more of my randomness

Hello hello!

Just got back from homestay, part 3. It’s pretty nice now actually, since I have my routine and relationships with my family fairly well established. I won’t lie, I’ve been a bit homesick at times; it’s funny how back in the states you know you take things for granted and you appreciate a lot of what you have (electricity, running water, good food, etc.) but living here you start to realize the things that you really honestly never thought about before. Here is a short list of things that I have now become intensely aware of that never really had that much importance back in the states:

· Weather- we do watch the weather in the states. We have an entire channel on TV devoted to it. We talk about it until day’s end, but that’s because we really have nothing better to talk about sometimes. Here, it actually has a real meaning behind it and yet there is less awareness of specific figures. For instance, I’ve realized that I have not actually wondered what temperature it is for a while, but I have an intense awareness of the temperature based on how hot or cold I am. I do not know the weather forecast or the relative humidity, but I do know that if it rains for several days before I travel down to southern Kaolack, I will not be able to get through the majority of the roads because it is not safe. Another thing we take for granted- working windshield wipers/no potholes in the roads. And don’t tell me about the pothole incident on I-93 in Boston just before I left- that is nothing in comparison.

· Nutrients in food-another thing that we think we are really aware of but in reality we have no idea. Only once you have been eating a diet of absolutely no fiber or decent protein for a month do you start to appreciate your food in the states. It’s one thing to be aware of it, it’s another to feel the physical effects of not having any real fruits or veggies on a regular basis, and every gram of vitamin you can get makes a huge difference. Suddenly you find yourself becoming intensely aware of your body functions as a result of nutrient intake (can you tell I went to school for science?) and much as we think about calorie intake and nutrients in the states, we get plenty. Once your diet starts affecting your reproductive and digestive systems and your hair growth, then we can start having a conversation.

· My own accent- suddenly, I consistently hear what I am saying. Not really related to things we take for granted, but I’ve noticed that I listen to how I talk both when I am speaking Wolof and English. I constantly compare myself to people; even other Americans since this is the first time I’ve really had a group of friends from all over the country. My language group alone consists of some girl from Boston (yours truly), a kid from Washington state and another guy from Memphis. You can imagine that we occasionally have our different viewpoints and mannerisms of speech.

· Skin quality- for those of you who know me, you probably know that I’ve dealt with some general acne problems for pretty much my whole life. However, my own awareness of it is different when 1-I am in a completely different climate and 2-my entire family just thinks that I have mosquito bites all over my face. It’s actually funny sometimes because I just go with it, it’s easier than explaining in a language I don’t completely understand or speak that in our American gene pool, we have this common harmless but annoying problem that affects some people more than others. In addition, keeping track of your skin is important here, since there are a lot of actual problems that must be dealt with. Parasites and rashes are common, and I know a lot of people who have already gotten ring worm or creeping eruption (google it) because we simply don’t have the natural defenses to these things. Minor infections also can become a major problem quickly if they are not checked, as we saw with my toe, because our standards of cleanliness here are many times lower than what we are used to in the states. Don’t worry, we’ve been briefed on all these things by med, so please don’t freak out.

· Things that keep me sane- this may seem obvious, but most of us have never spent a significant time without the ability to talk to their friends or even other people that speak the same language as you. Everyone hears that people learn a lot about themselves in Peace Corps, and this is why- you spend so much time dealing with stuff by yourself without help or support from other Americans or friends that you really have to know what makes you happy and keeps you calm as a survival technique. This is often reading a book or listening to music or something, but everyone’s got their own ways of dealing with stuff, and we have so few of our normal electronic distractions here that it forces you to learn about new interests and gives you a lot of time to reflect. Not to get too deep or anything, but it’s a thought.

· Other random small things you take for granted that don’t require a long explanation- running shoes, tables and chairs, toothbrushes, shingled roofs, real mattresses… the list goes on.

So more real updates on my life, now that I have sufficiently bored you- I am legitimately sick for the first time in country. I did pretty well making it this far all things considered, and I’ve had a few moments, but what can you do; it was bound to happen eventually. Yesterday afternoon after class we went to the field to pick some beans with my LCFs sister, and it had been a very hot day. I was feeling sort of tired, and I attributed it to the heat and not getting enough exercise, so I decided it would be fun to go for a walk. When we got there, I started feeling very tired and dizzy, and I sat in the shade to try to rest while the others picked beans. By the time we were leaving, I was feeling nauseous and pretty weak. We walked home slowly, and when I got back I just sat quietly while my family watched, concerned. I figured I had heat exhaustion, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t really sweat since yesterday morning, so I was pretty dehydrated. Last night I started vomiting and having diarrhea, which is not an enjoyable experience, but is less enjoyable with a conservative Muslim family and a squat toilet. I had a fever all night into this morning, and I slept most of the morning and have been trying to rehydrate. So that’s that.

The rest of the week was relatively fun. We have a lot more time to just hang out in the community, and we’re starting to have the language skills to chat with people too. Even our formal classes are mostly discussion based. Don’t get the idea that we are all fluent Wolof speakers now- we’re not. A higher level would especially be appreciated in instances when I am trying to explain to my family that I have to take my oral rehydration salts because I am dehydrated and have a high temperature and I don’t really feel like eating, but what can you do. It’s rewarding too when you can start learning things that you would never have understood a month ago. I’ll give you a quick list of the highlights of the week-

· Soccer games! We went to two soccer matches and supported our friends from Keur Madaro down in our neighboring village Keur Maggee. I will post pictures of that soon after this post so you can see. It’s a different experience- they play on a sand field and don’t have very many subs, so the poor players are half beaten and sanded to death by halftime. The environment of the game is pretty cool though- women stand with other women and men with other men, and the women all bring bowls or some device to make noise on and sing or chant the whole game. I’ve got a video too- we’ll see if that works.

· Modeling with kids- this sounds ridiculous but it’s funny and a welcome break from sitting on a mat. After Korite, there were some high heel shoes hanging out in the foyer, and just for fun me and my little sister started wearing them and pretending we were models walking up and down the runway. I can’t tell you how adorable and hilarious it is to see little Senegalese girls pretending they are supermodels with their oversized high heel shoes.

· Running! Probably the best part of my week. My little brother likes running too, so he’s started taking me on some routes to our neighboring villages through the fields surrounding Keur Madaro. The routes are only 3-4 kilometers long total, but I will take what I can get, and I need to start off slow after not running for a while or being used to the heat. Also, I run in my Chacos. Didn’t have my running shoes in the village, and once I did start running, I realized that the Chacos are probably a better choice anyway in the sand and weeds. They’re cooler, lighter and still have support, so as long as I’m not running for any significant distance, they’re the way to go. I think every PCV should have a pair.

Ok this blog entry is getting long enough and I’m starting to ramble on, so I’ll keep you updated on my illness and the coming week. We have our counterpart workshop starting tomorrow afternoon, when we will all meet our permanent counterparts for the first time, and the center will turn into one giant mass of 200 people who all speak different languages running around confused and many of which never have seen a real toilet or shower before in their lives. I’m sure I will have some fun stories to share soon.

Signing off and hoping to hear from all of you,

~E

Volunteer visit and a brief introduction to Kaolack

Hello world!

This is pretty cool, I just checked the stats on my blog and it seems there are a lot of people interested in my life out there! One of the big linkers to this page is PeaceCorpsJournals, which I connected my blog to on purpose to help out all you aspiring PCVs out there wondering what it was like. I know I religiously stalked that site a few months ago, so hope I'm not wasting all your time ;)

At any rate, I am currently at the Kaolack regional house for the night where I will be able to come to throughout my service to hang out with other Americans, cook food on a real stove, take a real shower, watch tv, go on the internet (most of my future blog posts will be typed here) and play some guitar! Yes, there is a house guitar here. It's a shitty guitar with no picks or capo, but it is fantastic nonetheless. For those of you who are unaware, I have been spending much of my procrastination time over the last year learning to play, and I even took lessons this past summer for a few weeks courtesy of my lovely boyfriend back in the states. So yes, music has re-entered my life, if only briefly. In the meantime, I have taken to singing to my host family, mostly the little children. When I first arrived at homestay and could say absolutely nothing in Wolof, I saw that people sometimes sang to themselves, so I started to sing in English to myself too. They thought it was hilarious and fascinating, and it was a great bonding experience to share music, which has always managed to bridge cultures and language barriers. And my voice got better. Or maybe I just haven't heard good voices for so long that it seems like it did. Damnit, I'm going crazy and I've only been here a month and a half. But I digress.

Volunteer visit was fun, if not as useful as I had hoped it to be. Since I am opening a new site, I do not have former volunteer (onCN in PCSenegalese) to go visit, so I had to visit another AgFo Wolof volunteer in a different subregion. I found out that when I install, I will be the only Wolof Agfo volunteer in Fatick, which is fine. The more I learn, the more I realize that you really can do whatever project motivates you, even if that means doing something partially outside your sector. That means I can work with volunteers in all sectors on everyone's projects. In fact, I just learned that a whole group of volunteers in the Kaolack region are working together from different sectors this coming weekend on a mangrove restoration project. Too bad I could not have sworn in a month sooner; I would love to see how that works. Overall, the visit was fun though. I did get to walk around the village, see what a standard PCV hut looks like and get some information on install and how the first few weeks after swear-in will run, and hear some fun stories. Most of the volunteers that were in the stage a year ahead of us can't believe that a year has gone by so fast, which is promising. I can't wait to be done with training, have a place of my own and be able to establish some semblance of a routine. Moving back and forth every few days gets tiring quickly, and it's annoying to feel like you have no real home. The stage ahead of us seems so well adjusted and comfortable here in comparison. (god help me if one of them reads this blog) The other fun occurrence we got to experience was public transportation- we had to take an Alhum back and forth to my volunteer's site when we went to go visit some other volunteers in Nioro, her local town. Alhum are old vans with some seats installed in them that serve as the public bus system in Senegal, but there are no such things as tickers or money counters like there are in America, so often the people on it argue and try to jip you for being white around here. That was the first time I felt real racial discrimination based on my race here. I had already gotten used to the constant shouts of "toubab!" but having someone put their foot down and tell you that you have to pay more because they think you have more money is a really upsetting experience. We also took a sept-place this morning, which is for longer-distance transport and works between towns and cities rather than stopping off to pick people up along the way. They get there names from the French word for 7 and "place" or places. Sept-place=7 places. They are Peugeot station wagons that must be filled in order to go anywhere. You first go to a "garage" in a town where you find a sept-place to take you where you want to go. You then put your stuff in the car (bags in the trunk cost more so pack light, argue that a small backpack is like your baby that you must hold in your lap, then just get in before they can respond), and finally wait until there are enough people who want to go to the same location as you. It generally doesn't take too long for larger cities such as Kaolack because there is a lot of traffic between those locations, so we only waited 10 minutes or so. Then you pay your fare and go. Upon arrival, you arrive at a ridiculous mess of people, taxis, sept-place, alhums and vendors known as the Kaolack garage, and you get out and book it as fast as you can out of there until you find a taxi that will take you to the house. Finally, you arrive at little America where the relaxation can occur.

Speaking of relaxing, I am about to embark on just that. I will update more soon, no worries!

~E

Merry Korite

Brief update, since I am consistently being told that there are more of you out there than I originally believed. Back in Theis for the night! Korite was lovely, it was nice to have a chance to just hang out with my family a bit rather than having to schedule around going to class. They made a special dish for lunch and dinner consisting of meat, onion and garlic sauce, potatoes and peas which was served with bread, a welcome change from the normal day to day dish of rice and fish or beans. Everyone dressed up too, and it was cool to see everyone’s korite outfits. It sort of reminds me of Christmas in the states; kids have those cute little dresses that their parents pick out for them. The hair is the best part. People spend days ahead of time braiding their hair and adding in fake hair and beads or other sparkly things. They didn’t have time to do mine- sorry to anybody who was looking forward to more Emily-with-braids pictures, but I have some great pics of the kids. And for those of you parents out there who were wondering how mothers in Senegal got their kids to sit still for long enough to have their hair done, they don’t. It is either done in small amounts of time with many breaks over a few days, or the kid is held down kicking and screaming while her mother makes her look beautiful by Senegalese standards. Generally the former occurs, which leads to several days of many Senegalese girls walking around with half-done hairdos for several days leading up to Korite. It’s actually quite funny, and for a minute there I seriously thought I had been transported back to the 80s when some of my younger sisters looked like they had a hard core mullet. Wish I got a picture of that one.

Anyway, I had another cultural point I thought it would be interesting to share. We had a class session here in Theis the other day on marketing agro- and agroforestry products. The girl who was presenting explained how she had helped her counterpart to market the hand-made soap she makes in her house. Many women like her make home-made products to sell to the village, but have very little education and do not understand the concept of supply and demand or marketing, or even oftentimes basic mathematics. Originally, soap-woman was making her soap and selling it for the exact price of the materials. Many women also do not factor in transportation cost if they are lucky enough to travel into a regional market to sell their product, and may lose money on it. One may think that the logical answer would be to sell their product for more money, but that’s where an interesting cultural component comes in- women here often feel guilty for making money off of something. I do not know why since I do not yet have personal experience with this, but some people speculated that it may be because they believe that it is the man’s job to make money and not a women’s or because they know that others expect to pay a certain price and feel bad changing it. That fact really hit me for some reason when we talked about it because it has so many cultural and economic implications, and reveals a small hint as to why many developing countries are just that- developing. Think about it, research it, do what you will. I’ll keep you posted if I find out more.

Another quick cultural note- I have yet to learn the word for “Please” in Wolof. I asked once, and somebody told me, but I have never heard anybody use it. People also laugh whenever I tell them thank you. Nobody else uses that either. In class, we learned that people don’t normally say thank you, they just remember whatever you did for them and do something for you later in exchange. It just occurred to me today how that is so drastically different from how we were all brought up in the US. There are no Barnie songs for little kids here about how please and thank you are the magic words. Sorry if that brings up any scarring memories for anybody.

I meant for this blog post to be relatively short, which clearly I did not accomplish, but here’s the life update section. I go to volunteer visit tomorrow. We will be taking a bus at 7 am down to our regional house in Kaolack where I will meet up with my host volunteer, and we will travel together to her site. I get to spend a few days doing some of my first technical observations about my region and learning about the life of a regular PCV, so I am pretty excited. I have to take pictures of stuff anyway as part of an ecological assignment that is due on Friday (make a powerpoint and tell us in 10 minutes about the ecology you observed) so I will have plenty to share next week. Until next time…

~E

Back from Homestay, part 2

Hi All!

It's been a little while. I feel like I have a ton to say and not enough time to say it in, since I have spent a while already on the computer talking to my parents and writing emails.

Just got back from our 2-week stay at homestay. And I have pictures! that are uploaded! Doing my best to get captions on them so you know what you are looking at. The internet is always iffy here in Thies, but I am hanging out while everyone else is out in the market or at the bar so I can get some bandwidth to myself for a few. It's actually quite lovely just having a bit of quiet time on the computer after two weeks of tons of little kids crying all the time and not understanding what is going on most of the time. I'm definitely starting to pick the language up bit by bit though. It takes a while and the progress is sometimes painfully slow when all you want to do is tell them about your home in America or express your frustration about learning to live in a new culture, but your vocabulary is limited to saying "I need to go to my room to get some water" or other fun things.

Since I know you are all intensely interested in my first real impressions of life in Senegal, I wrote down a few key experiences in my journal to remember to write about later. Here goes- 10 random experiences for you all

1) Mangos. Ker Madaro is known for its mangos. Every day either in the afternoon or evening after class, Spencer Peter and I go into the market to buy a basket of mangoes, then we go back to the school where we can be away from people and speak English for a few minutes and eat them. It's pretty much the best part of my day, and also the only time I get any fiber in my diet. (Sorry to my aunt if you're reading this, but you would hate it here as a nutritionist. They don't exactly understand the concept of a balanced diet in Senegal)

2)Being asked by every person in the street how my fast is going, not seeming to understand that not every person in the world is Muslim. Usually I respond that I'm Christian, which is easier than trying to explain that I'm Jewish, since most of them have never heard of that before. I also don't have the vocabulary to tell them that I am Jewish or explain what that means. It's hard enough for some people in English.

3) Getting my hair braided. This falls under the category of the ‘ngendi,’ the Muslim baptism here. I think I mentioned in a previous entry that my mom just had her baby, and the baptism was held while I was at sight. For this, they wanted to braid my hair and make me look more Senegalese. Rather than doing the typical cornrow type braids we all think of, they made individual small braids around my head so that I looked a bit like a relatively cute alien. I suppose women really are from Venus. OK dumb joke.

4) The ngendi itself. It actually wasn’t as ridiculous as it could have been since it was during Ramadan, so they couldn’t eat during the day. Also, it started thunderstorming and the electricity went out for the evening, so most of it was held inside. I did, however, watch a goat get killed to eat, which was a new experience to say the least. I posted a pic of the dead skinned goat in the album, so be aware.

5) My first charet ride. Also under the category of the ngendi, but deserves its own number. I sat on the back of a horse-drawn cart while the horse galloped through down and I had very little to hold onto. It’s not as bad as it sounds, but still a bit nerve-wracking. They thought it was hilarious that I looked scared. I’m ok with that.

6) Being asked to marry people. I generally ward this off by explaining that I already have a husband and show people a picture of Tim. I get creative with it too. The night before the ngendi my dad had a bunch of people over for a dinner, and one of them started persistently asking me to be his wife. I just kept repeating to him that I already had a husband. My family is already very aware that I am “married,” so they thought the whole situation was quite funny. I started explaining to him, loudly and very slowly so everyone could hear, “IIIIIII HHHHAAAAAVVVVEEEEE AAAA HHHUUUUSSSBBAAANNNDD.” This, of course, occurred in Wolof so I didn’t necessarily understand his response, but my family thought it was hilarious and was quoting me for days afterwards. Humor is usually the best way to respond to any situation, and it does not always require language skills.

7)I have to mention bucket baths and squat toilets. They are not as bad as they seem. It makes you appreciate a real toilet that much more, but most of the day when I’m missing America, I’m not thinking about how much I want to just sit down and go to the bathroom. Seriously people. There are more important things in life than running water. Like chicken Caesar wraps.

8) The night I got locked in my room. Dislcaimer: this one involves bodily functions. My key has been getting stuck a lot lately cuz the door is a bit rusted out. It worked, but lately I’ve taken to using the bottle opener on my swiss army knife to open the door in the morning (it locks with a key from the inside.) As you can imagine, this is probably not the best way to approach the situation, but I already feel like a burden on the family sometimes so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. The other night, I had a bit more bissap than usual. Bissap, by the way, is the Senegalese equivalent of cranberry juice, made with sort of a hibiscus flower that grows here. It is delicious, and my family knows I like it so they give me leftover sometimes if everyone has already had it. Anyway, nature called, but I had already locked my door. It was about 11:30 or so and people had already gone to sleep, so I tried to pry the door open and the key started bending in the door. After a few tries, the key ended up breaking in half, leaving part of the key entirely lodged in the lock and leaving me stuck in the room having to go to the bathroom after everyone had gone to bed. Not wanting to wake everyone up, I looked around my room for other alternatives. Finally, I saw the plastic Chinese takeout container in the corner of my room that I had been using to soak my toe in when it was infected. I know my mom had been pressing me to bring those to country for a reason…

9) Kids running away screaming bloody murder because they’ve never seen a white person before. One of the funniest experiences I’ve had here, sadly, was walking into a house that I hadn’t been to before. One little boy looked up at me, then realized that I was a white person, and started screaming and crying like he was about to die. I have never seen a kid more scared in my life. Sadly, I found it hard not to laugh. Hope that doesn’t make me a bad person.

10) Saved the best for last. I finally got comfortable enough with my family to bring out the ipod. I’m glad I got the new one cuz it has a little speaker on it, so I can share my music with everyone. People here really do like American music, and I have plenty of it, which makes me popular after break-fast every evening when people are allowed to listen to music (it’s prohibited as a part of the fast for Ramadan during the day). The first night I had it out, all my little sisters were gathered around listening to it and dancing so whatever I put on, including Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco. I can also sing along with whatever since they don’t understand anyway and they think its fantastic that I know the words. Finally, I got to the Lion King, and sung and acted out Hakuna Matata for my whole family, which they thought was hilarious. So yes people, I had a dance party to Hakuna Matata in Africa, with Africans. I can die happy. And don’t you dare say that the Lion King does not take place in Senegal since it is Swahili. I don’t care.

K So not that gives you a bit of a picture of my life here, I can give you the big news of the day: SITE ANNOUNCEMENTS!

I will officially be living in a small village of 600 people called Keur Andalla Wilane, which is in the subregion of Fatick in Kaolack. I am not particularly surprised about my assignment but I am still stoked, since I am within a pretty short ride from the ocean, I am in biking distance of several other volunteers, I can easily get into a small town near me called Toubacouta, and can cheaply and easily get into Kaolack, the regional capitol, for around the equivalent of 2 dollars American. Keep in mind that “quickly and easily” is a very relative term here. I don’t have electricity or running water probably, but that is fine since the solio has been working pretty well for my ipod and phone the few times I have tried it. I am glad I can get internet access fairly regularly to start off in the local town and in Kaolack, and I might be getting internet access at site if I can figure out a way to charge my comp in village and pay for the expresso card. At any rate you will all know in time.

Ok I think I have bored you enough sufficiently with my ranting. I will have more to say after Korite when all of Senegal erupts into a crazy mass of ridiculousness. Stay tuned.

Love to the states (and anyone reading this abroad)

~E