Senegalese out of Senegal

One of my favorite conversations to have with Senegalese people is about my life in America; what my English name is, what the climate and food is like, what our favorite sports are, etc. It gives me a chance to reminisce while holding a captive audience, and every Senegalese person I've ever met wants to go to America. I always end the conversation with something along the lines of "but if you went there, you'd hate it. There's no attaya (Senegalese tea they drink out of shot glasses with tons of sugar), it's really cold, and you wouldn't get to eat rice out of a single bowl with your hand ever single day. Also, Americans are addicted to work, much as we don't think we are. Most of us can't sit still for long periods of time without any real goal. Instead, we're always working at some sort of chore or following some sort of plan, even if that plan involves things like going to the gym or going out to meet someone for coffee- there's still a plan. Many people I talk to agree with me; they think they're better off here and might as well stay. Many people don't care and decide that all American have tons of money and live happy careless lives. Some really just want to go to see it for themselves as a vacation then come back to tell about it, which is okay with me.

Lately, though, I've really started wondering what Senegalese who do make it to America actually think of it once they see it for what it is rather than just through a TV screen translated into French. I've now been here long enough to have made enough contacts that I've gathered various opinions on the matter. Surprisingly, these opinions really run the gamut from hating it to illegally staying there because they can't stand to come back to their own country. For instance, the other day I was visiting my host dad Ousman in Saloum Diane for a meeting, and met one of his collegues who had gone to America and lived in New York for a couple of years a while back. I asked him if he hated it because of the cold, and he said no, that wasn't really an issue. The problem is that there's no real rest. If you're accustomed to spending every afternoon resting and drinking attaya, then you go drive a taxi through Manhattan for two years where you don't quite speak the language, I can understand that. When I was talking to my host mother Arame last week, I wondered out loud what Seneglase think of America, and she said that whenever she's had friends that went there they always return saying "Senegal am na jamm. Men nga toog fi." (Senegal is in peace, you can stay here.) Another person I met yesterday who I am collaborating with had a younger sister who managed to go through an exchange program for the better part of a year, and she came back to Senegal saying "Amerik nexul," or rather, America isn't very nice. Her experience there was focused more around the American education system, which varies drastically to the Senegalized-version of the French system here. I'm guessing it was more rigorous and she was held to higher expectations than she was used to, but I can't say for sure.

Some people think that they will love America and are not disappointed when they get there. Pape told me the other day that he knew a man when he was a kid in our neighboring village of Keur Theirno, and he left two wives and all of his kids to go to America and work at a hotel there. He's been there now for 30 years and as far as anyone knows, he has no plans to ever come back. One of the boutique owners in Kaolack across the street from a restaurant we like used to work in a boutique in New York for a few years also, and he enjoyed his time there greatly. He makes a special effort to import some of the same boutique-type products we value there such as orbitz gum and other brand names I can't quite remember.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to write in this blog entry as a conclusion, until I realized that just as people from America differ drastically, so do Seneglaese. Every experience is an individual one. Some PCVs come to Senegal and fall in love with the culture here, and others simply can never get the taste for it, and it is really no different the other way around. Another way of explaining my point: when I was talking to my work partner yesterday about his little sister, I later thought to ask what state she had lived in. He responded that she had lived in Kansas. Being my loyal Bostonian self, I joked, "Well that's why she didn't like it." If I went to Kansas, the culture there alone differs so drastically from my own American experience that I probably would have been saying the same thing. (Sorry to anyone from Kansas reading this, I promise it's not personal.)

All in all, this just motivates me to find a bunch of Wolof-speaking Senegalese whenever I go back to America and throw out a couple of "Asalam alekum"s. Could make for an interesting international social study.

~E

Welcome to Pepiniering Hell

Ok, so it’s not as bad as the title of this post might insinuate, but it’s about as hot as hell here, and for a couple of weeks, I am out in the field pretty relentlessly filling tree sacs, scarifying seeds, and trying to organize farmers and the women’s group to get their work done so the seedlings will have enough time to root and grow before they get outplanted over the rainy season. The majority of the tree nurseries will be devoted to local thorny species that will be used in live fencing. Now is the season when the need for decent fencing is best demonstrated, since the rains have been gone long enough that there is really no natural grass that goats, sheep and cows can graze on, so they are highly motivated to try to break through any man-made barriers that are placed between them and the yummy dry-season gardens that are lovingly watered and taken care of on a daily basis. Monday morning, for instance, while watering my garden out in Pape’s field and waiting for the rest of the women to get there and begin their pepiniere, a small heard of cows broke through the tree-branch fence they had constructed to begin feasting on the okra, onion, and tomato planted there. Diego, being a curious puppy, and I ran over there yelling (or barking) to get them to leave. The damage was noticeable though, and hopefully now the women will have learned that it is important to begin seeding live fencing and inspecting their dead fence regularly for gaps or weak areas.

While I spend my mornings filling plastic bags with dirt and manure, I am trying to figure out the best way to keep cool in the scorching afternoons. Oumi finds it highly amusing that I have taken to soaking a bandana and wrapping it around my head, or even just soaking my entire tshirt and fanning myself to take advantage of evaporative cooling (I’m such a geek.) My canary, the French word for the large clay pot used for storing water that I purchased in a louma a couple of months back, has been put to good use in its original intended purpose: storing and cooling water. Granted the water is not ice cold, but it is significantly cooler than if I drank it directly from a plastic filter or a Nalgene bottle. Sleeping, however, is a different matter altogether. While I have not yet been forced to set up my cot under a mosquito net outside, I generally adapt the wet-bandana concept to put over my to help me keep cool trying to sleep, or even a larger piece of wax fabric to put over my whole body. By the time May rolls around, I will attempt to not fill up the majority of my blog entries complaining about the horrors of the hot season. The beginning of June is equally painful, but the first rain is generally due in mid-June, so I eagerly await that watery reprieve.

Also, in case anybody in the land of online-ordered pizza deliveries has been keeping track, I have no been in this country over eight months. Can you believe it? Looking ahead, I still have a long way to go, but going from the comfortable life of living in a university with close access to all of your friends, good food and regular wing nights at your local pub to pulling your water from a well and eating millet porridge for dinner ever night, it’s easy to see that I’ve come a rather long way. Not to get too sentimental, but it is amazing what a couple months working and living in a third world country will do for your general perspective. It no longer weirds me out if I find myself stuck on a rickety old bus with a bunch of people who have a different skin color than yours and are yelling at each other in various languages in the middle of the desert with a screaming baby next to you, while it very well may have thrown me off a little bit before I arrived in this country. It’s a lot easier to just anticipate that everything will go wrong here and be extra happy when something goes right than if you take things like bus schedules for granted and get overly upset when you find yourself waiting at 4 am for two hours to get on that aforementioned adventure.

In the meanwhile, it is time for me to go pull water so I can go seed some Acacia mellifera and reward myself with a cool bucket bath. You should try one sometime, it can be rather refreshing. Come help me fill some tree sacs while you’re at it.

~E

New Mail Box!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since my last blog post. Here is a short recap of my life since the last one:

I sat at site for 2 weeks or so preparing seeds, working in the garden, and getting the school windbreak off the ground. Check out my pepiniering season photos if you're curious.

Then, I traveled to Foundiougne to visit Oumy, my teacher/sister. It was bizarre seeing a more developed Senegalese town where the majority of the population is educated and relatively middle-class. She took me to the beach where we went swimming in clothing that I would never consider wearing in the more conservative village, and even wearing a one-piece bathing suit I was still more covered than some of the Senegalese women wearing bikinis on the side of the water. Her house also has something your don't expect to find in the majority of Senegalese households- indoor plumbing! Not to the degree a standard American household does; there is no kitchen indoors and you still do your laundry by hand, but I was pretty floored to see a real shower and flushing toilet inside a house.

Alas, after my short beach vacation with my Senegalese friends, I had to return to site for a little while longer before returning to the regional house to work on my volunteer report form and pick up tree sacs. Over the next couple of weeks, all of my time will be occupied by sticking dirt and manure mixtures into small plastic bags, putting some seeds in them and praying to Allah that they will grow before the rains come. Wish me luck.

In the mean time, enjoy this video that I have been trying to upload for the last couple of weeks and finally managed to work. It's a tour of Pape's garden where I spend most of my working hours, and I am sick of typing to you all, so this is my alternative:

Welcome to Pape's Field

Also, as the title of this post would lead you to believe, I got a new mailing address!! When I first installed, I did not realize just how far Sokone was from my site, and even though it is closer to my site than Kaolack, it is simply not convenient for me to get there either as a day trip or while I am in transit. Therefore, this should both speed up the arrival time of the package and the ease of checking my mailbox and pick-up for me. From now on, please send packages to the new address:

Emily Tran

B.P. 299

Kaolack, Senegal

West Africa

It's also posted on the side of the blog if for some reason you didn't make it this far in this post. Maybe you're rewatching that video a few times, I never know.