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.