It’s that heavy sigh when the back cover falls shut on the seventh book of Harry Potter, when the credits roll after Lord of the Rings. At the end of a book or movie where I feel particularly connected to or interested in the characters, I always kind of miss them. Among other feelings—satisfaction or dissatisfaction with plot resolutions, appreciation for a well-constructed story, etc—I always feel a little sad. My connection with these characters is over. Everything to happen has happened. It is all done. I could go back and read it or watch it again, but I already know the ending. No amount of review will change the way events unfolded. The Titanic always sinks. The Ring is always destroyed. One of the Weasley twins always dies. Whether I’m finished or not, the story is complete. I think what strikes me most is the fact that no more can be added or amended. I won’t know any more about the lives of the Potters and Weasleys and I don’t get a privileged view of the reconstruction of Middle Earth and the age of men.And these aren’t even real people. They’re characters that someone has depicted for me. They’re flatter and less interactive than real people. They don’t exist in all the in-between and before and after moments. So then, how much more do I grieve the end of 2 years in Coumba Diouma! Everything to happen has happened. It is all done. No amount of review will change the way events unfolded, although my interpretation of what was truly going on will change. And the way I relate to events and actions and interactions will change. Because I was there. I was a part of the story and the “story” is a part of me and I still exist. So do the people I’ve shared my life with here. So this story is incomplete. BUT, as far as my service to Coumba Diouma and my 2 years as a volunteer in that village, no more can be added or amended. That part has ended. And so I grieve.After leaving the village I took time off. I went to Mali with Camille and Bethany, and partly with Amber and Emily and Kelly, too. I came back to Senegal and wrote my COS report, which documented all the work I did so that my replacement would be somewhat oriented to my village and at least know what happened before she got there. Then I traveled to “the motherland” and Sierra Leone with Mary, Roxy, and Andy. It was nice to see different parts of West Africa and to be able to appreciate how Senegal is different from its neighbors (even though this included the disappointing realization that Senegal scores lower on the street food scale than ALL the others). I had fun and interesting and unique experiences that merit more than a paragraph in a blog can afford. They’re much better told in person. All in all, it was a wonderful vacation, not least because it was the first time in 2 years that I have been free of any project or unfinished obligation weighing on my mind. It was nice to leave the village and that part of my service finished, knowing that I had work to look forward to, but that hadn’t started yet and therefore had no hold on me. It was a good middle.Today, I am writing my blog from the World Vision office, where I have been working for 3 weeks on the Developpement Holistique des Filles (DHF) project (Holistic Girls’ Development). It is a World Vision project that partners with the Grandmother Project (another NGO) to “strengthen the capacity of local communities to promote the revival of positive cultural values and practices that contribute to the optimal physical, moral, spiritual, social and intellectual development of girl children and to advocate the abandonment of female genital mutilation (FGM) and other harmful practices.” Basically it is a project that engages communities in various dialogues (through forums, discussion groups, school activities, etc) towards the end that they are capable of identifying their own needs and taking actions that will provide the best environment for the development of their children. Not even a month in and I’m already swimming in NGO-speak. Let me try again. Basically, it’s a project that empowers people to find their own solutions to their problems, the main “problem” here being how best to raise their kids.I am in Velingara and getting ready to move into my new home for the next 6 months. I’ll be living with a family near the office. It was very hard to find housing. I had hoped that I would be able to recruit some of my work partners to help me find something, but the options failed to pan-out like I thought they would. Lacking classifieds and craig’s list, I resorted to biking around town, looking at potential places (ie places with roof-top access) and awkwardly introducing myself to the family and asking if they weren’t possibly looking for someone to rent 2 rooms in the house. Everyone said this is the best time of year to look for housing because the school year finished last Wednesday and all the teachers will be leaving to go to their hometowns. The only problem is most available housing is either one room (not as much space as I want) or 4 (way too much). Almost all the apartments in town have 3 bedrooms, one living room, one or 2 bathrooms, kitchen space (which inevitably looks more like a walk-in closet), and sometimes have access to a roof. It is SUPER hot here, as we’ve well established, and so I was looking for a shared apartment (I wanted 2 rooms, one for me and one to use as a base for Vel volunteers, to encourage regional cooperation and coordination) with access to a roof where I could sleep during hot non-rainy evenings. Pulaar family was bonus, but any family would do. Also I wanted a finished apt--the one I’m temporarily squatting in is not quite finished. There were other requests—private “sitter” toilet, furnishings, a sink—that were desirable, but not crucial. Apparently, what I thought was not a very demanding list of requirements was, in fact, just different enough from normal to prove extremely challenging.What ended up happening was this: another volunteer from a new site has extended family in town. They have all the requirements, except they have only one room. But they know a guy who can help. We called Ba, the vol’s counterpart, who is a teacher that lives in Velingara when he’s not in the village. I talked with him briefly in broken frulaar (French/pulaar) on the phone for about 45 seconds. He said he’d look. All my other options fell through, or in one single case, were FABULOUS except for being too much space for one person and too expensive. Also a little lonely. A few days later, I called back. He was in Dakar. A week later, I called back again. He’d take me to see some options. We saw one, but it was next to a plant. And a dump. And an abandoned shop. And had no courtyard, windows, or roof access. We went to another, but there was a problem with getting to see it too, missing key or something. But the guy (a friend of Ba) knew someone who had 2 rooms and might be willing to rent. We could go see it after dinner. We ate, we watched some soccer, we walked to the other house. Nice big rooms, nice big windows, shared shower and (sitter!) toilet. Huge yard where I could do a garden, instead of the rooftop garden I’d pictured. A pulaar family… fulakunda, the kind of pulaar most of my work is in now, that is different enough from pulafuuta that I have a hard time understanding a lot of what happens at work meetings. Sounds good, but I was waiting on one more that might turn out to be exactly what I wanted. Ok, so honestly I was holding out for the roof access. We can’t see it today but maybe tomorrow. He’s not in today but maybe tomorrow. He’s busy today but definitely, definitely tomorrow. I called Ba again. I’ll take it. I think it’ll be perfect. Tomorrow we paint and then I’ll go out of town for the weekend and when I come back it’ll be beautiful and ready for me to move in and feel like I’m alive! I am dying to stop living out of a suitcase and settle in. There were actually 2 other options that had the main requirements, but both meant sharing an apartment with a single man, and I don’t think that’s what I want or very appropriate. So, to sum up: a friend of a friend of a coworker’s coworker is going to be my new host family/landlord. And he’s got 2 daughters, a wife, and a sister. Sounds like a good time.About the work, I’m very excited about what the project does. It always takes a little time to figure out where and how you fit into a new work team, especially one so small (we’re 5) where your role isn’t well defined before-hand because it’s new, and you’re working in 2 languages where you are fairly comfortable (and mostly comprehensible) at best, and a blabbering idiot at worst. But there are unexpected parts of the work like weekly English conversation groups with WV staff, and helping develop and refine computer skills, that make me feel extremely gifted and just exploding with valuable skills. There are other parts of the job, like interviewing villagers and figuring out how to appropriately document and profile the project’s effects and tangible results, that make me feel like I’ve got a lot to learn. But maybe the most exciting part (on the grand-scale) is that I really like what we do. And I could see myself working with this kind of project for a long time. And that is the first time maybe ever that I’ve felt like I might have a real career path ahead of me. But it is very much the beginning. So, there we have it: all the components of a good story, mixed up, to make it more interesting: An end, a middle, and a beginning.

Ok, so this doesn't entirely count as a real blog post, because it's really more of a reference, but here's where most of my energy has been going the last month:

http://www.pcsenegal.org/malaria/velingara.html

Check it out. I'm the next one to put up a blurb. I just sent it to the guys who sort all that stuff out, so whenever they're next in the office, expect to see it up. Also, I'm on the video a little bit. Here's a few pictures to boot.

Happy 2010.

I am late. Get used to it. I've been this way all my life and I don't think I'll ever get over it. And I don't really mind. Most of the time. Well, some of the time.

I have BIG news. I have less than 2 months left in the village. (That's not the news). And I'm starting to feel nostalgic. I can see the end of my time in Coumba D. and I'm remembering many many things that have happened in the last (almost) 2 years, and feeling sad about leaving behind another place. But that's how it goes isn't it? You are in a place, you carve out a spot in the community, you make friends and connections, habits, you get used to the view. And then when it's over, you move on. I'm aware that not all things have to go this way, but as long as I'm engaged in short-term affairs, this is going to be the pattern. It has been the pattern for, well let's be honest here, at least the last 10 years, but really all my life. Granted, I was in the same school system from kindergarten through high school, but then I left. And went to college in Boston. And then I left. And went to San Antonio. And then I left. And went to Africa. And mixed all in there were other goings and leavings. Camp, jobs, homes, friends.

Being a temporal being, I understand that comings and goings and changes happen. If you want to be artistic about it, you can imagine life as a complicated dance involving many steps and partners and may-pole in-and-out weaving. Some people and places stick with you, and keep coming up over and over. Some don't. But each has its place and its time to be in your dance. Even though I get all weepy and worked up when things are over (I am, after all, very resisitant to change), I know that the end of something is not neccessarily a bad thing, and I know that the fact that things are over doesn't in any way detract from the experience itself. I may no longer be a volunteer in Coumba D come May, but that doesn't change the relationships and memories and experiences I've already had there. It just changes the place that they fit into my current life.

I'm thinking about the Beatles song, so I'm gonna put up the lyrics to "In My Life" and then move on to the other things going on in MY life:

"There are places I remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever not for better

Some have gone, and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends I can still recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I've loved them all

...

Though I know I'll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I'll often stop and think about them"

...

But I'm always living in the place where I am, and even though I'll lose touch with those people and places (especially rural Senegal and non-technologically connected friends), I will always hold them somewhere in my heart and memory.

It isn't that I want to lose touch with people here, I just know that I will. I know myself and my capabilities and I know how things will go. I will move on and whatever is in front of my face will dominate my thoughts and whoever I see regularly will monopolize my mental energy. And I'll start to hide Coumba D deeper and deeper inside myself...

But not yet.

And here's where we get to the BIG NEWS:

I am not leaving Senegal just yet. I am staying for at least another 7 months. I am moving out of my village at the end of April, taking some vacation, and then moving a whole 10 miles down the road to the booming metropolis of Velingara.

All volunteers have the option to extend as a third-year. For a long time I wasn't interested in doing that because I thought it meant staying in my village (I like it there, but it is time for me to move on and it is time to give someone else a shot at work/life there), or else moving to Dakar to work in the office (not interested). But then I was made aware of other opportunities. In Velingara, I will work with a partnership between World Vision and an American NGO called the Grandmother Project.

Basically, they approach development and behavioral change by addressing the often forgotten elderly population. They aim to use grandmothers as agents of change, preserving positive traditions and weeding out negative ones, especially focused on girl's education. It's a wholistic approach that gives special attention to female genital cutting practices. Basically it is an NGO that works on improving people's lives by empowering the local population to address their own issues. This is, in a nutshell, what I've decided I want to try to pursue as a career path (for now). I decided that a little while ago and was looking at jobs in America when this opportunity popped up and I thought, I need to look at this. It is valuable experience, I get to keep speaking Pulaar, I am already invested in the area and the people. Basically, it is a perfect opportunity and I'm excited about starting in June. I'll still be a PCV, just kind of on loan to the project here. I have agreed to stay until December, but they'd like me to stay longer. I'm just not ready to commit to a year. I can change my mind later and continue on until next June if I feel like that is the best thing.

Contact-wise, this is going to be really good. I'll have more regular internet access (although it will still be slow), and my phone and mail will not change. I am a little sad to be postponing the return home--I love America--but I think this is the best opportunity for me right now. However, it is still a big/hard change. My support-net of close friends here is essentially being swept out from under me: the girls I turn to most are going home (with the possible exception of one, who is not yet decided about extension). I am leaving my family and home here, and will need to set up a new situation in Velingara, which I know as a place to run errands, but not as a living space. I'm getting an "office job", although a significant portion of the work will be going out to visit participating communities. I'm excited about having more structure in my job and being "closer" to you all in America. But it will be very different. And I'm not sure I can really comprehend just yet all the things that will change.

As people are beginning to leave, I am also having to say goodbye to friends that have meant a great deal to me in my time here. It is difficult for me to picture life as a volunteer without them, but soon enough, I'll get to see what that looks like. In other words, there is a lot going on emotionally in the next few months--some good and some sad, but all coming at me like a runaway truck (I love the roadsigns on the highways that warn about these) on a downhill slope.

So there.

Other things I wanted to mention:

1. WAIST (the softball tournament) happened in Feb and made a couple dreams come true: first, N'ice Cream Cake... yummy. Ok, that was actually part of COS conference, but it's all kind of connected. Second, a bollywood-style "spontaneous" (or more accurately, surprise) break-out choreographed dance routine in the middle of a dance party. Yeah, that happened. I was part of it. Check that off of life's to-do list.

2. I took the GRE. Done and done.

3. We are distributing "Twitter-nets" all over the dept. of Velingara. It's a big deal and will be a really cool thing. It'll take us at least a month more, but I think it is important work and will save many lives. Mosquito nets. Who knew? Before coming here, I never gave a second thought to malaria. Now it is one of my top issues.

4. Was there more? I am tired. The sun is hot. Mango season isn't here yet. I suppose this is the end of my post, whether or not I have more to say. I am spent.

5. Right, I made a new year's resolution. Well, really it was a life resolution that happened to roughly coincide with the new year: I want to speak more. I want to start saying more of the things that are on my mind instead of just keeping them to myself. More on that later, likely.

Love to you all. Thanks for reading. How is 2010 looking for you? Remember that your friend Annicka likes to know what's going on in America too.

Peace.

SO much time has passed! I took a short vacation to Morocco, met up with my parents, and had a great time touring the “imperial cities”. I just wish the king would let people into the palaces, many of which are centuries old. It would be nice to see more of them than the outer walls. And like all the other people I’ve talked to who visit Morocco, I was a bit overwhelmed by the salesmanship of the carpet vendors. But today’s story takes place on the return from vacation to

my village.

Arriving in Dakar at 3.30am, I went to the office where my friend Dana was staying. I got a few quick hours of sleep before we got up early to head to the garage and from there off to Linguere. Dana lives in the middle of the northern chunk of Senegal… right about where Pacman’s eye would be. AKA, the middle of nowhere. If you look at a map, it seems like Linguere is the major stop on a road that cuts right through the desert in Northern Senegal, just south of the Senegal River basin. In truth, Linguere is the end of the line. The road hasn’t been finished farther, not since I’ve been here, and probably not for a while after I leave, if it does get finished. So we took a van-load of people into the desert (after a lot of arguing over the price for bringing my bike, ending in my declaration “Dakar people are BAD”, to which the man responded, “yes, but I’m not from Dakar.” I needed to bring the bike back from Dakar after it got a complete makeover, so I had no option but to pay). After several hours of slow trekking along in the crowded van, we arrived at Dana’s village.

This is the farthest north I have been in Senegal and it surprised me to see just how different this part of the country is. Fewer trees, of course, but much less variety in the trees that were there—almost all were acacia or baobab, it seemed. Dana’s village is small, like mine, and right off the road. They speak Wolof, being situated near the center of the old Jolof empire, in an area where there are also many pulaar herders. I am ashamed to admit that I am prejudiced against Wolofs. They are an aggressive people-group and always seem angry and lying. This stereotype is mostly based on the wolofs I meet in garages, so I know it’s unfair, but even listening to the language, it sounds angry to me. And it’s true that Wolofs are, in general, much more aggressive than Pulaars. So, I was caught quite off-guard by how excessively NICE everyone in Dana’s village was. It was refreshing to see another volunteer at work in her site, and we did things like measure the school for a wall and build a mudstove. This may have been the best part of my vacation for regaining motivation at site. I stayed for 2 days before heading in to Linguere (populated with more very nice Wolofs) where I could catch a car early in the morning.

I left at 7.00 am, walking half an hour to the garage to catch a sept-place (station wagon) to Touba, where I would have to change cars. Bad luck, there were no sept-places today so I’d have to take a mini-car, which is really a large hollowed out van with benches welded in, generally “designed” to accommodate 35 people, but often squeezing in as many bodies as will possibly fit. I was joined by another Linguere volunteer and after a short wait, off we headed to Touba, an almost comfortable 3-hour ride away. Arriving in Touba, there was some confusion as to where I should get off the car, since the garage where we would arrive, and the garage where I could catch a car to Tamba were on different sides of the rather large, and religiously important Touba. As we pulled into town, the man in front of us turned around and said to us, two pants-wearing female volunteers, “This is Touba. Women don’t wear pants here. If they see that you’re not wearing a skirt, they will take your pants.” In pulaar, the word for pants is “touba”, so I chuckled at the thought of being “pantsed in Pants for wearing pants”. We got out of the car and took a special taxi-service for transporting passengers between the garages, which delivered me to the Tamba stand in the south-bound garage. I safely survived Touba with my pants unharmed.

But, as I arrived and asked for a sept-place to Tamba, I saw the

baggage being secured and the people getting in and I knew immediately

that I had missed it. That car was full. I was told (and I believed,

although who knows if I should have) that there would be no more

sept-places today. That left the mini-cars. 3 hours in a mini-car to

Touba, not a problem. But to Tamba, that’s at least 7.5 hours by

sept-place. Mini-cars always take longer. I was told that there is

a mini-car waiting for one more spot to fill. If I take the car, we

will leave immediately. I looked at the back-less empty middle seat

(in a row of 5, that really only fits 4 and half people) and said

"OK", thinking to myself, this may turn out to be the worst decision I've made in Senegal.

It wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. I think it was 1 pm when we pulled out of Touba and I'm getting pretty good at sleeping just about anywhere in very awkward positions, so I sort of slumped onto the seat edge next to me and did the best I could. Once we got to Kaffrine, maybe 2 hours or so away, one of the men in my row disembarked... so I immediately moved in to his empty seat for the back support. Continue along the road until Koungeul, reached right around sunset. At this point we had to change to another mini-car, and wait about half an hour for the car to refill. Then on to Koumpentoum. Another switch to another mini-car, but this one was waiting for us to fill it up. So I didn't have the best seat, (as if there were any really GOOD seats on a mini-car) but it was ok. At least we didn't have to wait. In fact, there was a line of women trying to push their way onto the car, but the apprenti (the assistant to the driver) was blocking the path until all of our car was seated. It was like being ushered backstage while the screaming fans without tickets try to force entry... only at the end of it was another long, almost comfortable carride, not chips and dip with a boyband. The woman at the front of the line tried to get me to take her baby so she could force herself into the seat next to me. It was crazy like that for about 2 minutes and then we were all on, so they were allowed to board and crammed to the point of standing room only, we continued on the way to Tamba. Most of them got off withing the next 15 or 20 km, and we got into Tamba (100 km away) at about 9.45 pm. Not, as expected, the worst day of my life.

I got to the Tamba house, the eve of Thanksgiving, to find one volunteer there. All the rest went to Kedougou, so to avoid being alone at Thanksgiving, I joined Camille in an early morning departure to make it to Kedougou in time for Frisbee, lazyness, games, and supremely good eatin'. The boys went all out, and I got my first taste of Thanksgiving "Turducken"=Turkey, stuffed with Duck, stuffed with Chicken. REAL GOOD!

The next day, after a longish morning (because I just wasn't ready to jump back onto more transport) I returned to Tamba and had just enough time to stop at the bank before arriving at the garage at sunset... which means I, again, missed all the cars going past my village. It was the night before Tabaski (THE big holiday), and I was at the end of the end of the last of the last of transportation taking people to where they wanted to be to celebrate. There was a big 72-seater charter bus waiting in the garage lot, and we were 12. So, of course, we waited for it to fill up. And it did... eventually. We got on the road at 10pm and I thought, well I'll get home at midnight, and while that's not optimal, it's ok. I also got to wait with the chattiest little girl I've ever met. She is from a village near me and her mother recognized me from the baptism I accidentally attended on my way home from Amber's village, oh, 8 or more months ago. I had the best street food I've had in Senegal, because that's what the little girl was eating for dinner, and of course she shared her dinner with her new friend, me.

It is 80 km from Tamba to my village, but 25 km before my stop, is Manda of the horrible wait if you're unlucky and travelling in a mini-car (which I, thankfully, was not). But we stopped there and most of the passengers got off the bus and we remained stationary for about half an hour. I finally woke up enough to realize I should ask what was going on and found out that the driver refused to continue because of rumors of banditry along the road, and I don't blame him. We would have to spend the night on the bus and we could continue at first light, around 6 am. So I snuggled into a seat and slept for a few hours, when the driver apparently changed his mind and decided to continue anyway after a few cars had come through with no problems. So we reloaded, and revved up, taking the road with a gendarme (national police force) escort at 2.30am. Now, the approach to my village is hard to see in the daylight, so I was trying particularly hard to see it in the moonless night. I heard the passengers behind me talking about the stop as we were getting close, because there was another guy who was going there too, so I know the apprenti knew we were meant to stop. BUT I MISSED IT!!! I looked and looked and didn't see it until I recognized the hill that is past it. What do you do at 3 am with no moon, on a road where bandits are known to cause trouble? I got off at the next village, along with a handful of others, briefly argued with the driver about why he hadn't stopped, and when the bus drove off mid-sentence, I knew there was nothing to do but stay put until morning. My new little friend and her mom had friends in the village, so we walked into the nearest compound, woke up her friends, and I jumped into bed with 2 or 3 of her daughters and slept a few hours. THIS is what they call teranga, the Senegalese hospitality. Who cares about being woken up at 3 am? You have guests and they need beds, roll over, and here's the extra sheet. After a 20 second greeting and conversation with the girl who I'd woken up, I rolled over and fell deeply asleep until the family's morning routine woke me up and I loaded up my bicycle. A neighbor from my village had come to buy bread and said, "AMINATA! What are you doing here? Did you sleep here? If you're ready to go, let's bike back home." And I was. So we did.

He took the other bicycle-less passenger headed to Coumba Diouma on the back of his own bike and I biked with my big back-pack load of vacation clothes and abundant supply of tootsie rolls, (thanks, mom) and we made our triumphant entry at about 8.30. My family was thrilled that I made it home to celebrate. They were certain I wasn't going to make it. But I did, alhumdulilaye. A Tabaski miracle!

I spend a lot of my time thinking about translation: how to translate ideas and concepts (in multiple directions), how life would sound if I directly translated the word-world of Pulaar into English, how many things would not translate, etc.

Here are a few recent examples:

Film culture—I’ve talked before about how we are able to watch films in my village from time to time with generators and rigged up “theater systems”. I had a visitor just yesterday ask (with some wonder) about the fact that I had not brought a television with me to the village… I don’t know what I would do with a TV, and only just a few weeks ago discovered that someone IN MY FAMILY has a TV. It seems like such an out-of-place concept. But, where there’s a will, there’s a way. And so, we have “film” showings in the village. These vary from Brazilian soap operas* and Guinean sketch comedy to what we would more generally consider actual films. These aren’t exactly the box-office hits that you are watching over there in Hollywood-land. In Mary’s village, films about “les vampires” (more B-level Dracula flicks, less Twilight) have been all the rage. One day Mary’s mother very seriously told her that her daughter had been injured by a stick, but not just any stick—there was a vampire in the stick. While I was in Thies we watched a Wesley Snipe film about life in prison. They were interested to know that I had just heard about Wesley Snipe actually being in prison, but for somewhat-less glamorous crimes than in the movie.

*(Au Coeur du Peche, In the Heart of Sin, the one during my training ended a few months ago with some very dramatic deaths and long-awaited reunion. It has been replaced with Marina, which I know nothing about except that they were watching it in Amber’s village when I went to visit last week.)

While my friend Bethany visited recently, one of the kids was telling us what kinds of films he likes to watch: “jetleecha knorreees.” What? I didn’t understand but after repetition, Bethany understood: Jet Li/Chuck Norris. Here is a phenomenon that most definitely DOES NOT translate. If you mention the name Chuck Norris to anyone in my generation, you are most likely to get a joke in return and if you start with Chuck Norris jokes among a group of people, you will find that almost everyone has a favorite. But they don’t tell well in Pulaar. “Chuck Norris doesn’t sleep, he waits.” You could tell it, but I don’t think anyone in my village would find it very funny. “Chuck Norris doesn’t do push-ups, he pushes the ground down.” I don’t even know how to translate push-up without doing the action... at which point the joke would be lost and we’d be laughing at me trying to explain push-ups. I asked El Hadji who he thought would win in a fight between Jet Li and Chuck Norris. He says Jet Li. Bethany has her doubts about that. I’m undecided. I think it might be an everlasting battle that would tear the earth to shreds and leave the two round-house kicking in space… movie makers take note.

My favorite film translation item comes from a recent conversation I had at my neighbor’s house. They just got a new dog and Ibrahima named him “Rambo”. I like this story because if you translate it word-for-word into English it is exactly the same. I was trying to ask where he heard the name, so that he would tell me about the films but he wasn’t understanding my questions. His Aunt Aissatou understood me and she said, “O yi’ii mo ka filum. O wadi Karate.” (He saw him in the film. He does Karate.) To this, Ibrahima interjected, “O’oo! O fellay yimbe!” (Nuh-uh! He shoots people!) Well said, Ibrahima. Well said. Clearly knows his stuff, that one.

Games—All the rage in my neighborhood are the card games I’ve started teaching the kids. Uno is ever-popular and easy to learn, although “renversay” and “esskippity” are difficult concepts for some of the kids. It reminds me of playing Ludo, the Senegalese board game that is like Parcheesi or Sorry. My little bro, Amadou, is a whiz at rolling and repeatedly gets his wish when he rolls, saying “Hello, six-ski!” “Skip” becomes “Esskip” which then turns into “esskippity” or “mi kippi maa” (I sKIPPed you). We also play (English to Pulaar back to English)

• Go Fish → “Dabbu Liyyi” → Search for Fish

• Old Maid → “Maama” → Grandmother or Old Woman

• BS (or as I like it, No Way Dude!, thank you Ninja Turtle Playing cards) → “A Feenay!” → You Lie! (PS, it is culturally inappropriate to tell someone outright that they are lying, especially someone older or respected… like me. This makes the game extra-hilarious and the adults like to just watch us and laugh when someone gets caught lying.)

• Egyptian Rat Screw (ERS) → “Ndowru Skrew” which becomes more like “Ndowruski” → Rat-ski

• Golf → no translation, so “Golluf”

I’m trying to work up to Phase 10, but that is beyond the younger ones and now that Ndowruski is an option, the older ones are often convinced to play that instead of trying to learn P10.

General words/concepts—As we know, my bed is broken. I have yet to fix it, so currently I am laying the foam mattress on the floor at night and leaning it against the wall each morning. I like this because I feel that it “opens” up my room. I said that to woman in my compound. “O udditii suudu an.” In English, we don’t often use infixes. We use suffixes and prefixes. In Pulaar, every verb has at least one variant or relative derived by infixes. We do and re-do, wind and re-wind, write and re-write, pete and re-peat… just kidding. The Pulaar equivalent to ‘re-’ is ‘-it-’. This is really simplifying, but I think it makes my point. Haalugol is to say, haalitugol is to say again; winndugol is to write, winnditugol is to write again. To close is uddugol, to open udditugol. Conceptually that took me a long time to get straight, but I finally have it. So I used “udditugol” to mean open up the room. Conceptually that made sense to me. My friend didn’t get it. What do you mean “open” the room. I started with a door. If the door is closed, then you open it, and you can move through it. My bed was in the middle of the room, but now, my room is “open” and I can move all over it. I could even have a dance party if I wanted. I think she got it then. Either that or she was too tickled by the idea of a dance party in my room to continue seeking and explanation. In any case, this is just one example of the role that translation plays in my daily life.

I'm too tired and lazy to write about the last few weeks. SO, here's a few "thousand words" to tell you what I've been up to:

On my birthday, (or L'anniversaire de Bob Marley, as they prefer to remember it), I made a piñata to share American birthday traditions with the schoolkids.

Notice I included the dreads for those who asked... this is, incidentally, the day that I began to painstakingly comb them out... see further down for results.

The kids LOVED the idea of a piñata. LOVED it.

I was showing Seikou how to strum. Strumming rhythmically is aparently very very tricky, but as long as Aminata plays the chords, the kids are thrilled with the music they make.

I spend a lot of time with kids and occasionally catch precious moments on film. Here's Hawa wearing a broken gourd on her head... who knows why?

In June my favorite school teacher got married and I got to be a "hostess" at the wedding. Consider this my bridesmaid's dress.

When Erik visited, he brought my dad's had with him and Amadou likes to ham it up.

Here's Erik and my host dad in "Senegalese" pose.

Our net distribution in Cour Bambey. YOU paid for those nets. THANK YOU!!!

Mike does part of our Nets causery during the distribution, explaining proper use, care, and importance of mosquito nets.

I've been working on a nutrition mural at the school kitchen: the 3 food groups-

Go (carbs), Grow (proteins), and Glow (vitamin/mineral rich F & Vs)!

I recently visited a waterfall with some friends. This is me and Kay.

This is my "Mom will want a picture of me" photo. You're welcome, Mom.

To get back from the falls, we had to ford a river - first carrying our bikes, then a second time with our stuff on our heads to keep it dry. The river was about chin-deep this day and we didn't lose any oxen (or bicycles). Take that, Oregon Trail!

A time to feast, to fast, to cry, to laugh.

This summer is flying by, and I know so from more than looking at the calendar. I know because people at home are getting ready for the new school year and even though we have until the end of the rainy season, the signs of change are beginning to pop up all over the place. The rains have redoubled their efforts in the last two weeks. Nearly every day there is a drizzle and most nights bring thunderstorms. Last year was a heavy year, but being my first rainy season, I assumed it was normal that this kind of rain start early in July. It is, after all, the RAINY season. I was concerned about the apparent lack of rain this year until I talked with my host dad. He said that actually, there was so much rain last year, it nearly ruined some of the crops. This year is far more normal: the August rains have waited until August to show up, leaving July alone with enough sun to encourage good crops.

The tell-tale sign that the season is progressing is the appearance in the markets of the first harvest: roasted corn! Corn is the quick-crop in our area. It is the first planted and the first harvested. Other crops won’t be ready until well into September and October, but the first corn is ripening and today the produce ladies have moved on from selling oranges and the last mangoes of the season to roasting corn on the street corners. Although not as sweet as the roast corn I know in the US, it is a special early-harvest treat to have roast corn. It starts in the markets and in a week or two, will show up in the village. It’s the kids who roast the corn (just like they’ll do with peanuts, cassava, and did with mangoes earlier).

Another sign of change is tied into the calendar—the Islamic calendar: Ramadan starts this weekend: the holy month of fasting, purity, and spiritual devotion. Starting Saturday, the village will be waking up before dawn to eat breakfast; then from sunrise to sunset, they will abstain from food, drink, cigarettes, etc. I have agreed to fast as much as I feel able this year, to join in solidarity with my family and friends, and to offer myself in spiritual devotion. As last year, I suspect my family will demand that I “rest” from fasting every few days, because (and they’re right) it’s hard, and I’m not actually required to fast. There is again this year, a pregnant woman in my family (but shhh… we don’t talk about that sort of thing) so I can be guaranteed there will be lunch available on days that I would want it, and I can always cook for myself. The part I’m most excited about, however, is the joy of breaking the fast. Last year I was blown away by the wonderful sense of community I found in breaking the fast with the neighborhood women. This year, I want to take the word “breakfast” literally and make pancakes one night for the women.

I am curious to see how the fasting ritual will affect the new enterprise developing in my compound. One of the women in my family has recently become a bean lady. Most mornings and evenings, she sits in front of our compound with a pile of bread and a pot of beans and a huge pot of hot “café touba” (a kind of spiced coffee). For 200 cfa (say-fa… roughly 40 cents), you can buy a bean sandwich and cup of coffee. I am helping her in her new business by being the keeper-of-the-profits. She brings the profits to my hut and stores her money there, in an old vitamin bottle. The child-proof bottle performs as a sort of lock-box, and with the money in my hut, she won’t be hassled to dole out the money to others. She can save! (It really is a big enough deal to merit that exclamation point). I’m going to help her keep track of accounting by keeping a written record of what money goes in and out of the “account”, essentially basic bookkeeping. I have hopes of her becoming a savvy businesswoman and want to do everything I can to aid that goal, so I’m excited about working with her on this project.

Another community project has come to a new stage: trees! I may be a little late to reap the full benefits of the rainy season, but it is not too too late… with the help of the soccer team, we out-planted most of the community tree-nursery at the school and along the path into the village. In several years, our entry path will be a boulevard of cashews and mangoes, the school will have an inner-wall of nebeday, and a grove of mangoes, and the village will be peppered with the delicate flowers of the flamboyant… si allah jabbi (God willing). Of course, the mangoes, cashews, and flamboyant won’t be much for a few years at least, but I’ll be able to see them use the fast-growing nebeday in school lunches this year, in conjunction with the World Food Program. Food security is going to be a major focus for me this school year: I’d like to see the schools in my area producing some of their own food in school gardens in order to guarantee at least one well-balanced, nutrient-rich meal, per day for the students. We’ll see how successful that is.

Personally, my living situation has taken a bit of beating this week. With the heavy rains, my hut flooded again this year. I have since re-dug last year’s drainage ditch, but was thwarted by flash-floods and am not too sure how to prevent it from happening again, except to pray for slow rain. I remember thinking last year “this is one of those laugh-or-cry moments” and I was able to laugh through it. This year, I thought “what does it mean that I neither laughed, nor cried, but just grabbed my broom and thought ‘well, better get to sweeping’?”. I think it must signal some sort of progress… or at least level of comfort. Tragically, in one of the floods (and by flood I mean only a few inches, nothing too dramatic), a group of baby chicks were trapped in my back yard. I had the unpleasant task of disposing of their dead bodies and cried a little as I did so. Surely something can be done to fix it. I’ll keep thinking and we’ll eventually figure something out.

My bed has presented me with another problem to resolve. I noticed a while ago (and especially when Erik came to visit) that termites have begun to get the best of my cheap and simple and unfinished wooden bed. My host dad and I reinforced the side supports with new beams a few weeks ago, but we missed the headboard-beam that faces the wall. I had my neighbor volunteers over for a sleep-over, which was really really ridiculously fun, but had not so good consequences for the weakened bed… three girls fit almost comfortably, but when I joined the bunch, the board cracked and left the bed at a steep tilt. So I moved out of the mosquito net and onto the cot. We weren’t really sure what to do, but soon had no choice because the middle beam broke under the weight of the three. So we moved my bed outside (in the dark, in the rain, by phone-light), and left the mattress on the floor. That works fine for now, but I’m just a tiny bit nervous about any heavy night-rains. I don’t relish the thought of being woken up by water pooling around my head. I could set up the cot, but I’m not sure what to do with the double-sized mattress, and you can’t tuck a mosquito net into a cot very easily. So I’m still thinking that one out, but no worries, this is not really a serious issue. It isn’t as bad as it might sound, and I’m not even half as bothered by it as I probably could be. The long-term solution is to take the good wood from my bed, make a new one, and then finish that one so it will resist the wrath of the tiny termite terrors… (have you read the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency? The ants get everything in the end… I’m grouping the termites together with ants.) The problem to be solved is what to do in the meantime, and as long as it doesn’t flood, the floor is not a bad option.

To everything there is a season: a time to laugh (breaking a bed at a slumber party is really funny), and a time to cry (poor baby chicks), a time to eat corn and beans and pancakes, and a time to lay on your bed and wish you hadn’t agreed to skip lunch. If ‘everything in its season’ is what makes up life, then this month, I am really living!

Great news!

The mosquito nets were delivered to my village on the 15th and over the course of the next week we distributed them to the 6 villages planned for. In addition, there were nets left over (because the national distribution covered some of our original numbers) so we extended the distribution to a few other villages in my village block. I would post up pictures, but I don't have my camera on me right now, so they will come... eventually. Probably.

This was our basic strategy for the distribution.

1. Bed recon: go house to house and count beds. We did this early in the year, but then re-counted to see where the national nets had gone. For the villages added in, we (myself, Aissatou, and Amadou, two local health-workers) did the two counts in one go, also assessing the condition of old nets, so that we did not replace nets that were still ok to be used.

2. Get nets.

3. Host a causerie (info session) on malaria: transmission, prevention, treatment.

4. Give out nets (in conjunction with the causerie).

Our causeries went pretty well, I think. We had a flipchart of images related to malaria from the health hut, so we started by talking through the pictures:

-What do you see here? (puddles of water, garbage, overgrown weeds)

-Is this a good picture or a bad picture? Why?

-Why is it important to keep the village clean? (mosquitoes breed in stagnant water and love to hang out in garbage and weeds)

After the flip-chart presentation, we talked about how to properly hang a net, how to care for a net, the importance of using a net both indoors and out, how to make neem lotion for when you aren't in your net, and why universal coverage is different and more effective than selective coverage. We then called each household-rep over to the net-destributing "station" (often just an area set to the side or a doorway to allow for some sense of privacy and crowd control) one-by-one and went through the list: You have 7 beds in your house, correct? You received 2 in the national distribution, right? Do you have any others in good condition? Ok, you get 4 nets today. It all went rather smoothly and to date we have distributed 545 nets in my village block (the rest will go out next week), and over 200 in Camille's village block.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who helped make this possible! The nets are very much appreciated.

Here I am in Dakar, waiting for the most exciting thing: my brother is coming to visit!!!!

Erik flys in tonight, so I'm hanging out, hoping that what I've planned is going to be fun and not too tiring. I'm not sure how much he'll be set back by the heat. I'm hoping to go visit the mangroves and possibly do some kayaking. Then off to my village. Then down to Kedougou for the 4th, where I may or may not run a 5k race. Then we'll bike (40k)out to a waterfall and eventually head back up towards Dakar. We might go to the beach or maybe Goree Island, which is supposed to be cool. It doesn't actually sound like a ton of stuff for 2 weeks, but travel takes so long here and is so draining, I might be pushing it. But in any case, I'm happy that he's coming.

Since last time, things have been going well. May was sort of rough emotionally, but for no reason. I just got homesick and had to wait it out. Near the end of the month the homesickness was replaced by negativity dominating my thoughts when it came to work. I've been reading a book by Elisabeth Eliot, and in it, she talks about the power of prayer. I had a chance to prove it by depending on prayer to help me get out of the "doldrums". And it worked. Amazingly well. As Mary from Caswell would say, "Go God!" (raise the roof).

Work-wise, and village-wise, there was a BIG wedding celebration for Mane, one of my teachers and closest friends in the village. Her husband is in Spain and has been the whole time I've been here (including engagement to marriage), so it was just her at the party. I'm not really sure how that all works, but apparently it does. I got a matching "complet" with the other bridesmaid/hostess/whatever-we-weres and did important things like make the entrance with the bride, serve lunch, and dance at the gifts presentation. They made a video of the day, which included video messages that were translated into Spanish for the groom's friends in Spain. I got to see the finished video, and watch myself trying to dance Wolof and Jolla-style, in my full outfit, headwrap and all. Despite comments from my neighbors ("Aminata, you can REALLY dance: you can do Pulaar AND Jolof dancing!"), I looked ridiculous. Really, truly, ridiculous. I know so, because I saw it.

After the wedding and a visit to Liza in Basse before she COSed, I went on a 4-day luumo tourney doing malaria education. We always say "tourney" from the French, but Gambian volunteers say "trek". What we all mean really is a "tour", I suppose. I spent one day in our luumo (weekly market), in the town a few kms away from my village. Then I spent 3 days on the road, with other volunteers in three other luumos. We sold Neem Lotion (locally made insect repellant, aka "lekki bowdi" or "mosquito medicine") and talked about malaria and the importance of avoiding and elminating mosquitos. We demonstrated how to make the lekki bowdi, and talked about the importance of mosquito nets. My malaria-related pulaar has never been better. The following week (this one past), the ministry of health did a national net distribution, offering vouchers for nets to every child 6 months to 5 years, in coordination with the national vitamin A distribution. And the rainy season is on now, so the mosquitos are starting to come out in force. After this distribution, we'll go house-by-house to help properly hang nets and see exactly which beds are now left un-covered. Our nets should be coming in next week (si allah jabbi) and will then be Peace Corps transported down to my area, so that we can do the distribution in mid to late July. Then everyone in our village cluster will have a mosquito net to sleep under, alhamdulilaye.

I came up to Dakar last weekend so that I could be here for my mid-service check-up (no problems, and no cavities!) and wait for the Brother to come in. Bethany and I scheduled our exams together so we could have a Dakar date, which was very fun. And the entire stage ahead of us was in town for their COS conference, so it was good to hang out with them a little too. Their conference was early so it's misleading, although no less unsettling, to talk about the fact that the next COS conference will be for my stage. Most of them will still be here until October, and our conference will be in February or March. Kay is up here with me also waiting on visitors to arrive, and Alexis just left for America, while Jared just came back, and Maggie and Emily just returned from Spain. Trevor and Alexis were on the same flight, as Trevor was headed home for good. So, it's been a week for being social and seeing lots and lots of other volunteers. Which of course translates into my favorite Dakar activity: going to N'ice Cream.

And that, in turn, has its own effect. My list of possible career choices lengthens. I believe that a good business opportunity for me would be to own my own ice cream shop. I mean, I love ice cream (in a serious way), and I think you should have that for whatever your business is. So add that to life-time development worker, science teacher, NGO worker, youth program director, human resource rep, academic, US ambassador (why not?) etc, etc. Also a good option for a retirement job, if it comes to that.

But before I go making N'ice Cream an international franchise, here's a little treat for you: the recipe for Neem Lotion... in pulaar [with direct translations]:

Si a waday saabunnde Fanico tesoko, wadu litar e feccere ndian, judde didi haako kasia, e feccere litar di'uling. [If you do a small bar of Fanico soap, do 1.5 l water, 2 handfuls of neem leaves, and .5 l oil.

1. A wugay saabunnde haa ko sifaa choodi nding. [You grate soap until it is like the flour.]

2. A wulinay ndian ndan haa o faati. Si o faati moyya, okku nder ton haako kasia. A saginay mo haa pari, ontuma ittu haakoji din. [You heat the water until it boils. When it boils well, offer in there neem leaf. You prepare it until ready, then take out the leafs.]

3. Ontuma, okku choodi saabunnde ndeng doy doy doy, haa gasi. Wuray mo haa o jiilondira. [Then, offer the soap flour slowly/gently/slowly, until finished. Stir him (with a webeleeru... an egg-beater-esque kitchen utensil) until it is dissolved(?).]

4. Jooni, a okkay di'uling doy doy, haa gasi. Gooto wuray, gooto okkay. [Now, you offer oil slowly/gently, until finished. One person stirs (with the webeleeru), one person offers.]

5. Accu mo haa o bubbay, si o bubbi, o tekkay seeda. Wadu di'uling feccere litar. Si hida falla mo tekki, duytu di'uling. Si hida falla mo selbi, beydu di'uling. [Leave him until it cools, when it has cooled, it will thicken a little. Do .5 l oil. If you want it thick, decrease oil. If you want it runny, augment oil.]

6. Ontuma a hebbi lekki bowdi. [Next you recieved mosquito medicine.]

Well that was fun. Makes me wonder if poorly translated instructions were done so on purpose for the entertainment of the translators.

LOVE!

Remiss, remiss, remiss.

I have been slacking in my bloggage. I have even had internet and not used it to this advantage. BUT I have a sweet story to make up for it.

Have you ever made one of those "Operation Christmas Child" boxes? They're the shoeboxes that get filled with toys and goodies and go to needy children in the world.

...

Also known as the children in my village. Yes, that's right. A few weeks ago, World Vision (who does a kid's club on Wednesdays) brought the children boxes from Samaritan's Purse and the kids had a field day with their new toys/joys. What I enjoyed most was seeing them try to figure out some of the toys that they got. Having a tubaako (white person) in the village has been useful to them in this endeavor. Several different people over the next few days came to me with the question, "Aminata, what is this?"

I'm not sure my sister yet understands the full coolness of shrinky-dinks, but she got the bubbles immediately, once I explained, "No, it's not lipgloss... it's even better!" One woman came to me with a bath fizzer. I tried to explain it: "You put it in water that you'll bathe with (no bath-tubs here, remember, but bucket baths) and it will foam and smell nice." "Oh, yes, ok. I thought it was a ball." Many kids got playdough: "It's, ummmm, well, it's dirt! And you can make stuff out of it. Like a person. Or a snake. Or whatever you want. But when you're done put it back in the jar with the lid on tight or it will dry out. And if you mix colors, you can't get them back apart, so be careful, ok?" One kid in my compound got a harmonica. It is kind of nice to hear them play it every once in a while. And El Hadji is musically inclined, so it's good for him to have access to an instrument. I'm very excited about that one.

But the one I liked the best was this... three days after they arrived, a mother came to me with her five-year-old daughter, a photo, and a letter. A 14 year-old girl in Canada made a box and sent it with a letter and her school portrait. At first they had thought it was just note paper, but later opened it to realize it was written all over in a language they didn't understand and had a mystery picture attached. So they brought it to me and I sat down with them and translated into pulaar. Clara, the canadian, asked for a letter in return if they were able. "How can we send her a letter?" "She wrote her address here. If you write something for her, we can put it in an envelope and send it at the post office." "But who will send it to her?" "Come to me when you're ready to write the letter and I will help you write it, translate it into English for her, and then send it when I go to Velingara." A few days later they came back ready to write a greeting. I wrote a letter to Clara myself, translated the pulaar, and took a photo of Binta and her mom. I can't print it out here, but I gave Clara my email in hopes that she'll email me and I can send her the photo electronically. It was a very sweet letter from Siren and her daughter and I hope to hear back from Clara.

Thank you to all the people who fill out those boxes. It really means a lot to the kids (who, at least here, rarely get gifts especially for them). And my one suggestion to those who will do it this year: if you do one for older kids, don't do just school supplies. While they are very useful and definitely needed, remember that their little sibs are getting shrinky-dinks and bubbles. They like toys, too.

THANK YOU!!!!

We raised the initial goal for the 6 villages in my area. There is now the opportunity to expand the distribution to other villages that use my health post, but that means of course expanding the funds-raised. Continuing to donate to the page I set up: againstmalaria.com/awebster will help fund other volunteers' distributions and may make it possible for our outfit to cover more villages near here. Mosquitoes suck (bah dom chhhh), and malaria is heinous, but you guys are awesome! Thanks for all you've done so far! Really, really.

One year in my village. One year as a volunteer. One year older… and wiser? I hope so.

This week I’m doubly celebrating my “anniversaire”. Monday I turned 25: a quarter-century. Thursday, I will be one-year in the village. The marking of the passage of time has brought a lot of evaluation into my thought life.

What does it mean to me to be 25? Where am I in my life and where am I headed?

To me, 25 seems to be one of those birthdays that’s arbitrarily more important than the ones immediately around it. So I feel like what I’m doing and everything I’m thinking about should also be more important and profound.

I still feel like I lack specific direction in my “professional” life, but I’m ok with that. At least I am at the moment. I have ideas, just no clear path. But I’m on track (meaning I’m still constantly growing) in my personal development.

I had a 25 party with some other volunteers over the weekend that was successful with an afternoon at the pool, real grilled hotdogs (they’re new in Tamba) and a variety of different “25s”. If you ever did the 100th day of school thing, you know what I mean. Everyone brought 25 of something and we had show and tell. I had hoped to bake a few hundred (you read that right) cookies to take to the village for my actual birthday, but the connection between the gas tank and the stove/oven was busted and a technician worked all weekend to fix it, but to no avail. I had a (brief) party in the village anyway and it was a “smashing” success… we played Pin the Tail on the Donkey (Jonnu Mbabba Bokkal… or more fun, Okku Bokkal) and had a piñata. I was right, piñatas were invented for village children. You beat it (blindfolded… holy cow is that an exciting addition) and candy comes out! It was chaos of course, but I definitely scored some cool points with the kids. I even had some new girls stop by just to visit later on because they were so impressed with American birthday celebrations.

I also finally got the chance to show the “first graders” the pictures drawn for them by the Girl Scout troop in San Antonio. They LOVED them! Especially the pictures of the girls. I think we may end up posting them in the classroom… which may be kind of tricky because it’s a corn-stalk classroom. The walls are mostly corn or millet stalk and the roof is grass, but some of the walls are zinc plating, so I think we can get tape to stick to that. Thanks girls!

Last week we showed “Elle Travalle, Elle Vit” at the local middle school. It’s a movie made by some volunteers that showcases 5 successful Senegalese women and brings up some of the issues and obstacles girls are faced with in their own paths to success. It went well and then the discussion afterwards was really good. Then later this weekend I was eating a bean sandwich and happened to notice that the newspaper it was wrapped in had a blurb about one of the women printed on it. Apparently she wants (or wanted in March) to take on the president’s son (and would-be future president) in a debate. You go Penda Mbow! I kept the clip to show to the girl’s group when I go to the school this week to conduct interviews for the scholarship SeneGAD provides.

Today I’m in town to buy paint to do a mural about nutrition and gardening at the school, so I’m hoping to hurry back and at least get the outline up.

Thanks for the packages! I picked up ones today from Katie and Christy and my mom. You have no idea how popular and important I felt picking up multiple packages. I mean I’m basically Angelina Jolie. What’s more surprising, is that none of them were covered in Senegalese post-office tape. Clearly the one from Katie had been opened because the corner was slashed, but it was still tightly packed so I think it was all there. I guess the whoopee cushion looked suspicious in customs.

To wrap up: here are 25 things from my 25th year of life: I

1. Rode a camel.

2. Voted in the election of the first black American president.

3. Ate warthog.

4. Learned an African language… (we’ll count it as learned even if I’m not fluent.)

5. Did my hair up in dreadlocks.

6. Was barked at by a troop of baboons in the wild.

7. Sewed a dress by hand.

8. Crossed an international border on foot (slash bike… I’m not sure where the technical border actually is).

9. Learned to “correctly” shell peanuts en masse without injuring fingers.

10. Had giardia… twice.

11. Kicked a rat in the face.

12. Saw my president’s name or likeness on: notebooks, belts, bags, t-shirts, other clothing and school supplies, and ice cream. (Obama cookies… so good).

13. Made flour tortillas from scratch.

14. Sifted a lot of poop by hand (literally hours of work).

15. Biked 70km in one go.

16. Swam 4km without stopping.

17. Went to my first funeral (discounting memorial services, I don’t think I ever actually went to a funeral in the states).

18. Had a baby named after me. (Just to be clear, it was not me that HAD the baby, just the name).

19. Harvested peanuts.

20. Bought (and unfortunately lost, but did briefly own) a machete.

21. Saw a real-live in-the-wild hippo.

22. Had my first Thanksgiving away from home. (Is that true? Wow.)

23. Planned, prepared, cared for, and ate from my very own personal garden.

24. Killed at least 6 “Nebeday…" as in "Never-die” trees.

25. Served as a Peace Corps volunteer.*

*side-note: I can now officially ET and still receive Returned Peace Corps Volunteer status… not that I plan to, I’m just saying.

The request for nets to completely cover my village block was approved and now I can start fundraising for nets. Which means this week my blog is a shameless request for money. We are getting our nets at a steal! Because of a funds-matching agreement, we've been asked to raise $2 per net! That means I am responsible for raising $1,798 to buy the 899 nets that we need.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help raise this money!

You can donate directly at www.AgainstMalaria.com/awebster.

If we raise the $1800 for my area (and I'm trusting you for that), there are other areas also part of this distribution. We're all grouped together and you can make a general donation at www.AgainstMalaria.com/PCVs6500.

Each net helps save lives!!! Typically, there are 2-3 people sharing a bed, meaning one net actually serves more than one person. The mosquitoes that transmit malaria are active mostly at night, while people are sleeping. Impregnated (dipped) mosquito nets are the most effective way to prevent malaria. In addition, because the nets are dipped, or treated, their power to help lower the mosquito population is two-fold: they kill mosquitoes bold enough to approach, and starve the others from the meal they need to survive. If we can get EVERY SINGLE PERSON to sleep under a mosquito net, imagine how that will decrease the prevalence of malaria! The goal is to provide as much coverage as possible in coordination with education about malaria prevention and avoiding/reducing mosquitoes.

Please share the link with your Sunday School classes, youth groups, co-workers, everyone! It's a cheap and easy way to save lives! Plus, Against Malaria requires that we provide video of the distribution, so if you help raise money for this, you're guaranteed to see some video of my dread-head (... bonus, right?) as well as the people who directly benefit from your generosity. So get to raising money! Lives are at stake!

Also, be on the lookout at againstmalaria.com

We are working on raising money for mosquito nets for my village and others on their website, so more information will come. Just a heads up. If you're looking to help prevent people from dying from ridiculously preventable diseases, look no further. Start collecting pocket change now, folks, because net distributions (and instructions for your end of the bargain) will be forthcoming!

Merci, wai.

(Thanks, man.)

I just posted my blog that I typed last Monday, so I thought I’d go ahead and do one for today. In fact, I may wait to post this until Wednesday just so it looks like I post more often than I do. Or not.

I was really determined to post once a week, not just to satiate my ravenous fan-base (as if that were true), but also because it’s important to me to communicate my experience here. One of the Peace Corps goals is to share other cultures with Americans and so, I kind of feel a sense of duty to do that. Therefore, I hope I’m doing a good job of it. Please let me know if I’m not. Things aren’t all as shiny and new now that I’ve been here a year and so, I don’t feel compelled to write down my impressions of every little thing. I’ll keep trying to remember to note interesting things as they happen. But seriously, the last month (and the next one too) have been crazy with travel and busy stuff, so I’m not as regular at posting, and I apologize for that.

That being said, this week was also uber-busy. I visited with the COSers in Kedougou and saw the new stage again, because they came down this week to do their volunteer visits. When we did training we did a 10-day “Community Based Training”, where we went out to volunteers sites to experience training in a situation much more like what we’d be living in during service. Training structure has since changed and the trainees are now based in villages in the general Thies region. Basically their whole PST (pre-service training) is CBT style. So their volunteer visits are for about a week and for many of them, it takes place in their actual site, with the volunteer they will be replacing. They have specific tasks that they are meant to complete and they’re able to have a much better idea of their future 2 years before finishing training. Sounds good to me. On the way back from Kedougou, I spent a night with Holly and Camille in their village to help out with Camille’s volunteer visit and share news about the potential for the girls’ group in Sinthian Koundara, then headed back to my village.

EE club was a big bust last week because the kids are on vacation and even though I hand-wrote invitations (that sounds a lot nicer than they actually were), no one came. Fine. I sort of expected as much. Not a big deal really. Next time.

Saturday was the Senegalese Independence day, and I celebrated by cleaning/reorganizing my room. I made a “bookshelf” by turning a cardboard box on its side and putting it up on some paintcans. It looks amazing.

I also caught a mouse in my rat-trap, which is awkward because the rat-trap is huge and mice are small and so it only got caught by the tail, but it died anyway and hopefully that takes care of all the rodents in my hut because honestly, the lizards are starting to get bold and while I highly prefer lizards to mice and rats, one animal-type is quite enough, thank you very much. And lizards don’t freak me out.

And the GREAT news this week is that we finally had the very important health meeting and it went very well. As a result of that meeting, we’ve planned another meeting with the health committee to create an action plan for the next 3-6 months. I am very excited about this. Very very very excited. And so, right now I’m sitting in the World Vision office talking about how to run the meeting/training in creating and following an action plan, and am finding out that World Vision might be able to fund a lunch for the committee so that we can have a full day to discuss problem/solution management and really do a good job with this. I’m thrilled. So much stuff seems to be done poorly here (mostly things like EE club meetings and occasional village-wide stuff)… poorly is a bad word to use. Stuff just feels half-done sometimes. I am really glad to have another organization here to support me and work with me and help me make this something WELL done, not half-done. WELL done is nice.

And later this week is EASTER!!!! Which is fun and exciting. Also fun and exciting is that I have a meeting with my boss this week to discuss all the things that are going well, are not going well, and are not going at all so that I can begin to re-assess my work plans for next year and have an aggressive strategy for raising environmental awareness and addressing health issues in my community. Sounds productive right? I have every reason to believe it will be. As a year-in volunteer, I have the advantage of having done most of my “figuring out what the heck is going on” part of service and can now begin the “so much work my head is spinning” part of service. I still have a lot to figure out and maybe in 10 years when I’ve had time to process this experience more fully, I’ll get it. Maybe. But for now, I’m loving life. And that’s about all I can ask for.

Also also fun and exciting is Maggie’s birthday/Easter special: We’re going to ride camels… and sleep in Bedouin tents. I think they’re Bedouin. Did I mention Senegal is partly desert… as in Sahara desert? That’s right, the Sahel region is the edge of the encroaching Sahara, and that same Sahel region itself encroaches right into Senegal. And they keep camels there. And I’m going to ride them. This may not be the best idea, given that I’m afraid of riding horses, but I will try oh-so-hard not to cry when I’m up there on top of that camel and just remember that it’s an experience I’m sure I’ll remember forever.

Hey Monica! Did you hear what happened in the war the other day? A soldier fell off his camel!!!!!! (hilarious laughter ensues)

Miss you all! Happy Easter!

Since last time, life has been at full speed.

I last wrote on my way up to training in Thies, where I met the new stage. The trainees are AWESOME!!! I am very excited about them becoming volunteers (and some of them my new neighbors!). I was there for about a week helping with PACA (a cultural integration/community-informed workplan development tool) training and then did a tourney to the various villages where the trainees are located to do mudstove building. It was a lot of fun. And I was able to be in Thies with some of my friends from the north (who I never get to see) for our one year in country mark. That was a big deal and it was nice to be together for it, in a city where we could go out and have a nice dinner to celebrate. And, thank you Daniel Prial, I had ice cream everyday in Thies. Excessive, yes. But worth it.

Back from training, I spent a week in the village organizing the rest of the month, setting up meetings and whatnot. I also found the bush path between my village and Amber and Laura’s villages. I spent a night with Amber in her village and biked back the next morning. It was one of the best bike rides I’ve had here. I live in a really beautiful region of the country… which you don’t see as well from the road as you do when you’re biking from village to village. I got to see the fields, rice faros, and gardens of several villages near to me. In a village about 5 km away, there was an amazingly organized village garden that I wanted to come back to see later, so I made note of it on the ride out to stop on the way back. When I did come back through, there was a huge celebration: a double event—wedding and baptism. I stayed for a little to dance and celebrate and met the vice president of the gardening group, who agreed to give me a tour the next week. I was able to go back this past Friday and learned a lot about the village, their garden, their extremely organized garden group, and hopefully I’ll be able to work with them in the future. It was a neat experience.

The day after the wedding/baptism, I booked it out to Mary’s village to help her host a women’s day games event. She got the idea from another volunteer to do a gender Olympics. We had a pound-off (pounding millet), a water-hauling relay race, and a tug-of-war competition. They also talked about making mosquito repellent and had speakers and a dj. It was pretty crazy and they all went nuts when we brought out beignets (aka bonbons, or fried dough balls). But I think they had a good time and enjoyed a fun afternoon of appreciating the work that women do in the village. Local elections were the following day, so there were no cars running and I was forced to stay in her village. We made the best of it by going out to the campement (tourist hotel) in the next village and enjoying a cool Sprite-passionfruit drink while watching hippos in the Gambia river. One of those “Ah! This is why I love Africa!” moments. And now I’ve seen a real live hippo… in the wild!

When I got back to the village I had a crazy week of CCBI (Community-Content Based Instruction) lesson planning and execution, prep and execution of a small tree planting and grafting training session, and I met the principal and English teacher at the nearby middle school. I’ll be working with them on the SeneGAD (Gender and Development) scholarship to help keep girls in school, as well as possibly a girls’ group. Girls in middle school tend to be between 12-17, and deal with all kinds of challenges to continuing education, including underage pregnancy and marriage, and heavy workloads at home that inhibit healthy study habits. We’d like to stress the importance of education and give the girls the opportunity to continue on and to succeed in their goals. It starts with helping them see that they can dream of their own future and do actually have the power to set goals and work towards their achievement. Female empowerment. I am very excited about the possibility of working with a girl’s group. And this town is between me and my new neighbor, Camille, (Holly’s replacement) so we might be able to work together.

For my EE club this week, I had a great plan and beautiful visual aids and was very excited… but only 3 kids showed up. We talked about compost in theory and then went and looked at, watered, and turned the compost pile I built in the school garden. I had a hard time keeping their attention (except when we played hangman while we waited to see if others would show up). So, I was in a pretty bad mood about it. I had put in a lot of effort and was really proud of the lesson that seemed to fall so flat. So I walked back to my hut, bucket, shovel, and visual aids in tow. But wait! Not all was lost! I passed by several compounds (to remind people about the tree stuff, see below) on my way back and of course, everyone asked about my unwieldy load, giving me the opportunity to explain compost theory to at least 20 villagers. That’s right, planned the lesson for 16 kids, only got 3. 3+20=23!!! 23>16. I win! HA HA, Africa! You can’t keep a good guy down!

For the tree stuff, the 19th-20th, I sent two guys from my village to a tree training organized by another Kolda volunteer and attended by villagers from all over Kolda. Then they came back to the village and we organized a smaller info session where they showed other people in the village the practical parts of what they’d learned. It was hosted Saturday morning and went really well… once people showed up. We were meant to start at 9am. At 9.15 I was wondering why I was sitting alone in the schoolyard sifting poop (for fertilizing the nursery substrate). At 10.30, we had enough people to begin. And they really seemed to enjoy the training. One of the guys was sent to the two-day training because he’s very interested and eager and has experience with trainings, so he was able to come back and lead a very informative session. He knew just when to ask questions and just when to take them. It was excellent.

We finished around noon and after lunch I left quickly for Kolda because this weekend was the COS party, where we formally send off the people who are finishing their service. We wore our Hands-attire and ate Finger foods and drank Punch. It was really fun, but bittersweet, because it means that some of my friends are now leaving and starting “real-life” in America. I left Kolda early this morning to make a ridiculous, but worthwhile journey over to Kedougou, where there is a COS party tonight for the COSers in that region. It is my last chance to see them, so while I’m excited to go visit friends, I am keenly aware of the same bittersweetness. It’s good to celebrate their 2 years of successful service and everything they have meant to us, but selfishly, I kind of think everyone should just extend until I COS. Then we all leave at once. Good plan right? I’ll miss them, but they’re all headed on to other exciting opportunities and I’m glad for that too.

This week’s blog is mostly candid reflection on the events of this week from my journal, but writing it out, I thought of several people who would appreciate reading it, so I decided to publish.

The Story of My Week: (an adaptation and expansion of a journal entry, with commentary for clarification)

I don’t understand my life here. It seems hard to make sense of way too much. I think I messed up this week.

Sunday was Mary’s birthday. Mary and I share an undying love for ice cream, so for her birthday, I invited her to come down to my area where we and a few other volunteers would bike our way to my top-secret ice cream location, which we did. And it was great.

Biked out Sunday, biked back Monday morning so that Mary could get back to her village that night.

Well, ok. Of course it wasn’t actually that simple. The bike ride out was fine, right up until we got to town. Entering town we were told: “STOP!!! Don’t go that way. [undistinguishable word]s are there!”

-What?

-[repeated]

-Beans?

-Yes!

-There are beans so we can’t pass? {to each other} What is going on? That guy says there’s beans there. No, he can’t be saying beans. Yeah, he’s really excited about the beans over there. What the heck?

-[repeat, repeat emphatically], it’s dangerous.

-Oh THIEVES! There are thieves. Where, in the road?

-Yes, just there and they’ll bite you.

-Wait, what? Thieves, beans, what? There are beans and they’ll bite us?

-Yes. [word] and they’ll bite you. They’ve already killed a donkey.

(some conversation among the Americans to figure out what is actually being said. We don’t know… try pulaar.)

-Niebe?

-Nyaaki!!

-OH!!!!!!!! BEES!!!!! (flapping arms like a bee to verify) Yes, “Nyaaki. Si mi yahay ton, be fidi lan?”

-YES!!!!!!

Glad we cleared that up. Now what do we do. People are waiting for us on the other side of the BEE trap. Watch a few people pass by and decide that if we pass on the left and as fast as possible, we should be ok. And we were.

We got cleaned up and went out to dinner/ice cream… only the power (which only comes on at night) wasn’t on. So no ice cream. But dinner and good company. And sometime just before midnight it came on, so we were able to have ice cream afterall. Happy birthday Mary.

The next day we biked back when we ran into another problem: the transport strike (un peu plus grave, quoi?) All of Senegal’s garages were on strike because of some unfair treatment having to do with carrying passengers to and from Mali. And possibly the president of the driver’s association was put in prison somewhere. In any case, no cars leaving. So the Tamba girls waited to see if they could catch a car. Possibly the strike would be lifted around 6pm. Meanwhile, I ran errands in town. I didn’t really want to go back to site for some reason. Occasionally, you leave site and have no volition to return. Not that you don’t want to be there, just it’s hard to go sometimes. And it would seem it gets easier, but it doesn’t really. Being in the village is easier, certainly, but when you’re away, it’s almost always hard to go back. It doesn’t make sense.

I came back through the garage to see if they had gotten on a car (otherwise I’d have had them come home with me and wait until Tuesday to catch a car). But they were on a mini-car waiting to leave. I was so tempted to go to Tamba. So tempted. But the responsible thing was to go home. So I said goodbye, and biked out of Velingara. About 1.5 km down the road I thought about the people that I would see in Tamba, the fact that I rarely do things on impulse, there’s nothing planned in the village for Tuesday (but a very VERY important meeting Wednesday morning). I didn’t think the strikes would continue, especially since they were sending cars, so u-turned right back to the garage and hopped the mini-car to go back with my friends.

I’m still not sure how to judge that decision. Most definitely it was not the responsible thing to do, but I’m not sure I wouldn’t do it again. We got to Tamba late and there were quite a few people there—lots of Kedougou and most of the COSers from Tamba. [Close of Service… ie, people leaving me soon]. The plan was to spend the night and return Tuesday, but then there were no cars leaving the garage at all Tuesday. They finally broke the strike at 9 or 10 pm but at that point I’d already cancelled my meeting Wednesday and it makes no sense coming home in the middle of the night. So I returned mid-day Wednesday, thinking I could at least plant with the EE club that afternoon as I’d planned. I told a few of the kids that after Bouge-Be (the World Vision youth club) we’d plant… only Bouge-Be didn’t come, therefore the kids weren’t at the school to herd into the garden. So we planted Thursday after school instead. I asked to reschedule the meeting to Friday but Thursday morning found out that the ASC at the health hut wasn’t going to be in town Friday, so I don’t know when we’ll have this health committee meeting that seemed so important and urgent. I have to go to Thies this week to lead the PACA triaining for the kids who are where I was a year ago (that’s a whole other bucket of weird by itself), so I was leaving the village again Saturday morning for an undetermined period of time, but most likely a week. So no [village] work next week. That then was pushed up a day, so I left Friday morning rather than Saturday… and then found out Friday afternoon that it was changed again to later… so I’m probably going to be in Thies longer than I expected. The Gamou (prophet’s birthday) really threw a monkey wrench in the training schedule.

About going to Tamba, I hate feeling like I flaked out on my village. On the one hand, the strike was beyond my control and that isn’t my fault about missing the meeting. On the other hand, I chose to go to Tamba knowing (though not believing) I could get stuck there. I don’t regret going. I had fun. I enjoyed being with my friends and I feel like I “invested friend bucks” (to borrow a borrowed phrase) that I wouldn’t want to take back. Socially, and in volunteerworld, a good week. But in villageworld, not so much. All the work I had planned for this week (starting CCBI lessons with teachers, EE club, Health meeting) seemed to be slipping through my fingers. I did get the garden planted with the EE kids… only like 4 months late. Oops. What’s most frustrating is things can be so all or nothing. I hit wall after wall in work and then when things start to finally roll, one flakey decision unravels all the rest. I want so badly to feel like I am doing good work here—like when I leave I will have made life a little better, a little easier to succeed at. I just want to build one or two steps up toward a level playing field for the villagers here, but it seems futile sometimes.* It makes me think about ETers who seemed alright here but I guess felt bad about not doing work. That word never seemed so complicated before Senegal. I really love people here and want to continue growing the relationships I have, so I won’t go home. But it isn’t fair that I can be here and even if I’m not “working”, still in total security. Even if I were a bad volunteer who didn’t try to do stuff and didn’t really care, I’d still be able to stay here and live at or above the level of the impoverished around me. I’ve got means to entertain myself, etc. Meanwhile, all the rest are living hand to mouth. And my country is paying for me to be here. I could be doing something productive in the US right now.

But I’m not there. And I don’t want to be right now. I’ve been reading in Ecclesiastes recently and one thing I’ve taken from it is the message that life doesn’t make sense. Maybe it doesn’t need to. I think that’s what Soloman means when he says it’s all meaningless. Not that it’s hopeless, gloom, doom, and destruction, but that we can look and look to make sense of why things are the way they are and never find an answer. Why was I born in America, with money, shelter, love, and endless opportunity, while people here work themselves to the bone just to be able to feed their families? What’s with the disparity that exists in the world? There is no rhyme or reason to it. There is only taking what you’ve been given and doing what is right. If you have food and drink, eat it and drink it. If you work hard just to make it, keep working. “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.” Ecc. 3:12-13. Not that the haves should isolate themselves from the have-nots. Just that you can’t get hung up on it. Doing what’s right is important and helping when and where you can is crucial. You must also live.

So what that all amounts to in my thought cycle right now is this. I know that relationships are the most important thing. Probably in life. Everyone, no matter what economic status, thrives on relationships with others. And I can’t erase difference and disparity, no matter how fantastic of a volunteer/person I am. But I can keep at the work I’ve got and enjoy the things I do have. Like friends and family in my village. Other volunteers. Bissap and mangos.** As my friend Laura said to me, “I would not trade work for love here. I know you have that, so you’ve succeeded already. The rest is extra.” And so by those standards, this week was wonderful. I wasn’t in the village as much as I’d hoped and didn’t do all the things I wanted to work-wise, but I did spend time with people I care about and I’m living and loving life. And I don’t feel guilty about pouring into relationships with non-Senegalese, as I sometimes will… (it’s the whole, “I didn’t come to Africa to make friends with Americans, but gosh darn it, I really like these guys” thing). Voila! Mon avis du vie!

Well, that about sums it all up. My great revelation and revolving thoughts this week. I hope you’ve enjoyed my little nuggets of truth and contemplation. Until next time!

* I do actually do work that is effective. I just tend to overlook the little successes because I want to be a super-volunteer and save the world.

**I had the first mangos of the season Friday. Eagerly awaited and oh so welcome. Especially at the end of my almost 70 km bike ride to Tamba. It’s actually 80, but I caught a car for the last 10… I’m doing “entrainments” for a long ride to Kedougou sometime in the future, by “fairing esport” on my bike. 70 km was a great physical and moral success.

So.... how long has it been since my last post?

Since I got back from America, internet access has been spotty and I feel like I've been running full speed, even though I'm sure at very many moments since then I've been banging my head on the wall in frustration over the slowness of things. Such is life.

After I last wrote, I and three other volunteers biked our way to a mysterious mystery location (mentioned previously, circa July, September? of last year) where we consumed unnecessary portions of frozen dairy foodstuffs amid the company of other volunteers: Peace Corps, Tostan, and VOS, which is like PC in Britain. Tons of fun and highly successful. I plan to do it again soon. Following that was the second EE club meeting: moderate success. The kids liked the walk, loved the notebooks, and I think learned some stuff. I also learned a little and so I think we're all better off. Huzzah.

The next week I did cool stuff like video my health hut ASC talking about malaria and work with the first graders (CP students) on an art/culture exchange with a Girl Scout troop in San Antonio. I also have now been into every hut and seen every bed in my village and the two nearest. Hopefully that will translate into mosquito nets arriving at the cusp of the rainy season... one for every bed/sleeping place, thereby saving hundreds of people from malaria. Looks like my work here is done.

The third EE club meeting took place and was, well, not as successful as I'd like it to have been, but at the end of the meeting Moussa (a favorite) said that it was a really good meeting, we had done lots of stuff, and he had a lot of fun. So I'll score that one under cultural success if nothing else. I'm sure the concept of plant needs and the importance of planning your garden danced daintly around their little heads, but I'm not convinced that they took home much more than the "In My Garden" game was lots of fun. I guess my gift for games will (inchallah) never fail me. And I thought I'd never find a use for my med-kit whistle. Also some kid ended up bleeding in the classroom and I'm not really sure how that happened, or why he was there in the first place. His older sister took him home to get cleaned up... safety fourth, I always say.

Last week I left my site to go to Dakar for the annual West Africa Invitational Softball Tournament. WAIST is a lot of fun, two days of softball and somehow many more nights of parties and for some (ok, most volunteers... especially the Mauritanians) lots of opportunity to get "WAISTed". Bah dom chhhh. But I really think the highlight is seeing all the people from the different parts of the country that I never get to see and being gifted with the loads of time to be social that I miss. Ever the indecisive girl that I am, I was faced with the daunting decision of which region's team to play for. I am a Kolda volunteer. I am closer to, and have many friends in Tambagou (a combination of Tamba and Kedougou). I made the best choice ever... I chose not to decide, and played for both teams. I knew it. I AM a true player!

I dressed the part for Peace Corporate Tambagou and had a ball (the drums and cymbal again) playing with the all-fun all-the-time, never serious but most spirited team from the Southeast. And then I made like Clark Kent and swiftly donned my 80's hair band outfit. I made a skirt that really held its own in the tournament, and I don't mind bragging about it just a little. I'm pretty pleased with it and will be looking for any and every opportunity to wear it again. Oh yeah, and really it was shorts... game shorts, no less. I mean business after all. I play to win.

So it was fun softball in the daytime and fun parties with fun dresses at night. The Kolda kids all bought the same heinous fabric: blue with orange hands and severed fingers (I'm not even lying). And we won a game, which is great, because some of the teams were out for blood. After that was the All-Volunteer conference where we talked about strategy for development practices and how some really neat projects have come about and can be redone. It was a pretty good week, but very exhausting.

And tomorrow morning I'll go back to site to go through some English withdrawl and hopefully get school gardening stuff off the ground... only oh, 4 months behind optimal starting time. Eh. And there you have it... my last 3 weeks in brief.

I'd like to ask my praying friends to pray for a friend of mine here. There's tough family stuff going on that isn't my place to be specific about, but she could really use a prayer or two. I'd rather not disclose her name, for the sake of people on this continent that might read this, but luckily, God's got that part covered, so if you could jump in on the rest, that'd be awesome.

Hope you're well and enjoying the end of winter. It's the beginning of hot season here and this morning I woke up sweating (on account of heat, not dreams) for the first time in months. Miss you. Love you. Mom, call your daughter. Peace. Corps.

PS. sorry the picture is so lame. It was the best I could steal off of facebook. That's the skirt in the bottom left. Trust me. Sweet as.

Welcome back to life in Africa, 2009. It’s been pretty busy since I’ve gotten back and I haven’t had time to sit and type a blog entry, or even post one. To catch up on events, Christmas was good and it was really nice to be home and with my family and friends in Texas. I got back to Dakar on Jan 3. and after some traveling and businessy things to do in Dakar, I got back to the village on the 8th, only to set up my rat traps and then spend the night at Laura’s village. The next day I got a new neighbor, Amber. Amber was in Tambacounda region, but moved down to a new site about 12 or 15 km away from me, I believe. Those are bushroad distances and I haven’t navigated the path yet, but I believe that’s about what it works out to. So Laura and I went with Amber to her new site and then I returned home to find the punk rat caught in the traps I’d set. HAHAHA, sucker! I can finally sleep at night. I brought back photos of my villagers to give them, so I spent a couple of days making social calls and showing off the pictures to anyone who wanted to see them, often multiple times. I’ve started giving the photos to them now. I thought, this will be great seriche (gifts when you go away) because it’s cheap and easy to get something for every family. It is great, however, I suppose everything can backfire, and now I’m constantly bombarded with “take my picture! take my picture!” Even from adults, who tend to approach it as “Do you know what I’d like? I’d like you to photograph me. You didn’t take my picture to America. Please take it now. Please.” Oh yeah, except there’s no way to say please in pulaar. I have been having other meetings and things preparing for work that ought to be starting soon, si Allah jabi (If God wills it). Things with the health hut, school is in session, the usual. And the really good news: I HAD MY FIRST EE CLUB MEETING!!! It was a lot of fun. I got a list of the top students from 4 of the classes and we met to talk about things like “What is the environment? What is natural and what is non-natural? How do we change it and how can it change us?” And then we drew a big picture of the environment. Good times. We started with the name game where you have to do a dance move and say your name and then repeat all the other people’s moves and names. They were a little shy about it, but eventually got into it, especially the boys. I plan to have the next one on Saturday and we’ll take a walk around the village and practice observation skills. Very exciting! This week I went down to Kedougou to help with a video screening of “Elle Travailles, Elle Vits.” It’s a movie made by SeneGAD, the gender and development group that encourages gender equality and women’s empowerment. The video stresses the importance of education and encourages girls to stay in school. We planned to show it at middle schools in the area. Our leg of the tourney was the first leg, and we ran into major problems getting the equipment to work, so I guess you could say it was unsuccessful. But, we did sort it all out so that the rest of the tourney (about 10 more days/schools) should go well. I think that can count as success. So, things are going well more or less. I still feel a little like work is slower than Christmas, but I can’t complain too much because things are picking up. I have a list of things I’d like to be working on, seeda seeda. Little by little and step by step, I’ll get stuff done and feel like work is work.

At home, with state-of-the-art American internet access, I've finally posted pictures. 4 entries of pictures: my village, children pictures, cultural insight photos, and other views of the life of a volunteer. Merry Christmas!

Jumbo, me, and our country director, Mustafa Diallo (er... Chris) on the day I arrived.

My village and the gathering stormclouds before a heavy rain.

The rice fields have beautiful trees... and these also remind us of Dr. Seuss.

Here's a shot of some fields and the corner of the kiddie soccer field in our village. Pretty.

Rainy season. I thought this looked cool.

The long awaited picture of my hut! Complete with invasive goats.

Once there was a hole in my douche... then there were two. :-(

And then there was one again!

Rainy season clouds.

Rice fields well into the rainy season.

More pretty skies, this time with a cornstalk for local character.

Lightning bolt! (as per request, Katie)

Yet another pretty sky. I'm thinking of making a collection of nice sunsets. Two years should offer me quite a few.

This is the view out of my backdoor as my dad was re-fencing the backyard.

That's my watermelon plant, which I killed that day, accidentally.

There's my dad, the village chief, building me a new cornstalk fence.

This is the recently acquired nook in my backyard which I hope to decorate with flowers and other pretty things. It's the back left corner from the above picture and used to be where the manioc (bantara) plants were kept.

Uncle Caro with the snake he killed in my hut.

This is the path as I enter my village.

Schoolyard: cornstalk classroom on left, concrete classroom on right, football field front and center.

Health hut/telecenter... only available electricity in village. Enough to charge a cell phone, run the land line, and nightly power our 6-inch black and white tv.

My neighborhood, from the path in front of the school.

The mosque.

Family first:

Hawa, Houley, Haliatu (I guess they like H names, huh?)

Amadou sometimes thinks he's my husband.

The kids love writing on my chalkboard.

My little sister Houley.

My brother's wife, Adama, and son, Sadibou. He loves me. Just look at that smile.

My sister Hawa, aka Mami

Now on to neighbors...

Housseini lives in the village next to ours and came to help us "gongugol" the peanuts.

Juma is a crying champ, but really cute when she isn't wailing.

Sadio is pretty awesome. I snapped this picture when he was trying to see the camera after I took the one of Juma, his little sis. They're all eating dumdums brought by the college students that came to visit for a week.

Ousmani is the best at the staring/don't laugh first contest.

Coumba is one of the happiest children in the village. I don't think I've ever seen her crying, and that's saying a lot.

Thierno and Wuri. Two of the coolest kids, and incidentally, best dancers in the village.

Mamadou Alin, Houley, and me. Very serious.

I swear, I was just walking down the "street" in the village and was lucky enough to see one of the boys riding a horse towards the water pump... with a bucket on his head. Sancho Panza?

When I'm overwhelmed by the demands to "take my picture, take my picture" I just take one group shot and say "Ok guys, that's it. All done."

Cute, right?

The two Annickas, plus older sisters Ramatulaye, Aisha, and mom, Nima.

This was at her baptism in September.

The two Annicka's in November, I believe.

Maimona Annicka, and Aminata Annicka at Tabaski.

Here's a few pictures to give a view of life in the village. Here in Coumba Diouma, we:

Haul water from wells

Sweep at least twice a day with straw brooms

Plant and harvest peanuts

Store things (like corn) on the roof to dry, where the goats can't get them

Eat Nebeday leaves for dinner (So good!)

Drink attaya (tea) with loads of sugar

Women carry stuff on their heads and babies on their backs, sometimes at the same time

When we had the big meeting with Mamadou, we had an equally big lunch brought to us in the school yard.

Tostan hosted a department-wide declaration day and had a big parade in Velingara.

For holidays and special occasions, they put henna on their feet. This is Rachael getting her feet done by candlelight.

These are my feet being hennaed.

At religious holidays, like Tabaski, there is a prayer service in the schoolyard. The men line up in the front, women in the back,

and the young kids with their moms and grandmas.

After the prayer service, everyone goes back home to cook a big meal,

using a big ol' pot. (These 2 are from the baptism in our compound).

And then we share the food with the neighbors. Yay Teranga (hospitality), the national motto!

These are pictures to shed some light on the volunteer life:

I am outside the training center (centre de formation) in Thies. This was also like two days before I started my dreads. Dreds. I'm still unsure about the spelling of that word.

This is a baobab tree, the national tree, with particular personality. A lot of people think they look kind of like big elephant feet coming out of the sky. They remind me of Dr. Seuss trees because (especially in the drier areas and in the dry season) the leaves tend tend to grow in tuft-like formations... go read Horton Hears a Who, you'll see what I mean.

At IST we learned how to paint an extremely (in)accurate and (im)precise map of the world by practice. We painted one in this gym/karate studio. Did I mention Senegal loves martial arts?

Bethany learns proper gardening techniques by making a plot in the demo garden at the center.

After IST, I visted Alexis in Joal-Fadiouth. Here we are on the island that is just off Fadiouth, also an island, where there is a cemetery for both Catholics and Muslims. It is very cool to see somewhere with such religious unity and is symbolic of Senegal's tolerance, of which they are very proud.

Our guide at Fadiouth. He's pointing out a souvenir shop that is much better than your regular market. Better than a super market. It's a Hyper Super Market. "Cheaper than free." Now that's good marketing.

This is the day I received Katie's Halloween package. I'm obviously excited about it. Katie, you can see how it arrived. The butterfly eventually came off and is now hanging in my window, kind of like a suncatcher. It's pretty. Thanks.

This is a well packed bicycle, if I do say so so myself. (I packed it). Trek provides all the volunteer bikes. See how I've got my 1.5 liters of water and helmet. Safety first! I've also loaded on the back 4 mosquito nets, my computer, and nearly all of my Christmas shopping. Plus an extra teapot I picked up. And you can see my ipod strapped to my handlebars so that I can listen to Christmas music on the ride back to the village.

WARNING!!! The following is a picture of my neck infection/abscess. Skim over it if you're not interested in gruesomeness and gore. I passed on the most graphic pic, so you can see this one instead, after it was partially drained. It's more or less for Katie's satisfaction.

Seems to me that all of Senegal is in a frenzy. Tabaski is Tuesday (or Wednesday, for those who celebrated Korite on Oct. 2nd) and is only the biggest holiday here. It’s sort of like Christmas I think, not theologically, but otherwise. It sort of has it’s own season… people have been asking me for over a week already how my preparations are going. My general response is, I’m always ready for a party, and their returned laughter is appropriate. What they mean about preparations is not just the food (holy cow, there were SO many people in the market today), but the rest of it too. Traditionally, you get a new complet (outfit), new shoes, new hair… no, not kidding… my sister, one of the best at hairdressing in my village, has been braiding people’s weaves for a solid 3 days. Spirits in general are up. Teachers in Velingara finally got paid yesterday and today, so there’s still time for them to buy their sheep and clothes and hair. They’ve all gone to be with their families. Some people get a little down around the holidays, especially those who can’t afford new clothes, etc. Crime is up and requests for money are too.

Tabaski is the celebration of what I believe in Jewish tradition is the Akedah? It’s when Abraham took his son to the mountain to sacrifice him and the son was spared and God provided a ram to stand in his place. Judeo-christian belief is that it was Isaac. Muslims tell the story with Ishmael. To each his own, literally. So each family has appointed at least one person to be responsible for sacrificing a sheep on Tabaski. They’ll fast until after the prayer service and then they’ll slaughter the sheep and we’ll eat meat all day long. I’m planning on being in the teacher’s compound after the prayer service and so I’ll probably eat two big meals. I have mixed feelings about that. I love being in the teacher’s compound and the school director’s family is like my second family here. Nima, the director’s wife, is an excellent cook, so I’m sure we’ll have a good meal. But I’m worried about so much meat and they way they cook it. Not so much about the cleanliness of it… it’ll be fresh, obviously, and well-cooked, so theoretically disease-free… but I’m not a huge fan of the way it’s generally prepared, at least in my house. It’ll be put in “sauce”, a combination of mostly oil, some tomato paste, onions, pepper, garlic, bouillon (because what would Senegalese cooking be without Maggi or Jumbo?), macaroni noodles, and potatoes, served over rice. There is also the likelihood that since I eat with the women in my compound, we’ll be eating organ meat, which never I have been scheming a little as to the appropriateness and feasibility of convincing them to put the meat in chili, or spaghetti, or some other kind of “sauce” that’s easy to make in large quantity. I think I’ve more or less decided to let it go, at least for this year.

EE club didn’t happen, au cause du greves. Because of the strikes, I couldn’t get the list of students from my teachers in order to get them all together for the club. So as it stands, the meeting is tentatively next Friday. School is meant to start Thursday and we’ll notify students then. Intro to Environment 101, is scheduled for Friday afternoon, si Allah jabi (if God wills it). Oh please, oh please, Allah, please jabi!

I’m in Velingara today, hanging out with Laura, one of my neighbors, and really enjoying it. I always like being with Laura because she helps me see how the intangible parts of my job are actually useful. It’s good to have friends whose presence is like a pat on the back. We’ve just been talking about my animal issues: frogs, snakes, lizards, and confirmed as of this week: a rat. There exists here something known to volunteers as the cat-rat. That is, a rat roughly the size of a normal house cat. PRAISE THE LORD, the rat I’m dealing with is not a cat-rat! This is your everyday, run-of-the-mill, six-inch long rat. But, unlike your average rat, this one is living with my hut. I do reasonably well with most creepy-crawlies. I kept a cool head about the snake. I live comfortably with the lizards and toads. I DON’T DO RATS. I just don’t. Of late, the night rustlings in my roof have peaked, and I’m losing sleep due to the sound of straw and creepy little claws. Earlier this week I was up reading and eating Dumdums. I left 2 Dumdums sticks on my chair (free-standing, isolated, in the middle of my room). I woke up in the morning, not refreshed because I had been up at least a couple of hours trying to find the source of the rustling with my flashlight, to find the very two Dumdums sticks ON TOP OF my mosquito net. My thoughts: 1. WHAT THE HECK!!! 2. must be lizards, because there’s nothing on the chair for a mouse to scale. 3. On my net?!?! There’s a tarp over my net to keep stuff from falling from the ceiling and it extends beyond the net in all directions. Conclusion: lizards must have been running along the string that runs across my room to suspend my net. After presenting the facts to my dad, his take is that it’s mice/rats (not sure which the pulaar word refers to) and that we can get poison on Sunday at the lumo.

Later that night… I awoke to the sound of rustling and again played flashlight tag with the roof. I heard the spoon fall out of the windowsill where I’d set it earlier, to dry after dinner. Instead of the usual vain search or even the occasional “I see the straw moving, but can’t see what’s moving it”, I had the culprit dead in my lampbeam. There he was, looking so much like the hamburgler, with one of my precious home-grown tomatoes in his mouth. That little punk! And since I was anticipating a mouse (post-conversation with my hostdad), I was a little startled to find a full-grown rat co-habiting my hut. Mentally I’m a little freaked, but then again, he’s running around the top of the walls and I’m safely in my mosquito net. I didn’t sleep too much after that until morning, when I knew the rat had gone to bed. But now Sunday loomed as a day of salvation. I am definitely going to the lumo to buy poison and I don’t feel the least bit bad about killing the thing.

That was Thursday night. Three nights didn’t seem too much to handle sleeping knowing there’s a rat in my room. Rationally, I know that nothing has changed bar my own consciousness of the situation, but still, there’s a certain amount of urgency I feel in ridding my hut of the beast. Last night only heightened that urgency… about a thousand-fold. It was the coldest night we’ve had. I slept in my fleece, with socks on (I almost never sleep with socks on), covered by my sarong, my sheet doubled over, the thin sheet I use for a bed-covering, and my towel on top of that, just to keep warm. I’m kicking myself for not having brought a blanket, or having bought one here yet. Around 4.00, the rustling again. Fine. We know how this goes down: you rustle, I wake up, shiver with the thought that you’re running rampant in my room and there’s nothing I can do about it, one of us finally drifts off to sleep, and eventually we face another day. I might spotlight you with my flashlight, but do I really want to see you invading my space? No, that’ll only encourage nightmares. Try to sleep, try to sleep, easy, easy… I woke up again to more rustling. Then I felt something. My stomach is turning over now just writing about it, knowing what’s about to happen. I felt it through the wood of my bed, something was touching the bed somewhere. Ok, ok, it’s ok. You’re just feeling things. Go to sleep… WHAT THE HECK!!!!!!! I FELT IT ON MY FOOT!!!!! I jolted up and curled my feet away from the net. I’m sure I kicked it off the net, but OMG the dirty, nasty, home-invading rat just crawled over my foot. (I know, I know, it was on the outside of the net, but still… that is mine. You don’t get to be all up on my mosquito net.) The next half-hour (it was probably only like 2 minutes, but it felt like a long time) was the battle for the room. I’m having a hard time remembering how it all happened. I know that I was in my net for part of it and out of my net for part of it. I remember clapping and trash-talking the rat to keep it away from my bed. I remember watching (from within the net) the rat try to climb up the doorframe to get into the roof and fall to the floor. (“Ha! Whatcha gonna do now, fool?”) I believe at that point it climbed my bike and jumped from there onto my net again (Not having it!) and I shook the net to get it to fall off. I think I could have set an Olympic record with the time it took me to jump out of my bed (net and all) and grab my broom. I opened the back door to give the rat an escape (because I knew there was no way I was going to kill it tonight and I didn’t want to risk being bitten). And there was a certain amount of me trying to coerce the rat with my flashlight beam from across the room, armed with my broom in the other hand. I don’t know what I’d have done with the broom. It’s a Senegalese broom (read, a collection of straw tied together, about 18 inches long at best), already in a sad state and needing to be replaced. At some point, the rustling stopped and I felt safe enough to go back to sleep (door still open, snakes and toads welcome!). So today, a “necessity item” on my list is rat poison. Fool must die! (said the Peace Corps volunteer). I think I’m going to try and sleep somewhere else tonight, maybe in someone else’s hut, while I wait for the poison to work it’s magic. It’s too cold to sleep outside and I am not having World War 3 again. Ah! my skin is crawling. I don’t do rats. I don’t. And this one is about to find out just how much “homey don’t play”.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. I left my village Wednesday morning, biked into Velingara, took a car to Tamba, then one to Kedougou, and got to the house around sunset. It was a long trip, but well worth the effort and I’m glad I dccided not to break it up. I spent Thanksgiving Day doing not very Thanksgiving-like things. We got some innertubes from the garage and took them down to the river (Gambia), then floated down to a rope swing that the Kedougou vols had set up earlier. We played a little and then headed down to the Relais (a nice hotel) to exit the river and have a drink. Afterwards, Thanksgiving FEASTING ensued. There were: a turkey, grilled. a duck, also grilled?. three chickens, hand-rotisserie roasted (Daniel…crazy). a bucket of squash, a large bowl of sweet potatoes topped with hand-whipped bissap meringue, greenbean casserole (!!!), cranberry sauce from craisins (and you’d never know the difference), carrots, spinach-esque nebeday, salad, pumpkin-pie, banana custard, apple crisp (my contribution), and of course garlic mashed potatoes and gravy. I’m not sure this is even an exhaustive list. It was magical. And would you believe that they don’t have electricity! I know.

It was a ton of fun to be with good friends and eat all that food, and I ended up staying until Sunday and making it back to my village late that evening. I’m in town today bringing new mosquito nets down from Tamba for the new Kolda volunteers. They were given the nets from the training center to take to site. Lamesville.

Yesterday spent sometime at the health hut being “wowed” by the USAID facilitator showing off his new line graph. It’s quite amazing, you can actually quantify the number of malaria and diarrhea cases in our village over the last year and see the trend. I already knew that the rainy season brings an increase in malaria (duh, there are hardly any mosquitos in the dry season) but he was really impressed with the graph, so naturally, I should be too. Next time he’ll graph the instances of malnutrition… I told him when they’d be the highest (starving season… logical, right?) but we’ll see and be impressed anyway. I’m preparing for my first EE club Friday, but I’m afraid I lost my planning notebook. I hope I didn’t take it to Kedougou, but it definitely didn’t come back with me.

Yesterday a frog forced its way through my slightly cracked back door. I thought , weird, that frog is incredibly persistant trying to get into my room, and then I ushered him back out. Shortly afterward, while my sister was hanging out in my hut she suddenly pointed to my (closed) back door and said, “there’s something over there. move away. it’s a snake.”

I looked. I saw a small black spot move along the floor behind a paint can and thought it looked like a cricket. “No way, it’s not a snake.” I leaned over the paint can to see behind it. She was already at the door calling for my uncle to come from across the compound. I started to say “Look, it’s just a cricket, relax,” but then I saw the coils. “FLA! FLA! FLA!” (a recently acquired phrase from my friend Roxy), I thought. I backed away and instead said “no, you’re right. It is a snake.”

My uncle came in with a 7-foot-long stick. He looked at where the snake was and went out, brought a smaller stick, and began to carefully move away the paint cans and jars collected by the door. Then when he had a clear path, he started wailing on the snake with the (now only 4-foot-long) stick. I, meanwhile, am trying to angle myself away from any kind of escape path the snake might take and still get a good shot with my camera. I’m hoping this is my only opportunity to see someone kill a snake in (or near) my hut. Got a good shot that will make it onto the blog when I get home IN UNDER 3 WEEKS!!!!!! if not sooner. The snake was only about 18 inches long, but it turns out the small black spot was just a ring around it’s neck. My sister thinks it was poisonous. I hope not. Anyway, I’m keeping my backdoor shut tight for the next little while until I feel safe again. Scary stuff. I’m off to the internet to see if I can figure out what kind of snake it was. Eek!

Last week there wasn’t school for any of the kids except the highest class. There are 2 CM2 classes. CM2 is equivalent to 5th or 6th grade. One of the teachers was there all week, so he held class, while the other had class only on Friday. In fact, all of the teachers were in on Friday, but not having had class Monday through Thursday, none of the students showed up Friday, except the upper class.

I’m in Velingara today, so I’m not sure if there’s school today. The strike is still on, but it seemed to me that the teachers said on Friday they’d teach Monday, strike Tuesday, teach Wednesday, etc. That seems a little more reasonable to me, given that what they’re teaching is still last year’s school year. Through the end of the month (and who knows, but now possibly longer?) they’re finishing the school year that was interrupted by too many strikes last spring. So this year’s school year is meant to start in December.

I spent a lot of time last week planning. I have two books that I probably could have/should have read earlier to help with my work: Environmental Education in the Community, and the Nonformal Education Manuel. I did read parts of the EE one when I was working on my Environmental Assessment, but I’m now reading it through to help me better do my job, now that I know what my job is. (and what my community wants from me). I’ll be starting my Environmental club at the school the week after Thanksgiving, so I worked a little on planning the first session.

Work at the health hut has been frustrating, mostly because I have had no idea what I my role would be there and so I’ve been just spending time trying to figure out how it works and is organized and run. A great epiphany came this week in that area. The main problems of the health hut (as identified in our meeting with Mamadou) are 1. lack of medicines available, 2. lack of equipment, especially for the maternity room, 3. sub-standard care(?). How can I help with those things? 1: I cannot supply medicines. I could find someone like USAID or World Vision to do that, but they’re both already active in the health hut. I have thus far been unsuccessful figuring out what medicines are lacking and why. 2: I cannot supply equipment. I could find someone to do it, etc, but again, why don’t we have it? If the reason our health hut is lacking is because someone is eating the money (I don’t think this is it) or because it’s badly managed, that needs to be fixed first before the foreigners swoop in and save the day with a great (and unsustainable) gift to the health hut. It’s very important to the development of Senegal, and probably Africa in general, that development workers and organizations are not seen as simply sources of stuff and money. Knowledge is power. And sustainability is the buzzword. And they say (at least on the BBC) African solutions to African problems. Foreign investment and aid can help, certainly, and is absolutely necessary to development, but it must be done the right way, which is not often the easy way. All this to say, finding things out at the health hut is not as simple as I think it ought to be (the information sharing demons strike again), and I don’t know as much about what I can do as what I can’t do. 3: I’m still trying to sort out why the care at the health hut is thought to be sub-standard. It may just be a misunderstanding of the capabilities of a health hut by the villagers. I think essentially what they’d like is a mini-hospital in our village. Velingara is only 15km away with a district hospital, Sinthian Koundara is 11km away with the next level down, the health post; but both are deemed too far away and some people want an ambulance in the village for emergencies. There is an ambulance at the hospital in Velingara, so I’m not sure why they want one here so badly. It’s not like we have a real road into the village or a place to keep it, or a place to get fuel easily. You’d have to go to Velingara.

Recently (and predating my involvement) there have been several things going on to “revamp” the health hut: USAID is partnering with them to make sure things are run the way they should be, and that it is well equipped. World Vision is doing the same, and provided a new stock of medicines last week. SO, my great epiphany was this: my strengths are not in what I can bring into the health hut, or things I can get them. They are problem solving, support, and (remember this from earlier?) nonformal education. USAID and World Vision are trained and experienced in health hut work, so they know what to do and how to do it. What do I know? I know how to follow direction, and I know how to keep track of things. So I can help by being a local presence that supports their work. Since I actually live in the village, I can stop by regularly and help the health hut workers do the institutional and organizational things required by both USAID and World Vision. I can continue to ask questions because that reinforces the training of the health workers—when you have to explain how and why you’re doing something, you solidify your understanding of it as well. I can also help with causeries.

From the meeting with Mamadou, (and the fact that I haven’t seen any causeries in my village), I was led to believe that there were not any educational practices being hosted by the health hut. UNTRUE. We actually do have causeries. All the time. I just didn’t know about them. (Surprise, surprise, I am unaware of something going on in the community… just like everything else. Apparently everyone else knows, but either I’m not affected by it so they don’t tell me, or I’m just that oblivious, and bad at pulaar.) It wasn’t until about 20 minutes into a conversation about me wanting to bring another volunteer to the village to talk about nutrition that I was shown a schedule book that keeps track of the causeries. (Causeries are like public service announcements or health trainings). So now that I know about them, I will be attending causeries to help gauge their effectiveness and hopefully make them better. The main thing the community asked for from me at the meeting was health education, so something is clearly lacking in the health education already available. I can help with that. I realized that actually, I have a lot of experience in working with education in the community: lots of youth work, volunteer stuff, even my internship as a park ranger that I thought would prove to be more fun and less useful in the long fun. Tadaa! I am useful and have a skill set valuable to my community. Huzzah!

Yesterday was a fun day: Tostan hosted a huge declaration against the practice of excision in the Velingara department and people came from all over the country to show support. There was dancing, singing, speeches, a parade, and some theater that I kind of understood. And I stayed in town last night, which was interesting… The room we have here is pretty basic: a new table, some chairs, a mattress and mosquito net, and a fan. And some mice. No bed, just a mattress on the ground. And some mice. I was a bit paranoid about the mice getting into the mosquito net and crawling on my in my sleep, but eventually I did sleep and the net was effective in protecting me from creepy-crawlies. Still not my favorite, but it’s fine.

Now I’m off to the cyber to post this blog and hopefully head home earlier today than usual, since I’m leaving the village again Wednesday for THANKSGIVING! I’m headed down to Kedougou for some turkey and friend-time. I am very excited and hope to have a lot of fun. Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Today is a new kind of day in Velingara. Ok, well it’s pretty much the same as most days I come in: I leave my house in the morning, always a little later than I wanted to. I talk to the women before I go to see if there are specific things they want from the market. Ride my bike into town, a pleasant 15k road ride (especially today now that it’s the “cold” season because even though I forgot to bring my brow-mopper, I was not overwhelmed by the amount of sweat produced during the ride). I get to the room, drop off my bike, take my shopping list and cruise through the market, pick up the mail, and come back to the room to type up my blog, do whatever other work errands I have, and then I’ll go to the internet and post, check email, etc.

But today, there are 2 exciting additions to my routine. I will stop by Mike’s family to greet them and check on the status of his room (unfinished as of Wednesday, but should be done today… the mason was apparently sick). Did I mention how glad I am to have a volunteer in Velingara. It is very cool to have a new neighbor. I also plan to have lunch today with Jessie, the Velingara Tostan volunteer, who I met at Halloween in Tamba. It is very very cool to have 2 new people in Velingara to hang out with. And I’m not sure if they’ve met each other yet, so that could be a fun part of today as well. Yay for friends nearby.

There is no school today in my village because there is a strike. Sad, I know. I understand it though, as much as I don’t like it. Despite all of the salary negotiation, etc. at the end of the school year last year, which was all meant to have been sorted out, the Velingara departement (departements are the administrative sub-regions) teachers haven’t been paid yet. LAMESVILLE! I think it actually only affects the “volunteer” teachers. There are 2 types of teacher: those who went to university to teach, and those who did shorter training to get a job as a teacher. Bad description, but I hope you get it. The second type are “volunteers” and they get paid less, have lower rank, and apparently in Velingara get shafted. Unfortunately, ALL of the teachers at my school are volunteers, so we don’t have school today because they are also all in town to try and get the government to do their job and pay them already. So, no school.

Tomorrow I have a meeting at the Health Hut to talk about setting up my first causery/causerie? I’m trying to get my friend Laura to come do a presentation on good nutrition and what foods are better to eat. I’d like to try to do it next week or so, right before the women plant their gardens, but I have to see what works for her and she’s still not back in town from her vacation in America. Also coming up this week: Friday is the health committee meeting, and I believe, though am not sure, that next week (I hope before Wednesday because I want to go to Kedougou for Thanksgiving) there is a vitamin tourney. That’s where the health post people go around to all the villages and give vitamin A and I think some vaccines to the children, specifically those under 5.

Other than that, things are going well. I helped harvest peanuts Saturday with my family and that was a lot of fun. This weekend there’s a kile (a work-party) to help one of our women pick her cotton field, so I’m assuming I’ll be part of that as well, unless I come back in town for a Tostan demonstration. Unsure about what’s going on there. My town won their soccer match yesterday, which I think qualifies them for some kind of finals or something. I’m not really clear on all the details, but it was a huge thing in the village yesterday. So that’s good. Anyway, that’s about it for now. Time to head out to lunch!

This is the thought I have whenever I look at my feet these days:

EW Gross! That is some serious grunge... oh wait, no that's just the henna.

I had a blast with the CIEE students from Dakar. Rachel and Danielle were a lot of fun and we had a good time in the village. We greeted everyone, sat in on some classes, did make it out to the rice farros, although not on the day there was harvesting being done. We went to the health hut and asked questions to get an idea of how a typical consultation goes. We visted a newborn baby, hours after it was born. We saw the women's garden and ate some kickin' Yassa Poulet (chicken with onion sauce... seriously, it would have knocked your socks off). We sat in on (and danced out of) Tostan's Pulaar class. We had our feet all decked out in Senegalese henna, which in true African fashion involved a lot of sitting. A LOT of sitting.

See, first you use that plaster tape to make designs along the edges of your feet. Then you slather them with henna paste. Then you wrap them in a plastic bag, put on some socks to keep the bag in place, and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. (And go to bed so that most of the wait time is spent when you're sleeping anyway). In the morning you wake up and go nuts because you still have swamp feet. Then you sit some more and take off the socks, the bags, the paste, the plaster, and scrape the little bits that stuck off with a stick. This tickles like you wouldn't believe, especially in the arches. Now you have intricate orange designs on your feet and toenails. If you really want your feet to be beautiful (and I didn't, but Rachel and Danielle were in for the full spa treatment) you then rub on manyak, which has the consistency of sugar, and then put the bags back on and the socks back on and wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. And if you're lucky, the volunteer that you're staying with tries to make you pancakes that turn out OK. Not great, but OK. And after the manyak heats up (the Senegalese say let it heat up until your feet sweat), you can take off the socks and plastic bags, but then you have to let it air dry. So you wait. And when it's all dry, you can wash your beautiful, intricately decorated (now blackened, thanks to the manyak) feet. And then you rub oil on. And everyone tells you how beautiful your feet are. There's a bible verse about the beautiful feet of those who bring good news. I guess Gospel-bearers wear henna.

Song of Soloman (of Songs, which is it really?) 7.1

How beautiful your sandaled feet, O prince's daughter! Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of a craftman's hands.

Romans 10:15 (quoting Isaiah 52.7)

And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"

Isaiah 52.7, for a fuller quote

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion "Your God reigns!"

In fact, our graceful legs were the work of a craftman's hands. Craftwomen, actually. My neighbors Aissatou and Mari. Two very cool ladies, co-wives, and my friends. They like to laugh, and so do I. They are very skilled in the ways of henna.

And look at us, we do proclaim peace. We bring good tidings (there is a way up from where we are). We proclaim salvation. (?) Well, that's said with some freedom. I'm sure we do in some sense, but I'm not trying to sound like I'm out here reading them my bible. We just haven't gotten to the finer points of differences in Christianity and Islam... I am working for (and acting on the behalf of) the government, after all. In any case, we have beautiful feet.

After a fun week in the village, we came back to Kolda and they continued on to Dakar for the last two months of their semester abroad. I stayed in town to welcome down the new volunteers (Welcome Emily, Jess, Meg, Darren, Dorothy, and new neighbor Mike!), as well as say goodbye to Cameron. I cried a little, quietly, while reading my book (Bridget Jones's Diary), so that no one would see. I'm very sad. Cameron always made me laugh and his absence will be felt every time I come in to Kolda. I mean, it's not like he died or anything, he just ETed. So did Patrick. (that makes 8) Thanks guys, good luck!

And now before I go, about the election, because it's sort of a big deal: I did not stay up late to hear how each state voted. I'm not even sure how thorough the BBC coverage was. I did not even go to any parties. We (Rachel and Danielle and I) checked the radio every so often and then went to bed at about 10. There was a text message that woke us up at about 4.15 to announce Obama the winner, at which point we decided that rather than try to listen to the radio just then, we'd continue sleeping for a few more hours because the news wouldn't change all that much.

Being not very politically minded or involved (I vote and have opinions, but I don't ever seek out political conversation or debate), I usually am not overly emotionally affected by things like election results. However, I did find myself a little giddy about the historical importance of the first black president-elect and surprisingly filled with hope for the future of America, and specifically American foreign policy and image. I'm not sure how my reaction would have been different if it were McCain that had won. I mean, clearly the whole "black president of America" factor would have been absent, but I think he'd make a good president too, so, there you go. I think it might have been fairly similar. Anyway, I guess I don't really have any interesting or profound contributions to the election buzz, but it happened, and I was part of it, and I hope it works out well. And if you ask me who I voted for, as a lot of people here have, I'll tell you the same I tell them:

*sharp gasp of surprise* It's a SECRET. Secret ballots!?!

The response is usually a kind of laugh which I guess you'd describe as sheepish, and the concession, "yeah, I guess you're right... but it was Obama, right?" Everytime, I'm sort of reminded of ... middle school. Senegal (slash Africa) is pleased with the turnout. We'll see if Obama can deliver what they all think he can, whatever that is.

Back from Dakar and in Velingara to pick up the students that will be staying with me this week. Had a great time in Mbour with Jen and Alexis and Chris. And the trainees there. Then came to Tamba and stayed a night in Mary's village with Nathaniel and Ben. It is SO much fun to be in another volunteer's pulafuuta village. I enjoyed talking to her family with the other volunteers. We can talk to her family alone or in groups and we can help each other with vocabulary because since we're not in the same class anymore, we learn different things, but some of it would never come up in regional house conversation. It's reassuring and low pressure and plus I really enjoy being with the other pulafuutas. I still sort of feel like they're my family within peace corps.

Had a wonderful stop at the mailbox today: two letters (Mon and Cha), two postcards (Yvette and the Harts), and one package (Katie). THANK YOU ALL!!! I still haven't seen the package from the sunday school class, but I'm keeping my eye out and I'm not too worried yet. It just takes a long time to get from Dakar to here and it's probably sitting in the Kolda post office waiting for someone to realize that maybe it should be sent to Velingara already. Katie, I know you're curious so here's the state your package arrived in: definitely opened, but I guess everything passed. The flower and heart fell off, but the butterfly made it, although he's surely seen better days. However, the effect was not lost and I loved it. The pumpkin was fully intact, as were the candy corns--only minorly melty. Really very successful I think. Nice pics of the sky diving.

For Halloween I was in Tamba and dressed as Medusa (paper snakes in the dreds and a toga, so much fun) and over the weekend made 5 batches of brownies from scratch. Thanks Martha Stewart, for inspiration for the brownie grave-yard, and Kay Lekk (the PC vol cookbook) for a recipe. It was a success... (and merited the 2 encore batches).

It is good to be back in the village though. It's much more settled and I sleep better out here than I ever do in a regional house... although the bed at the med hut was probably the best bed I've had since leaving Texas. Fun stuff ahead this week: harvesting peanuts and rice, hopefully, cooking with the women and the volunteers, checking out the health hut, sitting in on classes at school (hallelujah there's school now), and henna. I bought henna from the market today and my neighbor Mari is supposed to be really good at it, so we'll have henna feet and hands in the best Senegalese style. Yay. At the end of the week I'll accompany the 2 students back to Kolda where they'll head to Dakar, and I'll await the new volunteers who swear in on Friday and will be installed next week. So I finally get my new neighbor, Mike. Super Yay! And, there's a new Tostan volunteer in Velingara, Jessie. I met her at the Halloween party in Tamba. Seems nice. Yay for her too!

On to the village... Check in next week!

Today is my little brother's birthday... in the US. He is 18. Now all of my family are legal adults. Kind of weird. Noah, I hope you registered to vote. It's cool that you can vote this year. Don't buy cigarettes, they're gross. And bad for you.

Happy Birthday.

They don't celebrate birthdays here, but on my American mom's birthday, I told my family it was her birthday and I was going to call her. Their response was, "Her birthday!!!! Why didn't you throw a big party?" To which I responded, "Jigga what? You don't even celebrate birthdays and she's not even here--she's in the States. Y'all just want a party." It's true. They know it.

Been in Dakar getting a shot and "noss"ing. (That means having fun and/or spending money, for me mostly the former, as little of the latter as possible. Dakar is expensive.) I met some PCVs from Benin who were here to get root canals, and it was fun to hang out with them and do some exploring of Dakar. I still feel like I know next to nothing, but eventually I'll figure it out. It's just a huge city is all. While I was there I got to see Aaron from Tamba on his way back home... forever. He COSed this week. (COS = Close Of Service; It's what you do when your 2 years are up). I also saw Seth, from my stage, on his way out. He ETed (Early Termination) and plans on joining the Army to be a doctor. Sounds hard.

Had a great conversation with Laura, my current nearest neighbor, who just went home for a visit. She's a (very successful) health vol and helped me figure out the health system a bit, so now my first actions on the health hut revamp are a little clearer. I actually began talking to her about it a couple of weeks before the meeting with Mamadou, so it was really good to talk again post-meeting.

Thigs will progress, seeda seeda. Slowly and with patience, perseverance, and a lot of help from anyone I can find.

Out of time. Miss you all. Coming home for Christmas!!! (surprise!)

It was a crazy kind of week. Last Tuesday I was in Velingara for some work on the meeting for Saturday and to buy some cloth for ...

Wednesday there was a baptism in my compound. One of "Capitain's" wives had a baby, a boy, who was named after my school director (the one whose daughter is named after me). This meant a lot of people in the compound all day and basically meat and rice to eat, and I helped cook. We did take a few minutes to plan the menu, which was then written up and calculated on...

Thursday was a slower day with time to work on the menu, be stormed by children in my room, go see the village team's soccer game (tied) and check out the soiree (all-night dance party) being hosted at the school. It didn't start until 10 and didn't get moving until 10.30 or 11, at which point I was in my bed getting well-rested for...

Friday I went to the market with Jumbo and met up with Solange (my teacher) and bought all the food. Then we transported it back to the village, which was a lot of work. I mean, we started with about 55 lbs of rice and then add on to that 13.5 L of soda and all the other things that would go into making lunch for...

SATURDAY!!!! The big day. Early to bed, early to rise. Early to be ready to set up the school, and sit around and wait and wait and wait for other people to be ready. We didn't really wait that long, it just seemed like it because I was wicked nervous about the whole thing. I left the house at 8, we started the meeting at around 10.30. Finished, had lunch, trained the teachers, cleaned up. 6pm. Bathe, eat, but my mind was racing so I went to my hut early not to go to bed, but to write out on my chalkboard the things that wouldn't let my mind rest. Finally get to sleep, but ...

Sunday I wake up early and can't make myself sleep in. I wash dishes, clothes, clean my room, and spend some time just hanging out in the compound. Not really energetic enough to go to the wedding in the next village. Read up on my political candidates and get to bed early so that I can come to town tomorrow, ...

Monday. I'm in Velingara to type up and print out the parts of my grant proposal (to cover the cost of the meal Saturday) that need to be signed by a village member. Tomorrow I'll have my dad sign them (convenient being in the chief's compound) and then Wednesday I'll be passing through here again, hopefully, on my way to visit my old neighbor's village to look at fruit tree production. Some of the other volunteers, Maggie in particular, are putting together a training day for fruit tree production. So Wednesday is an information gathering day. And I'll be spending the night with Emily in Kounkane because Thursday morning early I'll be hitching a ride with Mamadou back to Dakar. A long weekend in Dakar to finish my grant stuff, do some internet research, get a vaccination (the real reason I'm going there), see some friends, and it's back South. I don't think I'll be back in my village until Nov. 1 because I'm hoping to go from Dakar to my friend Mary's village and after that will be Halloween. The 3rd, after I return to my village, there will be 2 college students from the US studying in Dakar that will come for the week to experience life in a village. I am very excited about hosting them and am trying to figure out what kinds of things to do with them and what my work will look like at that point.

This morning on my way out of the village, I passed the school to see kids helping clean it up for classes and teachers working on enrollment. YAY!!! School's starting. BOO, it's right when I'm leaving for a week and a half.

So Saturday: Awesome awesome awesome! Training went more or less like this:

Talk about what the environment is

Talk about the difference between problems, needs, and desires

Have everyone write on a card their idea of the greatest problem facing our village

Collect and compile cards, revealing three very common responses and several less common ones

Talk through each of the three big ones: Health, Clean water, Hygiene and cleanliness

Talk about possible solutions to each problem

Talk about malnutrition... a problem sited by one person (the teacher) that is very related to the 3 big ones. (Mamadou, master list-compiler, linked water and hygiene into one category, thus keeping us at 3 problems to discuss).

Eat good food

Talk to teachers about keeping education relevant, some Senegalese educational system history, the development of Community Content Based Instruction, it's theoretical basis, and how to make a CCBI lesson plan

Now: if that seems like a lot to you, I'd agree with you. Most of it went onto flip chart pages, more of it into my notebook, and now my job is to write it up into an action plan which I will then use to guide my work. Can I have the Halelujah chorus play please? CLEAR DIRECTION!!! At last.

And what's more, it's not out of left field. Yes, it's a lot more health focused than environmentally focused, but that's just fine. It all more or less boils down to community education and the need for a structure to bring trainings and causeries and general information transfer into our village. Hmmm.... does this sound like what I was just explaining to my brother the day we delivered invitations. "My vision for the village is to have a group in charge of a program for educating the community. That is what we need before we can talk about having a community center, but if we have that, then we can ask for (and receive) help getting a building for it. But that needs to come from the community, not me. If it's just my vision, that's no good. I'm leaving in 2 years. No, it must be from the community because that is who it is for and that is who will keep it going." And here it is, from the community, arrived at by the community, guided by my APCD, (with whom I had not yet talked about this vision), and with not a word from me. I believe my contribution to the discussion all day was pretty much:

Welcome, thanks for coming. The food's not ready yet. The food's ready now. Thanks so much for being here.

So I'm glad to have my idea for work validated. And not only validated, but also arrived at through a thought process and discussion undergone by the village (or at least its representatives) itself. Good stuff. Good stuff, indeed.

I don’t really understand the school system here. I’m trying, but it’s a little difficult. Thursday was the official opening of school. So I made sure to be around so I could meet up with all the teachers when they came in… Only they didn’t all come in. The night before there was some talk on the radio about a strike. (I think I’ve already ranted about strikes so I’ll just let you fill in the blank about my feelings at this point). A couple of the teachers showed up Thursday morning. Monday was to be the start of school. “Will the students show up on Monday?” “Yes, Annicka, the students, the teachers, everyone.” Cool! (although it makes more sense to me that the teachers would spend a week at school first, but anyway). Monday morning, 8 am, I go to the teachers’ compound. 4 teachers there (out of 9). We hang out a bit. There is a little discussion over work. The radio talks more about the strike. We eat lunch. They leave. “When will I see you again?” “Saturday.” Oh. Saturday. Well at least there’s that. (I think you can tell that I’m a little disheartened by the ‘enthusiasm’ thus far shown by the teaching staff that I know to be actually very good).

So there’s Saturday. My APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director), ie. my boss, will come to my village and host an all day meeting extravaganza. In the morning, representatives from my village and the four nearest villages (who all have students at our school) will come to talk about and hopefully develop an Environmental Action Plan (EAP). This is one part of the Peace Corps Environmental Education project plan: to help the communities establish and execute an EAP under the guidance of a steering committee, composed of members of the school’s community, hence the 5 village collaboration.

Our project plan involves three parts. The first is this EAP and steering committee, so this weekend’s meeting will get that started. At minimum it should put me and the community on the same page as to what I ought to be working on and what are the perceived environmental (and health, most likely, because they’re so interrelated) problems our community faces. The second part of the EE project plan focuses on the students and educating them in conservation techniques, etc, through an Environmental Club. That’ll wait until school has been going a little while, but I’ve already got ideas for that. The last part of the EE project plan focuses on the teachers and that’s the second part of Saturday’s meeting stuff. After lunch, which itself is proving to be a little tricky to plan, the teachers from our school and 5 nearby elementary schools will have a training about Community Content Based Instruction. Basically, that means teaching school lessons so that they are relevant to the students’ surroundings… hands-on, get outside the classroom stuff. This is training I had in Thies and I have access to resources to help the teachers make more lesson plans. It’s the main reason they wanted an EE volunteer at my site and I think it will be a big part of my work here.

So I’m very excited about Saturday. It’s a chance for the village to get to see me actually doing work. Hopefully they will be impressed by my boss (he is a really cool and indeed impressive man), and will feel like I’m not just here to hang out, as often seems to be the case.

I think I repeat my frustration about work being slow and feeling like I’m not doing anything productive, but it’s on account of two factors. One, I am an American and tend to think of work in an American light; it seems that it should all be go, go, go, “git ‘er done”, if you’re not busy, you’re not working. But that is not the only way, nor is it a practical approach to life in an African village. Delivering invitations this morning was important work. It involved going to the appropriate people, saying the appropriate things, making my message clear and making them feel important and valued. And it involved a fair amount of sitting and chatting. EVER SO IMPORTANT. Thank goodness my brother came with me because that’s a lot of conversational pressure. But it was fun.

The other reason I feel unproductive, I believe, boils down to inertia. I am still in the beginning months and although the new stage will be installed in under a month (CRAZY!), I still think about being a new volunteer. I realized some this week that I have a stronger handle on village life than I had previously thought and that my ‘first three months’ did basically what they were meant to… that is, get me introduced to my environment, let me figure out the culture and language a little, and what was it I called it before? establish a presence. Right. Fairly on target. But I don’t have projects running yet. And that’s ok. I look at other volunteers and think, man, they’re doing so much. I’m totally not. But then most of them have been in their villages for a year or more. And I’m at 6 months. And others of them from my stage walked into projects, so it’s ok that I’m not where they are because I didn’t. No worries. So, as inertia indicates, it is hard to “get the ball rolling”—in the most literal sense, that’s precisely what the laws of inertia say, right brothers who have/will study physics far more in-depth than I?—and for me, getting the ball rolling means identifying projects and getting them started. But that isn’t just a me thing either. It involves being in agreement with the village as to what the projects should be, their necessity, and their feasibility (and precisely how they’ll be carried out). That’s a lot of ball to roll. And I’m hoping that this weekend will be just the push I need.

Other fun things to share this week are more anecdotal: I made a Senegalese joke and it was truly funny and unexpected by my friends in the village. I believe I mentioned that it’s not really kosher to talk about someone being pregnant, even when it’s ridiculously obvious. Not that it’s bad to do so, they just don’t really mention it in general conversation. So I was at a friend’s compound and an older woman looked at me and pointed to another’s bulging belly. (Btw, she should be due soon). I said, “Yeah, she really likes to eat rice. Look, she eats so much rice and beans that her stomach got huge!” They make this joke all the time, but because I made it unprompted, it was HILARIOUS!!! I felt like I belonged.

Today delivering my last invitation I was in the chief’s compound in the neighboring village. They said, “You went to Sinthian Coly and then came here to Sinthian Demba? You must be tired.” “No, I’m not tired yet. When I go to Velingara and then come back, then I’ll be tired.” “Aminata, you can speak pulaar now!” Then she recounted the story of how they’d asked me to dance at my namesake’s baptism and I said they’d have to wait until the evening and I’d broken the fast. Then after we ate they said, you promised to dance after you ate, so I told them to start clapping and I would dance. It’s so nice to have people tell good stories about you to others, especially when it’s to illustrate how much you now fit in.

Today waiting to meet up with a teacher to discuss planning the lunch for Saturday, I was having a very serious discussion with two men who live in our building. Centering in this discussion were, you guessed it (you did guess it, right?), Akon and Tupac. Akon, who is from Senegal didn’t you know, isn’t a very good role model for his fan base. Is that the result of American society? Because it isn’t the Senegalese way of doing things. Well, it isn’t American either. Rap videos don’t represent reality on either continent. And do you believe that Tupac is really dead? We all agreed that he is, in fact, as dead as many historical figures who disappeared without remains to be interred in proof of their deaths. Not so much in the way of Machiavelli as Tupac apparently claimed pre-disappearance, who dropped off the face of the earth for ten years and reappeared as alive as ever. No, Tupac is surely dead. Besides, the ten year anniversary of his supposed death has already come and passed sans revival. This was indeed a very serious discussion, which might have continued forever had my teacher not shown up.

So in summary: there might be a strike, but there will be a plan of action; “git ‘er done” requires time, velocity, and social finesse; too much rice and beans will get you preggo; and Tupac liveth no more.

KORITE… a very “chill” affair. I woke up Wednesday thinking Korite would be Thursday, but was surprised to hear the sound of people doing nothing while the day was still cool (and early) enough for them to being doing normal household chores, like laundry and cleaning and such. I was surprised after the fact that I was able to correctly identify “the sound of people doing nothing”, but all I can say is, when I listened to the compound (before opening my door), I got the distinct impression that people were doing nothing and it must be Korite. And it was.

There was a big prayer service in the schoolyard. I was encouraged to go and take lots of pictures, so I did. I found myself caught in one of those moments when it is really inappropriate to laugh out loud and thus, incredibly difficult to prevent yourself from doing just that. I was in a line of women seated in the back so that I could take some pictures without disturbing those praying around me. A very small boy was seated in the row in front of me. Very small, like maybe 1 year old, give or take a few months. He “had an accident” loudly and messily at a very inopportune moment in the service, which in itself wouldn’t have caused too much laughter to contain. But, the only slightly older child next to me began imitate the sound over and over and over. And it was so hard to keep a straight face, especially since I was in a place where it was SO inappropriate.

After the prayer service, I headed back to my compound and helped cook dinner: Meat and Sauce. “Sauce” is basically anything oil-based that goes on your grain. “Mafe” is generally non-oil based. So our sauce had oil, meat, macaroni, potatoes, tomato paste, and cabbage. Along with the standard pepper, onions, and garlic. After lunch we hung out, visited other compounds, and then I made tortillas and salsa, to share a little American snack food with my family. The salsa was met with some approval, but the tortillas (which were nothing special in my opinion… I over buttered), the tortillas were a RAVING success. They would try a little piece and say “WHAT DID YOU MAKE THIS WITH?” Oh, well, this is mostly tomatoes and… “No, we see that, tomatoes and onions, but THOSE. What’s in THOSE?” Umm… flour, butter, some salt. “Next time you make them, I want to see!!!”

It was a very relaxing holiday. Much more low-key than I had anticipated. There is one part that I found interesting (and occasionally confusing). The kids, and some older women, went around from compound to compound, sort of like trick-or-treating, asking for small change. That was fine. I had sort of heard about it before so I’ve been collecting my small change for the last few weeks. But then some of the women in my compound came to my hut and asked. It was fine, just a little strange. I didn’t really expect them to come to me. Maybe go to other compounds sure, but well, I don’t know. Confusing, but not really frustrating.

After Korite, I went into Kolda and met the new stage. There were 6 trainees that came down to Kolda and we had a good Mexican-themed feast ready for them. Today the SED (Small Enterprise Development) kids came to Velingara and saw what there is to see here. They headed back to Kounkane and will be there tonight before going to Jiaobe, the largest Lumo market in West Africa, tomorrow.

While I was in Kolda I was walking back from the market and got caught in a rain storm. I found shelter in a boutique on the road and sat for about an hour with a bunch of guys huddling out of the rain. They spoke Wolof, so I didn’t get to talk with them much, but I did watch one of them put on a rain jacket and go out in the street during the heaviest part of the rain to empty his trash into the small river now flowing along the side of the road (remember the flash-flooding I talked about earlier?). He’d had a few rice sacks filled with garbage that I’m guessing were to be taken to the dump (if you can call it that—dumping pile is more accurate) but when the ditch on the roadside filled with water swiftly flowing downhill, he took the opportunity to slowly empty the trash into the stream so that it would be washed farther down the street and into the large ditch on the main road. I debated writing about that because I don’t want to present an image of Senegal as the dirty, trash-infested, third-world nation pictured in the sponsor a child advertisements. I just don’t want the implied disapproval and pity that such an image might evoke. It’s true that trash management is a huge issue and often an overlooked part of developing infrastructure. Maybe not overlooked so much as under-prioritized. But to add balance to the image, it reminded me most of being in Paris, when each morning the street-cleaners would flood the gutters with water to wash the street trash into the sewers. It made the city look cleaner, but after seeing that little bit in the morning, it was a little disheartening. Like the clean image was all a big scam, because really there isn’t anything very neat and clean or environmentally healthy about washing the trash into the drains. It’s still trash that didn’t make it into the thousands of trashcans that ideally would keep Parisian streets clean. So I refrained from judging the Senegalese man’s actions in view of the practices of what I’ve heard described as one of the cleanest (looking) cities in Europe. Of course, maybe I was just misinformed on that count.

I wasn’t going to come into town this week because Korite is either tomorrow or Thursday and I’m headed into Kolda the day after that. It is unclear which day it will be because the night before yesterday was “Layyla” (Arabic for “night”), when the moon “dies”. Now we wait until the new moon comes and the day after it is first sighted is Korite. It should show up tonight or tomorrow. My plans were changed, however, because I was sent into Velingara with a hefty shopping list. We need a lot of vegetables for the Korite feast, and I am more than willing to buy veggies for my family, so here I am. Another note on vegetables: my okra started coming in this week and we got to eat some of it the other day for dinner. It was very exciting to get to see the produce from my garden make it into our meals. I have ideas of expanding the garden and I hope to buy some mint today to plant as well. Suggestions and tips, especially on composting and other organic garden-care are more than welcome.

A while ago I was asked about games they play here (it was Leslie or Kayla that asked). I wanted to video some of them to make it easier to explain, but as we see, I have had no luck in uploading photos, so I’m not gonna even try videos. Instead I’ll just do my best to explain them and I hope this makes some sense. As a gift for my family, I brought back Ludo, the Senegalese board game, when I came back from Thies training. It is a lot like Parcheesi or Aggravation I’ve been told (I’ve never played Aggrevation), so we’ve been playing that a lot. Everyone enjoys Ludo.

The men play a card game that I forget the name of. You try to get cards by putting down the last one of a number. So if person A plays a 7 (it’s only 7 through Aces), person B plays a 7 and then takes them both. If person C has a 7, he plays it too and takes all 3 from B. Maybe D doesn’t have any 7s so he plays another card and they try to take all those as well. You can only take the number that is on the top of the middle pile, or on top of the other player’s piles. So if C has 3 sevens, but then takes 2 queens, the sevens are then “safe” until the queens are taken away. I know it doesn’t make a bunch of sense explained on a blog, but I’ll learn it really well and then bring it back to the US.

The kids like to play different games. The boys like marbles: you have a starting line and a small hole in the ground about 15 feet away. The players take it in turns to try and roll their marble from the starting line into the hole. If you get in, you get to try to knock into the other marbles (kind of like croquet, only tossing them). If you hit them, you get to keep them. When one player’s taken all the marbles, they start a new round. Each player starts with 2 marbles and plays each round with only one. If a player loses both marbles, he’s out. When one player gets all the marbles from all the other players, he wins.

The girls like hopscotch. There are twelve “houses” (squares) arranged in two rows. You start at one side and toss your playing piece into the first one and then have to hop around the houses, skipping the one with your playing piece. You do this for every square, just like in Hopscotch, and you can only let one foot touch the ground at a time, even when you lean down to pick up your piece. When you’ve successfully made it around all 12 squares, you have to cover your face with a cloth and walk “blindly” through the squares. If at anytime during the game you step on a line or out of the squares, you lose your turn and have to start where you left off on your next turn. If you complete the blind walk with no mistakes, you have the right to claim a “house”. You stand at the front of the line of houses and throw your playing piece over your shoulder. If it lands in an unclaimed house, you now own it. You can stand in your house with both feet on the ground and other players cannot step there unless you give them permission. You might give them permission if you own 3 or more houses in a row because otherwise they’d have to jump all three in one go, but sometimes you make them do it just so you can laugh. The game goes on until all the houses are claimed.

Believe it or not, the younger kids like to play hoop and stick… think about any pictures you’ve seen of colonial America. Same game.

They also play soccer here, and there is a kind of wrestling that sometimes comes on TV. It reminds me of bears fighting because two men will circle each other and paw at each other until one rushes the other and then each tries to throw the other to the ground. The first one on the ground loses the match. As you can imagine, matches go fairly quickly once they actually wrestle, but the build-up is immense and can take a very long time.

Other popular sports are martial arts of any kind, especially Karate and Tae Kwon Do, and basketball is growing in popularity. There is an organization called SEEDS that helps build basketball programs and hosts basketball and leadership camps with NBA players and coaches helping run them. I am looking into getting them involved here in Velingara.

One more week down and things are still going well. The moon is "dying" as they say in the village, so we will continue fasting for another week and a half, until it dies completely and when it returns we will break the fasting with a day of celebration. So far I have fasted 10 days of the .... 20ish. My villagers are all duly impressed. What I don't tell them is how impressed I am with the volunteers who do the fast everyday. Sometimes they ask me to rest from fasting because they're worried that it'll be too much for me. I don't mind that. So on days like today (when I biked into town) I'm not fasting. It has been a really good experience. I still love breaking the fast and the time I take to read the bible and pray during the day is really enjoyable. I envisioned myself lying on my bed writhing in hunger pains and creaking out a meek "water, water..." but what you lose in physical energy is gained in spiritual and communal energy. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, I like it, although I will be glad when we go back to eating regular lunches too.

I went to the school director’s house to talk about why he had requested an EE volunteer in my village. It’s a question I should have asked my first week in village and it was really good to have that conversation. My timing was good though, because there was a mason at the school building new sinks for the toilet block. The school director brought him over to my hut and he assessed the situation. The next day my brother and I broke the cement up and poured on some dirt and rocks to level it. Then the mason came back and ta-daa! I have a new latrine! Remember it’s just a concrete block with a hole in the middle. I’d gotten so used to the center being sunken in that it is very strange now everytime I walk back there to see it completely level. It looks so nice and new.

My infection is nearly healed now and feeling fine. Thank you, erythromycin!

I tried again with the pictures today, but to no avail. Thanks to Katie for a beautiful package unexpectedly received today. Well done. I love how pretty the whole thing was. I also want to thank the Sunday School class for the letters I'm getting. They are really uplifting and exciting to get. I hope you're all well and enjoying what my calendar says is the first day of fall. Seems to me more like another hot day with huge puddles from last night's thunderstorm, but I guess if the calendar says it, it must be so.

That reminds me, the calendar I got (thank you parents) has pictures of San Antonio and the kids asked if the Tower Life Building was a mosque. Now, while I know that it isn't a mosque, I don't know exactly what its purpose is. If anyone in San Antonio wants to tell me, the kids in my compound will be glad to know. I told them I thought it was for "business."

Busy week! Especially for having not done all that much.

I milked a cow. Actually I tried to milk a few, but I only got milk out of one. It’s harder than I expected, even though I didn’t expect to be able to do it right right away.

Time in Kolda was good. We had the house meeting and began our regional strategy, which we realized would take us longer than one afternoon to address, but we got a great start by hearing what people are up to and what they are hoping to do more of. It is surprising how little you might know about the work of some of the other volunteers in the region. I look forward to talking more about our overall goals and aims for Kolda, as well as potential projects that we can collaborate on.

Thursday was the baptism for Maimona Annicka Signate. That’s right. There’s a new Annicka in the village, and I’m so proud. I went to their compound (the school director’s) in the morning for the naming. We all gathered, many villagers and friends and family from out of town, while they shaved the baby’s head, offered a sheep, and prayed over the newly named baby. (Muslim tradition holds off on naming the baby until the baptism, usually 8 days after birth). There was a lot of sitting and cooing and some gift-giving and plenty of well-wishing. Those who were not fasting ate some fun snacks and those who were took a bag of cookies for later. There was some confusion on my part because people (older women) were asking me why I hadn’t brought kola nuts or where the ones that I brought were. I guess as a guest of honor (Annicka, remember… now I’ve got a namesake, a tookara) I should have brought kola nuts. I was confused and a little unsettled by the demands, especially since I had no idea I should have brought them or how to field questions about why I didn’t. After a while, instead my friend showed people the cute little outfits I had brought her for the baby and apparently I had done a good job with picking them out because suddenly it was ok. Kola nuts forgotten (except for one lady who left either still bitter about the nuts I forgot to bring, or just pretending to be), we had a nice, calm celebration. In the afternoon, Handicap International came and hosted a causerie to educate about the importance of equal rights to those with handicaps, especially in schools. Being Ramadan, the feast that usually accompanies a baptism was held off until sunset, so I went home in the afternoon to take a nap and try to escape from the heat and wretched humidity. As the rainy season is beginning to wane, there are more days with heavy cloud cover and high humidity with fewer instances of rain to relieve the oppressive heat. Not my favorite.

I came back to the party for the breaking of the fast: meat with fries and onions… remember that sheep?... coffee, bread, and thiakry. Thiakry is one of my favorite Senegalese snack-type foods. It’s kosan (sour milk… kind of like a yogurty stuff) with sugar and millet in it. I know, it doesn’t sound incredibly appealing, but it’s really very good. After some more hanging out, the women asked me to dance, because obviously I must be so happy about having a new namesake. I asked for someone to dance with me, but since there was no organized dance circle, it looked like it was just me. Plus my six-year-old fan club. So we pulaar-danced and after about 3 seconds the girls were laughing too hard to stay on their feet and the women too hard to continue clapping out a rhythm. It must be really funny to see an American dance like a pulaar, but they loved it. Afterwards, I started getting tired and after holding the baby for a long, long time, I tried to make my way home. Of course, you must wait for dinner, Aminata! What? Didn’t we have dinner… like an hour ago, when we broke the fast? We had coffee and bread to break the fast, then dinner, then dessert, right? Oh no, we’re waiting for dinner now, it’s almost ready. I was already uncomfortably full so I waited a little bit for tea, but as I was falling asleep in my chair I thought maybe I’d better just go ahead home. I was given a boxed dinner to take with me because certainly I must still be hungry. Then when I got to my compound, they’d saved dinner for me as well. As much as I like the dinners I get (both at home and especially at the teachers’ compound), I can’t handle 3. So I passed. And I went to bed, worn out.

My big “event” right now is due in part to the humidity, and in part to something I’ve been working on for the last month… dreadlocks. Yes, it’s true, I am now a nappy-headed Peace Corps volunteer. I’ve always wanted to have dreads for a short period and now seemed like a good time to do it. In Thies, I began dreading my hair, but realizing that the pieces were not as nicely and evenly segmented out as I’d hoped, I had my friend Alexis re-separate the sections of my hair in the back so I could dread them later. I asked her to tie them into pieces with rubber bands, nice and tight so I could take my time working on them without worrying about them falling out or all dreading together. Unfortunately, the little “baby hairs” at the base of my neck didn’t appreciate being so tightly reined-in and mutinied. I made the unfortunate move of picking at the irritated bumps and got myself a classy rainy-season skin infection. I can’t see it well, but in Kolda I had help cleaning it out and had someone take a picture of it so I could see it. It’s pretty! (As far as infections go). Skin infections are incredibly easy to get, especially during the rainy season, and are one of the top 3 things our chief medical officer told us “keeps him awake at night”. Easy to get, not as easy to get rid of. So, now I’m on a strict, soak and clean and take some antibiotics regimen. I have great hope that I’ll be able to keep it clean and on the road to recovery in my village, but if it doesn’t continue to improve over the next few days, I may find myself back in Kolda a lot sooner than I had hoped. I debated putting the pictures up for you to see, but given my bad luck uploading pictures the last 2 months (as long as I’ve been trying to get up pictures of my hut… and not succeeding), and for the benefit of those who don’t relish infectious abscesses, I’ve decided to pass.

Hopefully, the next time I will be in Kolda will be after Korite (the celebration at the end of Ramadan) when we’ll be welcoming the new kids down for their demyst/CBT-type experience. It’s really neat to be able to welcome the next stage (who have now been in country for 5 days) and become a “sophomore” in Peace Corps. Good luck all you guys in Thies and in the surrounding villages. I believe they head out to villages tomorrow for their first village stint. Their training is village-based with their language trainers mixed with a few days at the center in Thies for core training sessions every 10 days or so. It’s new here but more like how they do it in Gambia and Mauritania. This week I hope to help get the school ready for the new year and start making some progress on starting my village projects! And, I have some cucumbers showing up on the vines in my garden! Good stuff to look forward to in the village! Oh yeah, and Saturday marked 6 months in country. 6 Months!!! Wow. Until next time, miss you all.

I’m back at site finally and hopefully back to a regular internet schedule. I inadvertently left my power cords here, so computer access was difficult because although I had some access to wireless, my battery doesn’t last very long and I was having to borrow cords to keep the computer going. Not to mention finding time to do more than throw a quick look at emails. And frequent power outages because of the rainy season. After a whirlwind 3 weeks of IST I feel marginally more qualified for the job I’m here to do, and slightly more motivated. The best motivator was really the Environmental Education conference that immediately followed IST in Dakar. (Almost) all the EE volunteers met in Dakar for a 2-day conference where we talked about things that have worked, things that haven’t, and our overall goals as a sector. It’s good to see people actually doing the work that up until now has seemed elusive and confusing. I have some good ideas of what and how to do Environmental Education in my village, although the path is by no means paved yet… if you know what I mean.

After the EE conference, I went to Alexis’s site in Joal-Fadiouth for a little bit. It was kind of fun to be a tourist and see the island (Joal is a peninsula, but there’s an island there called Fadiouth which is entirely made from seashells). They also have a Muslim-Christian cemetery. I don’t know how many of those there are (combined cemeteries) but it’s not many. It was neat. We also went swimming and had an interesting conversation with some local guys. As a white person, especially in touristy places like anywhere on the coast, you’re a bit of a novelty if you speak a local language with anything remotely resembling fluency; consequently you command more interest than you generally desire. I’m trying to cut down on the “us and them”/Toubab rhetoric, but I’m certain that had we not been two white girls in a local hangout, we would probably not have been approached. Alexis is wicked good at Wolof so when the guys nearby heard her say something, they immediately came over and insisted on conversing. In general this would set of my sai-sai alarm (sai-sai = player, in Senegal) because inevitably the conversation would turn to “oh, if only I had an American girlfriend” in less than 5 minutes, 10 if they’re exceptionally polite. But somehow we managed to avoid that (maybe we were a little rude or curt or whatever, but we were in the only swimming area, it’s not like we had a lot of places to go to get away) and somehow we ended up talking about development in Senegal and the problems involved in general. I left the conversation hoping that I’d encouraged them to act on desires to use their technical knowledge (they were software engineers in France, home for vacation) to better their own country rather than just their own purses, but more than that, I left having had a real, deep conversation with a Senegalese. Granted, this was in English… I don’t have the pulaar vocab to talk about corruption yet… but it was real. I needed that because I don’t generally have those kinds of conversations with strangers and I hadn’t yet had that kind of talk with a Senegalese person. Sometimes being here feels like I’m playing an oversized game of dress-up and all I’m really doing is trying to pass myself off as an informed visitor until my 2 years is up. It’s more than the cultural exchange, although that’s certainly a big fat hunk of it. There is actually work to be done and I can actually help make Senegal a better place to live and a more successful country in today’s globalized economy. It was a shining moment that held, for me, more than it’s own weight. It was a “Peace Corps Moment”.

After Joal, I went back to Dakar to swim in the annual Dakar-Goree Island swim. It’s a 4k open-water swim and I did pretty well. I finished in under 2 hours (about 1h 40m) and although I was exhausted from over-exertion and felt like I was gonna throw up after I finished, it was a lot of fun and I fully intend on doing it again next year, maybe even training more than a week in advance. There were about 15 or so vols in the swim and they said about 700 people overall. There were even some Gambian volunteers who came up just to do the swim. The next day, after my time in Thies and Dakar (and lots of ice cream) and 5 weeks away, I headed back to my village. I was a little terrified at what readjusting to the village would be like and having to navigate those still new relationships and remembering who people were. I definitely forgot some people’s names, but it’s ok. I’m here for another 1.75 years. PS. Notice that when I started my blog that number was 2.25… this Saturday makes 6 months in country. CRAZY! The next stage of trainees arrives in Dakar on Thursday! They probably started staging in the US today. WELCOME!

Speaking of new volunteers, I want to congratulate Julie-Ann (a friend from BU) who swore-in at the end of August in Mauritania. We’re practically neighbors!

The day I got back I stopped at the first compound in the village and thought, gosh, everyone looks so serious. It’s like someone died. I am so glad I didn’t say that aloud because in truth, someone had died. I just didn’t find out about it until a couple of days later when I came back to visit. My friend’s husband, who came to the village about a month after I arrived, had been working in Europe and came home because he was sick. After finding that there was nothing they could do in Dakar, he came home to be with his family. I had no idea. He was sick when I left for IST, but I thought it was the flu or something. I guess he died a couple of days before my return. I’m glad I wasn’t in the village for the funeral. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. And I really liked him. I think it would have been too hard.

The cycle of life continues… my other friend had a baby the day after I arrived. My second stop in the village after arriving was at the school director’s compound and I was surprised to see his wife still very pregnant. I thought she’d have the baby while I was away. And when I went back 2 days later, she was in her hut, newborn alongside. A beautiful girl! I’m actually in town today especially to buy some baby clothes for the baptism on Thursday.

Tuesday was the first day of Ramadan, and living in a Muslim village, the big question is, “Aminata, are you fasting?” I wasn’t going to, because I’m not Muslim and I’d like to respect the belief as well as take care of myself. I have changed my mind about that. The villagers really like that I fast with them, it gives us another way to connect and is part of life here so I feel like I’m experiencing it more. If they ask do I pray too, I say yes (that’s true) but it’s different because I don’t do the Muslim prayers, I pray like a Christian. They understand and I feel that I am still respecting the purpose of Ramadan. Plus breaking the fast at sunset is one of my favorite things so far. All the women from our neighborhood come over to our house and bring mooni (millet/corn porridge) with them. They mix it all together and then serve it in 3 large bowls and we all eat together. If there are dates (ie, when I bring them) we eat them too. After the porridge we eat something called torro, which is like corn dumplings in okra sauce. I’m not sure, but I think this is what other volunteers call “snot sauce”. We know how goopy okra is, and yes, it is a little reminiscent of the texture of snot, but I like it. I guess I’m not bothered too much by texture of food. Good thing too, because I have a feeling that’s gonna be to my benefit as I experience more festival food.

This week is exciting. Because it’s been rainy (rainy season, duh) there’s enough greenery for the cows to produce milk. I just found out yesterday that one of the old women in my village has cows (they’re tended by men in the next village over) that she milks every day and sells the milk or soured milk (kosan) to the neighbors. Tomorrow I’m planning on going with her in the morning to learn how to milk a cow. She’s a really neat lady and I’d like to spend more time hanging out with her. That’s true of a lot of people in the village actually. There’s a man who keeps bees as well and I’d like to ask him about that. At the end of the week I’ll go to Kolda for a very exciting (at least in my mind) meeting… we’re getting together to plan our regional strategy. We’ll set some goals as a region and hopefully have some ideas on working together across the different sectors. It should be cool.

Hey friends!

I finished up my Environmental Assessment and have nice pretty graphs and maps to prove it. It was very informative and I had fun doing it... I can say that now that it's over and presented and everything. As for the community center, I talked briefly to my dad about about it and when I said I needed to know how serious the village was about wanting one, he jumped up and said, I'll ask them to have a meeting. Do you want it before or after you leave for IST? Before would be better... I could ask questions of my boss if I know before I go. (This was Friday afternoon and I left town on Tuesday morning). Miraculously, there were meetings held and issues discussed and as I was walking out the door Tuesday morning, I was handed an official paper signed by the president of the village youth club. It listed several sectors where I could help develop the village including the community center, public toilets, and uniforms for the referees and goalposts and nets for the soccer team. They promised a site set aside for the community building, a group to take care of it, and 25% of the cost funded by the village if I can find funding and furnishing for the rest. Great start.

I left my power cord and camera connector in Velingara accidentally, so I cannot upload photos but I promise, a photo of the hut is on the way. I was waiting and waiting until I felt like it was finished so I could do a video presentation, but I got a request from Leslie and Kayla that included such lovely pictures, I felt it was only fair to post a picture of my hut. Hopefully, one of the volunteers that will come to help with training will pass by and bring the cords to me. Until then, no photos, sorry. But there is one in my camera and as soon as I can, I'll put it up. In response to the excellent question is there anything I like about not having electricity, YES! I love that at night, after dinner, the entire family sits outside under the stars together. Since there isn't electricity in my village or the areas immediately around it, there is very little light pollution and on a clear night (if the moon isn't shining too brightly) you can see the Big Dipper, the Southern Cross, AND the Milky Way. It is very beautiful. Besides having this beautiful picture above us, there's no tv to distract us and we simply spend time together. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we listen to the radio, sometimes we sing and dance, and sometimes we just sit and relax. It is one of the best parts of the day.

When I left the village, I went to Kolda for a house meeting and to use the computer and printer at the house for my report. After our reports were all done, we went to the beach in Toubab Dialaw (just south of Dakar) at a magical wonderland of a hotel. It was spread out with rooms on different levels in a collection of stone buildings with passages winding in between. Parts of it felt like a castle and a lot of it was decorated with seashells and mosaic tiling. Very pretty. The food was yummy, in a western quality kind of way that may be hard to understand unless you've been eating at restaurants that serve only traditional Senegalese foods (which are good, but, it's comforting to eat somewhere catering to a western palate). After the beach, we came to Thies and went back to our homestays.

The family I stayed with during PST have houseguests right now, and so I was moved to Paul's host family for these 3 weeks. Monday night, several PCVs went out to dinner together and biked home afterwards. I had Nathaniel help me find the house because after having spent only one night there, I wasn't confident in my ability to find it in the dark. I recognized most of the way, but near the neighborhood, we wound through some streets I didn't recognize and arrived at a door, where Nathaniel says, "Ok, here it is." "I don't think this is it." "I've been here tons of times, this is where Paul lived... They wouldn't have moved in the last 2 months would they?" "Well... this doesn't look like the house I left this morning. No, it definitely isn't."

We knocked. The people who answered were not, in fact, Paul's (slash my) family. They had, in fact, moved since May. They found the cell phone number of the family and we called. They walked over (just a couple of neighborhoods away) and helped me find the way home. Meanwhile, we had been having a pleasant chat with the family that now lives in the house where Paul lived for PST. That was the fun part of Monday night part one. There's more.

We arrived back at the house and went and sat on the porch a bit. They asked me if I liked the Senegalese wrestling because it was on tv in the other room. I replied I didn't think I'd seen it (I realized later that I had) and got up to go see. I went into the room where 3 guys were watching wrestling. I sort of greeted, and stood in the doorway, watching the tv. One of the guys said, Aminata! How are you? (in pulaar). I looked at him, did a double take and stared for a moment (I'm sure I made a weird face) because I thought, that looks like someone I know in Kedougou... no, that doesn't make any sense. Greeted him and then after watching a few more seconds of wrestling left the room. He came out to the porch and said, "You don't recognize me? From Kedougou?" !!! "Yes! Of course, but I thought I was crazy because it doesn't make sense... that's why I looked at you so weird." It was Daniel's brother... from the family I stayed with at Demyst in Kedougou. Apparently he was on vacation in April when I was down there and actually works in this part of the country. He was staying the night at the Diallo's (our) house because he was working as a guide for a group of youths from America along with my new host dad. Senegal keeps getting smaller and smaller. Such fun to run into a familiar face though.

Last night was also fun. A few of the pula fuutas went to Mary's house for dinner and enjoyed some pulaar jokes and conversation and some really great food and the best mango I've had in a good while (and that's saying something). I don't know why we never did that kind of thing during PST. We should have. It would have been great practice with the language and was a good time. Training has been good so far, mostly technical and practical (the gardening parts). It's good to see people, see how they've changed, and eat the really great training center food.

My battery is almost out now, so I'm out too. Hope everything is going well back home. I want to hear about some of the cool trips you guys are taking. Hopefully I'll be better with emails when I have more battery and more internet time. Pictures coming too!

The environmental assessment is going pretty well I think. I made my maps and although I had hoped to have all the graph part of my presentation done before today, I’m well enough into it that I’m feeling good about it. After the last few graphs are done (and colored, crayola style) there remains the “semi-structured interview”, which means finding as many answers to as many questions as I can in order to get a good idea of how money, environmental resources, garbage, labor, and everything else is managed in the average household. Some of it I know already but a lot of it is questions that I haven’t asked yet. Especially involving land tenure. I know more or less where different people (or neighborhoods) have fields, but as far as ownership… that needs to come out of a conversation with a couple of different people. Basically, to answer Christy's question, the Environmental Assessment is just for me to see what is going on in my community and help me and my trainers figure out where to go from here. It's a tool to help me get to know the village to be an effective volunteer, and it works surprisingly well. I'm learning more about my village every day. A focused kind of more... things that I ought to know about and might not get unless I seek them out, say if I have to put them in a presentation or something. Kind of like when Professor Snape makes them write a report on werewolves so they'll put 2 and 2 together. Yeah, I did just make a Harry Potter reference. Not sorry.

I realize that people have been posting questions in their comments and I swear, I really want to answer them. I will try to take some time and focus on those in my next post. I really appreciate them and want to encourage them. Thanks, keep them coming.

Yesterday, I went with some friends in search of soft-serve ice cream as a momentary break away from the village. It took most of the day to get to [the undisclosed location], only to find out that the man who owns the machine couldn’t make a profit since his only customers were the occasional white tourist. Now, he only prepares the soft-serve if he’s given advance notice. We couldn’t get a hold of him. No luck. But it was nice to have a brief break and some fresh company. We also got the contact info for the soft-serve man and will try another attempt, perhaps after the rainy season… in a couple of months or so.

Of note this week was a conversation with a group of men in my village where I was able to tell a little about why I’m in the village (believe it or not it’s to do more than just learn pulaar and hang out), what I think development work looks like (not just handing out money, but making work better here), and talk about their desires for our village. I’m getting a table this week and a chair, which the carpenter in our village is making for me. We talked a little about how he’d like to work out of the village but doesn’t have the equipment or a workshop there. He currently needs to go to Velingara or Dakar or some other city to use their machinery. I think that it may be possible during my service to look into helping him set up a business, especially if Velingara gets a Small Enterprise Development volunteer in November, as I’ve just heard we’re supposed to. Potential development project one.

Potential development project two is the result of the same conversation. I asked, what do you want for the village? The response was a place to have training sessions. And a place that can seat about thirty people so we don’t have to do our meetings at the school all the time. And also a place for the youth to get together and possibly have parties or events. I asked, -do you want a community center? -No. -In America, many towns have community centers that the people use for different things: parties, events, meetings, educational things, whatever the community needs. Here, it might look like a compound with a big building and maybe a shed where you can lock up some things… that’s a community center. Is that what you want? -YES! She understands! That’s what we want. If they’re serious about it, and if the rest of the village is also interested, that may be something I can work towards. So these are the questions I’m taking with me to IST, besides the EE issues I wanted to learn more about.

I’m kind of tired this week because I have not been sleeping as well as I would like, but the good news is, somewhere around the time I got back to Tamba after the 4th, I got my appetite back. I have not had much of an appetite most of the time that I’ve been in Senegal. They say appetite change is a common part of adjustment to a new environment and new diet, so I was hoping to get it back soon. Yes, Charoma, I have lost weight here. Not enough to be worried about it, but enough to notice. Many girls gain weight, but without much of an appetite, I lost weight in PST and the first several weeks at site. In recent weeks I stopped losing and have sort of leveled off. Now I’m hungry again, so we’ll see if I fluctuate or if I stay at about where I am now. It was weird and disconcerting at first because my weight is pretty stable in the States and I’m not used to having clothes suddenly fit me weirdly. So I am glad to have my stomach back in a familiar state. On that note, I’m going to go find some lunch. I hope you’re all well!

Hello hello!

So I’m entering my last few weeks of The First Three Months (as in, “the first three months are the hardest”, which I’ve heard over and over) and soon I’ll be headed back to Thies for IST. As an EE volunteer, I’m required to do an Environmental Assessment of my village to present my first few days at training. I’ve got a rough draft of my resource map done (to show what exists in my village land-wise). I’ve started working on my “transect”, which is a land use evaluation exercise. I chose a line that cuts through the village and walk along, stopping at different places to take note of the land use and importance in village life. Then I’ll put it all in a pretty chart. I have to make other charts and collect information on how resources flow in and out of our village, what the key organizations and active groups are, and basically present a village profile so that I will know my village better and so that my trainers will be able to help me by knowing more about my village’s needs.

So I’m working on it step by step. A lot of it means just remembering to ask questions that will get people talking about a topic of interest. For instance, when my neighbor came into my compound yesterday, I was about to head into my hut to make some lunch, but instead, I waited a bit and showed him my map and talked about my presentation for IST. We talked about what he grows (corn) and whether it’s for sale or consumption (consumption). I found out that he’s the one who built my hut because he’s the mason and he also taught me the word for grass, which I probably learned before, but you know, you lose words sometimes.

I got back from my 4th of July excursion on Friday. As the people in my village constantly remind me, I was gone for a long time, although when I leave for the entire month of August, that will really be a long time. I would have been home earlier except that I got a little sick (the day I stayed in Kay’s village, unfortunately… a 3 hour bike ride from the Kedougou regional house… for me it’s about 4.5 hours because I bike like a grandma, which is still faster than most Senegalese I’ve biked behind). When I was in Tamba, I finally called Med with the “do I have amoebas” question and was told to do a MIF kit (collect your poo in a jar to see if you have parasites—not as traumatizing as it sounds) and get some medication from the pharmacy to combat Giardia!. After a superdose of Giardia!-fighting medicament, I was back on the road home and either Dr. Ararat nailed it, or I was on the mend anyway, because my “I think I have parasites” cramps have completely subsided. I hope that’s all I had. Oh yeah, and the waterfalls in Kedougou are beautiful in the rainy season.

Meanwhile, as a result of a miscommunication (as in I got a new phone number, but my tech trainer didn’t get the memo), my tech trainer visited me in my village, only I was in Tamba. Walking back from the market in Tamba, I saw a Peace Corps car (the cars usually live in Dakar, so I was surprised) and it pulls over, out hops Abdoulaye and he says, “Hey, I was in your village this morning!” We sat down at the Tamba house and had our “site visit”. Not optimal, but luckily I had been talking earlier that day with Tracy, another EE vol, about the kinds of things I wanted to learn at IST and was able to recite for him my list of stuff I want to know about. Plus I had some of my Assessment stuff that I had planned to work on a bit in Tamba. So it worked out.

I had a skirt made by a friend here in Velingara. My first Senegalese fabric toubab clothes and I love it. I had her copy my favorite skirt. I’ve heard (and seen) that zippers here are low-quality so I asked for buttons even though the US skirt has a zipper. What I received was a pretty new skirt with buttons, and my old skirt… with the zipper replaced by buttons. I was devastated. My favorite skirt. She saw my face (and my thoughts are basically broadcast there like on a projector screen), and said, I’m sorry, I thought that’s what you asked for. I’d fix it, but I threw it away. I thanked Mariama for the work she did. The new skirt was beautiful and the other skirt was no big deal. Then I went into the room, closed the door, and cried. There are, of course, more things in the world to cry about than an American-made zipper, but sometimes the pressure valve needs a little venting. I really liked that zipper.

A moment of silence, please.

I’m back in Velingara today so quickly after returning to village because a little bird told me that there was a package for me and I would like to make a very public THANK YOU, KATIE!!! I also got your letter, which was even more exciting than the package.

I also want to thank my Sunday school class for the birthday card. I got that one and one from my parents last time I came in. The one from the parents was one of the fancy cards that plays music when you open it. I know! High-tech, even for the US. I excitedly showed my family here and waited for the explosive reaction when they opened it. What I got was a very non-plussed “oh, it’s a radio”. Come on! We don’t even have electricity and here’s a piece of paper (that came in the mail!) that plays the Star Wars theme! I know they don’t recognize the song, but seriously. Seriously.

After a brief (and I’m sorry we got cut off… don’t know what the phone issue was) conversation with Charoma yesterday, I thought I might talk a little about being married here in Senegal. Yes, if you didn’t know, I have a husband here. Often more than one. “Do you have a husband?” Is almost always one of the first five questions you are asked, especially in places like the market and at the garage. If you don’t know the person asking, especially if it’s a guy at the garage… young, looking for an American wife, you know what I’m talkin’bout… the answer is ALWAYS “yes”. When I was in Tamba coming home this time, “Yes, I have a husband in America.” “Ah but do you have one here?” “Do I have one here?! Of course! I have three, one in Tamba, one in Kolda, one in Dakar.” I got a high five for that. “Me, I want an American wife.” “Do you speak English? No? Well, Good luck!” They loved it. In my experience here, you give them a little sass and they love you. When we loaded the car, there was a young lady next to me in the middle seat. A man was hanging in the open car door trying to get her phone number. She was clearly not interested. I have to guiltily say that this made me feel a little better inside to know that they don’t just hassle the white girl. But he did not know how to take a hint, so I took the torn-off cigarette cartridge he was offering her to write on and said “It’s finished” and threw it away. He then tried for my number, but rather than polite silence like my neighbor, I just said “No way. Goodbye.” The guys in the back seat cracked up.

Lastly, my hut. The big rains that flooded my room did more than that, it seems. As I was digging mud off of my douche, stop, let me explain what a douche is. It is a big ol’ hole in the ground. Then there’s a concrete pad covering it, mine is about the width of a double bed? There’s a hole in the middle. This serves as your toilet and drain for the shower. Shower as in bucket bath. Fill up a bucket with water from the well. Set it (covered, so you don’t contribute to malaria-carrying mosquito breeding) outside all day. Have warm water to bathe with in the evening. Learn to wash your hair without water pressure. In other words, it’s a latrine. I don’t know why I never think to call it my latrine. It’s just always my douche. So there you have it. That’s a douche. As I was scraping off the mud with my shiny new shovel, I noticed a crack in the concrete. I followed the crack all the way around the douche in a wide-arcing circle. Complete circle. I stepped away slowly and carefully from the concrete, but still managed to place a foot right next to the crack and part of it crumbled away. !!! I got my brother to show him and said, “Moussa, if I fall in, I’m going home… to America.” Crumbling door frame, fine. Leaks in the roof, fine. Backyard floods, fine. Falling into a pit of my own waste, line drawn. He assured me that it (and I) won’t fall… there’s iron rebar under there. The mud under the very thin concrete compacted with the rains, creating an air space, and when the weight of the mud (and then my foot) pressed on the concrete, it cracked. No biggie. They can pour more concrete if I want. I, however, stand by my statement. Otherwise, I think I’m making it to my next time-marker, IST. Now to get to work on my environmental report…

About heavy rains and my backyard… I am so glad I bought the shovel. Last night’s storm started out fast and furious. I had trenched around my douche to prevent repetition of the mudslide from last week but hadn’t yet dug a drainage ditch for my yard (future garden). The trench around the douche performed fairly well, although it needs some reworking. I know those of you in San Antonio are familiar with flash flooding. Well, it exists here too. This is the story of how I found out about it:

It was a cloudy afternoon with thunderheads looming on the eastern and western horizons. We left the baptism (slash dance party) early to rearrange our rooms so that when the wind picked up, the vulnerable parts of our roofs wouldn’t leak onto important belongings. The clouds hovered and breeze swirled, but little movement was made as the rain bided its time, planning its attack strategy. Knowing there’d be at least an hour before the water came and needing some alone time, I took a walk up into the woods behind the village and circled around to the fields to see the freshly sown manioc and peanut sprouts. As I walked, I prayed for a big, loud storm to come and offer me an excuse to make some American tea and hole-up in my room. A well-timed phone call saw me all the way back to my compound (thanks B, it was so great to talk to you), where the family was gathered eyeing the sky and beginning dinner preparations. To the delight of all the children, Awa and I played a game of hopscotch in the quickly darkening twilight. Meanwhile, the stormclouds brewed directly overhead, gathering their ranks into a mass ready to drop with mighty force.

Then the rain fell, softly at first, giving us enough time to collect our chairs and mats and take shelter in our huts. Next the wind started in. It swept wildly through the back door, so I closed it, my window, and the front door. I sat in the dark and began searching for leaking drips as the rain pounded out its angry beat on my thatch roof. I was moving my belongings out of water’s way (not much, just enough to merit some temporary redecoration) when I noticed a friendly frog hopping near the back door, looking for an escape. “Hello, little frog! I bet you want out. I’ll just open the door and let you go be in the rain,” I thought. MISTAKE!

I opened the door just enough to let the frog out and WHOOSH! My backyard flooded into my room. I quickly closed the door and started moving buckets out of the way. It was too late. The seal on the door was broken (or perhaps it wasn’t really sealed in the first place and I just didn’t notice the trickling water in the dark while I was busy aiming my flashlight at the ceiling). Once I had consolidated all of my belongings into the one dry corner of my room and shimmied my bed into shallower water, I sat down and waited. Every few minutes I’d check my window to see if the rain had let up. When I was sure that it was safe to open the front door, I went out into the now very light rain and walked around my hut to peer over the fence into my backyard to check on the water level. Opening the door again was out of the question, but I had to know if the flood had subsided. It had. I thought about how I would have to wait until morning, with half of my room sitting in a couple inches of water and began to wonder about dinner. Tijaani came to the cooking hut (directly next to mine) to check on the pot, which was happily boiling away, unbothered by the rain. She looked in my room to see if I had any leaks and found my mini-pond. “Wait a minute, I’ll be right back,” she says. She came back a few minutes later with some of the moms in my compound. They grabbed my broom and one left to return with a cup to bail out my room. Once most of the water was gone (amazingly, a broom and a determined Senegalese woman are pretty effective with standing water), we went to another building in my compound to eat dinner. The rain continued all through the night and well into the morning today, although the initial deluge was the worst of it by far. The moral of the story, according to Kay, is keep your frogs. I think for me, it’s don’t wait to landscape your backyard. Do it immediately. I’ll do it tomorrow (or tonight if there’s time when I get home).

In other news, the best part of my week was when I wandered out to the rice fields to see where my mother plants our rice. They were so excited about my going out to the fields. I went in the morning and watched. I helped hoe for about a minute and a half, and that was enough for the people on the complete opposite side of town to be asking me about my farming experience in the afternoon. What’s more, the rice faros are away from the village in the most beautiful setting I’ve seen here. This is the Africa I’ve been waiting to see. I forgot to bring the cord to connect my camera to my computer, but I will put up pictures eventually. Even better, it is utterly peaceful out there. The birdsong was amazing and everything is so green. I found a broken down building, which my mother told me belonged to a Canadian several years ago. Apparently he came down from Tamba and helped log the area. Who knew that by asking one simple question, “I saw a building. It’s broken. What is it?” I would have a twenty-minute history lesson on the environmental past of our village. Great! That is exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to find out about for the environmental assessment I’ll need to present at IST.

It was a good week.

I am looking forward to next week. There is a 4th of July celebration in Kedougou and I’m gonna bookend my trip with visits to Mary’s and Kay’s villages. That means, of course, that I probably won’t be online, and it’s also why I’m in town today. I want to be in my village Monday because I’m headed to Mary’s on Tuesday. There’s a wedding tomorrow on the other side of town, so that should be fun too. Good food and lots of dancing. Although about the food… there was meat for the baptism yesterday and I had some for dinner, but I have no idea what kind of animal or even what organ it was that I ate. All I know is that it was definitely meat, kind of shrively, and not that bad. It looked like an oversized mitochondria… maybe a liver or a stomach? I don’t think it was intestines because I’ve seen chitlins, and this wasn’t it. It definitely wasn’t sheep brain, because we dissected one of those in high school bio. Really no idea. I might have asked, but I was tired and the rain was loud on the tin roof. Besides, I’m not sure I really want to know. That being said, I hope you all have a very happy 4th with fireworks and food that you recognize. Until next time!

For those who are curious, this is THE wedding photo. She looks about as thrilled as I was. But she's usually very smiley... just not for photos.

The second major storm of the season came and knocked down some of the zinc plates that make part of the fence for my douche (the wind also brought rain through one corner of my grass roof, but luckily I put up a tarp covering above my bed earlier in the week so no harm, no foul). It also flooded the whole douche area with mud. This inspired me to make a grand plan for my backyard. I had already made plans for a garden, got some seeds, and started thinking out my timeline, but then when I saw how my yard flooded, I realized I would need to do some major work to keep the rains from over-watering my future plants. So today I bought a shovel.

I also collected peanut shells to put under my plants because it’s supposed to be good for the soil composition and I’m hoping it will help with drainage since I’ve got a lot of clay (hence the flooding). It just so happened that the day I asked about saving some of our peanut shells was the day the women in my compound started shelling the peanuts they had saved for seeding the fields, so when I asked in the morning, I expected a small bucketful today, another tomorrow, so forth, and instead received the largest sack of peanut shells I’ve ever seen in my life, all in one fell swoop. And that night it POURED! and I got to see just how badly I needed the drainage. Hopefully my garden will be a success and I will be able to show them not only that I’m not entirely useless (since I don’t farm, can’t really cook any of their food, and don’t speak the language all that well) and that they too can use the peanut shells to enrich the soil. At the moment, we shell peanuts like every day and they toss most of the shells. I’d like to eventually talk about composting and natural soil treatments. I have a lot to learn about gardening, but it’s one of the topics I’m going to explore at IST because the women have a large community garden and so does the school. If I can help them garden more productively and maybe throw in a few conservation lessons to boot, I’m sure it will feel like a job well done.

Another, ‘hey look I’m feeling productive’ story is my trip to the vegetable market today. I bought several veggies and some canned goods, but the reason I feel like such a winner is because I finally got a burner for my gas stove, so this week I can cook myself a meal or two. I realize this is an even more self-centered accomplishment than planning out my fancy backyard landscaping, and yes, parents, I am being very food-focused. But food has been a major struggle and source of frustration for me. I like to eat. I like to like what I’m eating. I like to eat my whole meal because I like it all, not because I know I need the nutrition. But I’ve realized that I am a big fan of the side-dish. I like having several different items on one plate and when I have a one-dish meal, I eat less because I get tired of the food. And when it’s the same one-dish meal everyday, I find myself in a mental pep-talk halfway through every meal. “You can eat three more bites of rice, you need the food. Take more mafe (sauce), there’s nutrition in it. You can do it! Just a few more bites.” I’m being extreme, it’s not actually that bad and there are other volunteers who eat worse than I do. I don’t eat badly: there’s always food and we get rice and corn, and we get peanut and leaf sauces (they make a mean leaf sauce on corn cous-cous), and there are some veggies (peanuts, leaves, onions, okra) in just about everything.

I think really it’s the eating experience that’s been tainted for me. The real source of frustration is the culture around eating. If you are eating (or about to eat) it is polite to yell out to anyone who might be passing by “come over here, we’re eating!” and when I don’t, sometimes I get grief over it. ‘Hey! You didn’t call me.’ ‘Oh, sorry, come eat?’ ‘Thanks anyway.’ Fair enough. More frustrating (and even enfuriating), “Amie, EAT!” They will say this at any and all points during the meal. The second everyone arrives at the bowl: Amie, eat! I was waiting for us all to start together and they don’t say that to any of the other 7 people eating here. I’ve stopped moving my spoon so that I can chew what’s in my mouth: Amie EAT! What does it look like I’m doing? Someone walks into the compound and I look up to see who it is and what they’re carrying on the back of their bike: AMIE, EAT! Sometimes, I think it’s just for the heck of it because I’ll be in the process of removing the spoon from my mouth and they’ll say: Amie, eat! I usually respond with the ‘are you really talking right now’ stare, but more than once I’ve been tempted to just stick out my tongue with food all over it so they can see that I am, in fact, eating. Most of the time my response is “I’m eating” but it drives me nuts when they say it and I can’t respond because there is food in my mouth. But the part that really truly makes me angry is at the end of every meal, no matter how much I have eaten or even if I’m the last one left, when I am done I say “thanks, I’m full” and they say some variation of “eat a little more”. Now “eat a little more” is fine and I understand the politeness factor. They want me to be well fed. “No thank you, I’m full”, end of story. But often they can be obnoxious about it. “You didn’t eat.” Oh really, what have I been doing with the food that’s no longer in front of me? What have we all been doing for the last twenty minutes? Typically it’s like this:

-I’m full, thanks.

-You didn’t eat.

-Yes, I ate and I’m full.

-No, you didn’t eat.

-Yes, I did. I ate, I’m full, thank you.

-Eat a little more.

-Oh no, I’m WAY full. (Accompanied by a smile, to remind myself mostly that this isn’t something to get worked up about).

-Eat a little more.

-NO.

Last week there was one lunch when I pretty much stormed away from the bowl because at the end of the meal, “you didn’t eat” was followed by a very pointed “where did you eat today?” Are you kidding me? I just ate here! Spoon on the ground, foot hits the pavement (or dirt, rather) and I’m in my hut.

They tell me you’ll tap into unknown sources of rage here. I hope that if I must find myself overcome with rage, it’s over something related to injustice or something that might actually merit rage and not over my ability to judge my own fullness at a meal.

On a completely different note, today is Sunday and I love Sundays in general, but I really miss church. I hope you’re all well and I’m thinking about you.

(Written for June 16)

Ndungu (the rainy season) has now arrived in the Kolda region! The first real rain came Tuesday night. It was a big loud thunderstorm that I could feel reverberating in my stomach just as I was laying down to sleep. I didn’t mind it one bit. Every once in a while I miss a good thunderstorm, and I was reminded of the summer storms that spin out of the Atlantic during hurricane season in North Carolina. Think big fat drops falling like they’re trying to win a race to the ground, wind that whistles a little as it blows around the door frame, and claps of thunder that shake the walls a little when it sounds right above you. So powerful! It has rained more or less every other day since then and the humidity is ever present.

The rains mean the beginning of planting and so, Wednesday morning most of the village was out plowing their freshly softened fields. But not this little toubab… I bought the paint that I thought I wanted on Monday and my brother and I started painting my room on Tuesday. It turns out the paint I got was not water-based, so we couldn’t thin it (or clean it up with any success) and it turned into a kind of fiasco, leaving my room half done. So I needed more paint and some paint thinner to try and clean the brush. I biked into Velingara early Wednesday and bought the paint, returning in the middle of the day to make it home before lunch. That was not one of my brighter ideas, because as anyone in Senegal will be able to tell you, even in the rainy season, the sun is HOT! Having lost my sunscreen when I went to Tamba, my arms were fried crispy from the hour and half bike ride back to my village. Good thing I remembered to bring lotion with me. I nearly finished painting my room Thursday (it went a lot slower without the help of my brother) and finished the blue (a little more electric than I had hoped, but pretty nice looking in the end) and painted myself a large chalkboard Friday morning. All that remains now are a few touch-ups and I’ll have a happy little home.

Emotionally, it was a rough week. I dealt with a lot of feeling like I’m not doing a very good job getting to know my village (because even though there are only about 20 names in various combinations, I have a hard time remembering even 25%) and feeling frustrated about the fact that I haven’t done anything work related because the teachers have been on strike the entire time I’ve been here and even though the strike ended Thursday, the classes still aren’t going on because the school year ends this week. The only class in session is still the one class of candidates for the elementary school exit exam. I went into Kolda this weekend for my friend Cameron’s birthday and it was good for me to get away from the village a little, talk to other volunteers who are also struggling with similar issues, and realize that I am actually doing work right now, even if it feels like I’m just providing entertainment to the villagers. “Work” is just so intangible at this point. It’s relationship building and information gathering in a very unsystematic way. Doing things like playing hopscotch for an hour with a group of kids (if you thought hopscotch wasn’t a spectator sport, think again… there was a crowd of at least 20 kids totally captivated by the game between myself and one little girl) actually counts as good work because these kids are the ones I’ll be looking to next year when I want to start an environmental club at the school or want to start a tree nursery to help combat deforestation in the BEAUTIFUL woods surrounding our village.

Things in my compound have calmed down to some kind of normal and one of the kids who cries every time I see her has stopped crying and will even shake my hand without cringing (although asking her to speak to me is still out of the question and direct eye-contact is beyond her nerve). She is about 4 years old, the daughter of the school director and she LOVES to dance. The thing that eventually ended the crying run-and-hide when I come by was when she saw me dance in our small impromptu dance party. I spent a day in their compound and the young girls were gathered outside the hut staring and giggling until one of the teachers called them in and said, sing and dance for Aminata (here I’m Aminata Camara… I’m not sure I mentioned my new last name). They went through a variety of songs from the English and French songs they sing at World Vision’s youth club on Wednesdays to traditional pulaar dance songs and took turns showing me different ways of dancing like a pullo. Then I took my turn and impressed them all with my ability to bust-a-move. Little Aisha (the cryer) was finally able to look at me after that and I hope that one day we might even be friends.

This weekend also made the One Month in Village mark. IST seems just around the corner and I’m excited to go home and start writing on my new chalkboard my plan of action for completing my “environmental assessment” that I’ll need to present at IST. In other news, this weekend’s major success (aside from a happy birthday celebration for Cameron) was the home-made in a bag ice cream. We tried several flavors using drink mix and found that not only could we make ice cream in Senegal, we could probably recreate the experience in village. This is some of the best news I’ve heard here. If you didn’t already know, food is very important to me and ice cream is one of the great loves of my life, so the possibility of my favorite comfort food where it seemed utterly out of reach… priceless. Now remains the task of making it on a large-scale for the 4th of July party, at a compound with no electricity and limited resources. Fingers crossed.