Playing Catch Up

I have spent the last month or so at site and it, thank god, did not seem that long. Lately I have been getting out of site every two or three weeks because of an event or work function taking place and I am pretty sure my family thinks one of two things: 1) I am the typical American that has a lot of money and just travels all the time – not true except for the love to travel all the time or 2) they believe me when I tell them that I am leaving for work and they think I work all the time. Either way having some time apart keeps me sane, like most families I enjoy them more when I get breaks from them, and they don’t have a foreigner on their hands so we both win.

Trevon and I told Alexx back in September that we would help her with a week long fieldtrip at her site for the kids in Dakar that attend an international school; they are made up of kids who parents could be military (very few) or working for an organization be it governmental or not.  So we are in Palmarin this week staying at a lodge entertaining a group of 14-16 year olds. My tiny contribution in helping Alexx plan small events to keep the kids busy during idle times was to come up with a star gazing activity. I figured we could search for some constellations in the sky, point out some planets, and just take in how beautiful the sky is when you are out of the city. Of course this took some major research on my part since I don’t think I have actually studied the stars since the 8^th grade. It was a good review and I found out some very interesting facts! Did you know stars that have a bluish hue are hotter in surface temperature than those that give off a reddish hue; opposite than you would think? Also a shooting star is the visible path of a meteoroid entering the earths atmosphere and burning up resulting in the light; not a star at all! The best part of volunteering to help with the trip is that our lodging is on the beach and the school is paying for that and our meals. Sounds like a mini vacation to me. I will be sure to report more at the end of the week once they leave.

So I think by now you all know about my project with Waste Management, cleaning up Senegal one village at a time. I have been trying to get Amadou more involved in the books side of things with our organization so he can keep and analyze our records from a business point of view. I finally have him recording each deposit and withdraw transaction at the bank and also purchases we make (repairing our cart, buying donkey food, ect.) for the business. Before I left we actually totaled up the amount of money we should be earning each month if all of the households pay and, no surprise there, we are making less than it costs of the salary of our only employee. Well that is obviously not the business strategy that we were going for so we are going to have to refigure some things and gain new clients. This will be my main focus when I get back to site. We also want to start buying plastics from the community and selling it back to a company in Dakar that reuses it to make all sorts of plastic items from chairs to buckets, just another way for our organization to earn some money. I have a meeting with the plastics company in about a week or so, so hopefully that goes well and we can start the buying of the plastics.

A smaller side project that I have been in works with is a letter exchange program with a school in Minnesota with some students in a nearby village; the teacher, Mr. Ba, is starting an English club and wants my help to expand the program. The teacher that I am working with in the states has more than 200 hundred students so we are working on narrowing down the pool to less than 50 because there are nowhere near that many students here with enough English skills to communicate with a pen pal. Also, randomly, there is a teacher in England that contacted me looking for French speaking students to correspond with some students in her French club. I hope it all works out because it will be a pretty cool way for the students to interact with kids their own age and learn about a new culture.

Of course my day is filled with awkward moments but one of the more recent events that comes to mind is talking money with my host brother. I recently overheard him talking to potential renters about the price it would be to rent a room in the house and I was both amazed and appalled that he was charging me twice as much (I was also very excited that I knew what he was talking about since it was a mix in French and Pular). One minute I hear that I am like a part of the family and they would have no problem if I didn’t contribute anything to live there but then the next I am being charged like some foreigner that doesn’t know any better. So after much consideration, about five seconds, I decided to confront him about the money situation. It took me a couple of days to come up with enough nerve to ask him, and careful talks with Alexx ensuring me that I could do this, but once I did finally talk to him I felt a huge sense of relief.  My work partner came over, we had a meeting with him, my brother, and my mom and we sorted things out. He basically said that he doesn’t want me to feel like the family is taking advantage of me and that I could pay nothing and it would affect nothing (still trying to figure out why I pay rent then, urgh?). My new years resolution is to speak my mind more because I feel like things either happen to me or I witness things where after I look back on it I wish I would have said something, especially since it will give me a peaceful mind if I would just speak up. So I am working on it and I feel like I am doing a pretty good job thus far; 11 months left in order to ACTUALLY keep a resolution that I made.

Take care everyone, thanks for reading again its great to know that there are a few people that are following along with my adventures.

A Wedding Tale

I attended my very first Senegalese wedding this week and I must say it was one of the more interesting events that I have attended thus far. Amadou, my work partner, was very passionate that I come to his house and spend the entire day with his family to witness all of the different events that go along with a wedding; similar to in the states we have the ceremony, reception, opening of gifts, ect. And what wedding would you say that I was attending? Not Amadous, he already has two wives, it was his brother Ouseman to his second wife.

I arrived to their house on Sunday late morning sometime. The number of people at their house was more than usual as expected; there are at least four different families that live in his compound in which I can only piece together Amadous family and his brothers family, everyone else is somehow related but I have not figured exactly how yet. Everyone was either relaxing making tea, the men, cooking, the women, or watching tv and playing, the kids. I usually do a mix of the three things depending on who I want to sit and watch considering after the first five minutes my language skills are unbelievably more elementary than the first five.

Amadou and I went over to the brides house to see her all dressed up upon returning from the salon. Apparently day one of the events the bride has a majority of the festivities at her house before the men from the grooms side go to fetch her to bring her to the grooms house. She was very beautiful, in Senegalese standards, but was a little overdone in America standards. Nonetheless I admired how dressed up she was. She shed a few tears once she saw her family because her mom passed away when she was young and she wanted her to be here for her wedding day, understandable though that was explained to me later while originally I thought she was crying because she was marring a man twice her age. Oops.

We arrived back to Amadous house where the rest of the day was filled with eating and some more sitting, which is expected at this point for any Senegalese gathering. Wilma and Jordan arrived just in time to say hi, make an appearance, and be the perfect excuse for me to leave to go grab a beer. While I thought this was the end of the festivities for the day I was informed otherwise and promised to return after “grabbing dinner”, our code for beers, with the girls.

I got back and the dance was starting to get hip happenin’ and it was a great show to say the least. I definitely did not take part in the dancing only because their dancing is much, much, much different than what I am used to or know how to do. I have been known to bust a move in my day but I already draw enough attention to myself as it is by only being visible the last thing I wanted was to be even more in the spotlight, if that is even possible. I got some great video and was stopped from going home multiple times as Amadou promised that the bride was coming soon and I had to wait.

A couple of house later at least a dozen motorcycles came screeching down the street, by this time it was nearly 11pm. I ran into the middle of the road behind the wedding photographer to get a better shot but was quickly pushed to the side because Amadou was scared for my life. I didn’t actually think they were driving that fast considering they were a half of a mile away but as they drew closer I saw why Amadou was so concerned. Half of them were gaining so much speed it looked like they were going at max speed while others were doing doughnuts or something equally dangerous yet stunning.

The bride showed up in a small red car behind the cyclists and I was in awe. I was warned that she would be covered but they said in white so I pictured more of a translucent veil than a sheet like a ghost. Her head was down almost resembling someone in regret or sorrow. The car did a few circles as people jumped on it screaming in joy for her arrival.

An “Alham”, or a transportation van that is usually near the point of breaking down that carries about double in which it was intended for, arrived shortly after with her belongings and gifts from her family to the family of the groom. To make my life even more awkward, as she was led from the car to the house Amadou insisted that I take a picture with her as she is walking in with her closest family members. Not only is this girl in the middle of the biggest day of her life but she gets to share it with some white girl that she has never seen before, talk about new best friends (I cant wait to get a copy of the video to see just how much of a part of this strangers wedding I was, and its forever documented).

After ushering her in the house, everyone followed, the dancing continued, and her gifts were offered to the grooms mom. As far as I know she spent most of the rest of the night in someones room sitting on a bed with her friends and family, still fully covered, as people ate and danced in her honor. By this time it was almost midnight and I just had to go to sleep after being there for more than 12 hours. I vowed to return in the morning for more wedding rituals.

The elders were supposedly gathering around 10am to discuss family matters with the new member of the family and true to Senegalese fashion this did not happen until after lunch; you would think I would be used to this by now between here and Portagee time in Hawaii (love you Bird).

For the meeting with the elders it was a little more similar to wedding events that I am used to but still with a twist. The bride sat on a mat in the middle of the room on the floor still covered while others took a seat wherever there was room. I still can’t get used to the sight of the bride covered and I am sure I was staring more than one should but it’s just so strange that this is her normal for the next two days. As far as what was translated to me the elders, both men and women, spoke words of confidence and well wishes to the new bride as well as explaining the gifts that were brought from her family to her new husbands; items such as brooms to enable her to clean, cookware to feed her family, and you can just about imagine all of the other presents. Typical. One thing that surprised me with the whole more than one wife thing is equality of the wives. Men are only allowed to marry another women if they love her equally as the first, not more or less. This means if the husband buys his first wife a new outfit he must do the same for the second, if he gives money for food he must do the same for them both. Strange that there is equality amongst how the wives are treated but not how men and women are treated. Hmmm.

After the meeting I went home to shower and change, and any time I use this term it is very loose in the sense of showering and is referred to taking a bath with a bucket and cup. I took part in getting an outfit made of the same material as the women in Amadous compound but once I arrived I soon learned that it was the fabric of the event, dozens of women had the same material as I.

There was a band consisting of six or so different drummers, one of which was a man with fake dreds and Jordan and I were really nervous that they were going to fall out of his head but thank god they did not I could not even imagine how incredibly awkward that situation would have been. Women danced in a large circle while throwing cloths on each other, still not sure what that represents, while dozens sat around to watch the show. Since this was going on more than 24 hours of a party it ended fairly early, which I was not upset about.

This whole time the bride sat in a room, covered by a cloth, while others celebrated in her honor. Out of all of the brides that I have known back home I could not picture a one that would be ok with sitting on the sidelines as everyone else danced and had a good time. Though our cultures are very different, and I think I would prefer to be on the side of the American bride, I was more than grateful to be able to witness the events of the wedding. I will forever remember it and be grateful for how much work goes into planning one.

To: The Newlyweds

Good luck and may you have a thousand kids and an even longer happy life.

From: That one white girl at your wedding.

Women: strong, independent, inspiring

I have been living with the Barry family going on five months now and I can honestly say I have found my routine. I have figured out everyones personalities and have come to find everyone sort of predictable. My brother will forever annoy me, as brothers should I suppose, with his misinterpretation of the word privacy. His mother with her grandmother-like charisma and attitude towards life now as she gets to sit back and enjoy it more. His oldest daughter with her jokester type ways, always hiding behind corners trying to scare me, or race me down the street in which I never let her win. I am finally finding myself missing members of my family when I am away from site for a while which is something that volunteers say comes with time. My first couple of months here I would have never thought that I would find myself content with being at my house, away from other volunteers, and just living amongst my family. But I am. Just the other night I found myself teaching my little brothers, who are around twelve years old, about the stars and planets.

Random picture: My sister was so excited that
 I finally let her braid my hair! 

Side story; my uneducated mother pointed at Jupiter and told me it was not the same as the others. I am not sure if she was steering in the direction of the moon and comparing it to the other stars or if she recognized Jupiter as being different because of its glow but either way I was impressed. When I asked her how to she knew it was different she just pointed to her brain and said, “I know” with a little smirk on her face. It is entirely possible that I totally misunderstood her because we had this conversation in Pular but I don’t believe so. I love this woman. She is by far my favorite person in the house, with Mari (my brother’s wife) in close second. You know how grandmothers have that glow about them? She has this. She plays with her grandchildren all day. She walks around town visiting her friends. She cooks maybe once a week and when she does she looks about as proud of her accomplishment as I would have looked if I had said that I had made dinner.

The other day while Mari was preparing lunch we had one of our first significant conversations; usually she speaks to me in Pular to make me practice so our conversations don’t go much past where are you going or what are you cooking? I can’t recall how we got onto the topic but I somehow squeezed in questions concerning various topics such as how women react to men having multiple wives, women doing all of the housework, why they want so many children, the possibility of an education, and work outside of the home. Her answers mostly caused me a sense of sympathy for Senegalese women, and women in general that live in a society where they are repressed because of their gender. I know I have talked about this before but everyday I am forced to watch this smart, funny, intelligent woman sit home to cook, clean, and wait on her husband and children. I am not saying she is any less of a person for doing this but it’s the fact that she didn’t really have a choice in the matter that makes me sad for her. Sure they say they were not forced to get married at 15 years old and quit school to start having children. Sure one person may have not forced them but society certainly does. I guess I just wish that she finished school, maybe even went on to graduate from college, and from there if she wanted to start a family and stay at home then so be it; I think it’s great that there are children out there who are actually raised by either one or both of their parents. I just want more for her.

On the topic of marriage and multiple wives it seems women are split on the issue, some are for while others are against the idea. I have a feeling that a major reason why women are for the idea of having sister wives is that there are more hands around to help with all the chores. I would have to agree with them on that, who wouldn’t want someone doing laundry while you cook? Less work for you!

Though she never finished middle school Mari ensures me that she is going to go back to school and finish. This is something that we even hear a lot in the states but the truth of the matter is that it’s so much harder when you have the responsibilities of a family to finish school. I am not sure if she was just telling me that she would go back some day to humor me or because she actually wants to. But again, wanting to go back and being able to go back to graduate are two different things.

On a slightly different topic but still following the theme of gender inequality, I was talking with another volunteer in my stage, Lisa, just the other day about men and how entitled they feel in this society. A woman will raise her son and someday he will have more power in the house than her, the same woman who raised him and taught him all he knows about life and living. Just because he has a penis he is considered smarter, more worthy of an education, and more capable of running a household than a woman. Times are changing here and more and more women are finishing highschool, going on to higher education and landing great jobs but just like anything else there are still those people who are behind the curve and think women belong at home. It is really hard to sit back and watch as women are treated like second-class citizens but I think that’s why I get along with the women in this country more than I do men. I know I sound like a broken record right now but just bare with me. The Peace Corps also recognizes that in order to have a successful country all members of society need to be contributing members, men and women, which is why we work so much with womens groups. We help them become entrepreneurs and give them the training they need to be successful because once they are profitable the country can begin to be profitable. Women power! (Man oh man I should have been a Women Studies major. How interesting that would have been to learn about gender development over the years, but I can just hear it now, what kind of a job can you get with that besides teaching Women Studies?)

Thank you again fellow readers for reading on as I rant about how unfair life is. I am sure you all already know that and don’t need to read my blog for it to be reassured. Who knows maybe my work here will inspire me to work in civil rights or gender development?

Cheers.

Christmas Week and a Little Update

Good thing all of the thousands that read my blog don’t pay money for a subscription, otherwise you would be mighty upset with the time between this post and my last. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.

My last week was great! I had the chance to go to Dakar and stay in a fancy hotel for three nights with some of my best friends in my stage (training class). Our time was filled with air conditioning, amazing food (great sushi in Dakar, who knew?), laying by the pool, watching Christmas movies, exchanging Christmas gifts, and in my case sleeping three to a bed in search of a cheaper vacation. I am sure you have seen the pictures that I posted on Facebook so I am not going to go into too much detail but I received a hand woven little basket that now houses my jewelry along with a necklace and bracelet made of elephant tusks. Shout out to Marsha who was my secret Santa, great gift!! I was given the wonderful opportunity to get a secret Santa present for Trevon who just so happens to be the pickiest person I know, he might argue he just has great taste. You could just about imagine how much fun it was to shop for him and being my predictable self I waited until the day before I left site to try to find him something. He “non-chalently” told me on the phone one day that if I had him I could just get him a Pular hat. Acting about as sly as I could muster up I laughed it off and told him he wish I had him. So it was official, I now had to find a Pular hat for him. I know he wants one and I live in Pular country. What is a Pular hat you may ask? Well Pular is an ethnic group originating from Guinea but are all over Africa now. I am apart of this group as I learned Pula Futa during training, which is just one of the many dialects of the Pular group. The Pular people live in the south of Senegal, as do I, and are known to work in fields. They have this infamous almost Chinaman-like hat hand woven of wood used to keep the sun off them in the fields. You can find people wearing them everywhere down south and though they look a bit ridiculous the hats are great for protecting yourself from the sun. I ended up finding a man who makes them and he told me he could come up with something in the 24 hour deadline that I had before I left for Dakar. I was expecting something with brown or black leather but the artist was feeling fancy I guess because on the hat there was red, green, and yellow died leather. Oh well, it looked great and he loved it. Success.

Being away for Christmas is always hard but it makes me even more thankful for everyone that I left behind. I truly do have a great family, and I am not just talking about my immediate. I am fortunate to have people back home that care enough about me to Skype with me or send me care packages of all the things I am missing back home. Every day that I am here I am reminded, literally reminded by people telling me, that I am getting older, I need to get married and start a family. Though I do support people who make those decisions for their own lives it is not what I want, at least not right now, and I am thankful for a family who respects that. If I belonged to just one of hundreds of other cultures around the world I would not have the opportunity to further my education, travel, and have a career. Thank you family for being who you are, the loving, noisy yet ever so entertaining group that you are; this goes for both sides. It’s late but Merry Christmas, Joyeux Noël (French), and Ala Okuma Ko Moyi (Pular).

I am planning on staying in Velingara and spending the New Year with my family. I have been traveling a lot lately with the holidays and mandatory trainings and am honestly a little interested to see just how the Senegalese welcome the New Year. Omar, a friend of my brothers, said they kill a chicken, make salad and the kids light off fireworks. Besides the chicken part it sounds like a great time to me! Updates to come.

And as a side note I feel like I need to mention the latest intruder that I have found in my room. A toad. Or maybe it was a frog. Not really sure he was too hoppy for me to take a good look at him but he was less of a hassle to chase out of my room than the usual suspects so I am thankful for that.

And finally, as sort of a time filler and to help out my fellow volunteers I have been writing articles for our CED Newsletter (Community Economic Development, the program that I am in if you have been following along in past posts). None of the pieces are works of art but they are informative. The newsletters come out quarterly so it’s not too much of a commitment, which I like. I will start to post either my more interesting articles or the whole newsletter in case any of you feel like you don’t read enough about life on the big continent. Take care my fellow readers, thanks for taking time to see life through my eyes and until next time.

Spiderman & Batman

This last weekend I was in Tambacounda, only about two hours north east of me, for the annual Marathon for Girls Education. This was the second time that the marathon was held and I would consider it to be a huge success. There is a small entry fee, 1000 CFA that is the equivalent to about $2, and money earned both in fundraising and donations is given towards girls’ education in Senegal (scholarships, girls camps, youth groups and other empowerment activities).

This Awkward Chapter In A Story Called Life

There are things that everyone who lives abroad experiences; those awkward moments that occur because of a lack of complete comprehension of our cultural differences. The simplest form of this would be language. Sure you can study a language in school or visit somewhere and read Survival French on the plane but until you are truly fluent in a language awkward moments are a sure bet, and honestly even then can never really be totally dismissed.

Being a volunteer immersed in a culture where the interactions that I have with people are 80% of the time in a language different than either of our firsts there are bound to be moments that you walk away from saying, did I really just say that? A perfect example would be the other morning I was at the bank with Amadou, my wonderful work partner, and while leaving I said to the security guard “nous sommes fini,” which translates to "we are finished." I thought I was joking with him because we were at the bank all morning and I wanted to emphasize that me and my work partner were finally done with everything there so we were leaving. Though I said “we are finished” in the context it was interpreted as though "I am done being friends with you;" I should have said “nous avons fini.” On top of all of this he is related to my family in some long complicated way so adding to the awkwardness of telling the security guard at the bank that I see on a weekly basis that I no longer want to be friends with him, I get to see him when he visits my house. Don’t worry Amadou informed me of what I said after we left the bank and it was too late to correct my misspoken words and misinterpretation of the French language. Amadou just laughed but I continued on our walk home with a lack of excitement for the next time I see this security guard that is probably questioning what he did wrong.

Another perfect example; I was on my run the other morning and there was a donkey cart carrying fencing with a boy standing next to the donkey adjusting his harness. As I was approaching, I was preparing to pass the donkey cart on the right and thought nothing of it; cars pass these carts all the time. The cart started to move and, what looked like the boy getting ready to take off again, he started yelling something at me. With my headphones in I couldn’t quite hear what he was saying. Once the donkey started moving a bit quicker with the boy appearing to chase him and waving at me to go to the other side of the street I put two and two together; the donkey thought I was chasing it and with cart still connected started to run from what he thought was a threat. Just before passing the boy and cart I quick jumped to the other side of the road apologizing while continuing on my way. I let out a little laugh and shrugged my shoulders and the boy smiled. Who would have thought that’s its ok for cars that are ten times my size and weight to pass these animals without a problem should you come up to one on a run you should cross to the other side of the road out of respect.

My last example I wanted to share because it was an awkward moment that I actually benefited from. I went to the corner shop to buy laundry soap when I suddenly got a hankering for a bag of Crax Chips; comparable to Cheetos but not nearly as cheesy. Apparently Crax makes both a cheese and a sugary flavor of these puffs so I asked for the cheese kind. I shared a look of confusion with the boutique owner, who doesn’t speak much French, but didn’t think much of it. I paid him before I received my goods so when he turned around with my items I could no nothing other than accept the misunderstanding and continue on my way. What was this miscommunication you ask? I got my bag of puffs, which was the sweet kind that I hate, and a slice of Laughing Cow cheese that, unknown to man, never needs to be refrigerated. I secretly love Laughing Cow triangles but never buy them because I am not even sure that they made of. I gave the puffs to the kids and ate the cheese.

While in the moment it’s hard to think how these awkward situations are going to benefit me in the future but I know they will. Everything that I am doing in my life here is preparing me to live and appreciate life back home. I can’t imagine using these tricks very often but when the time comes to dismiss a relationship or dodge animals in the road I will be a pro. 

The Story About Dakar and Thanksgiving

I have been staying at the Dakar Regional House for the last week and it’s been both exciting and exhausting. Each region, the equivalent to states or counties I suppose, has a house or apartment that is served as a sanctuary for volunteers. These houses are managed and ran by volunteers. Since we are in a prominently Muslim country these houses act as sort of a refuge for allowing us to be American and not judged by the locals for our actions. With all of this being said though it leads to some memorable gatherings that, if you are not in the mood, can ruin a good nights sleep; it’s like freshman year in college all over again.

Our outfits from the closet!

All the volunteers that belong to the Dakar region decided to set a day to deep clean the house and vote on their WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament) costumes; a tournament put on by expats (expatriates- a population living abroad usually for work) each February as an excuse to drink alcohol and be American.  The house cleaning was very productive and the house looks more like a Goodwill store now than a dumpsite, which is good. There is always an allotted plot at each regional house where volunteers take and give their old clothing. Some things are so ridiculous and were hopefully only purchased to wear as a costume (tutu, glitter blazer with shoulder pads, track suit) but there are things that if you are willing to take the time to go through it makes a great addition to any wardrobe. At one point we had a party were everyone had to wear cloths from the closet and it was interesting to see the combinations; everything is more fun while wearing a ridiculous outfit. During the cleaning we found probably the equivalent to ten garbage bags of clothing in the closet. Nobody was willing to take the time to go through it to see if anything was salvageable so, for the sake of truly deep cleaning the house, everything had to go. We threw down some sheets in the front lawn dumped the clothes on in no particular order and got rid of everything; the locals were having a heyday. There were high school boys playing dress up in the girls’ cloths and little kids running and jumping in the piles, it was a lot of fun to watch.

Some volunteers at the Ambassadors house for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was hosted at the American Ambassador’s house, as he does every year. Last year the guest list was too large and some people came without bringing a side dish, the Ambassador provides the turkey, beer, and wine and the side dishes are up to the guests, so they ended up running out of food. With that being said this year the number of attendees was limited and I would guess that Peace Corps took up more than 80% of everyone. We were reminded, on several occasions, to act as though, well, we were not volunteers. We had to dress appropriately and not get too drunk. Drinking too much seemed damn near impossible considering the amount of food that we all ate; we have been on a rice and sauce diet for the last six months. Tables were set up in the back yard in the garden and poolside; at one point we were all freezing. Who would have ever thought that it would get cold enough to the point of goose bumps since we are sweating 90% of the day? If I had to guess it was about 75°F, so not cold but hey, temperature is relative.  After dinner we gathered around the piano and listened and sang to some classics like Elton John and a few newer hits like Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”. It was a memorable party and I was thankful to be able to spend it with everyone I care about here in country. Of course we all wish in a little way that we could be sitting at home on the couch, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and stealing bits of food as mom cooks but there will be time for that soon enough. I am glad to be here with my work and truly appreciative this adventure.

About a year ago I was hustling through a crowd at the Mall of America’s Best Buy trying to find an external hard drive at a mega discounted price and this year I will be sleeping in, eating a bean sandwich for breakfast and taking my $4 cab ride to the Artisanal Fair. This fair or expo, whatever you want to call it, is a chance for a group of artists that work with volunteers to showcase their products and sell them to the expat market. All the products are hand made in Senegal and offer a higher quality than the normal touristy products you find. Some of the artists that they work with ship their goods overseas and even a few are featured in stores like Pier One. Woven baskets, paintings, jewelry, wooden statues, and tapestries are a few of the things that you can expect to find. One little trick that the volunteers are teaching the artists is pricing, in a simpler form of course. They teach them that even though everyone sells a certain basket for a certain price does not mean your basket has to be the same price. Maybe you use better quality products to make your basket or it has features that you can’t find anywhere else? Your basket should cost more. It’s amazing how we take even the little things for granted such as knowledge. It takes some time to get used to not assuming that the things that I learned in high school are not common knowledge.

It is just about time to go back to site and I am both excited and dreading it. I love hanging out with volunteers, watching movies and making fancy dinners but I have to remember that that is not why I am here. At this point I am just waiting for mandat (our monthly living stipend that includes money for food, housing, transportation and walk-around) to get deposited into my account so that I can get back to site. We usually get “paid” around the 23^rd of each month and it’s the 25^th and I don’t have a penny to my name. So in summary I am stuck in Dakar until I get paid so that I have enough money to buy my bus/car ticket back to site. Boo.

Between IST and Thanksgiving I have spent the last three weeks with my fellow volunteers and it has been a great time. Dakar and Thies are so different than the Senegal that I know and live in it’s a good escape. They have malls here, fancy hotels, pet stores, grocery stores with actual carts and air conditioning. It’s like a different world, but the world that I am used to and love. Someday America we will be reunited but until then, peace.

An Election and IST

Elections snuck up on me this year, per usual, but I did remember to send in my absentee ballot a few months ago. I was studying abroad just before the last election and was confronted with the same scenarios this time around in Senegal as I was in France.

People are more informed about American politics than I would have assumed but the information that they have is either reverberated back, not actually understood on a conceptual level, or only a part of the picture. A majority of the people that I spoke with about the elections, with the conversation always being brought up on their end, seem to favor Obama but there are the few, like my host brother, who were all about Romney. Either way my election night was spent at the Tambacounda Regional House since I had to be in Thies the following day for IST (In Service Training); I live a good ten hours away from Thies so I thought it would be wise to get a head start. The polls were still open in the west coast when I went to bed but I woke up with Obama being favored to be re-elected, yay! Now I have to insert a line or two as to why I voted for Obama to prove that I voted for him for other reasons than the color of his skin or good looks; 1) his position on gay marriage 2) his position on abortion 3) his support for a national healthcare system and 4) I think that four years is not long enough to be productive. That being said we will see what we can do in the next four years; I say we because he does not pass or reject laws, he works with a large number of politicians all starting at the local level.

Diane, Anthony, and I left for the garage at 6am to meet up with Jenn, the usual crew because we are all coming from about as far south as you can get and transportation is never fun, let alone by yourself. This trip was going to be a little bit different than the usual trip up north; we were also transporting a puppy! I thought this was a great thing while the other travelers were not so enthusiastic. We were not able to leave the garage right away upon our arrival because there was still 3 spaces left in the car in front of us that was Thies-bound and we needed three more people to fill our car. Instead of using common sense and combining the cars we were forced to wait until the first car filled up and then ours to leave. We were more than a little impatient after waiting for about three hours and not moving so we bought the three remaining seats with the hope to pick up people along the way. We were off. The car ride was pretty smooth since we were all able to stretch out a little bit since the car was only about half full. Puppy, still nameless, slept for the first hour of the 7 hour trip; its hard keeping a puppy confined to a small box while on a road trip, he was restless to say the least. Since nobody wanted to take responsibility for this dog, Jenn found it outside and another volunteer up north said she would take it; I took on the responsibility of ensuring that he was properly taken care of during our road trip. Senegalese almost never consider animals as pets, they see it as wasting valuable resources and time on something that could go towards a human life and with this being said our driver was very confused why I was treating this dog better than some people treat their kids. He would pee in his dirt lined box that was acting as more of a litter box than a bed, we would take him on small walks during our pit stops and when he was getting REALLY restless I would feed him more milk in hopes that he would go into a food coma. We were unable to find locals along the way so we picked up the three other volunteers that lived off the main road along our trip. Our trip started out with four Americans and a dog and ended with the car full of us Peace Corps volunteers, with our dog, our driver was having a great time I am sure. As much fun as I had with our new little friend 8 hours or so was plenty of time to spend with him on my lap in a box, I was excited to get back to the training center.

We are back at the training center for IST; I am beginning to feel like I never left. During this ten-day period we have sessions such as Grant Writing, Reporting Statistics to the Peace Corps, Focus Groups (in each of our areas such as Waste Management), and Monitoring and Evaluation. All of these sessions should help us once we get back to site be more effective with our projects. There are so many things that I am learning here and its making me excited and nervous about my project at the same time. There are things we are doing right (having a motivational team, proper bookkeeping attempts, connections with the right people in the community) and things that we could use some guidance on (we are charging half of what we should, we don’t have enough workers, we need a sorting site) with one thing getting in the way; funding. There are so many International NGO’s (non-government organizations) that come to underdeveloped countries and just dump money thinking they are helping solve a problem of lack of money when in reality one of the main problems besides money is a lack of knowledge and dumping money does not create sustainability for these countries to be able to survive once the rich people go back home. I am torn on all the small details right now that can either make or break our business and after consulting with some volunteers who are working with similar projects I think I have figured out that I need to not be afraid to fail and while using my learned skills and background experiences I should just go with what I think is right. We are only charging 550CFA a month for our services when other towns nearby are charging 1000CFA. Our customers buy our trashcans while other villages rent them out to have collateral in case households don’t pay. We have one small cart with walls while others have found success in stacking the waste in rice sacks on flatbed type carts. I have one full time employee now (the other quite to work in his field) while others find it easier to work with two part time employees in case time off is ever needed. These are just some of the things that are stumping me at the moment that I need some advice on if anyone wants to put in their two cents.

Thanksgiving is coming up and since I was already 9/10ths of the way to Dakar I am heading to the big city for the holiday. The Ambassador has a party for Americans in Senegal each year, which I hear is a smashing time. Everyone gets dressed up, drinks fancy American drinks that you could only dream of at site and eats little appetizers that I can’t even imagine what they would be right now because it seems like forever ago that I had real food! Usually only volunteers belonging to the Region of Dakar are invited to the party but since I am already pretty much in Dakar I requested to get on the list and we will cross our fingers that when I show up they let me in.

So in summary life right now is pretty good. Classes can get long and seemingly tedious sometimes but I am eating a lot better than at site, I get to play with a puppy all day and I am reunited with all my friends. It’s just like PST all over again; movie nights, happy hours at Church (the name for the bar and since Muslims don’t drink they name the bar after our place of worship) and long walks on the beach. Ok I made that last part up there is no beach.

A Party and a Funeral

The most prevalent holiday of the year; sheep are sacrificed, the finest cloths are worn, and the day is passed by eating and lying around, the usual I suppose. When asked what this holiday represented, what exactly was being celebrated, I was faced with responses of “it’s the holiday of Tabaski”. I had figured out that much on my own but was left with googling the actual meaning of the holiday.

With a quick search on my favorite website, which just so happens to also be my future employer, a girl can dream can’t she, I found out that Tabaski is “the celebration of willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God, before God intervened to provide him with a sheep to sacrifice instead.”

The festivities began the night before the actual holiday when I went with Mari, her sister-in-law and a handful of kids to the market to buy some last minute items for the big party; shoes, vegetables, perfume and holiday attire to list a few. Upon arriving at the market I was thoroughly surprised just by how much the market quickly turned from women casually strolling to buy supplies to buy lunch to a every man for himself free for all, apparently all of Velingara. Roaming the dirt roads were the usual last minute shoppers, vendors with various marked up goods, women manning food tables to feed all the vultures, and kids looking to most likely start trouble. I kept a pretty low profile and shuffled from merchant to trader behind Mari and co. hoping to get as little toubob, loosely translated as westener or white person, remarks as possible. The highlight of my evening, besides the obvious of carrying children or shopping bags, was eating my bean and pea sandwich. They are amazing and after seeing it in writing and how unappealing it sounds you are just going to have to take my word for it.  They are bomb. We returned home just after ten just in time for my overdue bedtime.

Nene grilling the liver... yum

I awoke the next morning excited for the day. My first Tabiski, so many unknowns and firsts were going to happen today, this is what drives me. I just think about some of the not so glamorous jobs that I had in the states to get me to where I am today, living abroad, experiencing new cultures first hand and here it was. I quickly shuffled to the same park where the Korité service was held, my family apparently either forgot me or thought that I wasn’t coming. Being the only white person at the park, and showing up after service started, my family was easily able to spot me and grab me before I started wondering aimlessly for too long. I took a couple of pictures of friends and neighbors and realized just how comforting it was sitting next all these familiar faces; it felt like home almost. Amadou, the work partner, quickly sent over someone to steal my camera so that he could take pictures of all the action up front where women were not allowed to sit. Come to find out later the “action” was slitting the neck of a sheep; I could have probably done without documenting that. Service, I use this word loosely to describe prayer and preaching on behalf of a couple of the religious leaders in the community, was quick and painless and we were off before I knew it. Our walk back was rerouted to the long way home stopping at houses of family members and close friends to say hi, wish them a happy holiday, and about any other small talk that you could imagine.

After arriving home I went over to Amadou’s house to grab my camera and was just in time for him to slaughter two of his sheep (representing the sheep that God gave to Abraham in place of his son). I knew this was the holiday for sacrificing sheep, similar to Thanksgiving and turkeys, but come on. I miss the good old days in America where my mom would go to the grocery store, pick out a big frozen already dead turkey and bring it home to cook all while someone else did the dirty work of cleaning and preparing it for cooking. I quickly ran past him and the other “men” of the house to his wives so I didn’t have to watch the slaughter first hand. But don’t worry I did not have a chance to take my camera back form him yet so someone documented the whole thing. I sat a little with the ladies, asked them how their holiday was, told them that I was going to cook today which they found hysterical and made other small talk. I was going to return home shortly after retrieving my camera but of course they would not let me leave without eating something or looking at my outfit, which was the same one they gave me for Korité.

I returned home just in time to take off my smothering hot outfit and watch Nene, mom, grill the liver of our long lost pet. All of his other parts were sitting in a bucket waiting to be either grilled or thrown in a stew of sorts. I say “all” of his other parts literally because there were organs mixed with legs mixed with other mystery chunks. I gave the liver a try, in part to be nice and to say that I have tried sheep liver, and it was just as gross as I though it would be. Partially grainy in texture, kind of chewy, not really sure but I quickly passed up seconds once they were offered to me.

I spent the remainder of the late morning cutting onions. I signed up for this job for two reasons; it would give me something to do for a good hour or so since there were probably thirty or so and I finally have mastered cutting an onion in my hand without a cutting board and I wanted to show off my skills. Our holiday meal was good, served as a stew accompanied with bread. The whole time while eating it I stayed clear from the meat in part of because I still wasn’t sold on meat and also if I were going to eat meat I wanted to be sure of what I was eating and with this meal it would be an unknown.

The remainder of the day was devoted to digesting all of the food that was consumed, a requirement for any good holiday, and parading wives and children around town to visit family members and friends. I stayed home with Nene. This holiday also marked a very hard time for me, the day my grandfather passed. My dad’s dad had been battling cancer, and just about anything else one can get while sick it seemed, for a while now and he reached a point where he was either unable or unwilling to fight anymore. As hard as it is to admit I don’t blame him, towards the end he was not the grandpa that I remember and he was not living a life that he used to once enjoy. I miss him already and wish I was there with my family to rejoice the good life that he had, even though it was too short; there were still things that I wanted to do in this life and that I both wanted and needed him around for. I miss him and Janice coming to my parent’s house in Wisconsin for dinners and a round of either cards or dominos, which he always won somehow. I miss going to his house and listening to him talk about the birds, he knew everything about them and the wildlife around his house. I miss the passion that he had in his hobbies, be it his train set, gardening, wood work, quilting or any other random project that Janice had him working on that he pretended not to enjoy, meanwhile we all knew better. I miss his love for baking and how great his pies tasted. I miss how caring he was be it helping my dad build a mansion for all my pet mice in Hawaii or all the times on the phone he would tell me that he felt great even though I heard otherwise. I miss him. The day started out a holiday and ended as a day of remembrance. We lost a great man yesterday and I will forever miss him. Being away from family I am realizing just how lucky I am and how little time we have here. I am not sure where people go after they die but I am sure that we need to appreciate everyone in our lives.

I retired to my room early that night, not really feeling like celebrating at the hotel where a live band and unlimited sodas were awaiting me. I ended the night falling asleep under my mosquito to a few good episodes of Sex and the City, which reminded me just got great good girlfriends are, and Community, which provided a good laugh.

Alexx is coming to visit me tomorrow for a few days before we go to celebrate Halloween at a Peace Corps party in a neighboring town. Her arrival is coming just in time because I could really use a good friend around right now and she comes with promises of long cries and bottomless drinks, if I want. A stiff drink sounds good right about now. Cheers.

PS I promised my girls Erica Schumacher and Sarah Gunderson a shout out. Thanks for both reading my blogs and being there for me. Love you guys.

My Arranged Marriage

I am not sure if this is weird but I sort of feel like I have entered into an arranged marriage. Now I have never been married so I am not going to claim to be an expert but I think that the relationship that I have naturally formed with someone would be what I would expect an arranged marriage to be like; my counterpart, Amadou. 

Amadou and I

Sure we are work partners, that’s obvious, but he is sort of my key to the city. He is like the cool kid at school and I am the new student who just wants to be liked and fit in. Now I guess I consider our relationship this way because as lazy as I want to be sometimes I feel almost forced to go to his house and sit in the awkward silence of no common first language in attempt to “integrate”. I know its important to be a part of the community that I want to someday help, and I get that, but I thought it would come with time. And Amadou, being truly Senegalese, questions if I am mad at him or miss my family back in America if a few days go by without contact on my part. And have you ever been forced to be friends with someone? It’s a lot of work. I have to admit though as time passes of me being in Vélingara it is becoming less and less of a chore to go over to his house, create small talk and show interest in his family. I kind of like the guy now. I would guess he is in his forty’s, two wives and I am not sure how many children but if I were to throw a number out there I would say five, all of whom look EXACTLY like him. While we are becoming more comfortable and familiar with each other I feel more like an old married couple than a young wife of an arranged marriage. I am beginning to have fun on our trips; when we go to the bank where I pull the “I’m a white volunteer here to save the city and I don’t want to wait in line to withdraw money” card. Just the other morning during my morning jaunt, I would call it a run but I would be a disgrace to those who actually call themselves runners, I found him walking down the road because his motorcycle broke down. I recognized his outfit from a mile away and when I was about to pass him I instead decided to start running circles around him as he continued to walk. He was mildly amused to say the least. I think he was more surprised in the fact that when I say I went running and return home all sweaty I actually did go running, and there I was caught in the act and he saw it with his own two eyes. To circle back to my original point though we started off almost being forced to have a relationship I thoroughly get a kick out of him now and am excited for the work we have ahead of us. He is a go-getter, which is a rarity in this country, and I couldn’t have gotten stuck with a better work partner.

While on the topic of men in this country I am learning to appreciate being born in the US. As a woman in the global community it has become more real just how unfair life is for many women. You see articles on the news or hear jokes about how men are more superior but being raised by a very strong woman I never really saw just how insignificant my gender gets treated. I was always taught that my twin brother (shout out Eddy Spaghetti) and I could be whatever we wanted to be when we grew up and it didn’t matter that I was a girl or he a boy. I grew up seeing one side of the story, the one where women and men are equal; mom and dad taking turns working, cooking meals, going to school/taking classes, showing up to sporting events. But now, after living in Senegal for a very short period of time, I am seeing the other side. The side that I hope won’t last forever and my children will never see. My host brother’s wife for example; born from a father working in politics on a national level and marrying a teacher but never had the chance to finish middle school. I hold out for hope for other women but if someone who was dealt those cards can’t get minimum education in this country, who can? Instead, after my brothers wife meet a potential husband, her teacher may I add, she was expected to drop out of school and start a family. Being a year older than she is right now I could not imagine my life raising three young children while doing all the housework. No way. Again how lucky I am to be born in a country with women’s rights and parents who expected more of me than to be a housewife.

To wrap up my random thoughts I can see why so many projects focus on working with women’s groups here in Senegal. They need all the encouragement and tools for success they can get. While my stint as a bank teller woo’ing, budget keeping wife will be short lived I will forever be grateful for just how important and appreciated women are back in the mother country. Girl power.