If you haven’t already, read the introduction to this article here. I am not a stranger to the ailments that plague foreigners in the developing world. There was the rather unfortunate encounter with tap water in Egypt, and the never-ending bout of Giardia that I contracted in Poland. But I have never been sick as severely and as often as I have been here in Senegal. My first couple months at site in... more

To read the rest of this blog post and to view the pictures please go to my new website

New website=awesomeness. Seriously.

It’s been brought to my attention lately that I haven’t been being completely honest. This blog is a collection of stories and anecdotes about my time so far with the Peace Corps, but I have chosen to omit quite a bit. You see, I’ve been sugarcoating the truth. Only telling bits and pieces of what my life is actually like here. If you were to read through my posts you would probably get the impression that... more

To read the rest of this blog post and to view the pictures please go to my new website

New website=awesomeness. Seriously.

My shoe broke today. Serendipitously it broke as a tripped into my neighborhood boutique (the Senegalese equivalent of a general store). Since I didn’t want to walk back all the way to my house with one bare foot, I decided to buy a pair of cheap Chinese manufactured (read–low quality) flip flops. Since just one of my shoes broke, I just replaced the one broken shoe with a new shoe, instead of putting... more

To read the rest of this blog post and to view the pictures please go to my new website

New website=awesomeness. Seriously.

The water situation in my family compound has been rapidly deteriorating since the end of the cold season. The combination of last-6-inches-of-the-well-dirty water and an invasion by swimming ants has rendered the water in our well unusable for anything except washing the goat poop off the bottom of my Chacos sandals. Since I am far too cheap to pay for water from the neighborhood robinet (water tap), I have been relying on my good looks and mad Pulaar skills to sweet talk the neighbors into letting me pull water from their wells—really anyone will let me pull water, they just want to laugh at the white girl while she attempts to carry 10 liters of water in a bucket on top of her head.

The other day, I was with my sister at our neighbor’s compound pulling water for laundry, when I noticed something floating in the water. Confused, I called my sister over and asked her what it was. Unsure herself, she took the bucket and string from me and with a flick of her wrist was able to coax the mysterious object into the bucket. We pulled the bucket out, and to our surprise inside was a 6 inch long dead fish. Yes, a very very dead fish.

Now, let me explain how weird this was. First, fish do not live in wells. And second, no Senegalese person would ever throw a fish down a well—especially a big one (they would eat it). I kept asking my sister and my neighbors how a fish got into the well, but no one seemed to have any idea. So, how does a dead fish get into a well? And more importantly, how long has it been in there? I’ve been using that water to drink and bathe with… maybe I should just pay the 5 cents to get water from the public robinet.

Thirsty?

No TV.  No Internet. What’s a girl in West Africa to do?  Read! 

The following is a list of the books I have read/am reading.  And I will continue to add to it during my service.  If you have a book you loved, tell me, chances are we have it in one of the Peace Corps regional house libraries and I can read it.  Then we can write letters back and forth about the book (or skype).  It will be like Oprah’s book club.  Only better.

Three Cups of Tea – by Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin
The Kite Runner – by Khaled Hosseini
Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff – by Christopher Moore
The Virgin Blue – by Tracy Chevalier
Reading Lolita in Terhan – by Azar Nafisi
Eat, Pray, Love – by Elizabeth Gilbert
Mountains Beyond Mountains – by Tracy Kidder
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa – by Nicholas Drayson (recommended and sent by Danni)
A Year in Provence - Peter Mayle
The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman
Tears of the Giraffe - Alexander McCall Smith (recommended and sent by Barbara)
The Places in Between - Rory Stewart

 

Every morning I open my front door to a neat pile of fresh yellow-green mangos on my front step.  Almost like breakfast-in-bed, Senegalese style.

My youngest brother, Abibou and nephew, Jiby (both around 12 years old) are harboring huge crushes on me, and have been in competition for my attention for the past few months.  For awhile they would fight over who would get to pull my water from the well, or find a plastic chair for me to sit in, or who could keep the small kids away from me when I am reading.  But last week, they saw me eating a mango and concluded that I must love mangos.

It is Abibou and Jiby’s job to climb the mango trees in our yard and shake down the mangos, or to use a huge stick to knock a ripe mango down to the ground.  And every time they do this, they save the biggest and best mangos for me.  If I am around, they make a big show out of handing them to me (and I make a big show out of telling them thank you).  Or if I am in my hut or away working in town, they leave them in a nice pile in front of my door.  They are in a feud to see who can pick me the most big and ripe  mangos, and I am content to let them fight, as long as they keep the mangos coming…

Little Sannu, enjoying a mango

Abibou picking mangos for me

Greetings are very important in Senegalese society.  It is no wonder it takes me me so long to do anything, when I have to preface every interaction with five minutes worth of greeting exchange.  Did you sleep in peace? Did you spend the morning/afternoon/day in peace?  How is is going?  Are you healthy?  And your family?  Your husband/wife? Your children? Your children’s children? Your work? Peace only. Whew.

One evening I has hanging out at the boutique (the Senegalese answer to a general store) with my neighborhood posse of  late teens/early twenties girlfriends.  We were chatting about music, dancing, and boys when the topic of “jaay-fondé” which is the Wolof word for big butt, came up.  After a lengthy debate the girls decided that I had the biggest butt.  BTW this is a compliment in Senegal, they like big butts here.  I tried to explain that my butt is actually quite normal sized and that people like Beyonce and J-Lo had much bigger and better butts than I did.  They would hear nothing of it.  Despite it’s quite ordinary size and shape my butt was declared the biggest and best in the neighborhood.

The result of this declaration?  Every time I greet any teenage girl (and some older women)  in my neighborhood they ask about my jaay-fondé.  The conversation goes something a bit like this…

Me: A Jaarama. (Hello)
Them: A Jaarama. 
Me: Tan alaa. (No evil)
Them: Jam Tun. Tan alaa ton? (Peace only. No evil there?)
Me: Jam Tun.  No marsude? (Peace only.  How’s it going?)
Them: Seeda seeda.  (Little little)
Me: Bengure ma wadi? (How’s your family?)
Them: Hibe en jam. E jaay-fondé ma wadi? (They are in peace. And how’s your big butt?)
Me: eeerrr himo en jam…? (eeerrr its in peace…?)

Needless to say, this is not a very traditional pattern of greeting.  And it has led to quite a few embarrassing moments, the first occurred in front of my Senegalese grandmother.  The second at the market, when greetings were exchanged at a yell across the vegetable stalls and practically everyone heard… and then stared at my big butt.  Awkward.

The West African Softball Tournament (WAIST). It happens once a year. Every February Peace Corps volunteers and American Ex-pats from around West Africa converge on Dakar for a weekend filled with American-style food, drink, dancing, and general debauchery. Oh and there is a softball tournament.

The regions of Tambacounda and Kedougou combined to form a single softball team. As a team we decided that our costumes were more important than actually being able to play softball. We picked Peace Corps B.C. (P.C.B.C.) as our theme which meant lots of ripped clothes, scraggly beards and various animal bones and teeth used as jewelry. We didn’t win a single game… but then again we did forfeit at the beginning of every game so that we could bat with a giant club (a la the Flintstones). We also called “timeouts” which was code for “dance party on the pitcher’s mound.”

The nights were filled with parties at clubs around Dakar. This was perhaps the one weekend all year, where us volunteers could live and act like Americans. It was wonderful. WAIST is talked up a lot in Peace Corps circles, and I have to admit it lived up to all the hype. I had the time of my life.

 
Great fielding (notice the beers in their hands)

My “uniform”

 
Pre-game warmup

We interrupt your regular programming to bring you the Africa Cup of Nations…

The women in my household have been cranky over the past couple of weeks.  Their favorite soap opera Marina (a Mexican telenovela dubbed in French) was bumped from its primetime slot by the Africa Cup football (soccer) matches.

Every afternoon and every evening all the men (and a couple young girls) gather around my family’s tiny TV to watch and cheer on their favorite team (Senegal didn’t qualify, so everyone picked different teams).  And it wasn’t just my family.  Every single household in Kedougou brought out their little TVs or radios to watch and listen to the games.

When 20,000 people are all watching the exact same sporting event on TV it is almost like being at the actual match.  You can take a walk down the road and still follow the match because the commentary is blasting in stereo from everyone’s house. The whoops and screams echo throughout the neighborhoods when a team scores a goal.  And if you aren’t by a television when the cheers erupt, you rush to find one to catch the instant replay.

I am not exactly a sports fan, but I enjoyed watching the games with my family.  Although, I have to admit, I am ready for Marina to come back on.  I really want to know if Marina and Ricardo end up together…

On average I would say I spend at least half of every day in a state of utter confusion.  While my Pular skills have improved massively since install—I am still in “survival” mode every time I have a simple conversation.  A couple months ago a fellow volunteer, KC, posted some sample conversations which I think do a great job of conveying the utter confusion we volunteers face on a daily basis.  Inspired by her, what follows is a quick example from this week—translated for you from Pular to literal English.

Scene: A Saturday afternoon.  I have just returned from the market and sit in a chair in the middle of my family compound  next to my two younger sisters, Adja (18) and Rokhaya (16).  Sannu my baby nephew plays nearby.

Me:  “The sun is hot today”
Rokhaya: “Yes, the sun is very hot today.”
--Long awkward silence--
My aunt walks by with her newborn baby.  Sannu bursts into tears for no obvious reason.
M: “Why him cry—errr—is he crying?”
R: “Because he is jealous.”
M: “Jeelloouusss?  I do not understand.”
R: “Hesawthebabaynowhewantsattentionbecausethebabyisgettinglotsofattention.  Do you understand now?”
M:  “No.  I do not understand".”
R:  “He. saw. new. baby. He. is. crying. because. he. is. jealous.”
M:  “Oh.  I think I understand.  He is crying because he is pregnant. (the Pular words for jealous and pregnant sound almost exactly the same).”
Adja: “Hahahaha say it again! Say it again!”
M:  “What?  What did I say?  No laugh.  I not make joke?”
A: “He is not pregnant, he is jealous.”
M:  “That’s what I said, pregnant.”
A: “No, jealous.  repeat.”
M: “j-e-a-l-o-u-s.”
R:  “Good.  That’s good!”
M:  Okay.  I understand.  So, Sannu is crying because he is pregnant.”

Sannu

It is really hard to be an “adult” here. What I mean by that is, I struggle with my limited language skills and constant cultural blunders to fit in with adults. The first hour is usually fine. We can talk about America or Senegal or my job, but beyond that there really isn’t much more I can say. The result of this is that I spend a lot of time with the “kids”. And the person I spend the most time with is my 8-year old niece, Fanta.

Fanta is the daughter of my oldest sister, Hãr (remember the brave one?). Fanta is my constant defender and protector. She yells at the kids who call me “toubab”. She keeps me filled in on the neighborhood gossip (did you know Ahmed’s dog had puppies?). And perhaps most importantly, she listens to me.

She doesn’t laugh at my accent or when I mispronounce something. And unlike other people who assume that I am stupid because I can’t express myself, she has an uncanny understanding of my frustration. When I get upset because I can't say something, she will smile, tilt her head, and say, “Mi andii Rokhaya, Pular no saatii.” (I know Rokhaya, Pular is hard.) “Hida waawii!” (You can do it!). And she patiently waits for me to figure out a way to say what I want to say.

It can be hard, waking up every morning, knowing I am going to be laughed at, mocked and misunderstood. I am going to make countless mistakes. I will unknowingly offend half a dozen people and possibly frustrate myself to the point of tears. But I am so grateful to have Fanta, who every day tells me how good I am doing and that I can “waawii”. I can only hope that I show others at least half the patience and kindness she has shown me.

Unfortunately my computer has been out of commission for the past couple of months. Hopefully I will have it fixed in February when I am up in Dakar. Uploading photos is next to impossible on the internet café computers, but if you would like to see some visuals of what my life is like here is Senegal you should check out my friend Kate’s flickr account at www.flickr.com/katepc

An impulse decision brought me to Dakar for New Years. Myself and a fellow new volunteer had plans to stay in Kedougou, but after a little convincing we joined a couple other volunteers for the trek up to Dakar. This is the first time I have left Kedougou since installing in October. Which is probably a bit too long to go without a Dakar-break.

Dakar is amazing (see previous post), but after being in Kedougou for three months, it seems like the promised land. So much food! And grocery stores with real isles! And I drank a latte! Sure is cost 6 dollars, but I drank a latte! I got a nice hotel room with a fellow volunteer and we watched TV! Sure the only channels in English were MTV and CNN, but I’m not complaining. It was amazing.

New Years was unbelievably fun. There were quite a few of my fellow volunteers from my stage in Dakar plus a lot of new faces. I couldn’t have imagined a better way to ring in the year 2010.

It is crazy to think that this will be my “Africa year”. An entire year spent in a different country, on a different continent. I’m not sure what 2010 has in store for me, but I’m ready! Bring it on!

PS – A huge thank-you to Dad and Debbie who funded this trip. I was able to really splurge (ie 6 dollar latte) and enjoy myself for a couple of days. Thanks!