with all 10 words I know). We usually have dinner around 9:30 or ten, which is always rice and fish in a communal bowl. After dinner we usually have some juice called “bisap” juice…I forget what it is in English but it’s really good! I usually go to bed pretty soon after dinner….which really means I lay in bed for about an hour fanning myself until I stop sweating or eventually fall asleep sweating. Then I wake up and do it again.

Sorry for all the run-on sentences and rambling. I hope some of that made sense.

We have Sundays off, but I’ve only had two Sundays here so it’s hard to say what a normal one is like. This past Sunday I spent a lot of the day getting my hair braided. It took all day because it didn’t happen in one sitting. My sister started braiding, then decided she wanted to shower and go to the market, so I went to the market with her with about ¼ of my hair braided. When we got back she continued braiding until we used an entire package of hair ties. Turns out I have too much hair for just one pack of hair ties, so my sister went back to the market to get more hair ties. After an hour or so later she got back and finished braiding. By the time she finished it was about time to break the fast and begin the evening activity of sitting around. And that was Sunday.

I really appreciate the comments you leave on my blog....it makes me very happy! Hopefully I'll get in a routine where I can update it more regularly.

Uncle Gil, I've gotten your emails and will try to answer some of your questions in future posts.

Uncle Timmy, feel free to share this with your class!

Jenny, when I was visiting you this summer you asked about african women and big butts....i have an answer for you and will write about it sometime soon.

Miami people: I'm glad you had fun at homecoming!

2006-10-03T11:31:00.000-07:00

Assala Malekum!

So two days ago i spent about 45 minutes writing a really long blog entry, and right as i was about to click to submit the new entry the stupid electricity went out! So I was originally planning on this first entry in Africa to be long and detailed....but i don't know that it will be. Anyway, where to start....

Thank you to everyone who has emailed/commented on my blog/written on my facebook wall/sent me letters....it makes me so happy and i really appreciate it! Keep it coming!

The group of people i'm training with (my "stage") is the biggest senegal has had to date...there's 50 of us! It's been really fun getting to know people, and it's a great group....everyone is really interesting and very talented. About half the group is Small Enterprise Development, (SED), and the rest are either Sustainable Agriculture or Agro Forestry. We have technical training with our specific sectors, but our language classes are mixed up among the sectors. For example, I'm the only SED person in my 6 person language class, there's 4 sustainable ag people, and one agfo person. We're learning a local language called "pulaar du nord," and we're the only 6 people learning pulaar du nord. You'd think that would mean that after training i'll be going to the northern part of the country, but that's not necessarily the case. Apparently there's a region in the middle of senegal where the people mostly speak pulaar du nord, so i could be going there. We won't find out where our sites are for another couple of weeks. And it doesn't really matter anyway b/c we have about 8 more weeks of training.

My host family is pretty cool....they speak pulaar and wolof (another local language), and they gave me a new pulaar name. I am now Rougie. "mbiyete mi ko Rougie." Ha, that's about all the pulaar i know right now! I guess i should go study some. I also need to go break the fast with my family. It's Ramadan right now, which means they don't eat or drink during the day. As soon as the sun sets though they "break the fast" with dates, coffee, baguettes wtih meat surprise on it, and then dinner around 10 pm. Ok i'll write more later. Peace out!

2006-09-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here's my address during training.....write/send things to me!

PCT Sandy Halasz

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 299

Thies, Senegal

West Africa

2006-09-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

Well folks, here it is. A blog from yours truly. Pretty exciting, eh? I've never blogged before, so you'll have to bear with me while I figure out what to write. I guess it will probably be easier once I actually get to Africa, which will be in about two weeks! Ahh! I'm pretty excited for it, but it's just kinda scary that I leave so soon. Until then I'll pretty much be at home hanging out.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm leaving on September 18th to go to Senegal with the Peace Corps. Senegal is on the northwest coast of Africa, and is actually only 4 hours ahead of the East coast time wise. It's also one of the most politically stable African countries, which is very comforting. I'll be doing Small Enterprise Development, which is really vague but basically means I'll be helping out local small businesses in any way I can. We have 8 weeks of training in a city called Thies (I'll be with a group of volunteers who will all be in Senegal), where we will live with a host family. In training we'll learn French (the national language) and another dialect, along with some "technical training" specific to our jobs. After training I'll move to another city/town, where I will live for most of the rest of my time in Senegal. I do not know the specific city/town yet. I do not know if there will be any other volunteers in my town, and I do not know if I will have electricity. But I'm ok with that, it will be an adventure! Hopefully I'll have semi-regular access to the internet, and I'm also hoping to buy a cell phone. Otherwise, I'll be writing letters and sending them the old fashioned way. Keeping in touch with family and friends back home is going to be very important to me, because I know the next two years will be very challenging and frustrating at times. Communicating with people back home will keep me sane! I don't have a mailing address yet, but I will let you know once I do. That's all I can think of for now. Sorry if I rambled a lot....but I'm sure it will happen again!