Oh these past couple weeks had amazing ups and downs, but i will write on that later. Now i feel like i must brag a little, if only to keep from being completely depressed by lack of progress.
Generally now my Seereer is pretty good. Not great, there are still a ton of things that i dont get, but its good and i can get points across, talk to children, talk to older people, make small talk, speak at meetings, summarize what others have talked about, and sit and just listen to others talk idly or argue and generally get what people are talking about. When i notice this, it makes me rather proud of my progress.
Now when a stranger comes by and greets me and does the surprised 'Nana seereer?!', 'you understand seereer?', and I give my usual grin and answer 'nanaam ondik', 'i understand a little', then anyone around me, family or otherwise, is in a rush to say 'no, no! he understands everything! he understands very well!'. Grin, shrug, move on.
Now, there are times still when i am utterly at a loss. There was a big arguement in my village yesterday, a very unusual event, and that looked like it might come to blows. I had and still have no idea were all yelling about but it seemed like everyone was mad at everyone else. Also, i am slow to pick up on the ,ore colorful expressions and the metaphores and certain connotations are lost on me.
Yesterday though (before the fight), I was sitting with a bunch of the old men in the village and they were talking to another man who was passing through. 'Does he understand seereer better than the former volunteer,' he asked. Then they all thought and after a bit one said 'the other volunteer played and talked with children, he knew seereer, but not deep seereer and he did not learn all seereer by talking to adults and old people. Ndiouma, (me), talks to children too, but to adults more. He wants to learn all of seereer very well. He is learning but soon he will know all of Seereer very well!' maybe thats a bit much, but it made me feel warm and fuzzy. Its coments like this that help me get through the day!
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
A New Year and New Starts
So I have a blog to post about December, only it is saved on my thumb drive thingy which this computer does not like and i dont feel like writing it again, so that will come later.
I do have a mess of new pictures up, stil more to go, but theres a bunch up there from october and on. I am in Dakar now but going back to Louly on tomorrow. I had come not really for the new year bu that was fun too. Every kid in the city seemed to have bought noise makers and fireworks and spent all day and night setting them off, i think they are still going off actually, fun. I went with a couple other volunteers who had their families in town and we ate at an Ethiopian place that was really nice and really different from what I usually eat, on either continent, but good. After that we just watched episodes of the Office at our regional house, someone looked up and anounced it was after midnight, we didnt even gt up, and yet i still stayed up nearly all night.
My real reason though for coming to the city was to speak to my boss, who i found out is on vacation, and to work on a grant proposal for a latrine project i am having no luck getting started. It does no help that the community has requested really fancy latrines -you know, with walls and a zinc roof that is a latrine/bathing room combo- and so each one is kinda expensive, relaively, but then when they want fifty of them, one per household, that skyrockets the price beyond all my hopes.
Unfortunately I think i will go back, probably have another village meeting with fun speech giving, and do my best to explain why and how this project needs to be scaled down, maybe by number of latrines, more likely just by reducing each one to the bare nesesity of concrete slab with hole in it over a two meter pit. I doubt anyone will be thrilled by this, but it will at least be something better than nothing which is he current norm. People just go to the 'woods' which does not really exist so they go behind trees or in brush for bathing and bathroom, even, and especially dangerously and hazardously, at night.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. When i first got to my village I did not want to do any such project where money is just given to the village for some construction or other with no rel sustainability or passed skills to anyone. Other NGOs may do this but Peace Corps is not of that kind to throw money at problems. At the same ime this was a project idea totally pushed by the village and could really incorporate heath semenars on the importance of hand washing and be a resonably sustainable betterment of peoples health.
Anyway, its still much work left to do with whatever happens.
I do have a mess of new pictures up, stil more to go, but theres a bunch up there from october and on. I am in Dakar now but going back to Louly on tomorrow. I had come not really for the new year bu that was fun too. Every kid in the city seemed to have bought noise makers and fireworks and spent all day and night setting them off, i think they are still going off actually, fun. I went with a couple other volunteers who had their families in town and we ate at an Ethiopian place that was really nice and really different from what I usually eat, on either continent, but good. After that we just watched episodes of the Office at our regional house, someone looked up and anounced it was after midnight, we didnt even gt up, and yet i still stayed up nearly all night.
My real reason though for coming to the city was to speak to my boss, who i found out is on vacation, and to work on a grant proposal for a latrine project i am having no luck getting started. It does no help that the community has requested really fancy latrines -you know, with walls and a zinc roof that is a latrine/bathing room combo- and so each one is kinda expensive, relaively, but then when they want fifty of them, one per household, that skyrockets the price beyond all my hopes.
Unfortunately I think i will go back, probably have another village meeting with fun speech giving, and do my best to explain why and how this project needs to be scaled down, maybe by number of latrines, more likely just by reducing each one to the bare nesesity of concrete slab with hole in it over a two meter pit. I doubt anyone will be thrilled by this, but it will at least be something better than nothing which is he current norm. People just go to the 'woods' which does not really exist so they go behind trees or in brush for bathing and bathroom, even, and especially dangerously and hazardously, at night.
I have mixed feelings about all of this. When i first got to my village I did not want to do any such project where money is just given to the village for some construction or other with no rel sustainability or passed skills to anyone. Other NGOs may do this but Peace Corps is not of that kind to throw money at problems. At the same ime this was a project idea totally pushed by the village and could really incorporate heath semenars on the importance of hand washing and be a resonably sustainable betterment of peoples health.
Anyway, its still much work left to do with whatever happens.
Oh, the Holidays...
Well, it has been an interesting month or so in my village. Tabaski was pretty fun in a weird sorta way. I just had gotten a new camera so I took a ton of pictures. In the morning I watched sheep and goat butchering, people grilling and cooking and getting things ready for the afternoon. The kids were all super excited and hyper all day and constantly wanted to be in pictures. In the afternoon I had about four lunches of macaroni noodles in an onion and potato sauce with sheep meat eaten with bread.
Most people dressed up for the day starting in the afternoon though some people had nice things on all day. I had an outfit that I had made a while ago but had not really worn it around the village. In the evening, after a dinner of leftovers from lunch (and we continued to have those leftovers for a few days later), and then there was a two day evening dance party out by the kindergarten, a kind with a generator and strings of lights and blaring music, very bizarre for a little village I thought.
Christmas came without too much incident. In the days before and after I was working on organizing a project and village meeting to discuss the project, and I also tried to get work done on Christmas day. Roughly a third or so of my village is catholic and I was told that something would be happening on Noel, I just was very much not sure what was going to happen. Really, I was looking forward to a little chill time, school is out and I have an excuse to splurge on things like alone time, and care-package candy.
In the morning, while walking to the chief’s compound, who is also catholic, others were going in the other direction and invited me to a morning church service. I couldn’t see any reason why not and I have consistently kept putting off going to any other services (mostly because Sunday morning is such a nice time to either sleep in, do backyard work or do laundry), so I agreed to tag along. As people slowly arrived in the church yard, one of the church leaders took me in and showed off a trio of religious type books, one was a Serere bible I think, and the others were like religious lessons and stories, printed neatly in serere, like to be read aloud or sung and discussed. I thought it was really cool just because it contained so much serere that I don’t know, much of it likely because of the slight differences in the dialect of serere spoken in my area, but a good deal of it was simply words I had not come across before (how often do you use ‘begat’ in everyday speech?).
Then there was the service. It was almost entirely standing and singing or chanting in Serere, and most of the older people present got to contribute a little to what was said or sung. This lasted perhaps just over half an hour and that was that. Went out, shook hands greeted people all over again. People seem happy for the harvest, or that it is essentially over, or that they have a lot of money now, or they will soon, or a combination of all of these.
In the afternoon, after lunch with my family - greasy rice and fish, how unique - and after my family stared at me for a while thinking maybe I would do something interesting, like spontaneously explode like a firework and shoot out confetti everywhere for example, I was invited to lunch in the middle of the village. I went over, sat with some of the catholic guys and some of the muslim guys, the usual guys who I sit under the trees with. A few families brought out bowls of the noodle dish, there was also some other bits of meat so maybe a goat was made a meal of that day too.
Then that was pretty much that. I chilled for the rest of the afternoon, talked with the men - they are astounded that it can rain ice for multiple days in some parts of America -, had some time out in the fields to myself - Christmas songs on the harmonica sound kinda sad when played somewhere alone -, and got some reading in -Cold Mountain is a good sad book.
The Sunday after another volunteer invited me to go to Bandia with her. Her family was visiting for a couple weeks and they offered to pay for a trip to the wildlife park. It was cool, even though i had been once before durring IST, and i took many pictures, (that will be up soon). For lunch I had about half of a chicken and fries and some pizza that other people couldnt finish. It was a good day.
The next day I had a big village meeting. It was the first thing that i have actually organized in the village so far and so i was excited and rather nervous. I had announced a village latrine project before and we needed to discuss the details of funding and how it would be carried out. It went pretty well, most people seemed to understand everything i was saying, and with the help of my community counterpart I understood pretty much everything that they said. I was really impressed by their excitement for the project and each of the fifty village families said they would give about sixty dollars in money or labor and supplies. That was way more than I was expecting; though I might need to adjust the project some and so that amount may change.
Anywho, still more i need to write about new years and all in Dakar, later.
Most people dressed up for the day starting in the afternoon though some people had nice things on all day. I had an outfit that I had made a while ago but had not really worn it around the village. In the evening, after a dinner of leftovers from lunch (and we continued to have those leftovers for a few days later), and then there was a two day evening dance party out by the kindergarten, a kind with a generator and strings of lights and blaring music, very bizarre for a little village I thought.
Christmas came without too much incident. In the days before and after I was working on organizing a project and village meeting to discuss the project, and I also tried to get work done on Christmas day. Roughly a third or so of my village is catholic and I was told that something would be happening on Noel, I just was very much not sure what was going to happen. Really, I was looking forward to a little chill time, school is out and I have an excuse to splurge on things like alone time, and care-package candy.
In the morning, while walking to the chief’s compound, who is also catholic, others were going in the other direction and invited me to a morning church service. I couldn’t see any reason why not and I have consistently kept putting off going to any other services (mostly because Sunday morning is such a nice time to either sleep in, do backyard work or do laundry), so I agreed to tag along. As people slowly arrived in the church yard, one of the church leaders took me in and showed off a trio of religious type books, one was a Serere bible I think, and the others were like religious lessons and stories, printed neatly in serere, like to be read aloud or sung and discussed. I thought it was really cool just because it contained so much serere that I don’t know, much of it likely because of the slight differences in the dialect of serere spoken in my area, but a good deal of it was simply words I had not come across before (how often do you use ‘begat’ in everyday speech?).
Then there was the service. It was almost entirely standing and singing or chanting in Serere, and most of the older people present got to contribute a little to what was said or sung. This lasted perhaps just over half an hour and that was that. Went out, shook hands greeted people all over again. People seem happy for the harvest, or that it is essentially over, or that they have a lot of money now, or they will soon, or a combination of all of these.
In the afternoon, after lunch with my family - greasy rice and fish, how unique - and after my family stared at me for a while thinking maybe I would do something interesting, like spontaneously explode like a firework and shoot out confetti everywhere for example, I was invited to lunch in the middle of the village. I went over, sat with some of the catholic guys and some of the muslim guys, the usual guys who I sit under the trees with. A few families brought out bowls of the noodle dish, there was also some other bits of meat so maybe a goat was made a meal of that day too.
Then that was pretty much that. I chilled for the rest of the afternoon, talked with the men - they are astounded that it can rain ice for multiple days in some parts of America -, had some time out in the fields to myself - Christmas songs on the harmonica sound kinda sad when played somewhere alone -, and got some reading in -Cold Mountain is a good sad book.
The Sunday after another volunteer invited me to go to Bandia with her. Her family was visiting for a couple weeks and they offered to pay for a trip to the wildlife park. It was cool, even though i had been once before durring IST, and i took many pictures, (that will be up soon). For lunch I had about half of a chicken and fries and some pizza that other people couldnt finish. It was a good day.
The next day I had a big village meeting. It was the first thing that i have actually organized in the village so far and so i was excited and rather nervous. I had announced a village latrine project before and we needed to discuss the details of funding and how it would be carried out. It went pretty well, most people seemed to understand everything i was saying, and with the help of my community counterpart I understood pretty much everything that they said. I was really impressed by their excitement for the project and each of the fifty village families said they would give about sixty dollars in money or labor and supplies. That was way more than I was expecting; though I might need to adjust the project some and so that amount may change.
Anywho, still more i need to write about new years and all in Dakar, later.
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