Apparently I can be sort of productive and wreck havoc on the internet while stuck on my tiny delta island without electricity.

Go to wikitravel (English version) and type in Mar Lodj. Or if you're lazy, click here. You will see my handiwork. All eco-T volunteers in Senegal (11 of us!) have to put a wikitravel site together and then train a local counterpart to do the same in French. It's going to be one hell of a challenge doing the second part with the aforementioned electricity obstacle. Nevertheless, I'm still one of the first to get this English portion done. Go me!

Don't mind any typing errors, missing info or general stylistic blandness. I'm doing the best I can with limited connection time!

PS Anyone feel like visiting me now? B/c according to wikitravel, this Mar Lodj place sounds pretty frickin' amazing.

Rusty old blog.

I'm going to recycle a little bit of an email (sorry, Kim!) just to have something to put up here and let you all know that I'm still here, mucking around on my little island (quite literally, in fact, during the rainy season):

Things in Mar Lodj are good. I still haven't found really inspiring or fulfilling work projects, but I'm coming to terms with that aspect of Peace Corps. Not every site has a big, remarkable, scene-changing project. And, I just keep holding on to the thread that even my boss has told me she doesn't expect much to happen in Mar since I'm the first volunteer there; I'm mostly laying the groundwork for future volunteers. It's not comforting, and you can't put that on your resume, but at least I know it's not my failing (a cop out, yes). In the meantime, I'm working with one sand-painter artisan on product development: I'm trying to get him to switch to making greeting cards in addition to his plywood paintings. Ideally, I'll sneak in some lessons on costing and pricing and record-keeping, but that, too, will happen very slowly. Also, I continue to randomly hover around one of the very active women's groups, helping them when I can with minor admin stuff. Plus, I'm helping to put together some marketing material for a big PC-Senegal-wide travel guide book which will target the expat community in Dakar. The idea is to get them out vacationing at sites in Senegal that they might not otherwise consider, but which us volunteers know are awesome and safe and worth visiting. And I help Thomas, my counterpart, with IT stuff whenever he gets confused about transferring photos from his digital camera to his computer. Yes, he's exceptionally hi-tech.

So that's the run down. I still miss home and my family EXCEPTIONALLY. No matter how comfortable I am slowly becoming here, there isn't a single day when I wouldn't rather be back in the States. I know that's not the case for all volunteers - many are quite content in Senegal, to the point of extending their service - but I'm just not in that place. That said, the place where I am is stunningly beautiful and paradisaical and I appreciate that.

Sunset over the mangroves

Rainy season clouds

There are new photos on the Picasa site. Look at them. Comment on them.

I've often thought that religion inspires people to do silly things - things like pilgrimages. It turns out you don't even need religion to do silly things - things like pilgrimages.

A few weeks ago Catholics observed Pentecost. In Senegal, a country which prides itself on religious co-existence, the holiday was observed nationally with government offices closed; otherwise, it was an unremarkable occasion for the country's Muslim majority (95%). For Catholics here, however, Pentecost also marks the time of year when the Black Madonna was spotted in a nature reserve in Popenguine some time back. To recall said sighting, there is a pilgrimage to Popenguine every year at Pentecost. Most pilgrims arrive by car, bus, and taxi from all over the country. When I heard there was an environmentally-friendly option, I jumped at the occasion to integrate with my family/community (Catholic) and to experience whatever the heck made pilgrimages so popular in the Middle Ages.

And then I found out that the environmentally-friendly option was walking and no one in my family was dumb enough or pious enough to sign on for a 30km walk in the middle of the hot season. I am hardly pious (I'm not even Catholic! ...which leaves us with 'dumb'), but by this time I'd already signed up and paid my hefty 4500cfa ($9 to cover a busride to the starting point in Mbour, lunch during the march and dinner after).

Consoled by the assurance of a local "scout" to look over me and accompanied by the youthful brother-and-sister owners (Bernard and Theresa) of a ML campement, I decided to swallow my fear and aversion of strangers, religion and physical activity. Come Saturday, off I went with an early group to Fimela, where we spent the night at the Catholic Mission. Maybe I'm getting crotchety in my old age (upcoming birthday alert!), but it exasperated me that the eventual grouping of some 75 parish high-schoolers refused to get a good night's sleep before a daylong walk. I snuck in about 2 hours before someone woke me up at 4a.m. for a chilly and rather unnecessary bucket bath. We trundled onto the bus for Mbour already exhausted, and I grumpily began to second-guess my "why not?" decision-making.

In Mbour we were dropped off in a sandy soccer field where groups of marchers from all points south and west were congregating. Mbour to Popenguine is ~30km; the slog ahead inspired grim apprehension. The day started off impeccably organized - each parish trickling out on the route at regular intervals, with group leaders heading prayers and discussions.

Once we wound our way out of the city, it took about an hour before the singing and dancing started. The kids in each group picked up whatever they found - used water bottles, empty tomato cans - and drummed along. In spite of the increasingly unfortunate terrain (red dirt paths through dry millet fields and low scrub), the level of enthusiasm jumped as groups competed in volume with the parishes ahead and behind. Not knowing any religious hymns in Seereer or French or Wolof (...or English?), I drummed along and kept track of my sunscreen applications. The "scout" asked me how my morale was every 20 minutes and Theresa was cheery in her religious fervor.

Dance-pilgrimageWe reached the halfway point around 1:30 and all happily, hungrily collapsed in a rare shaded grove for lunch and a break. We stretched our legs and waited ...and drank some water and waited ...and loosened our shoe-ties and waited. It was a good hour and a half before we realized someone had made a mistake: lunch was not coming. Senegal's track record of logistical planning failures holds.

This is before we knew about lunch

There was universal frustration and anger and hunger-induced irritability. Nowhere more so than from Theresa, who was hungry and starting to feel the beginning of a hip cramp. The remarkable organization at the march's debut degenerated into a mob, with each parish shoving to get back on the path toward Popenguine and put this disaster of a lunch(less) break behind them.Chaos

The second half of the day was less pleasant. Certain parishes kept up the joyful singing, but ML got split up in the chaos. Theresa and I slowly drifted to the very back of the march as her leg cramped up and kept her from anything more than a limp. When we finally - painfully - climbed the last hill into Popenguine, I could feel the blisters forming; it was already 6p.m.

Still smiling. Just dirtier.

We found the ML group, collapsed in a heap of red dirt and sweat, and swallowed dinner (which was unremarkable except in the fact that it existed and was on time). I excused myself to meet up with some other PCVs (who had arrived by less environmentally-friendly means).

We spent the rest of the evening drinking palm wine, wandering the market of religious trinkets and souvenirs, and absorbing the atmosphere of a tiny village thronged with pilgrims. We peered in on the evening mass, but checked out the next morning (Pentecost proper) before the main mass of the event. Thirty kilometers was enough of a non-religious religious experience for me.

The pilgrimage was an awesome experience; I've never done anything like it before. Ultimately it wasn't even as difficult as I expected; although, the blisters on my feet lasted 2 weeks and were unbelievably huge. Back in ML, walking to Popenguine has earned me some street cred among the villagers, so blisters were a small price to pay. All in all, a success.

[Oh, but next year, if JazzFest and the Popenguine pilgrimage coincide like they did this time, I'm opting for the former. Doing a pilgrimage twice - that'd just be silly.]

A few months before I came to Senegal, I remember getting very excited (and a little concerned) when NASA's image-of-the-day website featured a satellite picture of West Africa and the Atlantic Ocean. The shot captured just about everything I knew then about Senegal, which is to say its basic geography.

The disconcerting thing was the dirty smudge that showed up on the screen, like a smear of paint dragged from the Sahara out into the royal blue of the Atlantic, shrouding that western tip of the continent where I knew Dakar to be. I science-geeked out over this, the dry hot Harmattan winds carrying sand and dust and dirt from Africa out across the ocean. Sometime back in an environmental science class, I'd learned that it was because of this annual occurrence, which is sometimes strong enough to reach South America, that the rain forests of that continent continue to exist. When the African dirt finally precipitates out of the atmosphere over Brazil, it replenishes and rejuvenates the depleted soils.

But awe gave way to terror when I imagined how that satellite photo would translate on the ground. Even a windstorm in Colorado isn't all that pleasant to breathe in.

So here we are almost a year later, barreling toward the hottest, driest season of the year. I can't say I've experienced Harmattans yet, but it gets plenty windy. The gusts blow in my window screens daily. From the shelter of my room, I watch the wind pushing mini-dunes in the loose sand. A not-so-fine film of dust covers every inch of everything inside, too; sweeping is a Sisyphean task. Dust is in the air, assaulting lungs and leeching every bit of moisture from throats and eyes.

Some days, like today, you can't make out the sun until 9-10a.m. (it rises hours earlier); the haze that veils it reminds me of the fog on a snowy morning back home. It's extremely disorienting.

The sun had come up when I took this...

I should hedge this. It's already May (the Harmattans are a winter phenomenon). If I've survived the worst, perhaps this isn't so bad. The peak of the hot season and the dreaded rainy season are bigger menaces right now. A moment of silent gratitude is in order; island-life imposes a constant humidity on life. Yes, I'll be cursing the skies come mosquito season (er, more-mosquito season), but for now it's a blessing that keeps the dust down (relative to the poor folks farther inland, closer to the source of all this airborn grit).

Nevertheless, the science-geek still thinks it's fucking awesome that you can see this stuff from space. Here are links:

Last June's Nasa pic!

Another cool NASA shot

And wikipedia on Harmattan

It's been awhile since I've written here. Contrary to that fraudulent email you may have received, I am not in London where, desperate for funds, I might still be taking advantage of cooler temperatures, electricity and decent internet.

Nope, tempted as I was to take a return flight home with my eema, I'm still in Senegal. And, actually, my mom's visit replenished my hug quota enough to tie me over at least another few weeks. I'll put some pictures from her trip on Picasa eventually so that you can see the wonderful things we did while she was here. Maybe you'll even be inspired to plan your own trip. (Seriously. Come see me. It's only Africa. I need hugs.)

On the work front, things are slowly picking up. More people are starting to talk about doing a waste management project. Starting to talk is not starting to do, but I take what I can get. There's also talk about me tutoring some middle school girls in English (can't shake that damn ling nerdiness) and that might develop into an English club next fall (maybe.) And finally, for shits and giggles, I've offered to paint a mural at the Catholic health post. Oooh, arsty.

And that's about it for now. I'll try to post this week about more interesting goings on.

My eema comes this week! My eema comes this week! Less than 72 hours away!!!

Taking cues from its former colonial power, Senegal has in place a bureaucracy almost as asinine as the one I encountered in France. No surprise. But here, insisting on the formal where the informal reigns is futile. And so getting my residence permit renewed in Senegal was in no way like the organized, if complicated and unending process of doing the same in France.

Here’s how it went:

March 10:

PCVs receive a text message reminding us to renew res permits. For my stage, expiration dates are coming up; get on that.

March 14:

Deciding to head to Kaolack to get this out of the way, I make the mistake of sleeping in on a travel day. I’m rewarded with 6 hours of crowded, squishy transportation during the hottest part of the day. And my first bus broke down twice en route.

Why Kaolack? I’ve been informed that the office in my region’s capital hasn’t opened yet – no further explanation. And Dakar is a more expensive trip.

March 14, p.m.:

Upon arriving at the PC regional house, I’m told by 3 other volunteers that I am doomed to fail. The guy who signs off res permits is a dick; he won’t do it before the actual expiration date. And no one knows where the office is anyway, not even the PCV (M~) who lives in Kaolack.

March 15:

Tempting fate (my permit expires the 22nd), I head downtown to find this mysterious office and confront the evil troll guarding my legal status to be in this country.

M~ and I navigate trash heaps and construction pits before stumbling into a jail – no joke – which we then realize is exactly the building we need. We run as fast as we can past the incarceration area to an admin doorway. There, we find the Troll quite literally guarding the hallway.

I explain my quest, wave my soon (so soon!) to expire permit in his face, and get hit with the verbal equivalent of a cascade of arrows: each tip a sharp Wolof phrase insisting the renewal can’t and won’t be done before March 22.

Smiling, I pull out my two secret weapons: infinite patience (public transportation in a developing country requires it) … and a hand-written note to the Kaolack commissaire from my counterpart.

Residence permits can’t be renewed until the very day they expire?

“I understand, really, I do,” said in every language I know. “But can I please just speak with Mr. Fall for a moment, briefly, just to say hello? You see this note with Mr. Fall’s name and phone number? My counterpart will be furious if I don’t. Just to say hi. Salutations only, I swear. Nuyoo rekk.”

Eventually the Troll, weakened by my insistence on saying hello in a country where greetings are so important, caved. I was shown to Mr. Fall’s office where, a moment of name-and-note-dropping later, I found myself waiting while he went back out to smoothly request the Troll’s assistance in such a minor bureaucratic task. Seconds after that, I was in possession of the prized residence permit, renewed to the end of 2010.

I thanked Mr. Fall effusively and quickly snuck out the side door so as not to disgruntle the Troll again.

Just like that. Easy.

Telling this story later to my host-sister E~, she said, “Wow. You’re work like a Senegalese person now.” Yikes. Come December 31, 2010, though, I know how to navigate this bureaucratic mess again. Step 1: head to Dakar…

As an aside, I spent a lovely 36 hours in Kaolack. Post-adventure, M~ and I visited the local artisanal market and spent the rest of the day catching up in a restaurant. Nice.

IST is over and I’ve been back at site for almost a week. I’m once again relieved to be “home,” breathing the clean air (pollution-free, but a little dusty), sleeping in my own bed. There is still some residual motivation and optimism from my training. The sense of overwhelming isolation and simple goddamn heat just knock a lot out of me, but there is work to do!

Anyway, some funny things from the last few days:

I. No matter how right you are, if you are a young, toubab (white) girl, you are always wrong. To get back to site last week, I rented a car with a couple of other volunteers. It’s a much more expensive alternative to public transport; but with a month’s worth of luggage, it was an attractive solution to getting home.

The only problem was that the car’s owner refused to take the route I laid out, swearing the paved road was a safer bet than the red bush-road for the last leg of the trip. Except that I actually live here now and I know that the paved road is a wreck, utterly beat up and potholed. What should be a 25-minute ride takes an hour and a half because the cars are forced to slow down and navigate the trenches. The bush-road, on the other hand, is in fine condition this side of the rainy season.

But having three counts against me (my age, gender and skin color), I couldn’t possibly be right. We took the paved road. The driver, unlike his boss, had never even heard of my port town; would you believe he was asking me, “Are we there yet?” every half hour?! The trip to N~ ultimately took an excruciating 3 hours. And topping off the day’s adventures in transport, I then had to wait 2 hours for the next pirogue. When I bitch about being isolated in spite of being this close to Dakar, you can understand what I mean.

II. On Saturday I went to buy some milk powder and laundry soap. En route I a) scared a donkey (hysterical), and b) saw a charette with a sign reading “Hitler – Mar Salou – 1933-45” (uncomfortable and weird).

Ah, Senegal. You never cease to confuse the hell out of me.

III. File this under the List of Things You Probably Didn’t Want to Know About Your Food Before Eating It:

Ndambe is a bean dish made with onions and spicy red sauce. Wander around any village or neighborhood any morning of the week and you’ll eventually find at least one woman selling homemade ndambe out of a large, shallow bowl. If you’re lucky, you’ll get your ndambe on tapalapa (village bread, as opposed to industrially produced crap) and the vendor might add in kane (hot sauce) or homemade mayonnaise or hardboiled egg. Some families eat ndambe as an evening meal, over rice or millet couscous, often with bread to ensure that you have an overdose of carbohydrates equal to the unusual quantity of protein in the dish. Ndambe is one of the few tricks of Senegalese cuisine worth bringing home. (We’ve already discussed introducing bean sandwiches to the American breakfast diet; it’s our post-service business plan.)

As ubiquitous as bean sandwich ladies are, my family in ML~ doesn’t eat ndambe –or beans in any form – all that often. So when I saw a plate of beans (black-eyed peas, I think) out in the sun the other day, I got excited. Hoping to subtly relay my enthusiasm through overeager curiosity, I asked E~ why she’d put the beans out in the sun, if that was an integral part of the cooking process.

Well, she replied, she’d been storing those beans just a little too long and des petites bêtes (read: insects) had gone and eaten holes into every last been. Placing the metal plate out in the hot sun forced the bugs to crawl out of the beans and die. A quick look confirmed the fact: tiny black bugs were withering next to the precious black-eyed peas. Seeing my face turn what I can only assume was a disconcerting shade of green, she added, “All good beans have bugs. That’s how you know they’re good.” …

That night we ate ndambe with shrimp, using tapalapa in lieu of utensils. It was one of the best meals I’ve had in 7 months, petites bêtes notwithstanding.

III. b) And here is how wext (dried sea urchin, I think?) is prepared: Dried, chopped and salted to keep away the flies, on a cinder-block in the middle of the compound.

Today we had a couple of interesting guest presenters: one from the US Foreign Agricultural Service and another from the West African Trade Hub. They talked about exporting to the US and opportunities for volunteers to get involved on the ground, at the local level (like with farmers or something). This was cool because a) it made me optimistic about work possibilities when I get back to my site, and b) it reminds me that there is life after Peace Corps and it doesn't have to involve a boring accountant job or whatever. Hell, I almost applied to a pretty sweet FAS internship back in 2005. [I'm currently playing the "What if...? game in my head.]

But I'm wavering here (between optimism and depression) because the prospect of going back to my site, feeling so goddamn isolated and frustrated and dealing with jerks/creeps and other generally poor work partners, does not inspire the enthusiasm and motivation to go back. Argh. And I'm still really, really tired... which might explain why this post is so uninspired. [I probably stayed up too late watching those HIMYM episodes. ;)]

Ok, so it's a little unusual that I should be so sleepy right now (it's only 9pm on a lazy Sunday!), but the last two weeks have been exhausting. The All-Volunteer conference in Dakar was very interesting and, more importantly, WAIST (West African Invitational Softball Tournament, read: drunken softball party) was an absolute riot. I'll post some pictures from that part of the week to Picasa.

We've been back in Thies for almost a week now and our training sessions have been going fairly well. Some have been less successful/informative/worthwhile than others. [Note to self: don't try to teach about the importance of intimacy in an adult classroom while you yourself are wearing dark sunglasses and ignoring questions.] A session we had on food security and the process for certifying artisanal food products was fascinating. We learned that only 30% of market transactions here are in the formal sector, so any effort to formalize more of it could be kinda cool. I'm just grateful to finally get some relevant training to take back to my community; hopefully I CAN do something productive in the next 21 months.

And...I'm starting to lose focus (a bed and an episode of How I Met Your Mother are calling me). Anyway, we are staying in the center this weekend instead of our homestays. This morning a whole bunch of us took advantage of the day off to go to a nearby monastery known for its goat cheese. We sat through an exceptionally long Lenten mass and were rewarded with delicious, delicious goat cheese. We all ate too much and were happy happy happy (I swear I'm not just speaking for myself here).

Ok. That's all I can do. Goodnight!

I'm in Thies right now for a few days of Food Security-related Permagarden training. For a SED/Eco-T volunteer, this has actually been loads of fun: a chance to get dirty and green and actually feel productive. If I'm especially motivated, maybe I can take some of this stuff back to my site and start a small garden there. [Ha. You never know...]

There are pictures on Picasa. You can check out the permagarden plot my group prepared today. You can see what happens to a white shirt when you're dumb enough to pick up a sack of charcoal. And you can see just how happy an Eco-T vol can look when she has something to show for the day's work.

Next up: Dakar for the All-Vol conference and some drunken softball playing. Back to Thies next week for the rest of our In-Service training.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I am so grateful (and lucky!) to have this surrogate family.

:D

January – ‘tis the season for la lutte! That’s a style of traditional Seereer wrestling, and the season is in full force. Every week, the competition is held in a different village. What used to be a weeklong event is now a more modernized, compressed, high-energy weekend with three nights of wrestling. Sunday night is the culmination with the heavyweight finals and the presentation of the champions for the other two weight classes. The lutte was quite possibly the coolest thing I’ve seen in my village so far.

Night I : [ho-ly-shit]

Having suffered through another excruciating hour with my language tutor with only the solace of the excitement to follow, I headed into town to meet E~. I found her at a friend’s house, where the buzz of anticipation was decidedly less high-pitched than I expected. In fact, the women barely seemed to register the loud speaker noise coming from the village square and they were in no hurry to head in that direction. It took the time to make and drink tea (at least an hour) before E~ and I took our leave.

When we got to the main square, it was dark out and electric. Huge tarps marked off the arena, keeping the source of the noise, the music, the thrill hidden. E~ found an unmarked hole in the fabric wall and leaned in, speakeasy-style, to negotiate a ticket for me.

Even now I can’t adequately describe what it was like when we first entered the arena. It was loud – the crowd, the drumming, the chanting. There were people – the audience - lining the arena, standing or sitting in chairs and on the ground. And there, in the middle of it all, stomping and strutting and peacocking around the square, were a bunch of young, buff, half-naked men: the lutteurs.

It took me a good hour to un-drop my jaw. These men, ripped and clothed in underwear and gris-gris (protective, good luck talismans) and not much else, were running around the arena, dancing creatively to the beat of the tam-tam drummers, and pouring strength-giving ‘potions’ over their bodies. It was like watching Olympic swimmers gone Lord of the Flies and, I would find out later, these weren’t even the heaviest weight classes. Yes, there was some wrestling, too, but honestly, my brain was too overwhelmed by the entire spectacle to really focus on the sport’s finer points.

The night’s stimulation was interrupted, and then interrupted again and again, when the generator powering the arena lights cut out. Since the fight officials couldn’t very well officiate in the dark, the matches got held up every time the power shut off. Eventually E~ got fed up and we left. For the better, perhaps, since I can’t really think of anything that could have pulled me away from the scene.

Night II : Ear Plugs

Saturday night was the continuation of the lutte. This time, E~ and I and a bunch of children showed up early, before the lutteurs even, to snag some good seats behind the organizing commission. To our left was a dozen tam-tam drummers; to the right, half a dozen hefty female musicians who spent the night chanting praise-songs of the various wrestlers and notable village-people. The noise levels were beyond intense; the crowd’s reactions to the back-and-forth between the drummers and singers was almost as loud as the music itself. Again, there was some wrestling…which was ever-harder to focus on.

Night III : The Riot

Sunday night was the most anticipated night of the lutte. Even all of the toubab tourists from the campements came, sprinkling the crowd with white and random camera flashes of light. The light- and middle-weight awards were presented, again with lots of praise-chants from those lady singers. And the winners took to dancing outrageously in the center of the tam-tam circle, much to the crowd’s delight.

And then Mbalka, the local lutteur, darling of ML~, and a champion of some recent Africa Cup lutte, arrived. The crowd, which had been cheering enthusiastically for two-and-a-half nights already, erupted into a thunderous roar. And Mbalka relished every shout, every cheer, every second of the crowd’s adulation. He ran circles around the arena, strutting and stomping to the drumming, soaking up the attention. The other wrestlers awkwardly continued their rounds and their matches, trying to pretend like they were still attracting some of the attention. Everything was wonderful and festive.

But then something was not wonderful. There was a loud noise from off to my right. The women around me, who had been cheering and clapping in delight, snatched up their children, knocked over chairs, and started to rush anywhere, away from that noise. I had been so caught up in the show that at first I didn’t know what we were running from – an animal stampede, maybe? (Yes, that’s dumb, but this is Africa, right? The Discover Channel has me convinced they materialize from nothing like storm clouds.) E~ yelled for me to get out of the arena, to get away and get safe.

It wasn’t until a little later, when we had reconvened at E~’s mother’s home, with all of the kids and grandkids accounted for, that the rush and the riot were explained. Apparently, the organizing commissioners had decided that Mbalka had shown up for the lutte’s registration – gasp – late. Excuse my shock, but this is Senegal, isn’t it? Everyone is late to everything. And, horror of horrors, they weren’t about to let anyone break the rules and fight, even someone like the adored local Mbalka.

The young people’s collective reaction: riot. Throw a shit-fit. Tear apart the arena (explaining the loud noise). And maybe try to beat up the commissioners. The villagers know that this sort of thing – favoritism or de-favoritism of a local lutteur - has happened before and the resulting melee has resulted in some serious injuries, even a death or two. Hence the people-stampede.

Unfortunately, this meant that the lutte was cut short. The heavy-weight fights were not fought. If Mbalka wasn’t going to fight, no one was. And instead of ending on a high note, the 2010 ML~ event ended with most of the villagers peering out from their compounds, wondering if those angry youths had succeeded in finding those despicable commissioners (they didn’t).

Still, for me, it was one hell of an experience.

Pictures and videos are up on picasa.

My friend Jackie brought this article to my attention. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree with most of its conclusions.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4295&page=0

Maybe as I get further into my Peace Corps service, arbitrary time markers will become less important. At some point, I'll probably stop counting months in Africa or weeks since install. Invariably, there will be an inflection point where the end is in sight, when I'll be counting down months, then weeks. (I know at least one volunteer clever enough to have a running count of both time into and time left in service.) But for now, I'm still counting up - and you can expect I'll continue noting those arbitrary time frames. As of this past Thursday, I've been in Senegal for 5 months.

Seereer training

My Seereer crash course was a hit: in 3 days we covered many of the key grammar points my ML~ tutor hadn't yet considered necessary. You know, obscure complex things like conjugation in the future tense. Plus, I got to visit a different corner of the country for a few days and break up the boys' club that was my language group (Byron, Jack, David and our teacher Assan). Someone had to roll her eyes in exasperation when they started fighting with sticks in class. (Seriously.)

Family reunion, Africa-style

Last Saturday I went to a family reunion. True to every stereotype of Africa I've ever heard, kinship is essential here. Childcare, social security, old-age care: extended family and friends (who are probably not-so-distant family anyway) are the providers of all those services; and you can't really rely on the government or private sector if your social circle falls through. People cultivate their family-and-friends network assiduously. It's why greetings are so important; why many Senegalese seem to have impeccable memories of acquaintances they met once twelve years ago; why finding a common relation, no matter how many generations back, is as important in the ritualistic greetings as asking "How's the family?"

It sometimes seems excessive. This family reunion, for instance, was region-wide and open to everyone sharing the maternal lineage Traboor. Not that maternal lineage is something I understand; it's not as simple as finding a common last name (since that'd be the paternal lineage, right?).

My host-father in the village is called Faye, but he's a Traboor through his mother. My host-mom is also a Faye, but she's a Wagadoo through her mom. My host-sister and I got to attend the reunion as children-of-a-Traboor, even though maternally I think we're Wagadoos...Maybe? In any case, we got matching dresses with other children-of-a-Traboor (a different color from the actual Traboor women). There was an extraordinary amount of cooking and food and talking. And, somehow, by the end of the day, a huge regional family rift had been resolved. Neat.

School

My grand plans for having a project to do in January - namely, computer workshops with the teachers at the public school - has been thwarted. Why? The Coupe d'Afrique soccer tournament. According to M.-the-creepy-as-ever-Directeur, until the Africa Cup finishes on January 31, the teachers have to get out early on the days when there is a match; they tack on a token half-hour to make up for lost time on the other days. Who would demand such a disruption to the school calendar? The staff, of course.

Throw in the afternoons off for Friday prayer and there's simply no time for the teachers to learn basic computer skills this month. Without even acknowledging a connection, the directeur launched into a tirade bemoaning Senegal's lack of a meritocracy vis-a-vis the U.S. I could barely hide my frustration.

The tailor

I'm not really big on clothes shopping. Put me in a kitchen store and I might never leave, but fashion has (quite visibly) never been a big concern. Here, though, buying cloth and having it tailored is fun. Yes, so most of the cloth comes in colors that absolutely do NOT compliment pale skin. The prints can be ...creative - who doesn't love wearing a dress plastered in a hundred blue chickens, or dollar signs, or pictures of Jesus? And, honestly, white people look 100% ridiculous in 100% of Senegalese clothing 100% of the time. None of this has stopped me from expanding my Senegalese wardrobe.

Most recently, I bought some fabric in Thies to make another pagne (wrap skirt). [Alyssa, I think they get easier to walk in as the fabric softens.] I decided to take it to Issa, the village tailor who made my stylish family reunion dress (a purple potato sack with arm-holes). In order to avoid being charged a jacked up toubab price, I confirmed with Fa, the woman who rents a room in our house. "He'll probably say 5000 (francs)," she said, "and you negotiate him down to 2000. They're used to people asking for a lowered price, so he'll start high. That's how it works here."

Back in my training village, I'd paid my uncle the tailor 2000 for a pagne - a price I felt must be good and honest since we were family. Now that I'm in a much smaller village, 2000 seemed a decent non-family price, too.

So, off I went to see Issa about a pagne with pockets. Issa doesn't speak much French and I don't speak much Seereer. But prices are usually discussed in French, so with the other pagne as a visual aid, I was sure we'd figure out the transaction. Here's how it went:

Me: Hello. How is the morning? Where is the family? How is the work? How are your kids? (Etc.)

Issa: Hello. It's morning. They are there. Peace only. They are there. Only peace. (Etc.)

Me: I'd like to pay for the potato sack dress. And to make a pagne with pockets like this one.

Issa: With pockets?

Me: Yes, with pockets.

Issa: Like this one?

Me: Yes, exactly like this one.

Issa: The same size?

Me: Yes. You can use the exact same measurements. They are both mine. How much will this cost?

Issa: 500 francs.

(Here my stupidity and failure to listen get in the way. Convinced I am being taken advantage of, I become indignant.)

Me: 5000?! That's expensive! I paid only 2000 for this other one.

Issa: You paid how much? (He is confused.)

Me: 2000. 2000 is good.

Issa: Ok. (Exasperated.) Fine. How about 1000?

...

Me: Wait. Did you say 500?

(Then I realize 1000 is still better than 2000, and I don't have the language skills to backpedal and explain my confusion.)

Me: When will this be ready?

Issa: Tonight.

Having integrated quite well into Senegalese Std Delay Time, I went back the next morning. I paid 1000 for the pagne. As I handed over the money, a woman smirked and gently chided Issa for charging me a toubab price.

Le Serpent Noir

A serpent noir made an appearance in our family compound. Fa and her kids startled it coming in late the other night. Just as I thought I was finally getting comfortable with the threat of cockroaches and mice and other creepy crawlers, now I have to worry about poisonous spitting black snakes that are only active at night and attract to warmth and lights?! Seeing them during the rainy season is apparently common enough to be no big deal; right now, though, it's considered a bad omen. Lovely.

And to end on a positive note...

Someday I'll have to share the hilarious story of the day I was convinced I had malaria for 12 hours...

Happy belated Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's to everyone! The last two weeks have been very full and I am only now getting around to writing up a blog.

For Christmas (and more importantly, for my sanity), I went to Dakar and celebrated with my friends. One of the big draws of the regional house there (beyond a washing machine and the hot shower) is the kitchen: there's an oven! We did a lot of cooking and baking (brunch, cinnamon rolls, Mexican, lasagna). And when we were weary of that, we ate out to our hearts' content (Indian, Chinese, fried chicken). Even as SED volunteers with our relatively generous diets, we still crave food variety as soon as we get out of site.

There's no denying that we planned most of our days around food (or grocery shopping), but we also managed to squeeze in some tourist-y activities. Actually, even though Dakar is a big West African capital, there's not a whole lot for a tourist to do; we probably covered the two biggest draws. One afternoon, we took a ferry out to the island of Goree. Goree was the jumping off point for slave ships crossing the Atlantic. It had a very western, colonial feel with the architecture and some beautiful views of Dakar. But the museum at the House of Slaves was unimpressive and we didn't take much away from the visit.

Another day we walked up the hill to the big Dakar lighthouse. It was a gorgeous day and we had a 360' view of Dakar: the PC office, the airport, the hideous new African Renaissance sculpture (look that one up online), downtown, and the expanse of the Atlantic stretching all the way back to the U.S. and home.

Having seen let'sjustsay all Dakar has to offer (we also got ice cream), we took a sept-places ride to Saint Louis. There we met up with about 20 volunteers for the most delicious New Year's barbecue ever (again with the food!), steps away from a wind-swept beach. We sought out and grilled up beef and shrimp kebabs, fresh fish and hamburgers. Someone got bread and cheese and veggies. And then we drank an equally abundant amount before heading to the island of Saint Louis to ring in 2010 at the bars. At the strike of midnight, we were found in a local joint, singing along to a song whose sole lyrics were the oddly repetitive "Bonne annee Africa!" It was an amazing New Year's - not one that's likely to have an equal ever, if only for the fact that it was spent in Senegal.

The only sad thought is that today on the threshold of 2010, I can look ahead and know exactly where I'll be for the entire year. Twenty-ten will be spent fully here, in Africa, barring any hiccups or trips, up until the threshold of 2011. It takes a great deal of the adventure and spontaneity out of the spontaneous adventure that is Peace Corps in Africa. Le sigh.

Anyway, I am once again back in Thies, heading to a 3-day language crash course in a Seereer village with a few other volunteers. I don't have high expectations for what I can learn in three days, but I'm eager to pick up some more grammar to try out on my tutor back in ML~.

Happy 2010!!!

(I'm working on getting pics up from Alyssa's computer... Feel free to check out my friends' blogs, too; they have some good pics when I was too lazy to take out my camera.)

Note: so I wrote this a few days ago when I thought I'd have regular internet access. Then, I couldn't connect for five days. Turns out I didn't have credit on the right line and was too stupid to figure that out before wasting a morning on the phone with customer service. So, I'm back. But these thoughts are a few days old.

There are two écoles primaires in my village: a private Catholic school and a public one. The Catholic school is part of a larger compound, with the church, the sisters’ dispensary and the daycare center nearby. It’s new and doesn’t differ much in style from the schools I worked at in France (the exception being that the rooms and windows open to the outside, a characteristic ill-suited for Normandy winters). The Catholic school’s familiar construction makes it obvious that it was built with foreign, donated funds; a sign says as much if you need confirmation.

The public school, well, until a few days ago, I didn’t know what it looked like. Maybe it’s because my host family is Catholic. Or because ML~ is largely Catholic. Maybe it’s because my counterpart, who is Muslim, sends his kids to the Catholic school. Or maybe it’s just because the Catholic school is at the entry to the village, the public school being considerably farther away. For whatever reason, after two months in ML~, I’d never set foot in the public school. At the same time, I walk by the Catholic school almost daily, have attended a meeting or two there – I’ve been introduced to all the teachers.

But my community is not homogenous. This is Senegal, a Muslim country: in villages where they don’t dominate, the Muslims still have a presence. There is a mosque directly on the village square (even if it is a good deal less impressive than the church, funded as it is by generous Catholics once again living outside of Senegal.

And so this week I made “non-Catholic” the theme of my visits in ML~, hopefully distinguishing me from some of the other well-meaning toubabs who come here on vacation. I stopped by the imam (who I had visited) and the public school (which I had not).

The public school is not as impressive as its Catholic counterpart, but mimics the French style all the same in an older, crumblier manner. There are more students and fewer teachers. And I have to walk pretty damn far to get there, greeting what seems like the entire village en route. But, lo and behold, there, hiding under my very nose, I found the potential for my first mini-project. I found something to keep me from dying (read: ETing) of boredom in January, something I’m actually already inherently capable of doing, even before February’s In-Service Training. L’informatique, which we can define here as teaching basic computer skills.

It turns out that once upon a time in the last ten years, someone (the state? renegade Catholics?) donated an old desktop computer to the public school. It sits there in the principal’s office unused, collecting dust because it’s old, because it uses up the solar-charged battery that people would rather use for their cell phones, because the five teachers really don’t know how to use it.

The directeur has got ideas for how they should use it: namely for writing up tests and texts (enter Microsoft WORD stage right) and calculating scores and averages (enter Microsoft EXCEL stage left). Then, once someone (not me) finds the funds to buy an ink cartridge, the star of the show – the printer – can be used to save the teachers the hassle of writing everything by hand. No joke: they write every test, every class roster by hand. Take a minute to get over the brain freeze induced by that notion of inefficiency.

So, there you have it. With any luck, I have something to do at least two days a week starting in January. I just have to

a) find a free non-internet-based typing/general computer learning program in French;

b) overcome the Senegalese habit of being late or absent for any agreed upon, fixed rendez-vous; and

c) overcome my aversion to the creepy directeur, who sees no problem giving entirely unprofessional flattery to someone young enough to be his daughter.

This is my first mini-project, though: conditions, shmonditions.

One long cab, bus and pirogue trip later, broken up with waiting for the cab, the bus and the pirogue, and I find myself back in ML~. It's both pleasant and difficult to be back. I'm thrilled to have my own space again, my own bed (even if it is a foam mattress with a me-shaped depression in the center). My lungs are grateful for the car-pollution-free air and my senses are more at ease, less tense. I can sleep well again in the near silence, not jarred awake by Dakar city sounds or people passing through the regional house. And I suppose it's also nice to be back in my community. Even if they don't need me or know quite what to do with a volunteer, they're welcoming (er, tolerant) all the same, and at least some people have seemed genuinely happy to see me back.

I'm not so thrilled to return to the level of inactivity that is becoming a habit. It is not rewarding to consider productive a morning spent walking through ML~, greeting villagers. [It's exhausting for an antisocial crab like me, but hardly productive.] Especially after having talked to other volunteers and heard what they're up to, even with their small projects, it's hard not to feel useless and bored and lazy all over again. And my program director's assurance at Thanksgiving, backed up by a second year volunteer, that my plate might be less than full this first year, well, that's more disconcerting than comforting. I'm still not sure why I should be here being unproductive and idle when I could be unproductive and idle someplace with electricity, warm water, unmelty chocolate, someplace closer to my family. [This is the point where all the counter-arguments to my bitching start flooding my head, so don't worry: I'm not ETing yet.] And, finally, being in Dakar was like being on vacation with friends and eating out and drinking. When I got back last week, in contrast, I spent an entire morning - three hours - doubled over plastic basins, hand-washing two weeks' worth of laundry. I might never say this after PC: the vacation's over; now I just wish there was some work to get back to.

In other news...I've finally set up internet, sort of. I have a battery-powered wireless internet phone line. I have to buy credit to log on. I have to make sure my computer AND the phone are both charged. And I have to make sure that there's enough sun to fill the family's solar charger to charge the laptop and the phone. We'll see how reliable this is...

Please forgive me for throwing punctuation rules out the window this time. :) It's been awhile.

Well, while being in Dakar has been lovely (and expensive), the eco-T conference which ended today was a bust. Beyond the introductory speeches on Thursday, none of the trainings/workshops materialized and the traffic through the expo was limited. At any point, there were up to 11 volunteers sitting around the Peace Corps stand with our counterparts looking very bored. There was some good networking, but the lack of organization around the training hardly merited a 3 day conference. Wah-wah-wah.

The "after-hours" part of this trip has been fun, though. Yesterday, after 6 hours at the Hotel de Ville, I took off with PCVs Byron, Cail and Alex on an unofficial walking tour of the city. We started with ice cream and ended with a happy hour many hours later; passed through slums and luxury hotels; saw the President's mansion, the Assemblee Nationale, the Palais de Justice and two of Dakar's islands from afar. Exhausting? Yes. But it was also amazing to get to know the city just a little bit more and move a step away from being terrified of it.

So, now I'll spend another day or two here in Dakar before heading back to my site. Until then I'm going to enjoy this delicious feeling of not really being in the Peace Corps for a few more days...

I've now been away from site for over a week, keeping quite happily busy. After Tabaski, my friend Alyssa left on a tournee of Senegal. So, off I headed to Pout to visit my friend Jackie. (Take a second to giggle at the silly name. You know you want to.) Pout's on the road to Dakar and is known for its fruit (mango capital of Senegal, specifically). Aside from making fruit smoothies, we didn't really go crazy on the fruit, but we did cook a bit: banana pancakes and makeshift mac-and-cheese. Not at the same time. Delicious.

Now I'm back in Dakar for an eco-tourism conference that Peace Corps is participating in. Today, we sat in on ("crashed") a separate one-day eco-T conference at a very fancy hotel, and we were rewarded with the most amazing buffet lunch ever. We shamelessly charged the food tables for first, second, third servings, beating the actual attendees to the punch. It was a bit embarrassing, but we're hungry PC volunteers, right? Plus, I haven't had real salads (There were beets. BEETS.) or a decent chocolate baked good since I got here. We went to town. And then sneakily rolled our stuffed selves out of there before most people had got to the main course. Conference crashers.

Right now we're back at the PC office doing some last minute prep for the week's conference (which we're actually supposed/allowed to be attending). In a little bit, we'll be heading out to clams and beer (or shellfish and alcohol, more generally) at some shack on the Western most point of the continent. Not a bad way to spend a Wednesday.

Ahti - you won't believe this: we went to Thai last night and I actually ordered a shrimp dish. Shrimp, as in shellfish. I hope you're proud!

Tabaski is a holiday to honor the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. That means sheep killin’ here in Senegal!

The morning started out when Alyssa’s family slaughtered a big ole sheep bull in the compound. They placed it near a deep hole to catch the blood, and with three men holding it down, her dad slit the sheep’s throat. It was gruesome. (I have video.) The men went to work skinning and butchering up the animal. The women sliced kilo upon kilo of onions and potatoes for the afternoon meal. A few hours later, we all dove in to a gigantic platter of sheep, lettuce, French fries and onion sauce. …And then it was over. No more sheep. Or, at least, one less sheep in the world.

Once everyone was over the food-induced stupor (naptime!), it was time to get dressed up. Tradition says that Tabaski (and Korite) is the time of year to go house to house and ask forgiveness from your neighbors. Tradition also says that you have to do this dressed to the nines in a new outfit and, if you have white people living with you, it’s good to make them dress up and parade them around the neighborhood looking ridiculous. Why I’d be happy to oblige. We put on our complets – mine’s a repeat, Alyssa’s is new – and asked Mami to do our makeup Senegalese style. Sure enough, we looked silly. Pictures are posted; go see for yourself. We went around the neighborhood to a few families with one of Alyssa’s brothers, but honestly that part of the evening was boring, uneventful. Still, now we can say we’ve done Tabaski from beginning to end. Next year, we’re already planning on killing our own sheep…

Happy day-after-Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all got to eat plenty of delicious food, and I hope you were surrounded by people you like.

I am on my first trip away from site and unsurprisingly feeling a lot better than when I wrote my last post. Early Tuesday morning, I started the trek up to Dakar - the ferry ride, the 4.5-hour cramped bus ride, the taxi ride. (Nothing, I know, to volunteers who have to take 20-hour+ rides.) Eventually, I landed at the regional house (dorm-like transit houses throughout Senegal for PCVs) and re-found Alyssa, Katherine and Jackie. We celebrated surviving our first five weeks by eating out at a Chinese restaurant. Eggrolls and hot-and-sour soup were oddly absent, but the lo mein, Sezchuan tofu and cumin calamari were delicious. I'd forgotten what spices taste like...

Wednesday found us at the Peace Corps office, getting Swine and regular flu shots. People will be heading back from their Mecca pilgrimages soon, and the risk for Swine flu is going to be especially high. I'm covered - phew?

Thursday, Thanksgiving, the greatest holiday ever, devoted to food, glorious food, and family. Admittedly, even in the company of my friends, Thursday was tough. I'm used to spending Thanksgiving in the kitchen with Eema, cooking up a feast which we've planned for days, opening the wine early and staying full late into the night no matter how early we start. I'm used to trying new pies from scratch, new turkey or stuffing recipes, and finding new ways to incorporate pumpkin into at least one dish. I'm used to spending the entire day with my family. Anything else is, well, not Thanksgiving.

But there is Thanksgiving, even in Africa, and PCVs were lucky enough to be invited to celebrate at the Ambassador's house. We spent half the day at our boss' house using her kitchen to make some delicious garlic mashed potatoes. Apart from our potluck contribution, we also threw together some cupcakes from a mix which Alyssa's mom sent over in a care package. [Shout-out to Sharyl: they were amazing!] Then, about 40 of us converged on the Ambassador's home and had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Sappy as it is, being surrounded by other Americans, getting in some kitchen time and, above all, a full belly, made for a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Now, I'm back in Thies, crashing at Alyssa's place to witness the glory (translation: sheep-killing) that is the Muslim holiday of Tabaski. More on that tomorrow.

There are a few pictures of ML~ online, finally. New pics start around #144.

This has been a bad week (mostly explained by the presence of one irritatingly arrogant French person). Also, I've been at my site for 4 1/2 weeks now and I'm fed up with it, with this whole PC experience. It turns out that the country director's challenge to stay at site is worthy of a prize or a treat. I'm thinking a one-way ticket home right now, but a trip to Dakar will have to suffice. Next week is Thanksgiving - my favorite holiday ever - and I don't get to spend it with my family. Instead I'll be going with some other volunteers to celebrate the holiday at the Ambassador's house. Better than nothing, of course; but I'd forgotten how depressing it is to spend this one away from home. [Flashback to France, Nov. 2006 and me eating a slab of slimy deli-style turkey, alone. It was probably raining, too.] Still, there will be good food (American food), friends from my stage, hopefully some alcohol, and plenty of English. For now, I guess that'll have to do.

A few notes:

Laura, thanks for the blog love!! It's lovely having your enthusiasm to put me straight once in awhile!

Ang, yes, use the Fimela address down below. I've already received 2 pkg notifications, which I'll try to go turn in tomorrow! As far as other mail info, go back to that first or second email/post to see some suggestions.

Alaina, no, no, I swear I'm not judging you on this one. I try to keep foreign words in italics; madeup ones like ¨shitton¨I will leave in regular font to keep you guessing. Puzzles are good for the brain.

Friday 11/13: Seawater, milk and millet flour. This is the protective magic potion which my work partner gave me yesterday. He unceremoniously poured it into a used Kirene water bottle and advised me to sprinkle it in front of my door (it’s not Passover yet, is it?) and then bathe with the rest of the potion. According to local tradition, this will ensure that I’m in the good graces of the appropriate neighborhood génie, and protected from unmentioned evils. At some point, I will need to witness a ceremony where a guardian will sprinkle that same mixture on the spirit’s holy tree and I, having been doused in more of the mixture, will be submerged in the river. Then (chick-chack) I and my future work are all protected against ill. This is simply an expression of the animism which pervades this community and Seereer tradition.

Saturday 11/14: The potion’s protective powers did not cover today, apparently, as I’ve just witnessed my first pig slaughter. (So much for coming to a Muslim country.) This was somewhat more traumatizing than last week’s killing of a chicken because the pig made a shitton more noise in the moments leading up to its death. And this time Death came in the form of a half-drunk Rasta who I thought would burst into tears from shame as soon as the beast stopped kicking. As I write this, he – Death – has regained his composure if not his sobriety and is butchering up the animal in the twilight. I won’t be dining on his handiwork; while my family picnics on pig tomorrow, I’ll be having lunch with my counterpart and a visiting American study abroad kid. [Africa lesson #843752: Pig that has been left overnight is absolutely one of the worst smells in the world, especially first thing in the morning.]

Week in review: Deb, an American exchange student in Dakar, spent a few days this week at my counterpart’s campement for the “rural visit” part of her semester. A campement isn’t the most rustic rural site, but Deb took advantage of the situation to learn a little more about Seereer culture and cooking all the same. For my part, I took advantage of some much needed good ole American company, even though it came in the form of a complete stranger.

With the help of some experts – Hadi and Fambaye – we learned how to make cere, laxh and mbaum sauce. Cere (a.k.a. sacc, a.k.a. millet couscous) is a Seereer staple. Until recently, it was the main starch for two, if not three, of the day’s meals. Millet is immensely more nutritional than its imported replacement rice and far more filling, too. However, preparing cere requires a lengthy process of hulling and pounding and mixing and sieving and mixing and steaming and sieving and steaming…to get to its healthful form. And it has the unfortunate characteristics of tasting like nothing much at all, and of having the same texture as soggy sand.

Laxh is millet in its least healthful form. It’s much easier to make than cere because you can buy the necessary larger-size morsels at the boutique. From there you boil it, add some salt and citrus juice, and top with sweetened yogurt – either store-bought or made from curdled cow’s milk and mixed with baobab fruit (a.k.a. monkey bread). Laxh has the texture of a thick porridge and tastes like cake frosting. Amazing. For obvious reasons, this “dessert for dinner” meal is rarely eaten more than once a week. (We haven’t had it at all in my new ML~ family.) Equally obvious is that the homemade yogurt is better than the store-bought version.

Mbaum sauce. The only way to think about this dish is to imagine yourself as a poorish college student trying to put together a meal with whatever you can find in your barren kitchen. Only now imagine yourself as a genuinely poor person scrounging together anything remotely nutritious in the immediate environment to get you through the exhausting work that is living without farm machinery or running water or electricity. Mbaum is leaves of the nebbedie tree, desiccated mussels/oysters, desiccated fish (both cooked and raw), black-eyed-peas, and crush peanuts, all of which are easily available in Senegal. Eat over the previously mentioned millet, and you have one hell of a healthy meal. I didn’t stick around to try this dish, but Deb didn’t exactly give it rave reviews.

Aside from the cooking lessons and good food, having Deb around just to talk to in English (and French and broken Wolof) temporarily did wonders for my mental state. I might not ever have the enthusiasm she has for living in Africa, but her visit reminded me of some of the reasons I’m here in the first place. And even though my “work” (or lack of) might be frustrating/depressing/demoralizing/boring/unfulfilling, some of the random day-to-day experiences [Seereer women breaking into song for me or finding a half-digested little fish in the belly of a bigger fish I was gutting for dinner] start to make up for it. I guess I just need an occasional reminder of home to put that into relief.

I’ve been at my site for three weeks and I’m starting to realize why it’s said that you’ll never get more sleep than you do as a volunteer. Especially during these first three months, when we don’t have any projects or well-defined “work,” it feels like I spend a lot of time twiddling my thumbs, reading, daydreaming, just sitting with the neighbors. Depending on my mood, I wile away the day counting either the reasons I miss home or the ways life in Senegal is inherently more cool than life back home (it’s Africa). Here are some of the things I’ve been up to lately; you can decide whether these are mundane details or the day-to-day reality of “integrating into my community” (which is currently my only real responsibility).

1) Peanut harvesting. At sunset the other day, I went into an already harvested field behind my home with three of the women who work at my counterpart’s campement. We sifted through the detritus for unplucked peanuts, clinging dustily to the roots of the few overlooked plants. Unroasted peanuts taste more “beany” than “nutty,” and they never taste better than when you’ve picked them out of the dirt yourself.

2) Catholic Mass. Now that I’m in a community that is half-Catholic, half-Muslim, I get to see how both religions play out in Senegal. Women aren’t allowed into the mosques, but I’ve taken to attending Mass on Sundays with E. (my homestay host). It’s interesting, it kills a few hours on Sunday mornings, and it gives me a chance to greet and chat with villagers who I might not normally have the opportunity to see. Showing my face every week might eventually distinguish me from the toubab tourists who parade through the church taking pictures. Oh, and there are tam-tams! Drums make everything more fun.

3) Ironing. Today I finally got around to ironing the fancy complets I wore the week of the swearing-in ceremony. Ironing involves placing red-hot charcoal into a rusty old contraption and pressing really hard. Fambaye took one look at my pile of folded clothes and asked, “This is already ironed…?” quickly wilting my pride to a wrinkly mass not unlike my pile of wrinkly clothes.

4) Women’s groups. My work partners explicitly requested a female volunteer; in this community, women are especially active. One group I’ve spent a lot of time with is a gaggle of older women who are learning to do batik cloth dying as a way of creating a small business based on a local artisan tradition. They’re all grandmothers (which here pegs them around 50) and they are tireless, taking care of huge families and also spending whole days organizing themselves and their batik work. They, along with the antiquary market women and the younger women’s tam-tam/social group, have been very welcoming and infinitely patient with me. (I mostly just sit around listening to them.)

5) Seereer class. I didn’t think it was possible, but my Seereer class is actually moving slower than my Wolof class ever did. I’ve had three classes so far with Georges, my very patient – too patient – tutor, and we’ve covered only 10 vowels and 11 consonants. He told me the language has some 46 sounds, so I figure we’ll be lucky to cover them all before my 3-month tutoring stipend runs out. On my own, I have figured out some basic salutations and the ever-appropriate expression “It’s very hot today.” (Aa sum aa sum aa ha ne).

6) A delta tour. ML~ is a tourist community and my two counterparts both own campements (hotels…sort of). I’m lucky to be able to chalk tourist activities up to “work.” Hence last week’s pirogue tour of the delta to see salt mining/harvesting in action, a traditional fishing port and its modern replacement (poorly planned by the state) and the endless mangrove canals. Pretty sweet. And, no, I’m not just putting this here to coax you to come visit me (but you should).

7) Ndangane. Even here in Senegal, it seems I still get cabin fever or itchy feet or whatever you want to call it. The PC country director challenged our stage to stay at our sites every night until Thanksgiving – a challenge I can handle since it doesn’t preclude me taking the boat over to Ndangane, on the mainland, for the day. It’s not too much of a change of scenery, but the shopping’s better (island life comes with some limitations: sadly only small packs of Biscreme and no toilet paper [the horror]). My homestay host G. swears you can find chocolate there since they have round-the-clock electricity to power refrigerators. I didn’t find any on my first crossing this week, but chocolate is reason enough to schedule another trip. I might make Ndangane into a weekly excursion.

Tactless as it sounds, the US government is giving me a 2-year vacation. Not for free, of course: in exchange, I am giving up two years of my family and friends, my mom’s cooking, warm showers and snowy days, my favorite TV shows (Oh, Jon Stewart, how I miss you!), and more – all so that this particular Senegalese community can associate a smiling, friendly face with Americans and America in general. If we’re lucky, I’ll accomplish something that we can slap the “development” tag on. If we’re not, well, there’s that whole 2-year vacation thing.

My task here is to facilitate eco-tourism. No wonder; this is a beautiful place. From my front door, some arm of the salty Salou, River laps lazily by. A line of mangroves grounds the far side as far as I can see, maybe even all the way to the ocean. Motored pirogues occasionally pass by, but otherwise, it’s very calm. The most noise here comes from the birds – of which there is infinite variety and color. (This part of the country is known for amazing bird-watching.)

And my house, well, let’s just say that it doesn’t exactly fit the bill for that 1960s Peace Corps experience/fantasy – I’m definitely not living in a thatched hut. It’s not exactly a Western home either, but I have an indoor flush toilet and an actual shower (just don’t drink the water – it’s highly saline). Part of the reason for this relative luxury is that I’m living in a tourist community, flush with Western – mostly French – tourists/second-homers for at least half of the year. My family here is E. and her toubab husband G. (who divides the year between ML~ and France) and their young son N. There’s also a woman and her two kids who rent a room, but I rarely see them.

So in addition to being spoiled in my physical living conditions, I’m also lucky in that I get to speak French 95% of the time. And as long as G. is here, I get occasional “gourmand” additions to my diet: the other day I had my first taste of Pastis! Vegetables are still unhealthily scarce, but I’m eating fresh shrimp, crab and fish twice a day. (I’m mostly over my fear of shellfish…out of necessity.)

The first three months at my site are supposed to be for community integration, language learning and observation. I’m not 100% sure how much I can integrate into a community that’s so used to having temporary toubabs parade through their midst as if on safari. My Seereere has gotten off to a rotten start (here I blame the French and my own laziness), but I’m due to start working with a tutor soon. My counterpart took me on a rather exhaustive tour of the village and the island, and every day I’m meeting new people and learning more names than I can possibly remember. In my downtime - and there is a lot of downtime - I’m getting my fill of what this lovely place has to offer (swimming, tours of the delta, sunsets to die for…).

Internet is inconvenient here. The electricity is solar. I’m not sure how often I’ll get to access email, but please don’t think that lets you off the hook for keeping in touch. Finally being at site is excruciatingly lonely; email (when I can get it), phone calls (when the network deigns to connect) and snail mail (assuming it arrives) keep me from going absolutely insane. I promise to respond to each and every one of you as soon as I can.

Well, that’s a neat enough summary for my first week at site. Miss you all dearly and I hope things are well at home (and that you’re all taking good advantage of the snow).

Here's the PO Box address I'm sharing with my counterpart.

BP 133

Fimela, Senegal

West AfricaGot questions? Ask them in the comments section. I'd rather answer questions than fill this blog with boring details no one wants to hear, or leave this unupdated for lack of things to say. Plus, I usually have severe writers' block when it comes to writing anything longer than a text message. Give me prompts. :)

We’re down to three volunteers at the training center. Thankfully we’ll leave together tomorrow with Nicole (SED head). The boys will be dropped off first; I’ll overnight in Joal and get to ML~ on Thursday. In everyone’s absence, the training center feels creepy and abandoned, and I actually locked the door to my room last night because I was feeling all alone. Yesterday, Alyssa, Katherine and Jackie left for their sites. [As an aside, I got a text from Alyssa that she’s really pleased with her first twelve hours, so that’s a great start! Katherine wrote that she was sad to only find the small packs of Biscreme (Algeria’s gift to mankind) in her village. A travesty.]

At this point, I’m almost all packed up again. I got more laundry out of the way and yesterday stocked up on some more household stuff at the toubab grocery store Bon Marche. I even rode my bike into town for that shopping trip, which was a little unnerving with all the cars and the lack of discernible traffic rules. But the trip also made me think of riding my bike around Boulder, or even riding the bus in France, all the while schlepping back heavy groceries in my old red backpack. Ha! I love the thought of certain possessions always traveling the world with me (my Swiss backpack, my Nalgene). If only they still had those cool stamps that used to get put on luggage…

For those of you who know me well, I think you would be surprised to see how calmly I’m handling the unknown of my site install and the next two years. I am scared and anxious to see my place, but since so much of the next two years is blind to me, I can’t get upset over what I don’t know and can’t possibly imagine. Peace Corps is instilling in me patience that rivals that of … well, whoever is the epitome of patience.

Well, it seems like this might be my last posting for some time. While there is much talk about how wired Senegal is becoming and how ahead of the game it is compared to most of Africa, this is Peace Corps after all. There is no guarantee I’ll have internet. (It’s a blessing enough that I can expect electricity as a SED/Eco-T volunteer.) As soon as I figure out a mailing address, I will do whatever it takes to find internet to let you all know what it is. Even if I’m lucky enough to be wired up, snail mail love still makes my day.

Lots of love to all of you.

Yet more carloads of volunteers left this morning, leaving the Training Center ever quieter. We’re down to a meager 10-15 of us. Thankfully, a few of my good friends (and ¾ roommates) are still here, so I don’t feel entirely abandoned…until tomorrow.

Part of the excitement (or stress, depending on your outlook) of installation is the (re)decorating. We get to furnish our new rooms/huts/compounds with furniture and household items. Before anyone gets too excited at the thought, you should be aware of what I mean by furnishings – buckets.

Yes, buckets. Buckets are furniture here. I can’t think of a single more useful item in a Senegalese household. You use a medium bucket to bring water from the well or robinet. You use a big bucket to stand in while you bathe and a smaller one to pour water over you. If you have a Turkish toilet, you will need a bucket to flush water down it. You can use a bucket with a lid on it to keep food or store water. You will need a small bucket/cup to take water from your storage buckets and use it for cooking or cleaning. You will need multiple large buckets for laundry. And, it doesn’t hurt to keep a bucket outside to collect rainwater in the wet season; it might not be good for drinking, but rainwater is good for anything else.

So today when I went shopping in the market for my new place, what I was really looking for - and successfully found - was buckets. I also got spoons. Very important. If I can’t make my coffee in the morning, no amount of buckets is going to help. Tomorrow, I might tackle a few other items like a pot or two, a bowl and maybe a couple of forks. Hey, big spender!

One of the more fun parts of the market experience was trying to find a trunk which I can put a lock on. It’s not a bad thing to have in the village because there aren’t many ways to keep passports, money, or other valuables safe. Five of us trailed two “helpful” kids around the market, through the crowded stalls, for about thirty minutes today, trying to find trunks. No one knew the word for trunk in French or Wolof, but we were able to explain the general idea with a mix of both languages and miming. Turns out the word is walees – borrowed from the French word valise. We eventually found some, but the shopkeeper was trying to charge us more than double the price we’d been told was usual. Plus, they were cheeeeaaaap aluminum. A dull pencil could have pierced through it. After all the effort expended, we decided not to buy any.

And, finally, to top off a day of market-going and napping, we went to Chicken Dibi for dinner. Chicken Dibi should have warranted its own blog post long ago, but I didn’t even have a blog when we first went there. Suffice it to say that no one in their right mind would ever go here and willingly put food into their mouths from a place which looks so forbidding, so dark, so unsanitary. Yet once you get over the initial fear of tetanus or food poisoning and dig into the chicken, fries and salad with your bare hands (no utensils or napkins in sight), you will never willingly walk by this place again without going in for dinner. And for 2500CFA (~$5), you will never eat so well for so little. Not a bad way to finish the day.

Pictures from Chicken Dibi and swearing in are online at my Picasa page.

It's official: I am a Peace Corps volunteer!

Yesterday was the swearing-in ceremony marking the end of our time as trainees and the beginning of our two-year commitment as volunteers. We went to the American ambassador's home in Dakar and listened to a few speeches, received mandates from the Senegalese government, and got our Peace Corps i.d. (Pictures of me and my friends in our fancy, matching jewel-toned African complets are up on Picasa.) After a lunch reception we headed back to Thies and then had our own little celebration at a nearby speakeasy. Dance party!

People began heading out to their sites this morning. Our installs have been staggered throughout the week according to what PC cars are available and what staff member is dropping you off. I won't leave til Wednesday with two other PCVs and the head of the small enterprise development program. We'll overnight in one of the other towns before doing my install on Thursday.

So that's it. I don't think terrified remotely expresses how I'm feeling right now. The simple thought that I have to re-pack all of my stuff and still buy new items to take to my site is intimidating beyond belief. Once I get through that, I still have no clue what I'm walking into. It feels like the first day of homestays all over again, and the first day of homestays was paralyzingly scary. (To be honest though, all the rumors I've heard about my site have been positive.) No matter how awesome my new home and town and family are, I am going to be very far away from other Americans, from the other volunteers that I’ve become good friends with. I sincerely hope PC gets its act together and negotiates this deal with Orange telecom for free texting between volunteers; otherwise I’m sure I’ll waste a good deal of my stipend texting Alyssa to bitch about, well, everything.

And really it’s also scary to know that this is it; this is the beginning – the real beginning – of what I set out to do when I left in August. Eeeps! Anyway, I’ll try to take advantage of the internet until Wednesday (since after that who knows when I’ll next be online) and keep this updated on how packing goes. Oooh, fascinating.

Today we had a party to celebrate the end of PST and thank our homestay families for their generosity and patience over the last two months. Each family chose one person to make the trip to Thies - in my family, my mom Nene. She showed up early in the rented sept-places with the other T~ family reps. She brought two things with her:

a) a brand new complet - fancy Senegalese-style outfit, as a gift, not unlike the one I had made to wear to swearing-in tomorrow. The coloring is mirror-imaged, but the cut and the embroidery are different. It is beautiful. Perhaps the most impressive thing about this is that it was made by my other tailor-uncle who never actually took my measurements. He just kind of guessed my sizing when he saw me last. Awesome. I immediately changed into the outfit and wore it for the rest of the day.

b) my wax complet. There's a story here, but let me start off by explaining that gift-giving is a very important part of Senegalese culture. If you ever go out of town (to Thies, or Dakar, for instance), it's customary to come back with a gift, however small (some tea or sugar maybe), for your family. Friendships are based on gift exchanges. If you say you like my skirt, I will give it to you because, well, we're friends and of course I would share with my friend. The awkward thing is that I'm still used to the American idea of complimenting someone's clothes just because I like them, not because I want them or because I'm trying to cement our friendship.

I've made this mistake twice now. The first time, I was looking at pictures with a neighbor when I said I like an outfit she was wearing in one of the pics. Two minutes later, she was generously, whole-heartedly pulling it out of her armoire and telling me she'd love to see me wear it. The only problem here is that the woman is Amazonian huge and the complet dwarfed me. So, I gave it to my uncle-tailor who was able to turn it into something I can wear (although not in time for me to show it off to Fatou, the neighbor). That's the other outfit my mom brought to the party today. Hooray - my Senegalese closet already includes two bassin complets (high quality fabric), a wax complet (everyday quality fabric), a wax dress, a pagne and a ridiculous pair of capri pants.

Also, the second time I made the mistake of complimenting someone's clothes, she went back in her room, took off the shirt, and then promptly offered it to me and a different shirt to Alyssa (which it would be impolite to refuse). This time, the girl was about 1/10th my size; putting on the shirt is like trying to fit Barbie doll clothes on a Cabbage Patch doll... Le sigh. Have I learned my lesson on saying anything nice about other people's stuff?

So, anyway, the party today was a riot. There was delicious yassa chicken lunch, lots of music, lots of Senegalese dancing, and lots of toubabs looking silly in our Senegalese clothes. Pictures are up on Picasa; I'll try to edit together a video of the dancing. We also gave our family certificates saying that they'd put up with us for two months.

I'm exhausted now. Tomorrow, we are leaving for Dakar at the crack of dawn for the swearing-in ceremony at the American ambassador's home. (More on that, well, sometime after tomorrow.) Then, site installations start next week. Eek...

PS - Shout-out to Alyssa's mom Sharyl!! I probably wouldn't have made it through PST without Alyssa, either. We just got super lucky getting placed together. I don't know how we'll get through service so far apart (they'd better work on getting that cellphone plan), but it might be a good thing since we've already started dressing alike. :D

I got back from T~, my homestay village a few hours ago. Community-based training is over, and we swear in as volunteers on Friday. I am too thrilled to even say anything about this (CBT being over is omgamazing!).

There are LOTS of new pictures up on my picasa site. Check them out.

PST is almost over and everyone in my language group seems to be itching for it to end, be done with and behind us. Our language teacher, who since the beginning hasn't exactly been enthusiastic, is as guilty of this PC-senioritis (ick, cliche) as any of us. The veil of serious academic study has been disintegrating over the course of the class. Today, as a way of "studying the future tense," she took us to visit a seetkat - a fortune teller.

Down a dusty alley and past a compound of toubab-awed families, we walked into a dark, hot room. One at a time, the seetkat gave us a handful of shells to wish/pray over and then told our futures while tossing the shells over her woven plate. Each of us got a similar, fairly mundane, curiously upbeat prescription with some obvious reference to our work here in Senegal and our families thinking about us back home. Everything was baax (good) and everyone ci jamm (in peace).

Most of the details did not live up to our expectations of juicy detailed gossip (who would ET, who would find a Senegalese wife), but some amusing fortunes were told. There's a marriage in at least one person's distant future and 3 girlfriends in another's (!!!). Someone was told to prepare sweet milk and give it to 3 little girls. As for me, the seetkat pegged me as intelligent, quick in my studies, but sometimes forgetful and lost in thought. ("Airhead" is a concept which translates across the Atlantic. Too true in my case.)

Forty minutes later, we walked out of that sauna of a room, each 200CFA lighter. It was an interesting, ridiculous experience - too familiar to take seriously, too foreign to deride completely.

Beyond that, mungiy ci jamm.

As an aside, Alyssa insists I mention this experience: I sat through an uncomfortably graphic, dubbed film with my family (kids included) last night. Soft core porn apparently can get more awkward... Thanks, Anna Nicole Smith, for your contributions to African entertainment.

Yesterday the taps in T~ ran dry.

Coming from an arid Western state, the value of accessible water is not a foreign concept to me. In Colorado, newspaper coverage of annual snowpack is devoured with interest and concern. But arriving in Africa, there were too many other strange inputs for me to even consider where the water comes from to take our robinet showers (if you're lucky; bucket baths if you're not) and to fill our water filters. We spend so much time in Peace Corps worrying about what's in our water that there's no chance to think about where it comes from, here sandwiched between the desert and the very salty Atlantic.

The relative wealth of water during the rainy season is deceptive and not conducive to discussions of water conservation. I've so far figured out that most potable water here comes from one river or dam somwhere up north, near the border with even more deserty Mauritania. We've also been told that, during the dry season at least, the city taps may run dry and village wells will get low. So, it was a little surprising yesterday - as the rainy season is drawing to an increasingly sandy close - the water pressure from the robinet outside our house slowed to a trickle. In my friends' compounds closer to the city center, the water stopped completely. Having filled my water filter earlier (and not having to worry aobut having drinking water for a day or two), my next concern was how I would wash off a day's worth of sunscreen, bug repellant, sweat and general Africa dirt/sand. Asking the stupidly obvious question "So if there's no water, there's no shower in the morning, right?" in Wolof elicited loud chuckles from my family. But, really, in a society where it's common to rinse off the ever-present sweat two-three times a day and taking ablutions before each of the day's five prayers is required, what do people do when there's no water?

I'm not entirely sure. The water came back last night around 10pm, although still at a reduced pressure. And, even though my friend Byron's brother said the water would be cut again today, I was able to shower this morning. Whether that will be the case this afternoon, we'll see.

Whatever the case, one or two days with rationed water brought the issue to my attention. I'm especially curious to see waht my homestay in ML~ will have - a city tap which can go dry or a village well which may go low, may risk saltwater infiltration, but won't likely go dry. I'll certainly be savoring every sip from here on out, though.

Side note: Water came back...and stayed. No issue.

It might be a bad sign that the day after I started up a blog, internet access at the PC training center was cut because of a power outage. Now I am back to the homestay village for my last week of community-based training. Hoorays! I've lost a good deal of my motivation to sit through a Wolof class now that I know my community in ML~ will speak Seereer. The lang nerd in me still wants to be fluent in both, but the paresseuse in me will be happy if I can get on a sept-places or Alham and argue my way to a reasonable fare.

Monday was Dakar Day. I had high hopes that we'd get to know the city so it wouldn't be so intimidating. Not so. We really only visited the PC headquarters, ate lunch, and drove by the American embassy (wave). Still, it was cool to see how much my emotions have changed since I last saw Dakar on August 13th, the day we flew into Senegal. Then, honestly, the only thoughts going through my head were, "What the hell did I get myself into?" and "Where the hell am I?" This time, I thought, "What the hell am I still doing here?" and "Oh, this isn't so bad. This level of economic disparity is totally normal." Maybe I'll get a chance to know Dakar as well as - if not better than - I know Paris over the next 2 years.

Finally, Alyssa and I visited my tailor-uncle to get our complets made for swearing-in. Interestingly enough, our Wolof is good enough to explain when we need them done by; it is not good enough to clarify whether they will be covered in the rhinestones he held up and started raving about. I must have missed the class on 80s fashion vocab. Oh! On the plus side, a Wolof-French hybrid and miming was more than adequate to express the idea of bling-bling.

Whatever gawdy ridiculousness we end up wearing, there will be embarassing pictures and I will share them.

PS Finally brought out the camera to take pix of my homestay family. I'll post those, too, as soon as I get back to my laptop in Thies. Some of them are worthy of submission to the Awkward Family Photos blog (google it and thank me later).

T

So, here is my first non-email-derived blog post. Let’s see how this goes.

This weekend is essentially my first off in seven weeks. Monday is Dakar Day – a chance to go scope out the capital city. Hopefully, we’re a little more adapted to Senegal and are less likely to be intimidated by “the Port to West Africa.” There will be paperwork to fill out at the PC Senegal headquarters, maybe a scavenger hunt, and definitely some ice cream or Chinese food. After the Counterpart Workshop, we were given the opportunity to spend the weekend in Dakar or stay around the training center for a Peace Corps ride on Monday morning; I’ve chosen the latter. I am exhausted. Also, I am afraid that my heretofore impeccable health is starting to waiver and that I am on the verge of exploding into whatever cold-flu hybrid was afflicting my little homestay brother a week ago. Maybe these two days of relative calm and decent sleep will fend it off!

So, aside from me taking advantage of the sparsely-populated training center’s strong internet, there isn’t much going on here. However, that doesn’t keep me from idiocy. Yesterday, I went out to dinner with a few other volunteers at a toubab-style restaurant in town. We took a taxi back to the training center (since it was dark) and, back in my room, I realized that I was missing my cell phone. I prayed for good Samaritan-ism. While getting another phone wouldn’t be too expensive (although that’s all relative; our per diem is meager), it would be another unnecessary stress. It’s got all my phone numbers and I don’t think I could survive the last week at the homestay village without being able to text Alyssa every day. Flipping out, I used my friend Byron’s phone to call mine: no response. I used Skype to call my parents, flipped out, got upset, and hung up to go Skype-call my phone: no response. Back on Byron’s phone, I finally got through to whoever had picked up my phone, only to realize that my Wolof skills are nil under pressure and the person on the line had only limited French.

I didn't really know where he was or what to do. So...I asked one of the night-guards from the center to help. Ultimately, we took a cab into town and the night-guard explained the whole situation (benevolent American teen in the country to selflessly serve Senegal, learning local language, stupidly leaves cell phone in taxi). The three guys were in town from the Kaolack region for a wedding and would have brought the cell to the training center, but didn't know their way around Thies. They were very kind, didn't accept payment (saying they were being good Muslims), and just swapped phone numbers with me. [It seems like Senegalese people LOVE swapping numbers, even if you don't know the person at all. At the same time, they know I'll be sort of in their region once I'm installed. And…a day later, I’ve already been called twice by the do-gooders.]

I think the big thing here is that the night-guard saved my behind. Without him, I probably would not have gotten my phone back and would have had to pay to get a new phone and a new SIM card. Plus, that would just be one more stupid stress. I don't know who, but someone was looking out for me last night.

Well, that’s that. I’m finishing this up so that I can go watch a movie… I told my mom this over the phone. She got excited and asked in a perky voice, “Oh really? Where?!” Not in a movie theater, that’s for sure. We’re watching a movie off someone’s hard drive projected onto Alyssa’s clean white sheet which is pinned against a world map mural in the center. Ahhh, we are resourceful ones…

Hi everyone, It’s been a few weeks since I sent out an email and I’ve been too busy to know where to begin. Right now, my Pre-Service Training is almost finished; I swear in as a Volunteer on October 16th in Dakar. PST has been hell, but everyone says it’s the hardest part of Peace Corps service. If/when I survive this, the next two years at my awesome island site will be cake! A few weeks ago, right around the time I’d be celebrating Rosh Hashanah with my family at home, I experienced my first Korite with my homestay family in Senegal. Korite is the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan and, as I am staying with a Muslim family in a conservative Muslim town, I got to witness the goings-on firsthand. I spent the day helping peel and cut onions and potatoes (thank you, Swiss Army knife) which ultimately went into a lunch of goat, fries, onion sauce and random raw veggies like cucumbers, green peppers and lettuce. Sounds weird; tasted delicious. (And even though I didn’t see the veggies get a bleach rinse, I still ate them, enjoyed them, and miraculously didn’t get sick.) In the evening, we got dressed up in our best and paid customary short visits to family throughout town. And…that was it. Not going to lie: for all the hype, Korite was a bust. Lunch was the day’s highlight. Last weekend, we had our second of three language tests for Wolof. Peace Corps Senegal has a policy that every trainee reach a seemingly arbitrary level of Intermediate-Mid in their target language before they are allowed to be sworn in as volunteers. There is a lot of emphasis put on the oral language tests, but they are hard to take seriously. (Especially in my case, since Wolof isn’t the dominant language at my site!) To celebrate the test being over, my language group decided to venture out into the homestay village for lunch. There’s plenty of street food here in Senegal, but not a lot of restaurants in the traditional sense of the word when you get out of the cities with large toubab (white, foreigner) populations. We found a very unfinished-looking restaurant/stall, ordered mystery meat sandwiches and hoped for the best. Again, this dining adventure sounds weird, sounds careless, sounds sure to result in some horrible GI problems, but was absolutely delicious and surprisingly stomach-problem-free. First street food experience was a success! Earlier this week, in an effort to maintain/save the volunteers’ sanity, we organized a beach trip to the “resort” town of Popenguine. The trip lasted less than 24 hours but allowed us plenty of time to drink a lot, sleep very little, and swim in the ocean for hours on end. It was wonderful! There were more street food experiences which were again yummy and positive. Ultimately, with the sun and the alcohol and the lack of sleep, it was more exhausting than restorative, but it was worth it. My friend Alyssa has some nice pictures from the beach trip up on her site [Alyssa's Pix] and there are a few new pics on mine, too [my pix]. Alyssa’s site also has some ridiculous pictures of my language group eating street food and trying to dance Senegalese-style. Those alone are worth clicking the above link. Final note: This past week was especially hectic due to the CPW – Counterpart Workshop. As volunteers, we all have two community members whose job it is to show us around, help us integrate into the community and find motivated work partners. This workshop was a chance to meet them before we get installed at the sites in three weeks. I only got to meet one of my counterparts, and then only briefly, but I have a really enthusiastic, cool (dreadlocked!), and intelligent guy who I think will be a great help over the next two years. More on him as I get to know him! Well, that is it for now – sorry for a ridiculously long email which barely covers a single percent of this experience! I hope you’re all well and happy and healthy. Continue sending me emails – even a few short sentences absolutely make my day on the rare occasions when I get to check my inbox!!! Love, love, love and hugs, Tamar

Wish List: (Please note that I still don’t have a mailing address for my site in ML~, where I’ll be after around October 20th-ish. Since mail has been taking forever, it’s too late to send things to the training center in Thies. This list is for all the packages you are sure to send me after I get installed on my island-paradise.) bug repellant and anti-itchBackpacker’s Pantry-style instant meals (and similar)RSVP fine point pensPhotosdried fruit/beef jerky/Jelly Belly jelly beans

college-lined paperpumice stone spices for cookingmail/email/love in general

Hi Everyone! Life in Senegal continues. This past week we had village visits: trips to current PCVs designed to introduce us to our future sites (or similar ones) and actual PC life. Since I’ll be the first volunteer in ML~, my village visit took place in P~ with the current eco-T volunteer there. Aside from a few flat tire-induced delays on the travel days, my VV was amazing – a vacation really. We went swimming in the ocean twice. We went kayaking in an estuary/delta. We harvested clams for dinner. We even participated in a UN-sponsored community mangrove reforestation! That last part was really impressive – 20% of the village got involved! (There had been whispers of payment to serve as incentive; ultimately the UN gave some $300 to the community to distribute at their discretion). It was also very helpful to see how life as volunteer works. My PCV Chris lives in a multi-family compound, but has his own building/living quarters and bathroom. He has a fairly limited connection with his family, but a great relationship with his counterpart (an eco-kayaking guide). He also was able to tell me and Elida (another stagiare) about some of challenges of PC work. There still isn’t much information about my future site or the work opportunities, but I continue to hear only good things about how beautiful the island is; how enthusiastic my counterpart is to meet me; how wonderful the Seereer people are. That’s another exciting piece of news: although I am studying Wolof in Pre-Service Training, I will likely be learning Seereer with a tutor once I get installed at ML~. The people there will speak Wolof, but Seereer is the native language and learning it will be key to my integration in the community. Let the language nerdiness continue! There are new pictures of my P~ adventures. Caution: you will be thoroughly jealous of me and want to come visit immediately when you see these pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/TR6014/Senegal?authkey=Gv1sRgCIi4mZ-JgL-IFw&feat=directlink RE: mail, I will no longer be reachable through the Thies Training Center after October 16th. Most of the letters I’ve been getting have taken about 2-3 weeks; my first package took about a month. If you want to send me anything, send it this week to the Training Center or hold off until I can get a PO Box closer to ML~. Keep the emails coming! I love you all and want to hear your news. Kisses, bises, nishikot, and ay foòn (which may or may not be the correct way to say kisses in Wolof). Tamar

:D Looking for things to send me? Bug repellent, books, hand sanitizer, beef jerky, Jelly Belly jelly beans, small packs of Kleenex, granola bars, love ...

Hi all,

We FINALLY got cell phones! It will cost an arm and a leg for you to call me, but it's free for me to receive calls!

1+221 77 330 48 42.

Call away! (I'm six hours ahead of MST.)

Love,

Tamar

As-salaam alekum, everyone!

Yes, it's true: now I am busting out the Arabic. It turns out the pervasiveness of Islam in Senegal has also left an indelible mark on the language here; we're learning to always greet everyone with assalaam alekum and to throw alhamdelilah and bismillah into everyday conversation. But, more importantly, my Wolof is also making strides, and I can now pull out certain key words from my home-stay family's conversations (as opposed to it all sounding like gibberish, which it did for awhile). Hell, I can make a few simple sentences, too! Key among them: asking people how the fast (for Ramadan) is going!

All this has come from my first week at my pre-service training home-stay site. Being out in "real" Senegal made for a difficult week, honestly. The living conditions are beyond what I could ever have imagined back at home, and I feel very vulnerable walking through a town where it is so obvious I am an outsider before I even open my mouth. Still, being back at the training center for a few days with the other volunteers has been reassuring, and I'm not quitting yet! Here are some highlights:

Home-stay I'm living with a small, youngish family in a town called T~. We'll be going back and forth between our home-stays and the training center (with internet) for the next two months. There are four other volunteers in my town, and I see them every day for language classes. I pee into a hole in the ground (Turkish toilet), we sit on the floor for our meals and usually eat with our hands.

Food We eat fish A LOT. The national dish here is ceeb u jen - rice and fish. There are other rice and fish dishes, flavored with tamarind, with bissap (hibiscus), with anything, it all still tastes like fish. Veg is lacking here; we eat lots of carbs. The food is good and spicy, though, and the families are really happy to see us eat (guests gaining weight reflects well on the hosts).

Cloth As I mentioned before, women in Senegal dress impeccably. So, one of the first integrating activities here is buying cloth and getting it tailored into some neat outfit. My "uncle" happens to be a tailor, so I was able to get a pagne (wrap skirt) made this week. It's even got pockets which is a huge deal since most skirts don't have them. I was really thrilled with the skirt and I think my family passed the message to the "uncle" who refused to accept payment for this first skirt. I promised to recommend him to the other volunteers in my town (since we'll all be getting outfits made over the next two months...I've already bought five more meters of cloth here in Thies).

Work Unlike the agriculture volunteers, the SED (aka business) group doesn't really have much we can do during our home-stays. Our real training won't start until two months after we've installed at our permanent sites. Still, we have classes while we're back at the training center; today we learned about marketing and about two current volunteer projects - one on increasing computer access/literacy and one on eco-tourism in a region south of Dakar. It's promising.

I've posted a few (21) pictures on picasa at http://picasaweb.google.com/TR6014/Senegal?authkey=Gv1sRgCIi4mZ-JgL-IFw&feat=directlink. The pictures aren't really that great, but they're all I've got for now. I'll post more as I get them.

Well, that's about it. We head back to our home-stays tomorrow for another two weeks (without internet again, ack!). I love having emails from you all when I come back; my head's a little too discombobulated to respond to everyone (hence the scatterbrained email here), but I really do appreciate them.

Love to all of you!

Babenen!

Tamar

Nanga def, everyone?!

That is the first sentence I've learned in Wolof here in Senegal, and it's probably not even correctly conjugated for second person plural. My ignorance is - for once - overcoming my grammar prescriptivism. Anyway, it means 'how are you' and it's part of the very important (and long) back-and-forth series of greetings and introductions that are part of every Senegalese salutation.

So, it's official: my Peace Corps adventure has begun. We arrived at the PC training center in Thies on Thursday after a very short orientation in D.C. and very not-so-short flight to Dakar. My group has about 55 people in it (which is huge; there are lots of displaced Mauritania volunteers), and the group seems very cool and interesting so far. We've spent the last few days getting accustomed to various African/Senegalese/non-American details like the heat and humidity, the bugs (either incessantly biting or grossly huge), the birds (noisy, but usually hidden), the tam-tam drumming (which goes on well into the night) and the Moslem call to prayer five times each day. We've also had some interviews and orientation classes for our programs (mine is SED - small enterprise development) and for language. Very excitingly, I did well on my French interview and have been cleared to move straight into Wolof (many people don't have the French background and were not so lucky).

The details of what I'll be doing or where I'll be going are still up in the air; most of those decisions won't be made until the second month of our training. In the meantime, we're getting ready to head out to our Community-Based Training homestays. My language group (4 others), our Language/Cultural Facilitator and I will be going to a town just outside of Thies for the next week where we'll be staying with individual families. I'm nervous as all hell (you have seen the extent of my Wolof knowledge) - it's the first time we'll really be out in Senegal and we're all expecting horrible GI reactions. Still, I'm also very excited to hear Wolof in use, see how a real family cooks dinner, and just how one manages a pit latrine. (Eek!)

Bon, that's about the basics of life here in Senegal. After tomorrow, it may be awhile before I am back in the training center and have internet again. Please send me emails, even short ones, to let me know how you're all doing. Life at home seems soooo far off from things here; I'm sure in our villages, it'll be even more so.

Lots of love and hugs, kisses, bises, and nishikot,

Tamar

PS Holy sh*t! We also witnessed a third world marketplace during our tour of Thies yesterday. Lots of mud (because of the rain), lots of veggies, lots of flies, and lots of beautiful, beautiful cloths. The women here are always dressed impeccably and I can't wait to buy some fabric and have a skirt made, too!

Hello!

Next week I leave for Senegal with the Peace Corps, so I thought I would let you all in on some of my communication info since I will be very far away for the next two and a half years.

A Series of Tubes

Email is great and easy! I might only have sporadic internet connectivity, but I do have a brand spanking new laptop to access it when it's available. Try to keep the spam/cheesy jokes/cute kitty videos to a minimum, but don't hold back when it comes to updating me with your latest news and gossip. If I do have regular internet, I will try to pop onto Skype and gmail for video/voice chatting as often as I can. (My skype name is Tamar0702.) I may consider keeping a blog, if I can access the internet to do so consistently.

Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night

Letters are probably the greatest, most meaningful thing you can do for me while I'm gone. With or without internet, I am going to feel very disconnected from you - the ones I love,- and life in general. Write to me about your big news, your small news, your non-news. Send me your gossip, movie reviews, book suggestions, funny newspaper comics, crossword puzzles. I will find even mundane quotidian details interesting. Your mail will keep me going when I am lonely and homesick. If you feel like expressing your love and affection in a more expensive, extravagant way, packages will be greatly appreciated. Another volunteer wrote on her website that "care packages are the way Peace Corps Volunteers judge each others' popularity." So, it's on: make me look good.

My address until October will be:

PCT Tamar Rosenstein

Corps de la Paix

B.P. 299

Thiès, Senegal

West Africa

Some snail-mail guidelines

As proven by my mailing experiences in France, postal services around the world are rarely up to snuff vis-a-vis our cherished USPS. It might take two weeks for a letter to arrive in Senegal from the US; but it can take many more days to get out to distant towns and villages. It may not arrive at all.

On any and all mail, please be sure to include SENEGAL - WEST AFRICA, AIRMAIL and PAR AVION somewhere the postal workers can see it plainly. You may also consider numbering your letters so that we can keep track of what arrives and what doesn't.In packages - seal everything in Ziplock bags. This will keep out the rodents (hopefully) and the rain. Plus, apparently Ziplock bags are as valuable as currency to Peace Corps volunteers; I can re-use any you send.

As law-abiding as some of you might be, do NOT be honest on those customs forms. Everything you send should be recorded as "Used" and shouldn't have a total value of more than $10. This will work to ensure that your packages reach me, and not the family of a Senegalese postal worker. Wrap the box/envelope in a couple of layers of clear plastic packaging tape. Make it damn near impossible for someone to cut open a corner and peek inside. You may also consider adding a list of the items you're sending so I'll know if someone got to it before me. (Sad face.)I will have to pay a small fee to rescue packages from the post office, so please don't send two boxes where one will do. (Ok, might be getting ahead of myself by assuming there will be multiples of packages.)Once I get assigned to my service site (in early October), I will send out the mailing address I will have until October 2011!

Âllo, téléphone? At some point during my training, I will be buying a cell phone to have during the next two years. I'll share that number as soon as I get it. We can rack up sms bills together!

Visits

Want to visit? You'll have to wait at least six months, but my door (assuming I have a door) will be open. We can discuss when works.

Are we there, yet?

Officially, my Peace Corps Service starts on August 11th. However, I'll be leaving Denver on August 6th for my cousin's wedding in Tennessee and then heading straight to Washington, D.C. for 24 hours of safety training and immunizations. (Yay, for starting malaria pills!) I will have my cell phone [720-839-5901] until the 11th, so feel free to call me for last-minute love.

Love you all dearly and cannot wait to keep in touch with you,

Tamar