IST now looms barely more than a week away. That means retrning to Thies for three weeks of additional language and technical training. I hope to get a small handle on some wolof vocabulary and, importantly, figure out just what it is that i can technically do. Inshallah.
This past couple weeks has seen me somewhat productive. I had made a very small pepineer (tree nursury) behind my hut with thirty-five bags to plant in. As of this morning, I have all seven nebedaye (nutriious plant of a billion uses) about a foot and a half high, thirteen of my twenty mangos are up and growing strong (thank you david!), (though my backyard friend 'scampers' or possibly a giant angry rat bit off the top of one of the mango sprouts and it hasnt recovered), four of my six lemons have come up, and my two maad (sour-patch-kids tasty fruit with ugly exterior) are starting to emerge from the soil. (I would have had one more mango but my backyard friend 'scampers' or possibly a giant angry rat bit off the top of one of the sprouts and the stem hasnt recovered, I put a couple of lemon seeds in next to it in case the mango is done for.) I know that a bunch of people in the village already have some of these trees or they have pepineers of thier own in their gardens or resting above their chicken coups. However, some people have expressed varying interest in some of them though it is clear they figured I would have had many more than I do. Well, next year, when i have an actual good head start on the rainey season I plan on haveing a nice big ole nursury, filling a corner of my yard space, next year. This year though, as the trees get big enough, i guess i will start gifting them out to folks, hopefully in some kinda orderly fashion. It sucks that I am going to be away from my village for three weeks cause i wont get to take care of them though with the rains they should, i hope, could possibly survive anyhow...
My community assesments have been coming along in spurts and stalls, but gradually I am conecting dots and figuing things out. There seem to be like a million NGOs working in and around my village. One that gives out money for the villagers to buy peanuts, one that owns annd helps maintain a huge garden in the center of the village, one that gives mosquito nets to school children, at least one that pays for additions on the schools, latrines and gives out money and medicine, two more own a garden and a tree nursury to the south west of the village (the tree nursury place has a billion trees and, no joke, at least 2000 seedlings in bags), and there is another group that is doing health education in the village that I have been helping out with. I am sure there are more that I havent yet discovered the funcion of yet but that will reveal themselves. There also are a variety of groups within the village doing farming and agricultural activities.
While of course I feel all of this is amazing, fantastic for the people in my community and for the health of the environment, I do have this nagging feeling that I am just a redundant actor, repeating the same lines that have already been said, are already being said, and that will continue with or without any of my imput. I guess on the optomistic side that leaves me to branch into neglected areas and expand on awareness and do more to actually correct problems people are already thinking about. Not that that makes any of this any easier though.
Ooh, on a different note, I have to talk a little about how cool yesterday was. So yesterday I came into Mbour also, actually yesterday was my second day in a row here making this the third, but that is because I dont plan ahead well and the first trip was more of just a waste of a morning. Anyway, so i walk out to the street from my village and it usually takes me a little while to get a bus into town but like in two seconds an alham pulls up and it is almost empty, which i would say is rather unusual from the ones i have seen. Getting in i ask how much it is and the driver says 200cfa. 200! that is about fifty cents and i usually pay twice that amount or more. so cool. Then, as we come to the cross street where i would like to get out, the bus stalls out and rolls to a stop. the driver hops out and opens the hood and i hop out, happy to be right where i want to be. I had some fabric that I wanted to have made into an outfit so after wandering the market for a while trying to figure out how i will find a serere speaking tailor who will not try and rob me, a guy approaches me, picks me out for a PCV and asks about other volunteers, in serere! He tells me his friend is a tailor and pretty soon we are agreeing on what i think is a very resonable price (though i guess i will see today when it is done if it is quality work). Then after lunch where the guy forgot to charge me for half of what i had and he looks confused when i hand him more money, i went back to the market to buy some shoes. Practically the first ones i try one are good and, again, at a good price. ...weird good day at the market... Then after meeting up briefly with my good PCV friend Jen, i walked up to the tourist grocery store to buy cereal. As i was early there and crossing the road, my old pair of flipflops broke. one of the little posts snapped off right in the middle of the street. after hobbling to the side of the road and trying in vain to put the shoe back together, (i was not really worried cause i had just bought another pair!), a guy in military uniform beckoned me to a small room where he offered to fix my shoe. He was even another serere guy! he took a bit of twine from his mosquito net (i am not sure how i feel about taking that), and made a neat little fix on my sandal. I got home to a beautiful sunset and my neighbor had made me this sweet desert thing from millet (not my favorite thing in the world but a nice change and a really nice gesture). All in all it was a really... fortuitous (is that a word?) day. really nice and convenient things just kept happening. A nice little breather from my normal struggles.
Well, gotta go now, started drizzling here just now, awsome, good thing i remembered my rain jacket!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Owe Ñaayaa
I feel like such a remarkably lage amount of stuff happens in between each post i make that i really want to spend ages going over all the million crazy things i have seen, amazing things i have learned, and substatually little that I have actually done. Alas, there is not enough time in the day or at least in this internet cafe.
I have also been trying like mad to get either my camera or my flash drive to be recognized by even one computer here. so far they are all alligned against me ever posting any recent photos and i may have to just wait till IST and try and get a whole mess of em done.
So rereading that last post i guess i had meant it to be less dire sounding and more, well strange, as it was at the time. Recently in my village I have had many up and down moments but overall things have been coming along.
At the beginning of the month I had a grand time out in Kedougou, in the south-eastern part of senegal, where a bunch of volunteers gathered for the 4th of July. It was really cool getting to travel from my familiar -flat, desert, mildly treed- environment down to a different part of the country. There are mountains there with actual forests and the gambia river, we saw tons of monkeys and baboons and even a few warthogs doing their thing. while i could have planned ahead with my money much better, i was able to stay in a super sweet hotel (with AC and a pool!), the food there was pretty awesome (even had half of a warthog sandwitch, tasty), and it was really nice seeing so many other volunteers and friends who i wont often get to see.
Then this past week and a half has been as exciting as always. Early last week I met a guy who works at a case de sante, or little clinic thing, in the village next to mine. He is really excited to work with me, and that is super nice cause I have really been struggling to figure out ways of actually being productive to making some kind of a difference in my village recently. He is working on a 'programe sante comunitare' which is teamed up with the Presidents Malaria Initiative and a bunch of other NGOs with his group focusing on the department of Mbour (the area all around me and the coast near me). In the past week I have sat in on three mini community womens meetings, two were in serere (which i understood most of), one was in wolof (but i could mostly figure out what they were talking about), and all were about family planning and enfant maladies, pretty cool. I have also been to two rehersals for a malaria play a kindergarden group is putting on next week in wolof. While i havent nessesarily been super 'useful' at any of these, everyone seems to really appreciate my presence. (I did give some advice to the child preformers on the importance of speaking loudly, and i did do a little dance entertainment in the other meetings that seemed like it drew in more people to listen to the discussion, so maybe that is helping). Yesterday, I came into town to see the other people that he works with and he wanted me to see what is is that they do. I thought that that would be like an hour or two meet and greet in the morning but it ended up being a six-hour board meeting. I cant really complain too much though, it was in an air conditioned building, with a generator when the power cut out, and the gave me lunch with a million vegitables and a huge meaty fish, and they gave me a cold fanta.
But then just to bring me back down to earth, after lunch they passed around what i thought was tea -as it was in tea glasses with the tea foam and it is what most people drink. As soon as I took the glass, by the smell I knew i had made a mistake. I had had a glass of this only once before, but that was one time too many. They drink a kind of coffee here that is best described as gasoline. well maybe like if you scraped the dregs off the bottom of a really dirty coroded gas tank, then heated that to the point that the fumes burn the inside of you nose and lungs, and it smells about what you would expect of that. It takes my taste buds about 24hours to recover. The people here all seem to like it though, or else they are all into some kinda group denial. Anyway, I think i will have a more productive PC service if i avoid that 'coffee' as much as i am able. That makes up part of one of my two most important rules i have for myself so far. 1 - be careful about everything that i put into my mouth. food and drink and crazy straws. 2 - take care of my feet. something i learned from scouts. i can manage almost any problem, bandages or medicine or switch hands for tasks if i need to, but if i cant get around, well, then i am useless. with a cut on the bottom of my foot and the taste from coffee from yesterday still overpowering my sences, i am rather failing my two most important rules right now. some RnR this afternoon will do me good.
Tomorrow there is another meeting in the moring in the next village and there is more play rehersal in the afternoon so I think it will be a good day. Then saturday i am getting a fancy outfit made for the big presentation on monday where the play is performed and a large meeting is held. I feel like i am scrambling here at the last minute to get my village assesments done before IST which is coming way faster than i would have liked. we go back to thies on Aug 4 and have 3 weeks of further language and technical training where hopefully i will actually know what the heck i am doing.
Anywho, i need to go but some more mangos and head back to the ole village,
Boo ndiki!
I have also been trying like mad to get either my camera or my flash drive to be recognized by even one computer here. so far they are all alligned against me ever posting any recent photos and i may have to just wait till IST and try and get a whole mess of em done.
So rereading that last post i guess i had meant it to be less dire sounding and more, well strange, as it was at the time. Recently in my village I have had many up and down moments but overall things have been coming along.
At the beginning of the month I had a grand time out in Kedougou, in the south-eastern part of senegal, where a bunch of volunteers gathered for the 4th of July. It was really cool getting to travel from my familiar -flat, desert, mildly treed- environment down to a different part of the country. There are mountains there with actual forests and the gambia river, we saw tons of monkeys and baboons and even a few warthogs doing their thing. while i could have planned ahead with my money much better, i was able to stay in a super sweet hotel (with AC and a pool!), the food there was pretty awesome (even had half of a warthog sandwitch, tasty), and it was really nice seeing so many other volunteers and friends who i wont often get to see.
Then this past week and a half has been as exciting as always. Early last week I met a guy who works at a case de sante, or little clinic thing, in the village next to mine. He is really excited to work with me, and that is super nice cause I have really been struggling to figure out ways of actually being productive to making some kind of a difference in my village recently. He is working on a 'programe sante comunitare' which is teamed up with the Presidents Malaria Initiative and a bunch of other NGOs with his group focusing on the department of Mbour (the area all around me and the coast near me). In the past week I have sat in on three mini community womens meetings, two were in serere (which i understood most of), one was in wolof (but i could mostly figure out what they were talking about), and all were about family planning and enfant maladies, pretty cool. I have also been to two rehersals for a malaria play a kindergarden group is putting on next week in wolof. While i havent nessesarily been super 'useful' at any of these, everyone seems to really appreciate my presence. (I did give some advice to the child preformers on the importance of speaking loudly, and i did do a little dance entertainment in the other meetings that seemed like it drew in more people to listen to the discussion, so maybe that is helping). Yesterday, I came into town to see the other people that he works with and he wanted me to see what is is that they do. I thought that that would be like an hour or two meet and greet in the morning but it ended up being a six-hour board meeting. I cant really complain too much though, it was in an air conditioned building, with a generator when the power cut out, and the gave me lunch with a million vegitables and a huge meaty fish, and they gave me a cold fanta.
But then just to bring me back down to earth, after lunch they passed around what i thought was tea -as it was in tea glasses with the tea foam and it is what most people drink. As soon as I took the glass, by the smell I knew i had made a mistake. I had had a glass of this only once before, but that was one time too many. They drink a kind of coffee here that is best described as gasoline. well maybe like if you scraped the dregs off the bottom of a really dirty coroded gas tank, then heated that to the point that the fumes burn the inside of you nose and lungs, and it smells about what you would expect of that. It takes my taste buds about 24hours to recover. The people here all seem to like it though, or else they are all into some kinda group denial. Anyway, I think i will have a more productive PC service if i avoid that 'coffee' as much as i am able. That makes up part of one of my two most important rules i have for myself so far. 1 - be careful about everything that i put into my mouth. food and drink and crazy straws. 2 - take care of my feet. something i learned from scouts. i can manage almost any problem, bandages or medicine or switch hands for tasks if i need to, but if i cant get around, well, then i am useless. with a cut on the bottom of my foot and the taste from coffee from yesterday still overpowering my sences, i am rather failing my two most important rules right now. some RnR this afternoon will do me good.
Tomorrow there is another meeting in the moring in the next village and there is more play rehersal in the afternoon so I think it will be a good day. Then saturday i am getting a fancy outfit made for the big presentation on monday where the play is performed and a large meeting is held. I feel like i am scrambling here at the last minute to get my village assesments done before IST which is coming way faster than i would have liked. we go back to thies on Aug 4 and have 3 weeks of further language and technical training where hopefully i will actually know what the heck i am doing.
Anywho, i need to go but some more mangos and head back to the ole village,
Boo ndiki!
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
We Ask That You Please Not Feed the Toubab
Well, thats not exactly right, but yesterday was a wierd day. It had a great deal of emotional ups and downs, lots of misunderstandings, confused serere, and I didnt really get anything done. So really just an average day in my village.
It started normal enough. I had breakfast on the floor of my hut. I got this musli cereal stuff with rasins and corn flakes and it is amazing. I had planned on going and sitting in on a class while they still have class at the school next door to me. Really all I wanted to do was talk to the school director about some of my assesments and determine where the kids that go to that school live (I have gotten several different answers on that), and talk about the schools calendar. I last saw him leaving on Thursday and as he left he said 'boo tening', essentially meaning see you monday. Of course when I got to the school, only two out of the four teachers were there, and only a handful of kids were there doing what i guess was retaking exams that they were absent for. I didnt really want to disturb them so I went back to my hut to replan my morning. The previous day I had gone to a section of the village they call Pintoke, where I had sat for a while and the people at one of the compounds there were very nice and helpful and I thought I could go back there to get some of my assesment questions answered.
Just as I was gathering myself to head out, my younger mom came to my door and stood there staring at me (as she usually does. I had tried to ask her once what she wanted before I had opened the door and she gave me a long lecture on how terrible a person I was and that I should always open the door for her and never ask her what she wants first...yeah, freal). So anyway, she had my screaming brother, I will call him Biff, with her. He had been crying all morning, as he usually does on every morning and afternoon and anytime he is awake. He loves to cry. Any way, all she said when i opened the door was 'jegaa mayo, ciam', or pretty much 'you have milk, give it to me.' I think politeness might actually kill some people in my family. So I let her spoon out nearly all the rest of my powdered milk as she said Biff 'buga o yer', he wants to drink. Well, stop the presses, he is in no ways an enfant, and while i dont oppose giving him some calcium, I dont know why they have to just take it from me like that unannounced. Whatever, I really dont mind that much and when I go back I will try and bring a kilo of powdered milk just for her.
Anywho, so then I went out to Pintoke (after giving 100 cfa to some guys fixing a building for no apparent reason) and sat with the same family again, learned all their names as best I could (or at least the adults, which are more important anyhow) and we talked about what villages around have boutiques and which they go to and which villages have schools and where kids go from where to where and why. It was mildly productive at the least I suppose. They also taught me some words for making pottery and showed me bowls they made to sell near mbour (cue ominous music), and how the pottery was really good and they also had some for making couscous with and they taught me some words having to do with druming and dancing (more ominous music).
Around noon, my usual time to be getting back to my hut, they urged me to stay and have lunch with them. Most families do this when I sit with them for a while and I always turn them down saying that I would like to have a bath before lunch or study or have a nap. But this time, they insisted that everyday they have lunch at 1, which they admitted was early, and then I could go back home. They were very nice and it looked very much like lunch preperations were in full swing so I said sure, I will stay (did i mention that there were dark clouds all day, and it would have been awsome if right then there was a thunderclap).
I thought I could have lunch here, then go back home and be back before 2, in good time to have another lunch with my dad, a lunch that rarely fills me up and is almost always just greesy rice and a fish. I figured I could actually eat a fill this day and my family woudnt be insulted cause I could be back in time. So I waited for my first lunch. And waited. Lunch was finally ready at 1:30, I tried to eat quickly, but they brought out four different bowls, all of really good food with vegetables and spices and good fish... it was too much to pass up. At 1:45, i tried not to be too rude but I said 'i should go home' in kinda a question like way, and they said 'you should go home' in kinda like an answering way. Then I walked quickly back home, it is not terribly far, and I turned the corner into the compound at 1:50.
All the kids and my moms were sitting around the tree, and as I approached they all stoped talking and stared at me. Kinda a death stare, if you can imagine it. Like I had just punched the Pope, hard in the gut, and they wernt sure if they should run up and smack me or if I would probably just get struck down where I stood by a lightning bolt or something. They had obviously just uncovered the lunch bowl, but they hadnt yet started eating. I greeted them, to no responce, and said 'oh, you are having lunch' trying to smile and hoping to get something warmer from them. One of my neighbors who was also seated by the tree pointed to my dads room and said 'go'.
Now, understand that never in all my month and a half in my village, never have we had lunch in my family before 2pm. The average is probably around 2:15. So I think I made it home in good time and I really hadnt thought that I would really be late like this. But timing rarely if ever works in my favor.
So in my dads room, my dad and our farm boy, The Joker, were sitting and had just begun on a big bowl of rice mixed with small chunks of fish. I appologize as best as i can. My dad says he tried calling me, where was I and where was my phone. Pintoke is too far away and I need to get back before lunch. Ok, ok. After we eat he says that I need to be back here before lunch everyday and that I shouldnt be gone like that. Right, right, i understand now, i said, and i thought that would be the final lecture on that.
I went back to my room, had a nice bath, decompressed, got ready to head out again for the afternoon - somewhere to chill a bit. Walking out of my room i was stoped almost immediately by my younger mom. This was unusual for her to stop me like this and talk to me so directly. she asks where i had gone that morning, Pintoke. She then gives me a long lecture on 'the kind of people that are in pintoke and the kind of people that are here' she is kinda smiling as she says it, but she is always kinda smiling and my mom is laughing in the back, so i am not sure if she is really serious or not. I listen dutifully and ask what things mean. She tells me that the people there are not good people. All they do is play music and dance and ask me for money (I had to try very hard to restrain my self in pointing out that that is, fact what this family does), and she says that if she is walking by she will not sit with them and if they ask her to eat with them she says that she is full. Suddenly the caste system lectures rush back to me and i realize that my family, along with much of the village, are nobility, while those in pintoke are the artisans, storytelling and music playing caste and we are not to intermingle. Great, I think, well at least I know now.
So then I walk about two steps, and my mom reiterates the same lecture. Making sure i understand what music playing is and dancing, and how (when they do it) it is apparently bad. And how they will ask me for money (which when they do it), I should turn them down. Then I walk another few steps and my grandmother, who overheard most of what was said, ask me for what I know about the people in Pintoke and she then gives me the lecture to. Then my nextdoor neighbor walks up, ask where I went in the morning and procedes to give me the same lecture again. Almost out of my compound, two more women ask me where I had gone and feel urged to explain, several more times, that I am not to go there, not to eat there, not to talk to them or sit with them. They are not good people. Right. Heavy stuff.
So I head in the opposite direction, towards some compounds with some similarly nice people. I learn some new words and sit for a while as women in the village begin to arrive there apparently for a womens group lottery. There was music and dancing (both my younger mom and neighbors were there, dancing and druming, freal). I sit out with some of the kids and play a board game. A kid walks by and hands me a lemon. Just like that, out of the blue. My younger mom happens to be walking by a second later, sees me holding it and looks at me as if I am mr selfish. I think of giving it to her (maybe she could give taste to a meal with it), but i put it im my bag instead. 'To plant', i tell her.
Before i can leave, one of the women, my aunt evidently (or so i am told), gives me two fish that she has fried in a way that I think is the best ever. I take them back home and give them to my mom, for her to put them into dinner, i guess. At dinner though, somehow no one in our compound knows where any flashlights are and the solar powered light is out, as usual. so we eat in near utter darkness, only starlight, no moon up yet. I cant see my fish, meaning i dont eat my fish, the joker and my dad down the one in our bowl before i can get more than one piece. I finish the bowl, and go to bed dreaming of desert.
So, yeah, the moral to this long long post, i have no idea, dont let me eat food i guess is a good village action plan. Oh and today i planted the lemon seeds and lunch was at 2:15.
It started normal enough. I had breakfast on the floor of my hut. I got this musli cereal stuff with rasins and corn flakes and it is amazing. I had planned on going and sitting in on a class while they still have class at the school next door to me. Really all I wanted to do was talk to the school director about some of my assesments and determine where the kids that go to that school live (I have gotten several different answers on that), and talk about the schools calendar. I last saw him leaving on Thursday and as he left he said 'boo tening', essentially meaning see you monday. Of course when I got to the school, only two out of the four teachers were there, and only a handful of kids were there doing what i guess was retaking exams that they were absent for. I didnt really want to disturb them so I went back to my hut to replan my morning. The previous day I had gone to a section of the village they call Pintoke, where I had sat for a while and the people at one of the compounds there were very nice and helpful and I thought I could go back there to get some of my assesment questions answered.
Just as I was gathering myself to head out, my younger mom came to my door and stood there staring at me (as she usually does. I had tried to ask her once what she wanted before I had opened the door and she gave me a long lecture on how terrible a person I was and that I should always open the door for her and never ask her what she wants first...yeah, freal). So anyway, she had my screaming brother, I will call him Biff, with her. He had been crying all morning, as he usually does on every morning and afternoon and anytime he is awake. He loves to cry. Any way, all she said when i opened the door was 'jegaa mayo, ciam', or pretty much 'you have milk, give it to me.' I think politeness might actually kill some people in my family. So I let her spoon out nearly all the rest of my powdered milk as she said Biff 'buga o yer', he wants to drink. Well, stop the presses, he is in no ways an enfant, and while i dont oppose giving him some calcium, I dont know why they have to just take it from me like that unannounced. Whatever, I really dont mind that much and when I go back I will try and bring a kilo of powdered milk just for her.
Anywho, so then I went out to Pintoke (after giving 100 cfa to some guys fixing a building for no apparent reason) and sat with the same family again, learned all their names as best I could (or at least the adults, which are more important anyhow) and we talked about what villages around have boutiques and which they go to and which villages have schools and where kids go from where to where and why. It was mildly productive at the least I suppose. They also taught me some words for making pottery and showed me bowls they made to sell near mbour (cue ominous music), and how the pottery was really good and they also had some for making couscous with and they taught me some words having to do with druming and dancing (more ominous music).
Around noon, my usual time to be getting back to my hut, they urged me to stay and have lunch with them. Most families do this when I sit with them for a while and I always turn them down saying that I would like to have a bath before lunch or study or have a nap. But this time, they insisted that everyday they have lunch at 1, which they admitted was early, and then I could go back home. They were very nice and it looked very much like lunch preperations were in full swing so I said sure, I will stay (did i mention that there were dark clouds all day, and it would have been awsome if right then there was a thunderclap).
I thought I could have lunch here, then go back home and be back before 2, in good time to have another lunch with my dad, a lunch that rarely fills me up and is almost always just greesy rice and a fish. I figured I could actually eat a fill this day and my family woudnt be insulted cause I could be back in time. So I waited for my first lunch. And waited. Lunch was finally ready at 1:30, I tried to eat quickly, but they brought out four different bowls, all of really good food with vegetables and spices and good fish... it was too much to pass up. At 1:45, i tried not to be too rude but I said 'i should go home' in kinda a question like way, and they said 'you should go home' in kinda like an answering way. Then I walked quickly back home, it is not terribly far, and I turned the corner into the compound at 1:50.
All the kids and my moms were sitting around the tree, and as I approached they all stoped talking and stared at me. Kinda a death stare, if you can imagine it. Like I had just punched the Pope, hard in the gut, and they wernt sure if they should run up and smack me or if I would probably just get struck down where I stood by a lightning bolt or something. They had obviously just uncovered the lunch bowl, but they hadnt yet started eating. I greeted them, to no responce, and said 'oh, you are having lunch' trying to smile and hoping to get something warmer from them. One of my neighbors who was also seated by the tree pointed to my dads room and said 'go'.
Now, understand that never in all my month and a half in my village, never have we had lunch in my family before 2pm. The average is probably around 2:15. So I think I made it home in good time and I really hadnt thought that I would really be late like this. But timing rarely if ever works in my favor.
So in my dads room, my dad and our farm boy, The Joker, were sitting and had just begun on a big bowl of rice mixed with small chunks of fish. I appologize as best as i can. My dad says he tried calling me, where was I and where was my phone. Pintoke is too far away and I need to get back before lunch. Ok, ok. After we eat he says that I need to be back here before lunch everyday and that I shouldnt be gone like that. Right, right, i understand now, i said, and i thought that would be the final lecture on that.
I went back to my room, had a nice bath, decompressed, got ready to head out again for the afternoon - somewhere to chill a bit. Walking out of my room i was stoped almost immediately by my younger mom. This was unusual for her to stop me like this and talk to me so directly. she asks where i had gone that morning, Pintoke. She then gives me a long lecture on 'the kind of people that are in pintoke and the kind of people that are here' she is kinda smiling as she says it, but she is always kinda smiling and my mom is laughing in the back, so i am not sure if she is really serious or not. I listen dutifully and ask what things mean. She tells me that the people there are not good people. All they do is play music and dance and ask me for money (I had to try very hard to restrain my self in pointing out that that is, fact what this family does), and she says that if she is walking by she will not sit with them and if they ask her to eat with them she says that she is full. Suddenly the caste system lectures rush back to me and i realize that my family, along with much of the village, are nobility, while those in pintoke are the artisans, storytelling and music playing caste and we are not to intermingle. Great, I think, well at least I know now.
So then I walk about two steps, and my mom reiterates the same lecture. Making sure i understand what music playing is and dancing, and how (when they do it) it is apparently bad. And how they will ask me for money (which when they do it), I should turn them down. Then I walk another few steps and my grandmother, who overheard most of what was said, ask me for what I know about the people in Pintoke and she then gives me the lecture to. Then my nextdoor neighbor walks up, ask where I went in the morning and procedes to give me the same lecture again. Almost out of my compound, two more women ask me where I had gone and feel urged to explain, several more times, that I am not to go there, not to eat there, not to talk to them or sit with them. They are not good people. Right. Heavy stuff.
So I head in the opposite direction, towards some compounds with some similarly nice people. I learn some new words and sit for a while as women in the village begin to arrive there apparently for a womens group lottery. There was music and dancing (both my younger mom and neighbors were there, dancing and druming, freal). I sit out with some of the kids and play a board game. A kid walks by and hands me a lemon. Just like that, out of the blue. My younger mom happens to be walking by a second later, sees me holding it and looks at me as if I am mr selfish. I think of giving it to her (maybe she could give taste to a meal with it), but i put it im my bag instead. 'To plant', i tell her.
Before i can leave, one of the women, my aunt evidently (or so i am told), gives me two fish that she has fried in a way that I think is the best ever. I take them back home and give them to my mom, for her to put them into dinner, i guess. At dinner though, somehow no one in our compound knows where any flashlights are and the solar powered light is out, as usual. so we eat in near utter darkness, only starlight, no moon up yet. I cant see my fish, meaning i dont eat my fish, the joker and my dad down the one in our bowl before i can get more than one piece. I finish the bowl, and go to bed dreaming of desert.
So, yeah, the moral to this long long post, i have no idea, dont let me eat food i guess is a good village action plan. Oh and today i planted the lemon seeds and lunch was at 2:15.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Pictures... I Hope...
So, I will give this a try. These pictures are all kinda random. And I dont have many anyhow.
First here is one of my stuff at home in Atlanta before it got all packed up. It was very early in the morning.
Yeah, I have way too much stuff... yeah.
This is some of us before training enjoying our last night out in the states. Wonderfully chilly America and all its wonderful food...
Traveling can be very exhausiting. Yep.
We drove from Phili to New York, then flew to Brussels and from there to Banjul and THEN finally to Dakar where we were then bused to Thies.
This last one here is of us finally making it to the Thies training center. It was after midnight and it was kinda like most of s wernt sure whether to be giddy and excited or completely and utterly exhausted at the thirty something hour journey we had just finished.
Well, thats it for now. More pictures to come including my home near Thies and my hut and village here. For some reason many of my pictures appear to be very dark and so I didnt put up a bunch, or maybe this monitor just sucks bad, I'll have to figure that one out i guess.
Oh right, so maybe a post.
So this week was... interesting. As all weeks tend to be. I went to Dakar last weekend with Mbour neighbor, Jen, and we had a quick little tour of cool places by Jared. It was a cool weekend, spent quite a bit of money, but I figured I would and I think my budgeting is going rather well. I only really prchased two things besides meals and transport and all. I got a big jar of apple sauce from this rediculously large grocery store that is in the downtown area of Dakar, I think. And I got a jug of bissap syrup that you add water to to drink. It is very tasty and very very strong. I did the recomended 4 parts water to 1 part syrup and it was unbelievably sweet. I had to keep adding water as I drank it and hoped my teeth wouldnt fall out.
Getting back home Sunday night was also... interesting. I dont think I will put all of the reasons for that here in type, but I will say that I was rather disgrunteled and didnt even really know who to be pissed off at. Also, steps 34 through 78 appear to involve 'fence repair'.
Tuesday brought me back up again when my birthday package from my older brother, David, finally arived and I took the morning to go to Mbour and get it. It is undescribably excellent and has tons of great sugary things to get me through a day! Jen also came and visited me for that afternoon. I was excited to finally have a visitor for once, it was the first time anyone has visited me with either of my serere families or villages. It was the first time that I saw the language thing from the other side and for once I knew more of what was being said than another volunteer. That being said, I wasnt really sure what to do once she was here, I mean my village is not Dakar or even Mbour, only one boutique and some gardens and goats and thats about it for excitement. Well, after lunch with my family (though my moms were up at some wedding in a neighboring village), we walked around a bit and made our way to the village chief who live a fairly good ways away from my compound. It was really crazy how windy it was that day, there was dust and sand everywhere and the wind, which blows fairly constantly anyhow, was rather fierce.
So, lets see, yesterday it was overcast all day and fairly cool, and this morning it really looked like it wanted to rain in the morning. It might, for all I know, rain while I am gone this weekend.
Oh, right, this weekend. So I am off to Popinguine to flit away more money and see some folks from around my region, including some that I havent seen since training ended a month ago. Err, thats it i guess. Eventually I will really pretty this blog up too. It is just kinda hard from a cyber cafe to get a whole lot done at one time and with out many programs, and in French...
Boo jaf lakas!
First here is one of my stuff at home in Atlanta before it got all packed up. It was very early in the morning.
Yeah, I have way too much stuff... yeah.
This is some of us before training enjoying our last night out in the states. Wonderfully chilly America and all its wonderful food...
Traveling can be very exhausiting. Yep.
We drove from Phili to New York, then flew to Brussels and from there to Banjul and THEN finally to Dakar where we were then bused to Thies.
This last one here is of us finally making it to the Thies training center. It was after midnight and it was kinda like most of s wernt sure whether to be giddy and excited or completely and utterly exhausted at the thirty something hour journey we had just finished.
Well, thats it for now. More pictures to come including my home near Thies and my hut and village here. For some reason many of my pictures appear to be very dark and so I didnt put up a bunch, or maybe this monitor just sucks bad, I'll have to figure that one out i guess.
Oh right, so maybe a post.
So this week was... interesting. As all weeks tend to be. I went to Dakar last weekend with Mbour neighbor, Jen, and we had a quick little tour of cool places by Jared. It was a cool weekend, spent quite a bit of money, but I figured I would and I think my budgeting is going rather well. I only really prchased two things besides meals and transport and all. I got a big jar of apple sauce from this rediculously large grocery store that is in the downtown area of Dakar, I think. And I got a jug of bissap syrup that you add water to to drink. It is very tasty and very very strong. I did the recomended 4 parts water to 1 part syrup and it was unbelievably sweet. I had to keep adding water as I drank it and hoped my teeth wouldnt fall out.
Getting back home Sunday night was also... interesting. I dont think I will put all of the reasons for that here in type, but I will say that I was rather disgrunteled and didnt even really know who to be pissed off at. Also, steps 34 through 78 appear to involve 'fence repair'.
Tuesday brought me back up again when my birthday package from my older brother, David, finally arived and I took the morning to go to Mbour and get it. It is undescribably excellent and has tons of great sugary things to get me through a day! Jen also came and visited me for that afternoon. I was excited to finally have a visitor for once, it was the first time anyone has visited me with either of my serere families or villages. It was the first time that I saw the language thing from the other side and for once I knew more of what was being said than another volunteer. That being said, I wasnt really sure what to do once she was here, I mean my village is not Dakar or even Mbour, only one boutique and some gardens and goats and thats about it for excitement. Well, after lunch with my family (though my moms were up at some wedding in a neighboring village), we walked around a bit and made our way to the village chief who live a fairly good ways away from my compound. It was really crazy how windy it was that day, there was dust and sand everywhere and the wind, which blows fairly constantly anyhow, was rather fierce.
So, lets see, yesterday it was overcast all day and fairly cool, and this morning it really looked like it wanted to rain in the morning. It might, for all I know, rain while I am gone this weekend.
Oh, right, this weekend. So I am off to Popinguine to flit away more money and see some folks from around my region, including some that I havent seen since training ended a month ago. Err, thats it i guess. Eventually I will really pretty this blog up too. It is just kinda hard from a cyber cafe to get a whole lot done at one time and with out many programs, and in French...
Boo jaf lakas!
Friday, June 6, 2008
Day to Day Me
Well, that last post was very rudely interupted by the power going out. I ended up paying for the half hour and trying to bike back when, after a few blocks, my pump made this awsome little 'pop!' and it decided to stop pumping. And then my fron tire was very flat. Some kids were walking by right when I was about to throw my bike into traffic and they said in wolof what i imagine was, 'there is a guy who can fix your bike around the corner'. I was in no mood to probe for more information so i just followed, dragging my bike along.
magically, there was indeed a tire repair place right around the corner and even more magically, working there were two serere speaking men! pure awsome. so after a tense half hour of inflating the tire, finding the hole, lighting the tire on fire, inflating the tire again, fixing my pump somehow... everything seemed to work out. I made it home in record time and before the sun set.
But anyway, so what do I do everyday, thats what I wanted to write about before, I am not even really sure what I do, well let us see:
I generally seem to be waking up between six and seven in the morning. At five fourty-five-ish the roosters would rather I wake up but I am trying to confound them and maybe eventually they will ease up. Whether or not it is a good idea, and I have heard varrying exclaimations, I have tried to run about every other day, which seems to be turning into Mon, Wedn and Fri. I dont really run that far or that fast but it feels good to do something like that, though the sand likes to get the better of me, and it feels like I am running through thousands of grains of very small rocks... weird.
Anyway, so my run usually lasys till seven or I may finally get up at seven, either way I am up and then going to pull water. For many male volunteers this apparently is a tricky situation and I have heard that they end up getting water from their families or something like that. For me, my first day, within my first two hours at my site, i had asked my counterpart where to get water. He grabbed me and my bucket and we walked to the closest well, he dumped water into it and then put it on my head. 'like that' he said, evidently it was what the former volunteer had done everyday so it was not a big deal for me to do it as well. So now I pull water every morning and every afternoon, about five or six buckets a day (it is not an enourmous bucket) depending on what I want to do that day: watering stuff, baths, drinking water, laundry, all that good stuff.
After the water thing is done, i sweep out my room, straighten things up and have breakfast on my own. This generally consists of some combination of cereal with powdered milk, chocoalte milk i make with hot chocolate mix, and half a loaf of french bread with either chocolate spread or honey. It is very small, but it generally holds me until lunch.
Then I try to be 'productive' until noon. This generally involves me walking around the village, finding various groups of people doing stuff - pounding millet, building a house, gathering leaves or firewood, often people just sitting around - and I sit with them and talk, or try to, find out thier names sometimes, where they live, what it is that they are doing and how to say it all and I try and write down as much as I can.
At about noon, I head back home for a bath, they feel really good in the heat of the day, and it gives me some time to decompress from the morning. Then I go and sit with my family and the neighbors out by the tree between our compounds until the food bowls start ariving and eventually I go and get a meal with my dad as well. Lunch, almost without fail, is greesy rice, a mouthful of carrot, and a greesy fish - fun stuff.
Then, my afternoons vary, I usually walk around more and talk to people, but only after it has cooled down a little. I often sit under the tree more till then and drink tea with the neighbors and try to understand their conversations. Sometimes I just walk around and try to explore the neighboring villages and areas around my village, I feel like the more people I know, or rather the more people that know me, even outside of my village, the more work I will be able to inspire. I hope.
Then around six or six thirty I get back home and pull more water, perhaps have myself another bath, try to recover from the inevitable afternoon misunderstanding (they seem to happen at least once, sometimes five or six times, every afternoon), and maybe i sit and read for an hour.
My family always eats when nearly all the stars have come out, around eight thirty-ish, which is earlier than I ate with my family in Thies, and it is much earlier than many other volunteers eat dinner too. Dinner is the meal that varries the most, though not really that much. It is always saac, or couscous senegalese with some kind of sause. most often it is hot salty brown water with a fish, this is my least favorite as fish + night = fish bones stuck in mouth/throat. we also have various leafy sauses, usually they are alright, and usually they are about the temperature of liquid lead. and my favorite sause that we have is the spicey bean sauce, where if i close my eyes it is like chili, well chilli that is missing many of its main ingredients, but thats why i close my eyes.
And thats about it. I turn in pretty early, nine thirty or so, and usually read for another hour maybe, or until i get tired of winding up my flashlight, or until the cricket who lives under my bed gets tired and decides to call it a night, but he is usually on his own time and pays me no mind.
So yeah, there is that. I know many of yall were wondering what it is i do and i hope that kinda makes that, well, spelled out.
magically, there was indeed a tire repair place right around the corner and even more magically, working there were two serere speaking men! pure awsome. so after a tense half hour of inflating the tire, finding the hole, lighting the tire on fire, inflating the tire again, fixing my pump somehow... everything seemed to work out. I made it home in record time and before the sun set.
But anyway, so what do I do everyday, thats what I wanted to write about before, I am not even really sure what I do, well let us see:
I generally seem to be waking up between six and seven in the morning. At five fourty-five-ish the roosters would rather I wake up but I am trying to confound them and maybe eventually they will ease up. Whether or not it is a good idea, and I have heard varrying exclaimations, I have tried to run about every other day, which seems to be turning into Mon, Wedn and Fri. I dont really run that far or that fast but it feels good to do something like that, though the sand likes to get the better of me, and it feels like I am running through thousands of grains of very small rocks... weird.
Anyway, so my run usually lasys till seven or I may finally get up at seven, either way I am up and then going to pull water. For many male volunteers this apparently is a tricky situation and I have heard that they end up getting water from their families or something like that. For me, my first day, within my first two hours at my site, i had asked my counterpart where to get water. He grabbed me and my bucket and we walked to the closest well, he dumped water into it and then put it on my head. 'like that' he said, evidently it was what the former volunteer had done everyday so it was not a big deal for me to do it as well. So now I pull water every morning and every afternoon, about five or six buckets a day (it is not an enourmous bucket) depending on what I want to do that day: watering stuff, baths, drinking water, laundry, all that good stuff.
After the water thing is done, i sweep out my room, straighten things up and have breakfast on my own. This generally consists of some combination of cereal with powdered milk, chocoalte milk i make with hot chocolate mix, and half a loaf of french bread with either chocolate spread or honey. It is very small, but it generally holds me until lunch.
Then I try to be 'productive' until noon. This generally involves me walking around the village, finding various groups of people doing stuff - pounding millet, building a house, gathering leaves or firewood, often people just sitting around - and I sit with them and talk, or try to, find out thier names sometimes, where they live, what it is that they are doing and how to say it all and I try and write down as much as I can.
At about noon, I head back home for a bath, they feel really good in the heat of the day, and it gives me some time to decompress from the morning. Then I go and sit with my family and the neighbors out by the tree between our compounds until the food bowls start ariving and eventually I go and get a meal with my dad as well. Lunch, almost without fail, is greesy rice, a mouthful of carrot, and a greesy fish - fun stuff.
Then, my afternoons vary, I usually walk around more and talk to people, but only after it has cooled down a little. I often sit under the tree more till then and drink tea with the neighbors and try to understand their conversations. Sometimes I just walk around and try to explore the neighboring villages and areas around my village, I feel like the more people I know, or rather the more people that know me, even outside of my village, the more work I will be able to inspire. I hope.
Then around six or six thirty I get back home and pull more water, perhaps have myself another bath, try to recover from the inevitable afternoon misunderstanding (they seem to happen at least once, sometimes five or six times, every afternoon), and maybe i sit and read for an hour.
My family always eats when nearly all the stars have come out, around eight thirty-ish, which is earlier than I ate with my family in Thies, and it is much earlier than many other volunteers eat dinner too. Dinner is the meal that varries the most, though not really that much. It is always saac, or couscous senegalese with some kind of sause. most often it is hot salty brown water with a fish, this is my least favorite as fish + night = fish bones stuck in mouth/throat. we also have various leafy sauses, usually they are alright, and usually they are about the temperature of liquid lead. and my favorite sause that we have is the spicey bean sauce, where if i close my eyes it is like chili, well chilli that is missing many of its main ingredients, but thats why i close my eyes.
And thats about it. I turn in pretty early, nine thirty or so, and usually read for another hour maybe, or until i get tired of winding up my flashlight, or until the cricket who lives under my bed gets tired and decides to call it a night, but he is usually on his own time and pays me no mind.
So yeah, there is that. I know many of yall were wondering what it is i do and i hope that kinda makes that, well, spelled out.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Errrm...
Travel seems to be a big part of many of these days. I would rather it not be as I am starting to become rather fed up with my bike. Or rather, I am becoming frustrated with the tires as they seem to prefer to be flat, and are flat, each and everytime that I look at them. The rest of the bike is working splendidly besides getting me covered in greese. This morning, after bikeing almost to Mbour in record time, i was sourly interupted suddenly when the back tire decided that it would only hold air for a hundred meters at a time. I spent a good little bit of time then this morning after walking the rest of the way taking apart the bits and gibbles, even puting the tire under water and only finding one very unimpressive hole that I patched (perhaps badly, but it was my first patch and no one to tell me how). That fun little episode certainly has not stopped the tires, both of them, even now, from going flat each and every chance that they get. I will leave for home a little early and assume that I will stop every twenty feet to fill them up again. Tomorrow, among other things, will be fix my bike day. Hopefully freal this time.
[as is the way of things, this is when the power decided to cut out]
[as is the way of things, this is when the power decided to cut out]
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The Beginnings of More Substance
Ok, so here it goes, I can do this...
Right, so I have been at my site now for nearly three weeks, the language is comming along and everything is so far going fairly well all things concidered. Hmm, i really need to recap a great deal of information, this may take many posts.
How bout starting with now and we will go from there.
So I had my birthday on Friday, it was a good day, very chill, just the way i like it. There was a funeral in my village in the afternoon and all day people were a bit aloof and acting funky, not in a bad way, just distracted and then all of the sudden all these tiedye clothes in the evening with the only explaination of- they are for sleeping in. but i am rushing myself. so anyway, mostly a good relaxing day, i got to read, write some, i didnt tell anyone in my village that it was my birthday mostly cause i wasnt sure what theyd do and they probably just would not care. all the same i walked around some, took some pictures that will eventually make it into this blog theoretically, and talked to the kids who were equally not invited to the funeral i guess.
well, at first i was invited. some people said i should definetly come and i should even take pictures. then my family asked if i was going and then when i said i was thinking about it they said no, i should not go. and then all day folks walked by me chillin in the shade and they would ask if i am going and then say i really should not go.... yeah, i was confused as well.
then yesterday, saturday, i left as early as i could, though dramatically later than i wanted, and biked to mbour for internet stuff like this and meeting up with some other volunteers for just some lunch and then i would ride back in the afternoon. well that didnt really turn out quite like that, after lunch we had a grand ole time on the beach where i decided that i could just stay here in mbour and go back today. this gave me much more time to lounge around and eat chicken and vegitables that i am severely lacking in my village.
So today, i get to use a pretty good cyber that i found and it even has english style keyboard settings and everything, YAY!
My serere is comming along, i can understand folks when they talk slowly and speak clearly at least (though they never do), but i feel like there are lots of words i am still missing in every conversation and i can never really get them to repeat them or define them, though, such is life.
Well, ok really more updates to come and i can recap all the goings ons and whatnots...
Right, so I have been at my site now for nearly three weeks, the language is comming along and everything is so far going fairly well all things concidered. Hmm, i really need to recap a great deal of information, this may take many posts.
How bout starting with now and we will go from there.
So I had my birthday on Friday, it was a good day, very chill, just the way i like it. There was a funeral in my village in the afternoon and all day people were a bit aloof and acting funky, not in a bad way, just distracted and then all of the sudden all these tiedye clothes in the evening with the only explaination of- they are for sleeping in. but i am rushing myself. so anyway, mostly a good relaxing day, i got to read, write some, i didnt tell anyone in my village that it was my birthday mostly cause i wasnt sure what theyd do and they probably just would not care. all the same i walked around some, took some pictures that will eventually make it into this blog theoretically, and talked to the kids who were equally not invited to the funeral i guess.
well, at first i was invited. some people said i should definetly come and i should even take pictures. then my family asked if i was going and then when i said i was thinking about it they said no, i should not go. and then all day folks walked by me chillin in the shade and they would ask if i am going and then say i really should not go.... yeah, i was confused as well.
then yesterday, saturday, i left as early as i could, though dramatically later than i wanted, and biked to mbour for internet stuff like this and meeting up with some other volunteers for just some lunch and then i would ride back in the afternoon. well that didnt really turn out quite like that, after lunch we had a grand ole time on the beach where i decided that i could just stay here in mbour and go back today. this gave me much more time to lounge around and eat chicken and vegitables that i am severely lacking in my village.
So today, i get to use a pretty good cyber that i found and it even has english style keyboard settings and everything, YAY!
My serere is comming along, i can understand folks when they talk slowly and speak clearly at least (though they never do), but i feel like there are lots of words i am still missing in every conversation and i can never really get them to repeat them or define them, though, such is life.
Well, ok really more updates to come and i can recap all the goings ons and whatnots...
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