Matam Girls' Leadership Camp

It's the holidays, a time for giving... (And it's the end of the year, last chance to squeeze in a tax-deductible donation..) Looking for a cause? Help the Peace Corps Volunteers of Matam, Senegal put on a Girls' Leadership Camp to empower young girls in our region. In a region where girls are growing up very young--many are cooking and cleaning for their households by age 10, and marriage can happen as young as 12--we are looking to provide these girls with a positive environment to discuss their lives, set goals, and empower young girls to follow their dreams. We've made a short video we hope you'll check out, share, and donate if you feel so inclined.

You should also check out my friend's blog, who helped a girl avoid early marriage: http://voicilesoleil.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/give-for-the-girls/



Go here to donate: http://1.usa.gov/YV6533

Thanks for your time and support! We truly appreciate it.


Happy holidays from Senegal! Wishing all of you and your families all the best!

6 months in site- a reflection

Six months as a sworn in PCV, nearly six months since install in my village. I've read about 25 books (and taken about as many mefloquine (anti-malaria) tablets). I've grown markedly more confident and comfortable in the language, with the people, and my role here. Listening to the newly arriving volunteers makes me smile- all those worries I had in the beginning have faded away. Sometimes I even have to remind myself that I'm living in Sengal, that I've made it to Africa- the massive continent romanticized as a single location. I also keep staring at world maps, both pondering ways to see more here, give my time 'in Africa' more legitimacy, and also staring at new, unknown corners of the world, with newfound confidence to venture there. At times my life here feels stagnant, each day passing quickly but seemingly unproductive. Yet each day provides amusing moments-- from having to run to a stranger's latrine, to finally having the vocab to tell someone off when they insist you should be married for the 100th time, to taking horse or donkey charrettes to most nearby destinations-- things that now seem normal yet still ring of foreign-ness when compared to my previous life. The life where I'm not eating lunch at Teesbar and getting home before Futuro, the calls to prayer that structure my schedule. The life where laundry doesn't leave your knuckles raw. The life where my knees are tan. Do I miss that other life? Sometimes, definitely. I've been day-dreaming about a cold, fresh nectarine for weeks now. But then I realize I've got the best job ever- hanging out with people, learning a culture, and becoming part of a community that I can eventually contribute to. So despite the difficulties I'm going to sit back and enjoy it. There'll be plenty of nectarines whenever I get home.

Rice harvest- Take me to the river

As many of you more geographically oriented (or those who have google mapped my location) know, my village is relatively close to the river which borders Mauritania. Many families have land up on the river to grow rice, and right about know is harvesting time, meaning that about half of my village now lives on the river to gather their stores for the next year. A friend of mine took me out to the fields the other day, and I spent the day observing and helping out with the gathering (kind of, mostly just sitting in the shade with the babies).

The process boils down to this:

The men use their hook-looking tools to cut down the rice stalks. 

Rihanna's playing on one of their phones in the background

After the entire paddy has been cleared they bundle up the stalks and the women carry these on their head to the cleared location. 

This is a bundle I was rescued from (I made it 50 ft or so)

The skyline is always filled with walking bundles

There they lay out a large tarp, and grab handfuls of the rice stalks and bang them against the ground to free the rice grains. 

The grains are poured against the wind to sift out the debris.

The grains are pounded.

Rice is ready to be cooked! Add a little fresh fish, and you've got yourself a Senegalese staple.

Lots of fish available by the river!

It's a lot of work, but these few months of harvest provide most families with enough rice to last them the year. It was a great experience to go see my fellow villagers at work, and much more appreciative of the bowl of rice I eat for lunch daily. 

Tabaski- How much sheep can you eat?

I have recently experienced my first Tabaski, or Eid al-Adha as it's known throughout the Muslim world. It is essentially the Muslim equivalent of Christmas, and by far the largest holiday I will celebrate in Senegal with my host family. Most holidays and celebrations here boil down to 2 things: wearing fancy Senegalese clothes and eating lots of meat (sheep or goat). Because this is a larger celebration, we did these 2 things for 3 days. The premise of Tabaski is the sacrifice of a sheep, symbolic of the story of Abraham, who was willing to kill his first-born in God's name, but was provided by God a ram to sacrifice instead. Our family has had the marked sheep picked out for months; it's been tied up to various shade structures in my compound, getting fattened up for the big day. I was also in Dakar the days leading up to Tabaski, and the images of hundreds of sheep by random intersections was quite a sight, but everybody who can afford it is in the market for their own sheep that time of year!
On the big day I threw on my (thus far only) Senegalese complet and sat with the women of my house. I witnessed 3 sheep getting killed and skinned and prepped for cooking. We had meat for 3 meals that day... and for the next 3 days. Needless to say, I'm a little sheeped-out. Quite frankly, I think I could never eat sheep again and be perfectly happy.
It was great to see everyone in my village in their finest complets coming around, greeting and forgiving/asking for forgiveness. Most people spend a lot of time with their "fedde" or age group, essentially hanging out with their groups of friends, drinking tea or juice, and hanging out. The younger fedde's have some music and dancing, the older fedde's mostly sit around. In village my real age rarely corresponds to my companions, so I spent a lot of time hanging out with the older women.
Other than dressing up, greeting, hanging out and eating meat, there wasn't too much more to the holiday, and as I'm still a bit of an outsider to cultural things, I found myself with a bit of down time throughout the holiday. It was definitely an experience and interesting to see, though honestly I don't know if I'll be sticking around village for meat-a-thon 2013.

In other news, school is starting up again so I'm looking forward to working more at the primary and middle schools, where I think I'll base the bulk of my projects. When I first arrived, I was intimidated by the fact that I'll be spearheading projects on my own, but after being here for 8 months, assisting in other volunteers' projects, and really getting used to life here, I'm naturally finding avenues for work and am excited to start some good projects in my village!

Girls' Education in Senegal

So I've been in Senegal for 6 months already, and I'm sure many of you are wondering when I'm going to start some "real work." Projects tend to be rather long-winded in the development realm, primarily because we have to deal with the bureaucracy of the grant process, after you've finally come up with a feasible and sustainable project. However, one project that I'm lucky enough to already be a part of (because it is a collaborative effort of all volunteers in our region) is the Matam's 2nd Annual Girls' Leadership Camp. I recently finished up the Michelle Sylvester Scholarship at the middle school near my village, which involved working with the top 9 girls from 3 different grades at this school to pick 3 winners of a grand prize scholarship to go towards school supplies and tuition. Most PCV's participate in this scholarship program, and to continue working with these distinguished young girls from each of our schools, we've organized a leadership camp for them and to reinforce the benefits of education. It's an excellent program, especially in our region where you see girls married off as early as age 11 and many times cooking and cleaning their family's house before this age if they're not married. Education is not a priority in many girls' lives, and I hope that by positively influencing even a handful of girls to continue with their education we make strides in the right direction. School is an opportunity to gain critical thinking skills, socialize with people of their own age, and overall gain a type of independence. The leadership camp reinforces positive mind-sets among girls and encourages them to stay in school.

In general, the schools in my area are pretty well funded and taught. There just needs to be further encouragement to ensure every child has the motivation to stay in school, despite the social pressures to marry early.

We cannot complete this project without your help. We're fundraising to have this camp through a Peace Corps Partnership Grant and anything you can spare will make sure these girls have an opportunity for creativity, leadership, and a general outlet that they may not get in their daily lives.
Go here to donate:
https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-221

More updates how this camp goes early next year, but thanks for your support!

I'll leave you now with a video of some of these girls performing a traditional Pulaar dance at the end of the school year celebration:

IST and Ourossogui Eye Clinic

I've just finished a whirlwind month of work, all of which took place out of site, so it's been quite a change of pace from my slow month of Ramadan. I caught a Peace Corps ride down to Dakar about a month ago, an air conditioned land rover was a nice alternative to a cramped and stuffy public transport car. [Side bar on public transport here: it is miserable even in the most "luxurious" of forms. A 7 seater (sept-place in French) car (a station wagon with a third row) is the nicest/fastest way to get anywhere, but 12 hours in a cramped car is still less than pleasant. And there is no schedule. Cars leave when they are full so you can spend anywhere from no time to 5 hours waiting for a car to leave once you've gotten there and bought your ticket.. (Though to be fair it's mostly the 14 seater vans or big (50ish people) buses that you're waiting 2+ hours for.)]

After a few days relaxing and exploring Dakar I went to the Thies Training Center again, this time for our In-Service Training (IST) where I reconnected with my fellow stagiers and got inspired for potential projects I could do in my site. It was crazy to be back at the training center, but very cool to check in with everyone and see how different our various experiences already were. We had 10 days of sessions on gardening, maternal and child health, sanitation, and various other types of projects volunteers in sector have done.

After that I came straight back to Ourossogui to participate in an Eye Clinic another volunteer in the area organized. The trip back ended up taking 2 days, due to some misplaced trust in the buses. We caught an early morning bus outside of Thies which was supposed to take us all the way to Ourossogui (a 12 hour direct ride, though we knew it'd be longer with the inevitable stops). After a few too many stops and transfers, we decided to get out in Ndioum where the northern regional house is, as it was already 6:30 and a midnight arrival in Ourossogui (especially on the horrible roads for the last 200km) was less than desirable.

At the eye clinic we worked for 2 weeks at the hospital with a team of American doctors from an NGO and performed 140 cataract surgeries during this time. My role varied throughout the 2 weeks as we had 2 different groups of people for the 2 weeks. The first week I stayed primarily in the pre-op room, conducting vision exams in Pulaar, and prepping the patients by giving anything from eyedrops to information. The second week I worked with the post-ops, as well as giving out reading glasses (as the NGO brought boxes of those as well). It was overall an incredibly interesting experience. There were definitely parts that made me anxious (taking patients without knowing their medical history, sometimes not being sure if the patient really knew 100% of what the surgery entailed--I definitely had a few older women turn to me after I put in their dilating eye drops if they were done and could go home...) but overall, seeing some people come out with markedly improved vision was incredibly rewarding. I've also realized I am not cut out for the medical profession, just seeing the anesthesia injection into the eye area made me incredibly queasy. I can't even begin to imagine how scared some of the patients were (it was many's first time receiving this type of medical care) and I can only hope my limited Pulaar was able to ease some of their minds.

Busy OR

One of the cataracts

Group of happy post-ops

I will soon head back to village after a month away and I'm excited to get back to that part of my Peace Corps life.. I've missed my host family, friends, and even the village food!

Ramadan

It is currently the 3rd week of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting (meaning no food or water for all daylight hours, essentially from 5:30 am to 7:30 pm). As my entire village is Muslim, you can imagine the dramatic change in pace of life that has occurred over the past few weeks... It has come to a bit of a standstill.

In the states I only knew a handfull of people who participate in Ramadan, and it never had such an impact on my life as it does now. It's definitely an interesting experience. While I'm sure fasting as a community makes it easier to complete, it also comes with some complications-- community image of devotion, or merely the ease of completing the difficult month with the support of your fellow fasters (especially if you're the female who cooks in the house... nobody wants to be cooking for the house while they are making up their fasting days beyond Ramadan). Fasting is quite difficult (especially with the 100 + degree F heat we've been having) and many people power through and fast during all of Ramadan with the community (rather than skip a day for legitimate reasons and make it up later throughout the year by themselves)... this includes many pregnant women and older folks. While I understand that this is a religious practice, and I honor and respect that, it's hard to see people who need to put their health first and not do so. One of my older host-moms already had to go get an IV drip at the health post, and many women in their 3rd trimester of pregnancy are still fasting. As a health/environmental ed volunteer, I'm still trying to figure out how to address these situations in a culturally acceptable manner. This year Ramadan also falls during the short but sweet rainy season, so people are still going out to the fields to work in the morning, but luckily this means we're getting some cooler days as well.

Volunteers choose different ways to adapt to this month long change of pace, some try fasting as well, some sneak food in their huts (I am of this variety) and some just choose this time to go on vacation. I did one day of solidarity fasting (and essentially slept all day), and am currently subsisting on peanut butter oatmeal, mangoes, and Mauritanian biscuits (I may dedicate a blog post to these at a later date, they are amazing- I can't explain why because they are just bland biscuits... but I'm addicted). 

Luckily I haven't started any time pressing projects yet, because the day gets progressively more sedentary, and many people aren't willing to do much more than the absolute necessities. As my job is still mostly getting to know the village and integrating, Ramadan has actually been a nice time to go greet and visit the various compounds in my village-- people are always home and nobody is trying to shove food at you the entire time you're there (sure, not eating at all isn't ideal, but sometimes overly-hospitable households just seem impossible to please... "you didn't eat anything!").

In other events, I went to Dakar for an impulsive trip to see Hillary Clinton address US Embassy/Foreign Service employees. It was a short but sweet presentation, but the real reward was all the delicious food and first world amenities I was able to indulge in while there. Burgers, ice cream and a shopping mall have never been such an amazing experience. 

Kedougou- the land of waterfalls

I just spent a few days in the south of the country, the Kedougou region of Senegal. Volunteers from all over Senegal convene there for the annual 4th of July party at the Kedougou house, and I took this time to explore the area as well. Ecologically, it's a whole different world down there. Whereas I'm in the desert, Kedougou is the tropics. I've definitely developed some envy for the volunteers serving in this region (they live in huts! there's vegetation!), but I also came back with 50+ mosquito bites (something I haven't had to deal with), so I'm realizing there's a pro and con for every living situation. So I soaked in the greenery, avocados and waterfalls while I was there, but I'm honestly pretty happy to return to the dry heat of my desert.

Top of the fall in Segou

Jungle-looking hike to Segou falls

Walking from Segou to Dindefelo

Dindefelo waterfall

Gorgeous views all around the fall in Dindefelo

Senegalese hospitality

My first month of village has passed surprisingly quick. I'm slowly adapting to life here, and more importantly becoming increasingly comfortable with my family and community. I'm still at a loss as to what my "job" here is at times, I've definitely felt rather ill equipped with my limited communication skills as of late (especially at the middle school where I'm organizing a scholarship, and most teachers speak French) which don't exactly let me show any type of other skills I may be able to offer. But I think that's the point, I have 2 years here for a reason. First I meet and learn, then I do some good work. So I've focused on meeting people in my village and the villages around me. Senegalese are very hospitable and the extent of it is downright amusing; I've already taken a mid-day nap at a women's house the very day I met her.
Foundational knowledge: when you visit a Senegalese person, you spend the day (if not many) with them.
Backstory to my napping experience: I head to the village over from mine (about 2 km away) to buy some phone credit. I go to their market to greet (always great extra language practice), and one woman says I have to go meet someone named Sohna. She mentions something about a garden, so I figure this has potential work involved and follow. She takes me to, who turns out to be, the president of the women's group in the village. After chatting for a bit, we head to see the women's garden (where she gives me fist-fulls of mint that is currently growing there). We go back to her place and after chatting for a bit I tell her I'll head home. She looks appalled and says no way, it's too hot. I have to stay, eat lunch, rest and then head home. I agreed, it was mid-day, around 110 degrees, and even the short 2km seemed like an unpleasant idea. After lunch (fish and rice, the usual), and a delicious iced sour milk and sugar refreshment, it was still rather warm out, so she told me to lay down and rest (hence naptime!). After a few rounds of tea, presents of fabric and hand-spun cotton, it was late afternoon and could finally make the journey back to my village (though not straight back.. we stopped at another house for a round of orange soda). This is an example of typical hospitality here, especially when in a slightly wealthier village like the one near mine.


My set up in village is pretty sweet- I've got my own free standing room in a family compound.

My room. Note the proximity to the mosque. 5:30am call to prayer is so much fun!

The bed I sleep on at night (outside) is the home of many activities during the day.. yeah, where that girl is washing dishes is where I sleep.

The view from my room. Cows are a common sight.

My host dad, the village chief. He spends most of his days sleeping.

Village life

I’ve skipped out to Ourossogui for the day to catch up with some fellow volunteers and get out of village for a bit; 2 weeks spent mostly within a 3 km radius can leave one a little stir-crazy. 

My install at village, where appropriately Shakira's "Waka waka- This time for Africa" was playing as I rolled into site, was relatively anti-climactic but a warm welcome from the villagers nonetheless. Village life is completely different to the life I got used to during training. It is a hundred-fold slower paced and I have no set daily activities. My current “job” is going and meeting the village, with limited Pulaar skills, while improving these Pulaar skills. As I am already on the shyer side when it comes to meeting new people, and I’m not necessarily the chattiest in these situations when I am to speak English, you can see how this has been mildly anxiety-inducing for me. Luckily I’m paired with 2 counterparts through Peace Corps, my community counterpart is the president of the women’s group in my village, and my technical counterpart is the school director of the college (middle school-ish grades). So when all else fails, I just go greet them and see who else I may meet there/on the way. The hardest part is remembering people’s names, especially when I meet them randomly, but I'm getting better at it. 

My village is an interesting work environment because it is relatively big, about 2,500 people, and because NGO’s have been very active in the area for at least 10 years. As the north is the most conservative part of Senegal, one NGO has been working on women’s empowerment projects such as female literacy classes in the local language, organizing women’s groups, etc. It makes my work here both more and less clear. I could pursue the direction of simply blending into this structure and working within these finely created development schemes. However, it’s hard to tell to what point these projects have affected what the people feel they need-- the men have already approached me for a men’s Pulaar literacy class. While I have taken to going to the literacy classes (though I am the only one there with the problem of being able to read the language, but not know what it means) to have a different way of practicing and to get my face known among the women, I can’t help to question the efficacy of teaching Pulaar literacy. It primarily is, and once only was, a spoken language. While I appreciate that it has been written down because that means I was able to study it the way I’ve studied all my subjects in the Western world, I can’t help but wonder to what end are these women learning to read Pulaar? My idealistic side and pragmatic side are dueling out this thought. 

I’ve also survived my first sandstorm. It was a bit of a shock. I was sleeping outside (which I do every night, my room is far too hot to sleep in this time of year) and all of a sudden a huge wind hits and my mosquito net flies off. I look around and everyone else in my compound is grabbing their nets and mattresses and scurrying inside, so I follow suit. Between my pillow, sheets, flashlight, keys and mattress I need to make 2 trips,  so I run against the wall of sand pushing towards me with everything except my mattress to my room. By the time I make back to my mattress it has been blown vertical, luckily stopped by the posts holding up the shade structure I sleep under. I got away with only eyes full of sand, and a great story to repeat to the villagers the next day-- my first sandstorm, they loved it. 

People love talking about me in my village, especially when I do something seemingly bizarre, like running in the mornings. I think it’s hilarious, and my perspective is this: if they are smiling when talking about me, that’s as close as they can get to liking me because my language is no where near where I’d need to to charm them by words. And it gives us one more thing to talk about. “You went running?” “Yes I went early this morning! Did you see me?” “No, but I heard from so and so you went..” and so on.. (Also: everyone in village will find out about anything I’ve done. After I went on my first bike ride, everyone was asking me where I went that day, despite the fact I only pass a few compounds to get to the road.)  So I sit, I smile, I laugh, I say my few words in Pulaar, I attempt to dance Youzza or Cahalgum, go about my “strange” routines and hope for the best. 

Start of real service

Finally made it up to my permanent area, and installing in my site on Thursday! I took a sept place (seven seater station wagon) up to Ourossogui yesterday with the other volunteer installing near me and all of our possessions. We're picking up all of our necessary living items over the next few days (mattresses, buckets, cups, etc) and just mentally preparing for the transition to village life. Training has been such a different experience to what service will be, and only now am I starting my real life here in Senegal.

The last few weeks of training have been full of fun adventures so I'll give you a quick recap:

Dakar Day: Part of training is taking us to the PC office in Dakar and having a catered lunch from the embassy. We were treated to fried chicken, hummus, and by special request several platters of guacamole. We also went to N'Ice Cream, quite possibly my new favorite place in Dakar (note: they had a flavor "Obama").

Popenguine: a lovely beach location south of Thies. In PC trainee tradition we rented out 2 beach houses and headed for some fun and sun. I can definitely say I will be returning.

 


The coastline at Popenguine and one of our houses for the night.



Swearing-in at the Ambassador's house: To become an official PCV you have to take an oath to defend the constitution and we dress up in fancy Senegalese attire and go to the Ambassador's gorgeous house to do so. A quick ceremony, a few speeches by fellow trainees in the local languages (everyone who spoke did amazing! youtube links soon) and some kind words from our staff were followed by an amazing array of hor d'oeuvres, including quiches and mini-pizzas followed by brownies and fruit tarts. After 9 weeks of primarily fish and rice and cous-cous, we were vultures.

After swear in we had a few free days at the center to pack and hang out, indulge in the amenities and available foods in Thies, and now we've all dispersed to our respective regions.

I may participate in the "5 week challenge"where I don't leave site for 5 weeks after install, so my internet connectivity may be quite limited over the next month or so.. wish me luck!

Just living life, in Senegal

Just got back to Thies after 10 more days in Ngeexoox (which is spelled Nguekhokhe in French if you’ve been wondering why it’s not on Google maps...) and first off, thanks for all the love! Got my first package from my parents supplying me with Economists to catch up on and other treats, as well as some letters and cards from some lovely people :) Keep them coming! (I will return the love with some cool Senegalese stamps attached!) But if you’re looking to send me something, now is probably the time to redirect it to my permanent address: 

B.P. 181 

Ourossogui

Senegal 

West Africa

Keep in mind it will take much longer to get to the North, possibly up to a month. I’ll be able to grab mail from Ouro Sogui once I install at site in just 3 weeks. 

As I’ve really done nothing more than immerse myself in Pulaar at training site (and I’m finally understanding what people say to me!), I guess I’ll explain some daily life/logistic type things in this post. 

Each morning I wake up and head to the washing area to shower.. From a bucket. There is usually only one source of running water per compound, if that, so to bathe I have to fill up my bucket at the spigot and take it over to the washing room. The most annoying part is washing my hair, which always takes forever. One of the girls in my stage has already shaved her head, and I’m really jealous every time I have to wash my hair. Other than that it’s really not so bad, and yay, I’m saving water!

The general communication that I have mastered is the greeting, which looks a little like this:

No mbad-daa? [How’s it going?]

Jam tam. [Peace only.]

Ada selli? [Are you healthy?]

Mawdum. [Good.]

No mbadu-daa e tempere? [How are you doing with the tiredness?]

Ko mawdum. [It’s good.]

No galle ma wadi? [How is your house/family?]

Ebe e jam. [They are in peace.]

Greeting is incredibly important in Senegalese society. The funny thing is, you ask it more of a formality, rather than for actual information on the persons well-being. It’s a bit of a spit-fire interaction of the key greeting buzzwords. As long as you’re saying one of the greetings, you’re good. Often people respond to my “No mbad-daa?” with “Ada selli?”

Another big part of Senegalese society is attaya, which is tea. They make their tea in a very specific manner. The tea itself is just black tea imported from China (they try to claim this as their own, but I can read the box). They brew it on a little charcoal stove and add a lot of sugar and some fresh mint to finish off the concoction. The next part is the most characteristic, the pouring of the tea. This practice is generally to cool the tea off to make it a drinkable temperature, but also involves a bit of skill. Essentially, you pour the tea into glasses just about the size of a double shot glass and pour it back and forth between two or three glasses. While pouring (some show off and pour it from high distances) you create a foamy top (so the glass is half tea, half foam) and the more foam you can make, the better/cooler you are. Generally the men make attaya, but I’ve tried a few times and the pouring is a lot harder than it seems. My family doesn’t drink it that often, but many families drink it after lunch and sometimes dinner. It is also the go-to activity if you have guests. 

Other things that are new in my daily life: 

I filter my water with a charcoal filter (provided by PC) and add 3 drops of bleach per liter after filtering. Sometimes I forget the bleach, but the charcoal filter purifies of everything but amoebas... so keeping my fingers crossed (and training my stomach). I’ve had my first bought of mild stomach issues this past home-stay, not fun at all, but I can pretty much pin-point the cause to random garage food I ate, so now I’m just being a bit more careful about where I buy my food from (though really, having some stomach issues is unavoidable here). 

I sleep under a mosquito net every night, which I am religious about not only to avoid malaria, but because it is the perfect security screen from anything that may possibly get at me at night. I’ve heard of mosquito nets as (at least preliminary) safeguards from scorpions, snakes and mice, all of which are things I’d like to avoid getting waken up by. 

Other than that, I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading and sitting. Not to generalize, but the Senegalese love sitting! And they love asking you what you’re doing when you’re obviously doing it... “Are you sitting?” is a common question. As annoying as these type of questions are, they are a nice reinforcement of my limited Pulaar. 

I did go to Saly recently, a toursity beach resort area mostly visited by European tourists. It honestly reminded me of the waterfront cafes in Nafplio, Greece. In other words, if you’re looking for a beach getaway, come visit me here! It’s gorgeous. 

Pictures coming soon, internet permitting. 

Volunteer Visit

I am back from my first journey to my new home! The trek up to the Matam region is a bit long, but it was great to finally see where I’ll be living. The north of Senegal is notoriously hot, but luckily it’s dry heat- something my California blood can handle. It was around 90 F the past few days, and can get up to 130 in the hot season. It took us around 9 hours to drive all the way from Thies to Ouro Sogui, but that was in the Peace Corps car, and by public transport will take more along the lines of 12-15 hours... yes, it’s a bit far. Luckily we have a great PC apartment in Ouro Sogui, which is where we spent the first night of our volunteer visit. The current volunteers in the area made us an excellent mexican food feast and Ghirardelli brownies.
I headed to my village, Sedo Abas, the next day with the volunteer I am replacing. It’s an interesting situation because she is moving to Ouro Sogui after a year to take on a different positions, so she’ll be near by if/when I’ll need help at the village. Sedo Abas is around 30 km from Ouro Sogui and we got there by bus, which took about an hour. My room is really nice, they just finished it for the previous volunteer-- it’s a freestanding room with latrine/washing area inside. My compound has 5 buildings, 2 for my family, 2 for other families and my room. My father is the village chief, has 4 wives but only 2 live with us and an un-countable amount of children, but about 10 of them live with us. I managed to keep my training Senegalese name, Hawa, permanently and my new family’s last name is Sall. Yes, I am now loosely related to the new Senegalese president (though really, as my host-dad has explained many times, everyone is related. And it’s true. Many people marry their cousin). We have around 30 cows, and comparable flocks of chickens and sheep. However, these are all just for show/status symbols. One of the cows hangs out on the front porch all the time.. and he has horns that are about 2 feet long (each). It’s such a bizarre sight.
I met my counterparts on my visit- the president of the women’s groups and the school director. They’re all pretty excited to start some gardens, so I’m pretty set to have a project after the hot season.
After a full day at village, the next day I headed to the regional house in Ndioum with the other new and current volunteers. We hung out there that night and headed back to Thies the next morning.
Now we’re heading back to our training homestay, so I’ll be in Ngeexoox for the next 10 days.

We've been here for one month already?!

Back from 2 weeks in Ngeexoox, crazily my time actually flew by. Also, cannot believe I’ve been here for a month. It hardly feels like it because we’ve been all over the place and our days are packed with training/language class.

Realistically, we didn’t do too much over the past 2 weeks. We have language class in the morning at 9:30 after a breakfast of instant coffee and baguette or bignets (if my mom was selling them the night before). At 11:30 we go buy snacks at the bitik nearby to hold us over until lunch. A bitik (boutique, but re-spelled into Wolof) is a kiosk-type store that has food-items (anything from powdered milk to food flavoring to yogurt-- either pre-packaged or in small tied off plastic bags) and random household needs items (washing powder, etc). Language class ends by 1 so we can all get back to our houses for lunch around 2 (mine is anywhere between 2 and 3:30). Lunch is always a variation of rice and fish in a community bowl. The seasonings all have MSG so it tastes good, but I’m really missing my daily dose of veggies and protein (1-2 fish for about 10 people... I get a few bites of fish each lunch). I’ve been supplementing my diet with fruits from the market and some peanut butter (they sell it in plastic bags at the market for sauces, I just squeeze it out on bananas or cookies.. kind of inconvenient packaging, but it’s natural PB- my favorite). In the afternoons we head over to our garden and water. We’ve transplanted tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and onions, in addition to seeding a bunch of veggies and trees. After the initial work of making the garden beds and compost, we don’t have a lot of work to do in it anymore other than water, so we often head over to someones house to practice Pulaar or just play cards or Bananagrams.
I get home before nightfall and hang out with the family, who is always watching TV. While conversation is sparse during this time (and there’s only one common room, so I either sit with the family and watch tv or be anti-social in my own room) I’ve turned watching ‘random soap operas from all over the world dubbed into French’ into productive French-study time. The TV programming here is pretty awful, but the daily morning Disney is pretty great (despite the fact they’ve already played Ratatouille 3 times).
We have dinner around 9 or so (as late as 10:30 one night..) and it’s generally milk and cous-cous... which I’ve nicknamed milky sand. Definitely not my favorite thing, but it’s kind of like bran cereal and at least I’m getting milk (I’m not thinking about how it’s reconstituted with non-treated water). Though 3 times we’ve had this great salad platter with caramelized onions, potatoes and hard-boiled eggs that you eat with baguette. Definitely one of my favorite dishes so far. Getting to sleep at my house is a nightmare, it is always loud outside my room. If it’s not chanting from a nearby brotherhood, it’s Top 40 blaring... neither monotonous prayers nor Rihanna at full volume are easy to fall asleep to, and I have to put my iPod at 80% volume to try to cover the noise. Luckily I’ve been exhausted for many nights so I’ve only been laying awake a few times. We’ve all been affected by crazy vivid dreams due to our malaria med- Mefloquine, but other than that, and possible limited short term memory, I don’t seem to have any of the other crazy side effects (unless I’m forgetting them all..).
Back at the training center we’ve had more full days of training. We had our first language exam to gauge our progress, I’m currently at a “novice-high” in Pulaar. We have to get “intermediate-mid” to finish training, and still have 2 more exams/one more month to get to this level. I’m feeling more and more comfortable in Pulaar and mastering the random consonant changes (F turns to P, or W to MB from singular verb to plural conjugation.... yeah). I still can’t believe I’ll be using it as my primary form of communication, but I know it will all just take time. It’s an interesting language because there are a lot of verbs. There’s a different verb for eating breakfast, lunch and dinner... in addition to “to eat”. However, there is no distinction between “to study” “to read” or “to learn”. Also, some terms are just great, the traditional term for fruit is “bibbe ledde” or “children of the tree”, though many people simply use “fruwta” colloquially.

One of the days in Ngeexoox we headed to Mbur, the next town over, to go to the beach. It was absolutely amazing and gorgeous, I can see why Senegal is a getaway for the French, like Mexico is to Americans. I’m very pleased that I’m on a coastal country so I can get away to a beach if/when I need it.

Other than that, I find out where my permanent site is on Tuesday! I cannot wait to find out my home for the next 2 years.

Also, mail is nice.. ahem :) My address is:
PCT Alicia Gorecki
Corps de la Paix
B.P. 299
Thies, Senegal
West Africa

Cultural Confusion

Yesterday we returned from our first home stay. I am staying with a family in Ngeexoox (pronounced N-Geh-Hoh), who will be my cultural and language immersion for the next 2 months. My family consists of my father, 2 mothers (polygamy is very common in Senegal---sidenote: I am very interested to learn how these household dynamics work), my grandma (on father’s side) and 4 children. I haven’t clarified ages concretely, but sisters probably 10 and 5, and brothers around 9 and 1. My Senegalese name is Hawa, and my family is Sy. It is common for the Senegalese to give you a new name, and it is after someone in the family. Slightly unfortunately, mine is after my younger sister... who they call to do everything in the house. I’m still training myself to respond to Hawa, but it’s hard because I have to respond to a specific intonation as well (not the piercing get-over-here tone my sister gets). An additional hindrance to this whole new language/name situation is that “Alaa” is the Pular word for “no”, which you hear often in a household of children... And Ala is my Polish nickname/what my family calls me/what I’ve been responding to my entire life... so on top of the communication barrier, there’s that whole confusion. My father speaks a bit of French and English, so when I really need to say something I’m able to get my point across. One of my moms speaks French and English very well, but she doesn’t speak Pulaar so I’m “not supposed” to talk to her because I can’t practice language. My other mom is Pulaar, and she is the home-maker (the other one works) so luckily she is around the house the most. It’s an interesting dynamic because I’m probably closer in age to her than the children, but she’s a caring woman and we have definitely gotten along. My grandma is is always laughing at me, but she always uses Pulaar so she’s very helpful to learn from.

The greeting, a very important part of the Senegalese culture, is all we’ve really mastered in language classes thus far, and I’m still learning new questions/responses in this process every day. Every morning I am to greet all family members in the house, especially my grandma. I go to her room, shake her hand, and greet her. I don’t always understand what she says, but usually saying “mawdum” (good) or “alhumdulila” (praise god) does the trick.

On Sunday my next door neighbors had a baptism, so the night before and morning of, everything was abuzz with preparations. It was an interesting experience, everyone was dressed so nicely in their formal African complets, sitting around and eating delicious food. The dancing was good fun, they taught me how to do a few of their moves.

The food at the homestay has been quite different from the food we’ve had at the training center. Lunch is definitely the largest/most elaborate meal of the day, and is similar to what we have at the training center-- community bowl of rice, veggies and fish. The hardest part is eating dinner at around 9:30, and it’s usually a random combination of grains/wheat and milk and possible sugar.

Sanitation is definitely the biggest issue at my home stay. Soap is nowhere to be found in the compound. Everything is rinsed with water (non-sanitized). Washing occurs via bucket bath. Flies are EVERYWHERE. There is a lot of adjustment.

Our time at home stay time is primarily spent at language classes and practicing our gardening skills. There are 3 of us in my language group, and we spend a lot of time together learning and gardening.. but we’ve had a lot of fun so far.

I’m off for another 2 weeks to my home stay. Election runoffs are this weekend, hopefully things remain peaceful in-country.

First week of training

It's been less than a week since our staging group met in DC, but it seems like forever ago. So much has changed, not only geographically, but in terms of relationships with these people and my mindset towards the next two years.
Staging in DC on Monday was really just a means of organizing and "meeting" half of the group, nothing significant in terms of things we haven't heard before from Peace Corps. We flew out Tuesday at 5:40 pm and landed in Dakar, Senegal at 6:10 am the next day. Between 2 time changes within a few days, I didn't sleep at all and was pretty delirious upon arrival. We took a PC bus to our training center in Thies, about 2 hours away from Dakar. As we pull into the training center, a group of locals is dancing in the courtyard, welcoming us. The first day is a bit of a blur, I snuck a few naps in but was mostly dozing during our sessions. The next few days were more Safety and Security sessions, technical information, language and med interviews, Survival Wolof (the main language in Senegal), etc. The most exciting thing we did didn’t happen until Saturday, when they finally let us out of the training compound and into the city. We were all ready to get out and explore after 3 full days in the center, but I’m sure trying to let out a group of 60 government ‘agents’ without full Safety and Security briefing must be a bureaucratic nightmare. We were supervised by current volunteers, which was a good introduction to get a feel for the city. It was my first time in a developing country/city, and I didn’t have anything specific in mind, but it was definitely still a bit of a shock. Most obvious: so much trash! Everywhere. My first instinct was to just start picking it up, cleaning.. but it was everywhere. It was also a bit jarring to be stared at, yelled ‘toubab’ (foreigner), and have kids run up to you with outstretched hands (they assume all white people are rich). However, I am pretty excited to get used to this and become a part of it.

As far as training goes otherwise, we have sessions all day from 8:15 to 5:30, with lunch and breaks throughout the day. Lunch is a traditional bowl meal, where 4-6 of us sit around a large bowl of traditional Senegalese food. Mainly rice with veggies and some sort of meat or beans. I really enjoy it, and it’s a great experience to share a large bowl of food with many others. Dinner is generally more “American” with salad, fries and meat or bean type dishes. Also very good, though it’s hard to adjust to eating around 8pm.

We’re starting our “Community-Based Training” (CBT) on Wednesday, where we starting living with our training home-stay families. I just found out I’ll be learning Pulaar du Nord, so I’ll be living with a family that speaks that dialect of Pulaar and try to learn the language and culture through experience, in addition to the language classes we’ll have throughout the day. I’m pretty excited to be learning Pulaar du Nord, while it is a specific dialect, I’m told if you know one dialect you can understand all of the others of Pulaar. And Pulaar is used through many West African countries, providing me an excellent linguistic foundation if I do chose to do further work in Africa in the future. Also, it gives me a better idea of where I’ll be, geographically, for my 2-year site. I’ll definitely be in the northern region of the country, which while that still leaves a huge possibility of where I’ll be, is a bit more specific than those who are learning Wolof.

Overall, everything is going well and flying by. I can’t believe it’ll be almost a week soon, yet I can barely place myself back in the US as well. I’ll write again soon, once I’ve finished my first homestay experience in a week or so, where I’ll have some legit cultural experiences to report back about.

-A

Departure: 15 days

Welcome Friends, Family and Random web-perusers:

As many of you may know, I am soon leaving for a 27 month adventure with the Peace Corps in Senegal. I'm starting this blog to avoid spamming an e-mail list with updates, letting you check in as you please, and leaving me free to post as often as I like (i.e. as often as I'll actually have internet access). Feel free use this as communication as well as information, leave comments and love, ask questions, just say hi.. Every from-home interaction will be much appreciated!

Current itinerary: I'm flying out to DC March 3, orientation starts March 5, and flying to Senegal on the 6th. I'll have 2 months of pre-service training, and then I'll be assigned to my site for the following 2 years. I'll be an "Environmental Education Agent", but as for the specifics of what I'll actually be doing, there are many possibilities so I'll have to fill you in once I get there. All I know so far is I'll probably be living in a hut, eating lots of millet, and riding a bike.

I am so excited to start this new adventure, and even more so to share it with you all. Hope you enjoy the updates, thanks in advance for keeping up with what I'm doing!

-A