tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18592277028425471312024-02-20T12:45:10.523-08:00The Tale of Emily and the African AdventureA blog to document some of my experiences as I travel to Senegal with the Peace Corps.Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-10231773873470769662012-03-31T11:00:00.002-07:002012-03-31T11:15:29.052-07:00Senegal from my Parents' Perspectives<div>My mom and dad came to visit me!!! Rather than boring you all with my descriptions of ferrying them around for 10 days, here's a change- Senegal from their points of view! First my dad:</div><br /><br /><br /><div>This was a trip that opened my eyes to how more than half the world lives in third world. It was both fascinating and surreal. Everything works differently in Senegal. It is dirty, people throw their trash everywhere and occasionally burn things on the side of the road. The roads are mostly paved in Dakar and very dangerous since the taxi drivers leave no room between themselves and the cars in front of them. Outside of Dakar, the only streets that are paved are a few city to city connector roads, which are the width of a side street in America and the main streets in other cities. Major roads often change from potholed paved to laterite clay between cities. Trips to villages are either on the clay laterite roads or even worse, sand. We took public transportation during our trip in either a 40 passenger mini bus with baggage and people hanging from the roof and fare collectors hanging from the rear. The other major public transit is a Sept-place, which is an eight person Peugeot station wagon that they often cram extra people into. Catching rides on Sept-places is an experience that is right out of a movie. You go to an open air garage with hundreds of people peddling merchandise and make arrangements with route drivers for transit and haggle for a good price for your bags and transit. The best transit was riding bicycles from Toubacouta to Emily's village, a two hour bike ride on laterite and sand roads. We passed by 7-8 villages along the way with little kids running alongside yelling “Toubab” (Foreigner or White Person) and asking for candy or money in Wolof. It is a stark dry and sandy landscape with domesticated goats, sheep, cows, chickens roaming about. Over the course of our stay in village we saw how difficult life is with lack of water in this very arid climate. A dead horse lying on the side of the road was being nibbled on by vultures, a donkey with a broken leg bent at a sideways angle was pulling a cart with five people aboard, and dried up water holes were collecting trash, trash, trash everywhere. All the rain comes during the June - September rainy season, and the rest of the time the water has to be managed frugally. Just getting water up the well and carrying it back to the hut for use for bucket baths, drinking and cooking makes you use less since it is such a big effort. I estimate that Emily uses 5-10 gallons a day. In America we calculate 275 gallons a day per person when estimating needs for new houses.<br />Life in Keur Andella. We were honored guests that were introduced to about half of the Wolof-speaking people of the village of 600. The village chief was wonderful, the Imam was gracious, and Emily's host family went out of their way to make us feel comfortable and shared meals with us. Americans would be appalled by the food, cleanliness and customs of life in the village. Meals are served on a big platter with a rice base, onion sauce and a small boney helping of fish or chicken in the middle. The host picks at the fish/chicken pulls off a small piece and tosses it into your section of the bowl. Locals eat with their hands (we could use spoons) and mash the rice together into a clump before putting it into their mouths spitting out bones.<br />The people are so friendly and appreciative of Emily and in extension us. Emily has been doing a world of good for the people of the village who are educated through third or fourth grade if they are lucky. A few go on to Middle and High School. Among the projects she is working on is a latrine project, adding 24 squat toilets scattered around the village. Many people go in the open and during the rainy season the feces can pollute the wells. We met the builder of the latrines and saw the caste cement caps being placed. Another project she is working on is the Women's Garden. The nutrition in villages revolves around mostly rice and minimal protein. There are efforts to educate women about better nutrition, and Emily is assisting in this effort by acquiring barbed wire fencing to protect the plants and assist the women to plant vegetables. We also saw school gardens, which educate children in nutrition and planting vegetables.<br />There is so much more that Emily is doing with planting live fencing, interacting with teachers and presenting America in a good light. It is the best goodwill for America to have Peace Corp doing work in third world countries. The people in village are genuinely warm, thankful and peace-loving. I have to laugh at how much celebrity Emily (Fatou) has in her village and several nearby villages. People all yell “Fatou, Fatou!” in greeting. They know what she is doing for them and it makes me very proud.<br />We met many of her fellow Peace Corp volunteers and I am very impressed at their motivation and knowledge in a very difficult environment. Mary and I had some good laughs with them during a regional get together, where we helped paint a new sub-regional office. These volunteers deserve our thanks and help when needed. Other diversions - The three of us went to Keur Bamboung where we spent two days in bliss on an ecotourism retreat on an island in the delta region. We also went to Toubab Diallaw and enjoyed a beachside hotel with a luxury tower room that I'll post pictures of. The touristy visits were fun and made it easier for our American bodies to get through 10 days in Senegal. After seeing and experiencing village life, I have much more respect for the Peace Corp Volunteers and especially Fatou. </div><br /><div></div><br /><br /><br /><div>And now it's mom's turn:</div><br /><br /><br /><div>Well, here we are back from Senegal. This will be a trip I'll never forget. The 2 days spent in village was the high point for me. The people clearly love Emily and really value her efforts to improve the circumstances in village. It was heart-warming to witness, and really made Joel and me much more comfortable with her life there.<br />The most important skill you need there is the ability to speak Wolof. When you master that, you're in the club. You can then negotiate every purchase, whether it be food or transportation, because unlike the US, everything is a negotiation. It was amusing to not only Joel and me, but to Senagalese bystanders to watch this slight, white girl fiercely negotiate a fair price for a cab. The other cab drivers observing this always smiled or laughed. You have to steel yourself to do this, though, and it can clearly become exhausting to the one doing it- unlike us bystanders. The "cabs" and sept-places are a real trip. When I first got into one, I only did so because Emily seemed perfectly comfortable with it. You go to a "garage" which is just an open location in the town or city where 25-50 beat up cars and passenger vans are waiting to fill up, so that they can get their full fair before leaving for a destination. While waiting for the 7 passenger beat up Peugeot station wagon, or "Sept-place" to fill up, numerous adults and kids are knocking at the window or patting the back of your shirt through the back window to get your attention, trying to sell water, cashews, cellphone refill cards, clothes, you name it. The 3 of us always sat in the 3rd row because it was much more spacious than the 2nd, where often 4 people can squeeze in together. You always want a window open when the engine is on, so as not to become asphyxiated by the fumes. The price for transportation is a bargain, however. It never costs more than a few dollars to go approx 20 miles. But, hands down, transportation is the most dangerous thing in this country, since there are virtually no traffic lights, speed limits, seat belts, door handles that work, unbroken windshields, I could go on and on.<br />The best way to travel if you can physically do it is by bike. Em secured 2 extra bikes for us to use biking down to her village- approx 15 miles from Toubacouta, a town we stopped in for a day . Thanks for the bikes, Rob and Garrison! We met a bunch of the PC sub-region volunteers and did a little painting in the new office. It was fun hanging out for the afternoon with all the "young folk" and having a big platter of “yassa jen” for lunch, then a beer later at the "patron" hotel overlooking the delta. The next day we biked to her site- Ker Andallah- over laterite and dirt roads. Looking at the scenery took your mind off the heat. It is really beautiful biking through the open countryside. The land is much like Arizona without the cactus. When you get away from the towns, you leave the garbage on the side of the road behind. Since there is no garbage pick-up, there is garbage everywhere, and often you smell burning garbage.<br />I was struck by the physical beauty of the people. Almost everyone is thin and strong, with good posture from pulling water and carrying it on their heads. The women dress nicely with bright fabric and matching head wraps. In Senegal you don't need to go to the gym to stay in shape- especially in a farming community.<br />The food was good- but not everything. Like cooks, everywhere, some can do a great job and some not so good. We had a similar dish in a much poorer house that was much better that at the richer house, only due to the skill of the cook- always a woman, by the way. We liked the yassa and ceeb so much, we brought back some “magi” spice to replicate the dishes at home. We actually helped Em out by buying this because she needed some change for an internet cafe next door and even though she had bought a few items, the boutique (mini-mart) owner wouldn't accept her purchase unless it was a decent amount, since small bills are so rare. There is no such thing as using a credit or debit card in this country, and if you don't have small bills, like 1- 5 dollars, you are screwed, since almost no one has change.<br />All in all this was a trip of a life time. I thank you Emily for giving us the eye opening experience to visit your host country and changing our world view. We here in the US are blessed in many ways and need to remember that. I didn't know if the Peace Corps was making a difference before this trip, but I now believe it is making some headway into helping this poor country. It has many years ahead of it, yet, to become self-sustaining. We were there over the run-off election and thank goodness it was a peaceful one. The few beautiful tourist sites we visited were empty due to the fear of rioting during the election. We did enjoy the peace and quiet- especially in Keur Bamboung, a lovely eco-tourist campemont on the Delta. Thanks again, Fatou, and see you in the US!</div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>Thanks to them for making the trip out here and the contribution to the blog. Love you both!</div><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2_U1lZ0fK2E/T3c_FnUpf4I/AAAAAAAADrs/QbCwIOOzRtc/s800/DSC05782.JPG"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 447px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 299px; CURSOR: hand" border="0" alt="" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2_U1lZ0fK2E/T3c_FnUpf4I/AAAAAAAADrs/QbCwIOOzRtc/s800/DSC05782.JPG" /></a>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-73064343878271476892012-03-14T05:41:00.000-07:002012-03-14T05:42:50.785-07:00Wait... It's March already?Trying to think back on the last week and what I’ve been working on in order to update my lovely readers, and I’m finding that my brain is going into overdrive. Whew. I need another vacation.<div><br />This past weekend, my lovely friend Aviva came to visit me for a few days and help me work on the school mural that I am painting at the primary school here in Keur Andallah. It’s ALMOST done, but apparently the ocean is larger than I originally anticipated. Who knew? The funny part is, I bought some paint brushes, but most of the map has been painted with dry grass and sticks because there are too many fine borders that the paintbrushes cannot handle. Thus, we have determined that that is how PCVs paint in Africa- with sticks. Sigh.</div><div><br />In the meanwhile, I’m also trying to get my pepinieres going for the year so that everything can be outplanted early enough this year that it actually survives the hot season. While all this is happening, the latrine project is progressing bit by bit, the school gardens and rolling along, the women’s garden people continue to annoy me about getting barbed wire, and my own garden refuses to outplant itself. I even asked it nicely. So yes, it’s hard to keep track of things, but Mangiiy goorgoorlu, I’m doing the best I can. </div><div><br />I also tried to upload pictures to my picassa account- the one on the right of the screen, and for some reason my pictures refuse to upload into the program, so until I figure that out I’m posting pictures on facebook for those of you who know me personally. Best I can do until I figure out the problem. </div><div><br />I’m very excited for my parents to get here next week and show them around my life here. I will make sure they post an entry so you will all know what it is like for a non-PCV American to show up in Senegal and start touring around. At this point, all I can remember is this vague shock and exhaustion from the journey and the prospect of spending the next two years of my life here, so I’m really no help on that matter anymore. </div><div><br />Stay tuned,</div><div><br />~E<br /></div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-35716224870580214372012-03-05T07:07:00.002-08:002012-03-05T07:17:42.873-08:00Running for the Girls<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 100%; ">Guess what guess what guess what??? My <a href="http://appropriateprojects.com/node/1038">appropriate projects</a> grant is fully funded! Thank you to everyone who contributed, you are all wonderful and are making a huge difference. As I am sitting here in the regional house catching up on some emails and whatever else is on my to-do list, my lovely work partner Assane is heading up the project back in the village, hopefully breaking ground on the first 12 latrines. It turns out that I overbudgeted a little bit, and I will be able to install a few more than originally anticipated in the compounds that complete their latrines in the timeliest manner.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I am also out of site because I am returning from the Tambacounda “marathon” during which I ran a 10k to encourage girl’s education throughout the country. Thanks to those of you who contributed to that as well! The event went relatively smoothly, considering we were running long distances in the hottest region of the country at the beginning of the hot season. One of Senegal’s best marathoners traveled out to participate and run the half marathon, the longest event of the day, and finished WAY ahead of everyone else in a blistering 1:14 without breaking a sweat. This is one of the guys that gets of out Africa every once in a while to go see the sights and, you know, run the New York Marathon every so often. As you can imagine, it was great to have his support.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I did pretty well for myself, considering I’ve been training by myself in the village early in the mornings on the sand bush paths, so I was happy with my 4-minute-and-change 10k. I actually passed and beat a couple of the Senegalese Army men participating, who were joking to each other that they were beaten by a girl (Senegalese women rarely compete in sports competitively, especially in distance running, so there wasn’t much in the way of local competition). A few of them approached me after the race and started joking that I must have cheated because I have two hearts, and he was going to take me to the hospital to get it checked out. At any rate, it was a great day of hanging out with people and cross country nostalgia. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So now it’s back to village, getting some photo documentation of those latrines for your benefit and beginning the daunting task of making my farmers fill something like 3000 tree sacks over the next few weeks. I also have yet to finish painting my world map mural, and I should have some lovely volunteers come to visit me and paint all day! Finally, my parents are coming to visit me in a few weeks! I’m sure they will love giving input into what it is like to come to my village directly from America, because at this point it seems strangely normal to me to pull water from a well and take showers from buckets, and I’m probably not as interesting as I used to be. So stay tuned, there will be fun updates ahead!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-55567489537886327322012-02-26T09:42:00.000-08:002012-02-26T09:43:17.682-08:00Elections and such<p class="MsoNormal">In light of the fact that it is Sunday and I vaguely remember deciding to try to write blog entries on Sundays for the rest of my service, I figured I’d let you all know how the Senegalese presidential election is going. Not in political sense- I’m not legally even allowed to have an opinion on that given my status as a Peace Corps Volunteer, but you can read all you want about that on the associated press. Google it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let me paint the scene- I’m sitting in Arame’s room at site, where some of the men have turned on a generator so they can watch TV during the election. I figured that if they were to bother buying the gas to turn on the generator, they’d at least watch the progress of the election on the news. Instead, they’re watching bad-quality “theater,” which is basically a series loosely written skits performed in Wolof. Most of them consist of women talking to each other and wearing skimpy Western clothes. But if you were wondering what a group of men who just voted decide to do the day of a controversial national election- that’s it. Watch women yelling at men on bad Wolof soap operas.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">If any of you have been concerned for my safety while you’re all hearing about the riots in Dakar, don’t be. We get more text messages asking for status updates from our security director than I can count, and as work zone coordinator, I also have to be in touch with the rest of the volunteers in my subregion and know where they’re at too. My phone battery seems to be dying faster than usual these days. Thank goodness for solar chargers. There have been a few protests in Kaolack and other major cities over the last week or so, and we are all restricted from traveling there and to all major regional capitols. Hopefully that will be lifted soon, as most of us are running low on cash and the only ATMs we can go to are in Kaolack. I realize I talk about living without electricity and running water all the time on this blog, but ironically enough we are still dependent on modern conveniences such as ATMs to retrieve our money for every-day expenditures.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Today, while everyone is nervous about the election outcome, I’m just bored. I can’t do any significant work all day because everyone is going to vote and, apparently, watching skimpily-dressed women yell at their boyfriends on TV. I can go to the garden, water my plants, read my book, play a little guitar, but eventually I got bored enough that I’m bringing out the computer and writing this blog entry with a bunch of people surrounding me. Most of them are used to the computer at this point anyway- I’ve had enough conversations with people that are along the lines of “calling America is really expensive, that’s why I have a computer” that people get it. It’s also amazing how computer are starting to make their way into villages via community politicians, NGOs and teachers that it doesn’t really change anyone’s perspective of me. This is one of those things you learn after being here for over a year. The women in skimpy shirts are more interesting than the electronics that portray them.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">On that note, I will leave you. A quick reminder, if you are so inclined, you can donate to any of the lovely projects that I am working on and describe in my previous blog entry. The Senegalese people and I sincerely appreciate any help you can give. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-19981416039759630032012-02-22T09:16:00.000-08:002012-02-22T09:22:59.487-08:00Give me Money!<span>Ok, This just went out as an email to my friends and family, but anybody else who reads this blog should help out! Sorry if this is the second time you are seeing this for those who got the email and also read the blog.</span><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">Hello all! </span><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><br /><div>It's that time- the time when I ask you all to give me all your money. I've finally figured out financing for the projects I'm working on for the rest of my service, and your help on all of them (there's only 3) would be greatly appreciated. I'll give you an overview of the point of each project and its importance-</div><div><br /></div><div>Tamba Marathon for Girls- March 4th, I am running a race to raise money for projects concerning gender awareness and development throughout the country. Despite the name, I'm actually not running the full marathon- they decided to cut that, and now the options are the 5k, 10k or half marathon. Despite my general love of running, the Senegalese environment, training conditions and diet really aren't conducive to long distance running, so I'm going to do the 10k with a bunch of my friends. This is not the highest priority, but if you feel very generous and want to throw in a couple of dollars towards me pounding the pavement (sand?) and helping women's advancement, here's the link: <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-CFD" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">https://www.peacecorps.<wbr>gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.<wbr>contribute.projDetail&<wbr>projdesc=685-CFD</a></div><div><br /></div><div>More importantly, we are trying to raise money for the Girl's Camp that will be happening in June, and I will be much more directly involved in planning and carrying out this project. This is a week in which we invite a couple of girls of a middle-school age to a camp outside of Sokone and teach them skills for the future, have talks about careers and the environment, and we have a bunch of games and sports for the girls to play that they would never normally have the opportunity to play in the village. I'm going to be leading a bunch of sports (naturally) and we'll have cross cultural games and snacks (s'mores included). Anyway, here's the link if you're interested: <a href="https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=685-198" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">https://www.<wbr>peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?<wbr>shell=donate.contribute.<wbr>projDetail&projdesc=685-198</a></div></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><br /></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">Finally, I just got funding through the wonderful organization appropriate projects to construct 12 new cement-lined latrines in my village. This is actually a huge deal, because most people in the village don't even have a sanitary place to do their business in the morning, and I often see kids hanging out with their pants down in village trash piles during my morning runs. When the rainy season comes around, there are lots of problems with bacterial diseases as you may imagine, so this project will be accompanied by a health sensitization meeting informing the villagers of the importance of building and USING these new latrines. This project will be partially funded by the organization that works with appropriate projects, but they ask for donations if you are able to do so, as this ensures that the organization can continue to fund other projects around the world in a timely manner. Anyway, here's the link- <a href="http://appropriateprojects.com/taxonomy/term/3" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">http://<wbr>appropriateprojects.com/<wbr>taxonomy/term/3</a> You can even see some of my lovely village pictures on the site!</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><br /></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">Ok thanks for bearing with me. I'll post more about this on my blog over time so you can track how the projects go and see pictures, not to mention hear about my other lovely projects that I am continuing to work on as my service winds down. I'll be home this fall, can you believe it? Here's my blog if you lost the link: </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><a href="http://www.emilypcsenegal.blogspot.com/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); ">http://www.emilypcsenegal.<wbr>blogspot.com/</a>. Honestly, if you don't have the money or just don't feel like donating, I will not be offended. I know that many of you asked if any of my projects required monetary contributions, so here's the information you were asking for. If you want to help but can only contribute to one project, the girl's camp would really benefit most from your help because donations are the only source of funding available. Also, please forward this email to anybody and everybody that might be interested in helping out, because I don't have everybody's email addresses. (That means please forward this to my extended family, etc.) This will be the only time I ask you guys to help out with my Peace Corps service, and I thank you all in advance for any help at all. Even just a couple of dollars here and there add up. </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><br /></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">Thanks one more time, and greet America for me!</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><br /></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">Jamm Rekk (Peace Only)</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); "><br /></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">Emily </div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); ">aka Fatou Sy</div></div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-21546240267928375482012-02-05T03:54:00.000-08:002012-02-05T03:57:26.849-08:00Go Patriots!<p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal">I am mildly tired of writing about my projects, so I will instead give you a little anecdote for today. A few days ago, I was biking back from Toubacouta where I had been using the internet in one of the hotels there to write one of my grants. I biked through one random village, and a group of kids started yelling “Toubab!”and running after my bike. This is an entirely normal occurrence, but one kid specifically actually reached my bike and started grabbing the back of it and running with it, which really annoyed me. This again wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary, but on this particular day it just irked me, and I turned around and screamed that he was a “bleepity bleep” that I will not repeat here because unlike that little kid, you will all understand what I am saying. The weird part was, the kid looked at me and shouted what I had just called him right back at me, not knowing what he was saying. Hearing that little kid say it was a little jarring and sort of brought me back, but I still needed to get him off my bike, so I sped up as much as I could and eventually he let go, but it still just reminded me how difficult of a situation you can be put in when you’re a complete outsider. Things like that never occur in my village because everyone there is used to me and knows my name, but the problem with being here is that you don’t just sit in your village forever; you have to travel on occasion and go to places where people don’t know your name. Everyone has a way of dealing with it, but some days you just lose it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In other news, in case you are as disconnected from the world as I sometimes find myself, today is the superbowl. I will not be watching it in real-time, but being a Patriots fan I cannot reasonably let it go without doing anything, so a group of us are getting together at a hotel and watching a recorded version of it tomorrow night. If I were to watch it when its happening, that would mean kickoff would be about 3 am, and for someone who’s been passed out at 9 pm every night, that’s a little past my bedtime. Therefore, I will not be in contact with anybody back home tomorrow until I actually watch the game. The funny part is that it’s really not that hard to disconnect from the world and not spoil it when you’re in a village in Africa. I can guarantee you that nobody in my village will come up to me at any point and say “can you believe he made that field goal?” It just won’t happen. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So on that note, I am signing off until after I am back up to date with you all and we can chat about it.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Go Patriots!</p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p><p></p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-41447423321668503112012-01-29T03:47:00.000-08:002012-01-29T03:48:24.319-08:00AHHHH PROJECTS!<p class="MsoNormal">In an effort to keep relatively up to date with my blog, here is the next entry in my somewhat weekly escapade to document my life. Granted, lots has been happening that may very well define my work for the next few months of my existence here. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Recently, I was approached by Aissatu, one of the four leaders of the women’s group. (Ironically, 3 of the 4 women are named Aissatu. This was the one I am closest with, Aissatu Diop.) She requested that I help the group by finding financing and enclosing the garden with barbed wire. This is not the easiest of tasks, as the area to be fenced in is a 2-hectare plot of land (for those of us stuck in the western world, that’s about 5 acres, or 4.94 according to the handy-dandy converter on my phone. I guess little old-school Nokias are good for something. But I digress.) The project would require at least 100 thousand CFA of financing, which converts to roughly 200 dollars, not an easy sum to come by in the village. The project is very much possible, and similar projects are carried out all the time, but I had to air two main concerns, namely 1: they still need to come up with a 25% community contribution, which might be a challenge due to the fact that they can barely come up with their contributions towards seeds for this year and 2: I am sick of going out to work in the women’s garden and having most of these women peace out early to go cook lunch/lay down/take care of someone’s kid/whatever their excuse may be. Why should I work my butt off for a group of people who don’t quite seem to understand the importance of what they are doing? So despite all roadblocks, I started talking with my chief of village and my APCD in Dakar to see what we can do, and whether this will turn into a giant headache remains to be seen. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another grant-funded project seemed to just appear at roughly the same time, this time to do with douches, or compound latrines. These would be similar to mine, if you’ve seen pictures of it that are buried somewhere in those album off to your right on the screen, but the village would complete one for every compound. This is also a significantly costly project and we are still working out the logistics of it, but if my original plan to hit up a lovely little organization called appropriate projects (google it- <a href="http://www.appropriateprojects.org/">www.appropriateprojects.org</a>) falls through, I may be hitting you all up for money in the near future. Unlike my reservations about the women’s garden, I actually am pretty determined to see this through, because you have no idea what its like to walk out to the field every day and pass by a group of children out on a compost pile behind their compounds with their pants down and pooping their little hearts out in public. The kicker is when they get all excited to see me and try to scream and wave and greet me in the middle of this rather awkward occurrence. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">All while this is happening, I finally decided that I must paint a world map in my school before my close of service, and what better time to do it than when I am starting two other major projects? Makes perfect sense, right? After my exasperation with the school garden grant, the two new ones I plan to write and never wanting to write a project abstract again, I have decided to suck it up and just pay it. It’s not really all that expensive, and it’s a damn good way to get me out of my hut and away from screaming children for a few afternoons while I go grid out and outline a world map in pencil in my <i>ecole primaire</i> and listen to some good music. Sometime in the next month, I’ll invite a group of other volunteers over to my site, buy some paint and paintbrushes, cook up a good bowl of <i>yassa ginard</i> which for you non-wolof speakers is rice with chicken and onion sauce, and we’ll bring this thing to life. At least then finally most people in the village will be able to point to their own country on a map, especially after I reward them with candy for doing so. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the meanwhile I’m still working in my garden every morning, watering my beautiful little guava and orange saplings, and damnit if I don’t get some good looking carrots and tomatoes by the end of this gardening season. It’s also pretty good therapy sitting in a garden each morning and writing in your journal. I suggest you try it sometime. And on that note, I leave you until next Sunday. Inchallah.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-43997289164118979592012-01-22T06:45:00.000-08:002012-01-22T06:46:21.963-08:00About this whole blog thingSo it’s been a while, as you can see. I owe an apology to anyone who still reads this blog at all, but in my defense, I did go on vacation for a while. Since my last entry, I have come back to site, left site, gone to America over the holidays, come back to country, attended our all-volunteer conference in Thies, gone to the West African Invitational Softball Tournament in Dakar, and returned to site. So, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind, as you can imagine. I actually find myself enjoying the quiet downtime to get my life back in order that I have here at site. As it stands, I have 8 months or so left in my service, and I intend to make the best of it, whatever that may mean. But first, let’s back up a bit.<div><br />Back in December, I had a couple week period at site right before I went on vacation during which I was (I think understandably) rather annoyed and irritable at the world. I was, after all, about to return to my home, friends, family, boyfriend, etc. A couple of things occurred that are rather normal in Senegalese culture, but at the time irked me very much.</div><div><br />For instance, as I was working to get the school garden pepinieres in the ground before I left, I was struggling to get in touch with the teachers and outline the terms of the grant: I bought the tools, and they have to choose and buy the seeds. I like to be present when we actually seed the pepineres so I have an idea of what is going on, and for my school garden in Saloum Diane I set the date well ahead of time so that my counterparts would be ready. On the day we were supposed to seed, I got there and found that nobody really had any idea that the seedbeds were supposed to be made on that day and my main work partner had traveled to Sokone and was unreachable by cellphone. I was pretty flustered by the whole situation, not only because I just wanted to get it done and leave to go on vacation, but also because these sorts of things happen all the time in this culture. </div><div><br />A similar situation occurred right around that time in which a work partner of mine from Dakar showed up in the village to check out the project he has going on here. I can’t remember if I wrote about this a year ago, but there had been this big NGO collaboration that wanted to put in a massive tree nursery in my village, and it included partners in both Scotland and the US which I would liked very much to have talked to. After all, I will be back in that glorious country in less than a year, and it can’t hurt to have some high-up contacts there that have actually seen me at work in the village doing many of the same tasks and monitoring in the same way that they do. I called more than once to confirm the time and date that they were planning on coming, and my Senegalese work partner told me a certain day in the afternoon. That morning, I went to the garden to water my nurseries there, and just as I was returning to the village I saw the cars of all the American and Scottish partners driving away to another village. That was the only opportunity I had to meet with those people, and I got very upset with the Senegalese work partner who had told me the wrong information. I asked why he hadn’t called me to let me know he was coming earlier than expected, and he basically just told me that he forgot. </div><div><br />It’s really upsetting when you miss out on a such a large opportunity because of a small cultural flaw- timing in this country means nothing. Scheduling and appointments hold no real value whatsoever, and in both of these cases just a phone call to inform that a time or date had been changed would be sufficient. I left to go on vacation with a bad feeling about this culture- why should I bother to help them out and stress myself out over being on time for anything here if they never bother to show the same respect? It’s hard to get across the point that most developed country value schedules, but even if I do manage to explain that to a couple of people, a single American Peace Corps Volunteer really doesn’t have the power to invoke a major cultural behavioral change. Such is life, I guess.</div><div><br />Anyway, enough of that rant. AMERICA! Because that’s what you’re all wondering about, right? It’s a beautiful country, especially after having been in Senegal for 16 months. I went skiing and snowshoeing with the family, went on many walks and ate lots of delicious American cuisine, and apart from a few hiccups involving illness (I actually spent most of New Years in the ER) I’d say I had a very successful trip home. Being there was like walking through this weird dream-world where everything is like you remember it except the way you relate to almost every other person in your life. Also, everything looks amazingly clean, like someone just came down with a giant duster and made everything spic and span.<br />I spent the last week or so there buying supplies for the village and for myself; much of the weight I carried back to Senegal consisted of granola bars and dried fruit from Costco, which is a little like Peace Corps heaven in bulk. I also lugged about 80 dollars worth of cheap school supplies to be distributed between the 3 schools I work closely with, which was slightly ironic when I got back and found out that all the teachers in the country are on strike. It will all be used eventually though. </div><div><br />Immediately after touching down, my friend Clint and I had to find our way back to the training center in Thies and get our two very jet-lagged selves ready for the all-volunteer conference, and I immediately had to present to a group of Assistant Peace Corps Directors and the Country Director what is going on in my work zone, for which I am responsible. Somehow I made it through, and spent the next couple of days trying not to doze off in sessions and grabbing 10-minute naps on random benches wherever I could.<br />Finally, we all went to Dakar for WAIST, which I wrote about last year, and I don’t have much more to say other than it was a couple of days of reconnecting with friends, spending too much money on food, readjusting to this country and destroying my liver. But you know, that’s what growing up is for I guess. </div><div><br />At any rate, I’m back in village now, enjoying the cool breezes of January that you get for a couple of weeks before the hot season sets in. I’m actually pretty well bundled up at night because it gets colder than you’d expect for the desert. Pape keeps complaining about the cold and the wind, but I just respond how much I like it and making fun of him for complaining. At least let me have my fun for a few weeks, and the hot season will be here before we all know it. </div><div><br />I’ll do my best to update more regularly, because I know how fast these next 8 months will go by. It’s not exactly the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but the train is definitely on that track. Email me with any questions you’ve got, and I’ll respond as soon as I can.</div><div><br />Until next time</div><div><br />~E<br /></div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-60175229243709888282011-11-10T14:22:00.001-08:002011-11-10T15:13:25.271-08:00November, and Tabaski, and those other thingsHere I am, November 10th, sitting in the Kaolack house for installs. The new agriculture stage is finally here, and they are all living through that first terrifying day of newness and confusion. I don't envy that first day when you know nothing and nobody and are suddenly cut off from all your friends. But just as my stage made it through last year, they'll all make it through just fine this year.<div><br /><div>It's nice to have all the sites full again, and my subregion is up to 15 people. 15! We started off with maybe 8, so it has almost doubled in the year I've been here. I'm pretty stoked for us too; we've got a really diverse and motivated group of people who I know will do great things. I'm proud I get the chance to help them as one of the coordinators of our work zone this year. And if nothing else, typing up meeting notes and visiting other people's sites gives me something to do in the non-agfo season.</div><div><br /></div><div>In other news, it was Tabaski this past week, and I got to really celebrate with my family this year in a way that I was not quite able to do last year when my language skills and relationships were just starting to develop. I helped cook, watched the men kill and clean the sheep (a fascinating biology lesson) and went out dancing at night. I actually put a bunch of American dance songs on a flash drive and played them on a radio that one of my neighbors have and started teaching the girls what American dancing looks like. Felt a little silly showing little girls how to move their hips and get into it, but they loved the music and laughed a lot. Besides, Senegalese dancing is awkwardly sexual in its own way, and it's not uncommon to see women at baptisms jumping around and lifting their skirts up to show everyone what they've got under there (sometimes just underwear, but sometimes not) so I did not feel THAT bad teaching them how to move.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Tomorrow I'm on my way back to village to stick out the next couple of weeks until Thanksgiving, and I will hopefully be giving this health tourney I'm putting together a test run. See, my Poste de Sante doctor and I were putting together a mini health tourney for teaching first aid to villagers and how to take care of injuries until they can see a doctor. There was some miscommunication about funding and timing, which is essentially the downfall of every good Peace Corps project, and now I'm left with a bunch of visual aids that I paid for and drew myself and no real schedule or plan for how to use them. My next task is to convince the doctor that we can do this project informally and just do a test run to see how it works. I could also try to get my school gardens up and running, and forget the whole health tourney thing ever happened.</div><div><br /></div><div>Basically, I just have to find ways to distract myself until mid-December, when I go on vacation to AMERICA. When you've been away for over 15 months, the last few weeks before you finally get to see your family is relatively unproductive. I have no high hopes for changing the world at the moment, only dreams of Dunkin Donuts and ski lodges. I'll update on how the whole village thing goes soon. Again, got to keep myself distracted, right?</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>~E</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-19272735549879744482011-10-19T05:45:00.000-07:002011-10-19T05:46:37.928-07:00Another random reflection on life<p class="MsoNormal">Yesterday, I used cashed in the grant money I got for two school gardens that I am in charge of, and put down about $300 dollars at a local hardware store on chicken wire, watering cans, rakes, shovels, and gardening picks that will be used by students to create their very own little vegetable plots. Well try to, anyway. The process involved biking over to another larger village about 40 minutes away, negotiating prices, waiting for the car to come that goes each day between Saloum Diane and Kaolack, and getting all the materials and me and my bike onto that car to take back to Saloum Diane and unload at my friend Mbaye’s house there. Considering the general lack of organization and quality transport in this country, I’d consider it a pretty successful day.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">It got me thinking how much harder that whole process would have been even a couple of months ago before I had the same relationships with everyone in the area that I did. Knowing the owner of the hardware store, the car driver, and the people over in Saloum Diane really expediated a process that could have been much harder had I not known all of these people. This, in turn, got me thinking about where I live now. I don’t think of myself as living in Africa so much as living in Keur Andallah and being a part of the Kaolack region in Senegal. I don’t spend every day now thinking “Wow, I’m in Africa” just as we don’t think every day in the states “Wow, I live in North America. Isn’t that special?” </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I guess this just happens naturally over time, and speaking of time, it has now been a year since swear-in, and a year ago tomorrow was the day that I first set foot in Keur Andallah. So congratulations to anyone in my stage reading this, and let this be my own personal “yay for me” moment. With a little bit of perspective, it’s been a really rewarding experience thus far, and it just made me realize how little time I have left here. If I’ve already been here half my total time, that means I have that same amount of time to accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish in Senegal before I’m out. I took a little while the other morning to write down a short list of goals that I’d like to at least attempt before I leave here so I can start planning now. Time, just as it does anywhere, slips by when you’re not looking, and before you know it your time’s up. I wrote down mostly projects I’d like to try: painting a mural, grafting some mango and ziziphus trees, establishing a couple more live fences, etc. Then I still have to consider the places I want to visit before I leave…</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sort of a weird analogy I came up with while making my list is that your service in Peace Corps is like a whole human life cycle condensed into 2 years. You get here ,and you are an infant who does not know anything about anything- the language barrier is obvious, but how do you feel when you look at the hole in the floor where you’re expected to do your business and realize that your really are back at square one. Then a few months go by and you’re an infant- blabbing in baby language and learning how to eat or greet properly, and after that you are swearing in- more like your high school graduation- and off on your own learning how to be an independent human being. Over time you pick up the language, make friends, <span> </span>find a purpose (even if it is just to water a couple of seeds you planted). Then a year in, you have your mid-life crisis. Believe me, every volunteer I’ve talked to has had a mid-service crisis, which usually comes just before your actually halfway point. You struggle to find meaning in what you’ve done so far and how to make the best use of your remaining time here. Time goes on, and you start to realize that your time really is limited here, and you should see all those places that you never got to see and spend time with people you became friends with. By the time you leave, you have to accept what you’ve accomplished, knowing your time’s run out, and you’re going to say goodbye to all your friends and your host family knowing you probably won’t see any of them again. By Peace Corps life-cycle standards, that makes me about 50 years old right now. Got through my mid-life crisis, and now it’s time to buckle down and start seeing places, spending time with friends and getting projects done that I want to accomplish before I leave. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Time to get to it. I’m starting with a new herb garden. Wish me luck.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-42912068457795240402011-10-10T05:22:00.000-07:002011-10-10T05:24:43.737-07:00Just a cute anecdote for the day:<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">As I was walking out to the field this morning, I said good morning to one of my elderly male neighbors and greeted him as usual. He said that there was a lot of grass now and if you walk in it there’s <i>laeye. </i><span> </span>I looked at him slightly confused since I had not heard that word before, and after he confirmed that I did not know what it meant, he went on to explain that it is water in the grass in the mornings. I exclaimed,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">“Oh, dew! Yeah I know what that is.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white"><span> </span>He replied that yes- it’s water, and it must come from up above in the trees at night or maybe it comes from the ground, but either way, it goes away each day when the sun comes out and gets hot, then comes back again at night. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Helpless without the vocabulary to explain the concept of condensation and temperature difference in Wolof, I just smiled and agreed with him and went on my way. Sometimes Senegal amuses me. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">~E<o:p></o:p></span></p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-88193325821810818082011-10-04T04:58:00.000-07:002011-10-04T06:02:14.840-07:00English in DakarSo I've been to Dakar a couple of times, but never for such a long time. I made the trip to participate in the Access English Camps sponsored by the US Embassy, and it was a really fun and rewarding experience. We worked with middle school-aged students and put together a typical American summer day camp for a week, conducting activities in English and teaching them about our culture. We had them sing camp songs, participate in field day activities like the 3-legged race and tug of war, played basketball and ultimate frisbee, taught them capture the flag, and let them organize little skits in English to perform to the group. We also had a few classroom based activities involving a geography game show ("who can point to New York on this map?") and American music history ("Anyone ever hear of B.B. King?") At least now they know that American music does not consist solely of Beyonce and Rhianna. Oh, and you can't forget Justin Beiber. When we had the kids translating lyrics to their favorite songs, a couple of them could recite all of Beiber's "Baby." Keep in mind, English is the 3rd or 4th language many of these kids are learning. <div><br /></div><div>It was a bit difficult to put together a week's worth of educational and fun activities in the spur of the moment, but between six of us, I think we did a pretty good job. In fact, the local TV station came and interviewed us on the day the US Ambassador made an appearance. I was apparently on national TV speaking in Wolof for an interview, though I haven't had the opportunity to watch myself. It's probably better that way. </div><div><br /></div><div>After the camp was over, I stuck around in Dakar for my mid-service medical exam and to say goodbye to one of my good friends who finished her service and left. Now I will go back to Kaolack tomorrow with a clean bill of health (woot woot!) and as an official second-year volunteer to welcome the new trainees of the agriculture stage that is scheduled to swear in a the beginning of November. Then it's back to the usual grind, but this time with schools! Finally, school will be starting sessions again, which means that I get to return to my favorite project of school gardens and my Senegalese friends will all return to the villages. Time is really flying now. I'll be home on vacation for the holidays before I know it!</div><div><br /></div><div>~E</div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-71122551760829738322011-09-20T05:50:00.000-07:002011-09-20T05:51:29.482-07:00Mangrove Madness<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Sometimes I find that I’m so busy it’s hard to stay on top of everything going on here, and some days it just stops and I’m back to being bored again. You can never really fall into a routine. The past week I was up in Thies teaching the new stage for a day, then traveled through Kaolack and onto Toubacouta for a mangrove reforestation, and now I’m back to site for a week before continuing onto Dakar for an English camp and my midservice exam. These days, I live in this perpetual state of disbelief; it’s been over a year already in country, I still have a year left to go, I get to go home for vacation in a few months, I’m teaching the new stage and becoming a second-year volunteer, running meetings and actively planning projects and trainings. You never quite get over these things.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Peace Corps has made me, however, one of the world’s greatest travelers, because I can be stuck in a car for long periods of time and not notice it, even when squished in the back of a sept-place with large Senegalese woman on either side of me and breathing in fumes. Podcasts of “This American Life” and “Radiolab” do help matters, but when it’s over and I still have to bike 30 km over a dirt road back to site, I don’t blink an eye. Traveling in America will be heaven for me when this is all over.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">At any rate, training was enjoyable, and I got to try my hand at teaching an hour-long session and using my experiences as teaching tools. I probably was a bit nervous at first, because at one point a trainee raised his hand and jokingly asked “Do you always talk this fast? You’re not from California, I assume.” I slowed down after that. Overall, it went well, and I then got to take advantage of a free afternoon in Thies to go buy stuff at the toubab stores downtown. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">The mangrove reforestation went swimmingly as well. To save money in my travels, I camped out at one of the campemonts where the Tobuacouta volunteer lives. Some other volunteers were staying in a campemont with a pool, and the people working there let us all come over and use it, so everyone hung out in the pool at night and caught up. The reforestation itself involved a trip to the delta, an hour long boat-ride out to the reforestation area and a couple of hours of sticking mangrove seeds in the mud out in the sun. It’s more fun that it sounds, but also very sunscreen-intensive. There were large groups of kids that were enthusiastically running around and sticking the seeds in the ground as fast as they could, which limited the work that we had to do, and the whole event culminated in a water fight and some sharing of some boisson. It was a pretty successful day. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Now I’m just in transition. Outplanting is done, the rainy season is starting to wind down, I’m waiting for the teachers to get back to start the school gardens up again, and I’m planning some other tourney-type of projects with the doctor and some other volunteers that I’ll write about in the coming months. For the time being, my days consist of reading, playing guitar, blogging, and getting caught in the rain in Pape’s field. Fun times.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">~E<o:p></o:p></span></p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-64536859540017085302011-09-09T07:03:00.001-07:002011-09-09T07:03:50.369-07:00Trainings and such<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Wow busy week. Tuesday I conducted a training for the women’s group to get them to outplant their pepiniere that they made a while back and promptly forgot about, Wednesday I outplanted all morning with one of my farmers, yesterday we did the moringa tourney part 2 teaching about nutrition and how to use moringa powder, and today Garrison and I finally got the pump in my village up and running, once and for all (inchallah.) All of a sudden it’s Friday. Funny how you forget how time goes by fast when you’re busy.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">The women’s group day went smoothly- it’s a weight off my shoulders knowing that several hundred trees will actually make it into the ground this year and all that work will not have gone to waste. Now I’m hoping that they all see the value of the work they were doing once the trees finally start to take, and we’ll be able to get everything done sooner next year and not put it off until after Ramadan is over. Working together with some of the kids from the student association in Saloum Diane was really helpful. They got here much later than expected so we didn’t get the training started until around 10:30 or so, but this is Senegal, and therefore the only thing you can be certain of is that nothing will ever start on time. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">The exact same problem occurred yesterday in Saloum Diane. People are not used to being told to get their act together, so the whole idea of rushing is a foreign concept. You can even see it in the way they walk- they sort of just saunter along not really caring about where they are going. Granted, I know plenty of Senegalese people who understand the concept of timeliness, but they are all generally the educated ones who have gone to school and been in trouble at some point in their lives for being late. Therefore, my perspective on this country is a tad bit skewed by the isolation of the village life. But I digress…<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Once the moringa training got underway, it was actually quite successful. The doctor from our Poste de Sante (health post) came to the event and helped to translate our sketchy wolof into understandable wolof and was able to take into account cultural knowledge and get the point across better than we would be able to. The training was just a talk in a classroom about what vitamins are, what each one does, and how to incorporate them into your diet using moringa powder. We demonstrated how to make the powder with some dried leaves and pestle and mortar, and then we asked some women to participate and help us cook a standard Senegalese porridge called <i>Rui</i>. We then put the powder they made into the porridge to show that it doesn’t change the taste at all but it is much more nutritious. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">Overall, I think we got the point across pretty well, but I still wonder how many people are actually consistently going to put in the effort to change their diet and add moringa powder. The general culture in Senegal is that you don’t do a lot more work than you have to, and this represents another task that the toubabs are asking them to do. Garrison and I were chatting yesterday and we realized that even if every single person in that training taught every other person in the village about moringa powder and they all made an effort to use it, how much would that change the quality of their life? It’s basically the same thing as taking vitamins, and I know people in the states who take vitamins and people who don’t care, and I wouldn’t necessarily say that one group is happier than the other. Still, we do the best we can, and for what its worth, the doctor told me he thought the women would actually try what they learned in their own homes. And besides, I get the satisfaction of knowing that we’re still doing the best we can, so I’ll take it for what it’s worth.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bidi-font-size:9.0pt;line-height:115%; background:white">~E<o:p></o:p></span></p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-50324546803220766642011-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:002011-09-03T05:18:00.504-07:00Highs and Lows<p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 15px;"></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Highs and Lows</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Anybody reading that from RWU, remember that game? Granted, probably anybody who has gone to college recently or been in any sort of club knows highs and lows- you say the high point of your day and the low point.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Today: I went to Saloum Diane to meet up with my counterparts there and prepare for moringa tourney and our women’s outplanting formation. Went to the school to check up on the intensive beds. My low for the day: Some kid actually broke open the side door of the schoolyard to let their livestock in so that it could eat the grass and destroy the intensive beds, which are all now pretty much grazed to the ground. We (and by we I mean the school director) yelled at some kid walking by with his donkey, who the school director had seen grazing yesterday, and the kid just mumbled some stuff, looked away and continued walking. Real respectful. If it was me, then much as it would anger me I would understand more than the school director himself. Anyway, we met up with the chief of village and some other people, and explained the project and the upcoming follow-up nutritional tourney that we are planning, and they are all on board with it, so that redeemed it</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <span style="background:white">little.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">The high of my day, though, was when we went back to Mbaye’s house so I could go through all the parts of the project so that he could present it better in native Wolof, and during the conversation he said how he liked the project and actually started a moringa bed himself. We walked behind the house to the garden and voila! A tiny little rudimentary moringa intensive bed was germinating away, complete with trees off to the side to provide seeds for replacement in the future. That was one of those very rare times that I actually get to see our skills applied and carried on.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">And on a more personal note- one more high and low. High: I started jumproping in my hut since it is hard to get out and run when it is raining all the time, and I needed exercise. Discovered that it is</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <span style="background:white">really effective way of avoiding gawking Senegalese while the Toubab girl runs around in shorts first thing in the morning.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">Low: I don’t remember the time my calves hurt this badly.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; "><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; ">~E</span></p><p></p><p></p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-71353616264079054832011-08-24T01:57:00.000-07:002011-08-24T02:08:47.283-07:00New SEDers A couple of days ago, we welcomed a new group of Small Enterprise Development volunteers to Kaolack, and seeing as everyone was on vacation, COSed or not wanting to deal with it, I ended up in charge of coordinating their installation. Luckily it was a small group, and only 9 new volunteers were here, but this continued the bizarre year-in-country experience. I found myself standing in front of them all with my notes going over rules of the house, places to eat and shop in Kaolack, and apologizing in advance for our slow annoying internet. <div>
<br /></div><div>Our subregion is welcoming 3 new volunteers to replace my friends Byron, Cassie and Cail. This is probably the weirdest experience of all, since those people really helped me get through my first year in country and were my go-to people when I had a question about anything, and now I'm supposed to be the one responsible for having all the answers. I really do remember thinking the year-in volunteers knew everything and were totally comfortable in this country, and now I realize that nobody ever has all the answers to anything. Yes, I've adapted and I can more comfortably navigate this developing country in a language I previously did not understand a word of, but by no stretch of the imagination do I have all the answers. We'll see if it's any different a year from now.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>Well I'm out.</div><div>~E</div><div><div>
<br /></div></div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-29888182928346364952011-08-17T02:43:00.000-07:002011-08-17T03:10:13.989-07:00Year in Country Last week, I passed my first year in this country, which I aptly managed to forget to blog about and thus am now getting around to my public reflections on life. Rather than reflecting on how far I've come, etc, I'll share a quick little anecdote. Most days at site, I go out of the field in the morning with a bag containing my water bottle, planner (because I'm a geek) and my journal, so I can sit in peace and write about life without being bothered by people in the compound. The other day I was reading back in the journal to earlier in my service, sometime right after install, and got to a line that read almost like "man, I can't imagine how much I will have adjusted to all of this after a year has gone by." Ironically, this was almost exactly my year mark in country when I read this, and I could very clearly remember writing that statement in the first place. It was sort of a surreal talking-to-myself-from-a-year-ago experience. I guess you could also call it a time capsule. <div>
<br /><div>Then, talking to my dad on skype yesterday, he commented about how weird it will be to read back on the journal after I've been back in the states for a while and whenever I'm having a hard time there, I can remember "at least I'm not in Senegal anymore." That's still seems like forever into the future, but I'm sure when it does happen, reading back on it will seem quite recent. Funny how time works. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>The point of this whole thing is that despite the fact that I feel like I've been in this country for eternity sometimes and am bound to while away the rest of my life here, I'm really almost halfway done. And that's sort of a scary thought. I've been thinking "Ok, what have I accomplished so far? Now I've got about that amount of time to accomplish everything else I'll do in this country." And yes, I realize that I haven't quite yet reached a year at site, but as we speak the stage a year ahead of me is in the process of ending their service and going home. I'm starting to get that same feeling that I had in college of "what next?," you know, the feeling you get when you don't know where you'll be or what you'll be doing in a year or so. But I guess that's part of the excitement of it all. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>Ok enough sentimental ramblings on time. Back in the here and now, I currently find myself piled high in planning programs and installs. The new SED volunteers are due to arrive in Kaolack for their installation on Sunday morning, and being the overachiever that I am, I had to volunteer to coordinate the process. This means that I will go back to site today, only to return again 3 days later to continue my online ramblings to you all. </div><div>
<br /></div><div>In addition, we had a training for our upcoming moringa health tourney yesterday. If you remember correctly, we did a region-wide tourney training how to plant moringa intensive beds a month ago, and I installed one in the primary school in Saloum Diane with the help of some other volunteers and some very motivated Senegalese counterparts. Now, we are returning to all of those sites armed with dried moringa leaves to make moringa powder, ingredients for making a nutritional porridge, and visual aids to help us explain the benefits of vitamins and importance of eating healthy foods to combat illness and malnutrition. I am lucky enough to have some friends in Saloum Diane that are extremely motivated to make this program work- the primary school director and one of the high school students that is home for the summer have both proved to be indispensable counterparts who want to educate the community. The high school student, Mbaye, has also expressed interest in coordinating an outplanting day to help with the women's garden pepiniere in Keur Andallah, so we will hold a training in my village in few weeks to help the women understand the importance to live fencing to protect their field and the trees to improve the soil. Hopefully, we will manage to outplant a few hundred trees in one day with the help of the communitarial student association, the women's group, and a few key Senegalese counterparts that are willing to get the message across. </div></div><div>
<br /></div><div>Hopefully, when everyone is done starving themselves for Ramadan and people are once again willing to work, September will be a very productive month. Sometimes you really just have to set small goals for yourself, like making it through the next two weeks. I'm ready for this boring lull in my service to be over.</div><div>
<br /></div><div>~E</div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-52613409388864476482011-08-02T05:53:00.000-07:002011-08-02T05:56:57.453-07:00Ramadan. Second time around.<p class="MsoNormal">I’m currently sitting here in my hut on a rainy Tuesday, which also happens to be the first day of Ramadan, cooking myself a lovely little lunch of mashed potatoes and hiding from the world. For those of you who are unaware of the outside world and don’t know what Ramadan is, it is the Muslim month of fasting to teach humility, patience and submissiveness to God (thank you wikipedia). They are permitted to break fast every evening, and in Senegal we do so with coffee dates and bread. I was in homestay last year during Ramadan already, so it is not a foreign holiday to me now. However in training, the family was briefed on the fact that we had just gotten to country, had no resources and didn’t understand the culture or language, and they were expected to cook us lunch. Here in the village, no such briefing or expectation occurs, and as a full-fledged volunteer, you’re on your own. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Many volunteers choose to fast along with their families, and people in the village often expect that you do fast with the rest of the community. However, many of us also resort to hiding in our huts and treating ourselves to all the foods we generally don’t cook for ourselves on a regular basis in village. I talked to a couple of Senegalese friends and family members about this, and the understand. Yes, the villagers will joke about me having to fast with everyone, and yes, I have to be very discreet, but according to my Senegalese uncle Babacar, they understand that I’m not Muslim and there’s no real spiritual gratification in it for me. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I can try to be integrated to a point, but in the end I’m still me, and when all my friends are getting out of village to go on vacation or COS, I really feel no remorse if I’m still here in village and I don’t want to starve myself.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So that will be my August. Hiding to cook myself lunch, breaking fast with the family each day, and being jealous of everyone going on vacation. However, the AC converter was fixed a little while back, giving me the ability to charge my computer once again, so maybe I can pass the time by blogging more often. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-108828936646071272011-07-28T07:15:00.000-07:002011-07-28T08:01:22.987-07:00Pumps and PlantingIt's not as strange as the title sounds, I swear. I am working on both, and it's been keeping me very busy indeed. Outplanting season has been in full swing while I've been complaining to you all about this country. That means that all the while I've been moaning about how annoying Senegalese people can be, I've also been out in the field every day with a shovel and a knife, cutting off all those bags I so lovingly filled and planting the little buggers in the ground. Mind you, these are mostly thorny species we're talking about, so this is a task that must be done with care. <div><br /></div><div>In the meanwhile, my friend Garrison has shipped himself out to my site on a couple of occasions to install our village rope pump! After collecting a community contribution of 20 thousand CFA (about 40 dollars), Garrison's partner Water Charity has helped us fund a pump that will benefit a major portion of my village by increasing the ease and speed at which people can pull water for themselves and their animals. Here's the link that explains his overall project, <a href="http://52pumps52weeks.wordpress.com">52 pumps in 52 weeks</a> if you're curious about the details about how the pump is made, and I posted a few pictures of my village's project in the albums. Check it out. </div><div><br /></div><div>At the moment, I'm in Kaolack, baking chocolate cake with Cassie and trying to get out a grant proposal for the upcoming school year's gardens in Babou Njittiy and Saloum Diane. I'll update more on the actual projects in the future. If I'm not mistaken, it is still July. According to Peace Corps, that's about when I need to be applying for money to get these gardens off the ground for a school year that starts in October. The take-home point from this: Peace Corps, despite it's reputation for trying to save the world, is still a government organization, complete with piles of paperwork and red tape. Remind me never to go into politics. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm pretty sure the chocolate cake takes priority right now.</div><div><br /></div><div>~E.</div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-61337944931709845212011-07-24T09:39:00.000-07:002011-07-24T09:42:45.334-07:00Ups and Downs<p class="MsoNormal">I should start by apologizing for the dismal tone of my last blog entry. But that’s life in Senegal for you- first you are at the top of the world, wondering at how you managed to come to a new culture, integrate yourself into a third-world village and learn a new language, and the next moment you turn around a realize that you did in fact just leave everything you ever knew behind and it will be a long time until you can come back. That is what is known by PCVs, lovingly, as a mid-service crisis. But it’s not one major event that happens and passes, as I originally thought. I’m coming to realize that it comes and goes, just as everything in life. Even if I was in the States right now, I’m sure I would have bad times as well as good. The difference is that in the States, you usually have more of an open line of communication to vent and an ability to walk around the corner at all times, buy yourself some ice cream and move on with your life. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Here, that angst manifests itself as angry blog entries. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In reality, I’m doing alright overall. I’ve been back in village for about a week, getting over a cold that I had, and getting my hands dirty outplanting all of those pepinieres I wrote about a while back. It’s a lot of work, but it is somewhat calming to work quietly in a field outside for a couple of hours and just let your mind wander. I’ve also taken the time to write in my personal journal every day, a practice I started years ago as a little kid, and I have taken up again while here as a way to process, record, and vent about my experiences. At some point I’ll be able to go home, re-read about all of these difficult times that I’ve made it through, and write new blog entries about how much I’ve learned. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the meantime, I’ll continue to rant about my life and try to document all my experiences here to my loving readers. May you all keep enjoying TV, ice cream and internet every day. And may you all send me care packages on a regular basis.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Much love,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">~E</p>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-66876372155162917362011-07-15T03:51:00.000-07:002011-07-15T04:12:09.307-07:00Complaining. Feel free to disregard.In Kaolack today, but going back to site in a little bit. It always is difficult mobilizing enough energy and effort to actually make the trip back down there- have to get a taxi to the market, walk to the garage while ignoring all the obnoxious moto drivers hissing at me to get my attention, find the car, wait forever for the thing to leave, endure the bumpy, 4-5 hour ride back and end up in my village where work and Wolof people await me. As you can imagine, it's always tempting to spend an extra day here, drinking cold water, eating real food, watching movies on my computer when I don't have to worry about the battery dying, speaking in English. Sigh. But that's what America is for, right?<div><br /></div><div>Disclaimer: I'm going to complain a little. There's no reason one can't vent in public on their blog to the world, right?</div><div>Senegal gets really tiring sometimes. You're exhausted by the heat, the culture, the lack of communication because of language barriers and cultural misunderstandings, the work, the food... the list goes on. Not that I don't think this is a rewarding experience and I'm going to toughen up and push through, but sometimes you've just got to give up for a day or two and stop trying to be the perfect volunteer. Even if you are the perfect volunteer, you will probably leave this country having made an impact on a few people's lives, maybe taught some new skills or started some good projects, but that doesn't mean that what you do will be continued or remembered forever. Volunteers are not gods to Senegalese people, they are foreigners with money that occasionally you can interact with. Ok that's a mild generalization, but it's hard to really have a full life conversation about what my job is as a volunteer and the purpose of Peace Corps with every single person I meet on the street. Sometimes you have to just look down at the ground and keep on walking.</div><div><br /></div><div>I do have good days here. I have a fantastic relationship with my family, great work partners, a beautiful site, and some very good friends (though most of them are currently home on vacation). There are times though when that's not enough- being here is a constant reminder of who you are because you are very aware that you don't fit in. It's a study in human psychology- group mentality always singles out the person with different color skin, who doesn't speak the language or do things the same way as everyone else. I don't always want to drink<i> attaya</i>, I don't want to wear a <i>complet </i>everyday and yes, I do like to read for fun. What gives. My host uncle, who is home in Keur Andallah for school vacation but normally teaches in Sokone, had a conversation with me the other day. He asked why I always just like to sit and read in the evening. What is my job here in Senegal? He is a teacher after all, and he knows that it is difficult to always have conversations about things like early marriage and having many children without the ability to support them, but he still said I could try using my time by having conversations with villagers about problems in Senegal and how they can take small steps to fix them. I do that, I really do. I've sat in the field and talked about culture and families and environmental issues and education.</div><div><br /></div><div>But I'm only human. Humans have limits. We need friends, a sense of belonging, a sense of comfort. That's hard to come by in this country for a volunteer. We do our best, but we get sick and tired just like everyone else. Sometimes you just have to face that and make it through another day. So I'm still going back to site today. I'll continue to deal with the frustrations of being a volunteers and handle them in whatever way I can. I'm blessed to have this opportunity, but I've gotta say- sometimes it's just easier pretending I'm not here for a little while. </div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-39076759298568163272011-07-05T01:10:00.000-07:002011-07-05T02:59:47.926-07:00Rainy season and the 4th of JulyFirst of all, I apologize for that very rushed and very nonsensical previous entry about the rain. That is apparently what happens when you see a weather event that you have not experienced in the last 9 months of your life and decide to blog about it on limited battery life. The AC converter is currently not functioning in Ousman's house because they are too lazy to maintain the batteries that the solar panels charge, so I am currently without an ability to charge at site. Kaolack house it is.<div><br /></div><div>Happy belated 4th of July everyone! If you are a facebook stalker of mine, you already know that we ate BBQ chicken, a lovely menu of various side dishes and desserts, chocolate rice-crispy treats notwithstanding. So now you understand what makes a PCV happy. I have to admit though, after eating small amounts of rice and millet and secretly snacking on a granola bar occasionally in my room for the last 2 weeks, it's a bit difficult to stomach an entire Thanksgiving-style feast, and needless to say it was an early night for me. </div><div><br /></div><div>In other news, the rainy season has really commenced, emphasized now by the return of the giant lake in the middle of Pape's field and the muddy disgusting streets that Kaolack is famous for. Gratefully, they are paving the road in front of the regional house which will help prevent the giant puddle that prevents all ease of movement to or from the house we lovingly dubbed "Lake Kaolack." </div><div><br /></div><div>The arrival of the rains signals a change in my general schedule, since now my goal for the next couple of months focuses almost entirely around outplanting all those pepinieres I so lovingly nurtured since April. This is the part of my job that feels like you are actually helping the earth, since now I am actually taking baby trees and putting them into the ground. It was especially rewarding the other day planting a grafted ziziphus tree that I bought up in Thies a few weeks ago during the agfo summit. Assuming this tree takes off well, it will provide me with copious amounts of scions to graft onto other baby ziziphus trees and ultimately allow the village to make a profit off of selling little jujubee fruits. Now if I can just figure out how to go about actually grafting them successfully, that would be useful.</div><div><br /></div><div>The other piece of exciting news is that Garrison will be helping to install a rope pump onto one of our village wells within the next couple of weeks, and it will likely improve the quality of life of many women in the village by speeding up the time it takes to pull water. It's not exactly the same as having running water in your compound, but it's a change nonetheless, and it's something that the village can get excited about. Stay tuned for updates on that!</div><div><br /></div><div>One other quick thing- if people have questions about any aspect of my life that you think I should post about, feel free to shoot me a note or a comment. I realize my blogs are getting less frequent since nothing seems quite as new and amazing to me anymore, but my life is probably still pretty foreign to many of you states-bound readers, so ask away. It's good to hear feedback.</div><div><br /></div><div>Until next time,</div><div>~E</div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-12629787299247595472011-06-25T08:28:00.000-07:002011-06-25T08:51:47.477-07:00RAINtiIt rained today, in case you haven't figured that out from the title. The first significant rain of the year today, June 25, 2011. Last night it was extremely hot and humid, which during this part of the year means that rain is coming, but also means you cannot sleep well. This morning, I woke up and went to the field to make a small pepiniere, and it started thundering in the distance and sprinkling a bit. I finished up what I was working on and got back to the village as the mist was winding down, then as I was discussing issues with my roof with a neighbor, the wind picked up and the temperature dropped and I found myself huddling in my room while the rain started pouring down all around. I've got a video but since my internet is slow and my battery is dying I'm going to cut this entry short. I just wanted to share the wonderful phenomenon of water falling out of the sky with you all. You should appreciate it more when it occurs.<div><br /></div><div>~E</div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-19163594149626700452011-06-20T00:26:00.000-07:002011-06-20T00:59:05.387-07:00Bonjour, tout le mondeWell it's been quite a whirlwind these past few weeks. I'm like the oracle volunteer of Senegal- never in the same place twice. First in Saloum Diane for mosquito net distributions, then to Toubacouta for a French language seminar, and finally off to Thies for our Agroforestry Summit, and here I am currently sitting in Kaolack. <div><br /><div>I've noticed that your service gets much busier as it goes on for the obvious reasons that your language gets better, you gain confidence and feel more integrated. And as all overachievers know, that also makes time go by faster. Here I find myself looking at the new SED stage getting to country, and suddenly I am the old, experienced volunteer blabbing away in Wolof and bargaining for taxis like a pro. I'm not quite halfway through my service, but the stage a year ahead of us just attended COS conference and will begin to trickle out of the country next month, and I will be faced with the prospect of saying goodbye to many people I have formed good relationships with over the past 10 months or so. </div><div><br /></div><div>But that's life, right? Before I know it I'll be the one leaving people behind and blah blah blah life goes on. </div><div><br /></div><div>On a less depressing note, I actually am really anxious to get back to village all of a sudden. Despite the fact that many of my Senegalese friends left for a few months for school vacation (they are ironically all teachers) I am excited to bareroot bed a couple of citrus seeds I managed to obtain in Thies, meaning that I will put them in a shallow pepiniere and transfer them to tree sacs once they germinate. I also have the next few months to spend writing a grant for school gardens for this coming year. The Peace Corps decided that it had to conform with the rest of the American government by making grant applications 1300 pages long and involve questions involving everything from why your proposed project will be sustainable to your mother's shoe size. </div><div><br /></div><div>Meanwhile, I have to give a quick an unrelated shout-out to something that has improved my quality of life over the past month or two: podcasts. It's amazing what a good episode of NPR's Fresh Air or This American Life can do for one's general sense of well-being and morale sometimes. At least my sept-place rides are much faster these days.</div><div>So that concludes my rambling for today. Give America a hearty Asalamalekum for me.</div><div><br /></div><div>~E</div><div><br /></div></div>Emilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1859227702842547131.post-39668085989126899092011-06-06T09:20:00.000-07:002011-06-06T09:21:38.502-07:00I haven't forgotten about you I swear...I am aware that it has been far too long since I have last written a blog entry- in fact I managed to skip the month of May altogether and pretty much get caught up in stuff so that the more I didn’t write the more it seemed impractical to do so and really give a good sense of everything that has been going on. <br />Don’t be mad at me, I haven’t forgotten you, my dear admirers. The opposite in fact, I still miss you all more than you know and have simply been trying to make time go by faster.<br />And indeed, faster it has started to go by. All of a sudden, I find myself waist-deep in several region wide projects, faced with the prospect of spending the rainy season trying my hand at grant-writing, and invading people’s personal space by counting their mosquito nets. Allow me to explain.<br />Now that the pepiniering season is essentially over, our job as good African Agroforesters is to make sure that those pepinieres get watered and are weeded. That leaves is all this free time to think of new and unique ways to keep cool as the humidity rolls in, or finding other projects to distract ourselves from the sorry state our lives have become. As a region, we are planning a Moringa tourney at local primary schools teaching kids how to dig beds, amend soil, and seed moringa beds. Later, a follow-up tourney will occur teaching kids about nutrition, the vitamins that moringa provides, and how they can be incorporated into your diet.<br />Another upcoming project is known as the “Louma circus,” aptly named because we will be a bunch of white kids invading African open markets with sound systems and mosquito net demonstrations and giving away little sachets of Neem lotion. For the sake of not making this entry 50 pages long, I will refrain from details until the event actually occurs. However, I did participate in the associated project that was taken over by the NGO USAID, in which mosquito nets are distributed to the entire region of Kaolack. Originally, some volunteers down in the Keidegou region (a long, long way from here) decided that it would be fun to provide “universal coverage” of beds in the region with mosquito nets in an effort to slow the transmission of malaria. If you do your share of blog-stalking, you will find out that their version of the program involved biking tons of mosquito nets over long distances in an effort to effectively give away the nets without allowing the recipients to sell the nets for profit or use them on their gardens. In the end, the government decided it liked the project but could do it more effectively than us ill-equipped volunteers, and took the program over in conjunction with an army of NGO partners who provide funding. Since it was originally a Peace Corps project, volunteers are still encouraged to help out in conjunction with their local health posts. As such, I found myself in Saloum Diane the other day walking around with another Senegalese volunteer for the project and writing down the number of people in each household, beds and mosquito nets available, then checking to see if those nets didn’t all have holes in them. It’s a long, hot day of invading people’s privacy, but on the bright side, it gave me and opportunity to hang out with the teacher contingent of Saloum.<br />So that brings me to projects I am excited about- school projects! I met the English and Spanish teachers of the village college, which means middle school in America-speak. Despite being the English teacher, his English wasn’t exactly flawless. If I were to have a conversation at normal speed, I doubt he would understand the majority. But I digress- I was invited to help teach a class this morning, and ended up standing in front of a class of confused middle school students trying to slowly express my dislike of the word “toubab” in English and listening to the teachers explanation of his love for Obama and hope that he will help to unite the African people. Well, an education will get you so far anyway.<br />So that’s a brief overview of my life at the moment. Most of June I am out of site traveling to a French seminar, Agroforestry summit in Thies, and the occasional volunteer visit or meeting. I’m getting to the point where I really need to start reviewing my French; all these doctors, teachers and educated community members insist that I speak with them in French and I’m beginning to look like an idiot for forgetting it. Wolof will only get you so far in the world. On the other hand, I am not exactly a fluent Wolof speaker either, and probably sound like an idiot anyway, so it might be a lost cause.<br />Life in Senegal is starting to seem less bizarre in a way; I mean, why not get woken up by hawing donkeys at 6 in the morning every day then listen to the call to prayer, that’s normal, right? It helps to be busy, but I’ve given up all hope of every feeling entirely at home here. Things become normal and routine, you can get used to almost anything, but I still miss being able to have educated conversations on a regular basis with people who actually want to listen. Oh well. I’ve made it this far, so moving right along…<br />~EEmilyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16878012895169407809noreply@blogger.com0