Saré Boili

Being that my site is a larger town of about 10,000, I rarely get the opportunity to live the “bush life”. Most of the PCVs from my stage are at much smaller sites than me. Most of them do not have electricity and running water. Anna is my closest neighbor from my stage. She is about 30K out into the bush from Koumpentoum in a little Pulaar village of about 300 people called Saré Boili. There is no electricity and no running water. She does not get to eat rice every day and rarely has vegetables in her bowl. Anna’s PC experience will be very different from mine, but I still like to the chance to romanticize the “bush experience” and of course visit my friend, so I paid her visit. I biked from Koumpentoum to Saré Boili and spent a day and half with her in her little village. It definitely has a different feel from Koumpentoum. The first thing I noticed was how much quieter it is in the bush. No motos. No TVs. Only nature to fill the space. There is a natural lake that forms during the rainy season just a few minute walk from Anna’s hut. The entire village of Saré Boili knew my name before I even arrived and the kids would sit outside of Anna’s hut and chant it while we sat inside. No one yells Toubab at you in the village because it’s small enough where everyone will know your name and face in a matter of minutes. It’s also very important that you greet everyone all the time. This probably gets old if you live there all the time, but a visitor can see it as part of the charm of village life.

Anna walking to her private lake.

Welcome to the bush in the rainy season.

The rainy season lake.

A rainbow after an afternoon shower.

So, Now What?

I’m not going to lie, heading back to site after being gone for a while is very intimidating. In fact, part of the reason I stuck around Tambacounda for a while before I heading back to site was because I didn’t feel ready. It didn’t take long for life to start to feel back to normal. Since we are in the heart of the rainy season and Ramadan just started (Aug. 12^th – Sept. 11^th), my routine is a bit different. I’ve got a couple projects already underway back at site.

The first is completely transforming my personal garden. It was a complete and utter disaster when I got back from being gone for three weeks. What plants that were growing when I left were consumed by some sort of pests, my family managed to kill my Nebadye (the name is spin off of Never Die – as the plant that can’t die—though now I think that name is deceiving), my tree pépinière was taken over by weeds as was everything else. So far I’ve managed to weed the entire garden, reseed my vegetable pépinière, tear up the useless sacks of the tree pépinière, create a new raised bed, transplant tomatos, make an organic pesticide, create a new compost, and transplant a banana and guava tree (I took them from the training center in Thiès and hauled them all the way across Senegal to be planted in my garden).

My garden was a sad site to see when I got back from IST.

The second project is a universal bednet distribution that is taking place in my region right now. As part of USAIDs’ President’s Malaria Initiative, a collaboration of NGOs, Government Agencies, Health Centers, and Peace Corps are working to distribute mosquito nets to every uncovered bed in Senegal region by region. This gets to be a little tricky when you get out into the more rural areas – counting beds, transporting nets, distributing nets, and educating the populations. I cannot say that I’ve really done much to contribute to this grandiose endeavor but attend a couple planning meeting and trainings and go out to the bush to talk to a couple Poste de Santé. It’s given me a chance to ride my bike out in the bush, which is fun for me. This week, we are starting the actual distribution all over my region, so I suppose I’ll go where I’m needed.

A trash management pilot program is the third major project I’ve been keeping myself busy with. This is a much larger, more long-term project than most Peace Corps projects, but I’m happy to make some headway during my service. For anyone that has traveled to a less developed country, you most likely notice that trash is a massive problem. Most cities and villages do not have any system of waste and natural resource management. As a result, trash is thrown everywhere – on the roads, paths, forests, rivers, lakes, etc. Koumpentoum is no different. Few have tried to address the trash problem in Koumpentoum for many years, but have always taken it from large-scale approach. What I would like to do is try to tackle the trash problem by one quartier at a time.

I’m modeling my project proposal off of a recent trash management project that was implemented in Joal (a city of about 40,000 on the coast of Senegal) by Peace Corps Volunteers in 2007. The Joal Project started in just two quartiers. It gave each household two trash receptacles – one for biodegradable products and one for non-biodegradable products. The biodegradable products were picked up once a day and brought to a center for composting. The non-biodegradable products were picked up once a week and taken to a landfill. The Joal Project found that about 85% of waste in Joal / Senegal was biodegradable. As a result, the biodegradable products were decomposed and sold as organic fertilizer, which was proven to be a better quality than chemical fertilizer and cheaper.

I’ve been working with one of the JICA volunteers in Koumpentoum, Mikki, as well as the Mayor’s office to attempt replicate the project in Koumpentoum. I want to make sure that the demand and that work for the project comes from the community, so I held a meeting with all the chefs des quartiers (chiefs of the neighborhoods) and the appropriate authority figures / those concerned with the matter at the mayor’s office to show the documentary of the Joal Project and facilitate a discussion about tackling the trash problem in Koumpentoum. Everyone was on board to start with one quartier, but the challenge becomes choosing the quartier for the pilot program. I suggested that every quartier do a survey in their quartier about general environmental education issues, organize set-setals (trash pick-ups), and express why their quartier would be good for the program. It seemed to be well-received, though some chefs expressed concern about doing the survey, so we are going to work with the ASC, an active group of youth who would be interested in helping out, to conduct the surveys all around Koumpentoum. I put together a fairly comprehensive Environmental Education Survey and with the help of my APCD, the JICA volunteer (Mikki), and my counterpart in the mayor’s office, Balla, got it translated into French and Wolof.

Mikki is heading to Dakar for some work related purposed and will be able to print off the surverys. The next steps are to hold a training session for the youth that are interested in helping out with the survey and then have another meeting with everyone to kick-off the survey before we select a quartier. At this point, the project seems very daunting. I’m trying to think of it with a step-by-step basis. It requires a lot of leg-work and education, but can hopefully turn out to be a very effective project in the end.

The final thing that has been going on in Koumpentoum since I’ve been back is Ramadan. Even though this isn’t a project of any sort, it still very much involves me and my work. Ramadan is the month in which all Muslims (that are able to) fast during the day and focus on Allah. Being it that Senegal is 95% Muslim; this means that practically everyone (including my family)are up at 5 a.m. for breakfast and are not eating or drinking (not even water) until dusk (around 7:45 p.m.). This also means that people are much more tired, cranky, and even more unproductive than they were before Ramadan. Many of them are going through caffeine withdrawal as well from not drinking attaaya (Senegalese tea) all day, which usually serves as their pastime. This just means I need to plan my days’ activities accordingly. So far, I’ve fasted for two days of Ramadan (primarily to see what it is like and for people to shut up about asking me about it). It’s definitely not something that I’d like to make a habit of. I especially will not fast if I am doing any sizable amount of physical activity like working in my garden or riding my bike into the bush. Even though it’s not the “hot season”, it’s still really hot. And yet, some here still do both and end up dehydrated and sick. I do have to admit though; there is something magnificent when you have that first cup of water and a little bread when you break fast for the day. Also, my family eats even better than were before for Ramadan.

IST

Two months into our service, PCVs in Senegal are required to attend IST – In-Service Training to gain the technical skills necessary to implement projects back a site. Well, that’s not always the outcome, but none-the-less, I’m glad for the chance to attend my IST. It was great to get back together with my stage (training group) after not seeing them for months. I forget how much miss some of fellow stagaires and how much I actually miss some their insanity. We had some good times going out and Thiès and catching up on life / site.

A reunion of friends. Who doesn’t love someone in a banana costume (Jessica)?

Hanging out with my LCF (my language teacher) from PST, Regina.

My IST was the last two weeks in July back in Thiès (where we had our Pre-Service Training). I made the trip a couple days early for the opportunity to experience a small dose of Dakar for the first time. During our IST, some sessions were more helpful than others. One useful session was building a latrine – though there were too many of us for the one project so most of us just watched / played around. (I have some pretty innovative photos from that day.) We also covered some resourceful sessions about gardening and forestry – permaculture, integrated pest management, outplanting, and tree grafting. I really enjoyed any opportunity to get my hands dirty. There were a few other sessions on grant possibilities, trash management, and NGO involvement. After IST, I spent a couple days back in Tambacounda bouncing ideas around for potential projects that I could implement in Koumpentoum and recuperating from all the traveling.

Building latrines. Aka there was only one shovel for 40+ people so I just stood next to Spence who was actually doing work.

Coming in from a hard days work in the orchard.

Outplanting! Yeah! We love trees!

I took a guava tree (my child) home with me to plant in my garden.

Settling in Koumpentoum

In my personal observation, the first couple months at site are a rollercoaster ride. You find out that you can’t speak the language very well. You don’t know anyone. You don’t know your new “family” and “home” that you’ll be living at for the next two years. You have no idea of the type of work/projects that you can do. Each day, you wake up with very little idea of how the day is going to unfold. You find yourself on a rollercoaster ride of emotions going from the highest highs to the lowest lows in a matter of minutes. Things you thought that wouldn’t bother you so much really do. And things that were probably not as funny before, you find to be hilarious now.

I have now been at site for three months (granted one of those weeks we spent going to the 4^th of July party and another 3 weeks I was in Thiès for In-Service Training) and I can honestly say that the rollercoaster ride is starting to taper off… slightly. So, what I have been doing with myself for a last couple months? I’m still trying to figure that out as well. The routine I established in Koumpentoum at the beginning was a way to get-to-know the community. It typically consisted of me wondering around the town and finding people to greet / introduce myself to so when I actually do start projects, they will know my face and role in the community. I would swing by the Eaux et Foret, the Mayor’s office, and the Educational Inspectors office just to visit. Some mornings I would hang out at my counterpart’s house and just try to learn some Wolof. I also did a fair amount of gardening to get away and feel somewhat productive.

A shot of my garden before I left for IST

In my first week at site, I met Moumini Diallo, the President of a local GIE called Les Amis de Tous which manages a decent-sized women’s community garden in the quartier of Grande Ville. Moumini had worked with my ancienne a little bit and has a pretty good grasp about the role of Peace Corps Volunteers. I worked with him and the women in the community garden almost every afternoon doing composting, double-digging, tree pépinières, and vegetable pépinières. By the time for IST came around, I had pretty much exhausted everything that I knew about gardening, but still little has seemed to take off. The garden lacks proper fencing, which makes it utterly impossible to do any effective gardening because animals here are always running amuck. The women get discouraged by the lack of fencing and are not consistent in their attendance. Some women are reluctant to take advice from a young foreign girl who has very little gardening experience (I don’t blame them). The first compost pile I did with the women, everyone showed up to help out. The second compost pile, hardly anyone showed up. And we haven’t been able to mobilize people to do start up again. I feel like garden is difficult subject to teach because nothing you do has immediate consequences. Everything is very long term and it’s a gamble to change your ways for one season when it could cost your food.

The Community Garden of Les Amis des Tous. Parts of the fence fell down the first storm of the rainy season. You can see our tree pépinière and compost in this photo.

Moumini watering one of our vegetable pépinières.

Some things that were challenging my first couple months at site are:

· People, adults, children yelling “Toubaab” (white person) constantly – while I’m working in my garden, outside of my room, walking down the street…

· People pointing out that I cannot speak Wolof

· People stating that I need to learn a different native language – Pulaar, Bambara, Fula Kunda, etc.

· The heat! Constantly sweating!

· The flies and mosquitoes

· Skin infections – the second you get a bug bite or a cut, it flares up in a pussy infection during the rainy season

· How long it would take to start meetings (hours of waiting)

· People asking for money

· Everyone being tired/cranky/hungry/unproductive during Ramadan because no one is eating or drinking!

· Children yelling “Toubaab! Donnez-moi cadeaux” (“White person! Give me a gift!)

· Public Transportation – drivers lying to me about when a car is going to leave and where it going

· Nothing grew in my garden

Some things that I loved about my first couple months at site are:

· My host family

· Having extended conversations in Wolof

· Having someone tell me that I can speak Wolof very well for having been here just a short time

· Morning bean sandwiches and café touba

· Hitchhiking – usually much more pleasant than public transportation and free

· Riding my bike into the bush

· Visiting nearby villages

· The food – my family cooks really well

· Watching the World Cup with my family – even though I don’t give a lick about soccer

· Getting to know the Tamba Nation Volunteers – we are such a great family

· Homemade yogurt and Thiakery (yogurt and cous cous)

· Sweet potato fries with mustard – I hated mustard in the States, but love it here

· Getting to know the JICA Volunteers (Japanese Volunteers – there are 5 in Koumpentoum)

· Breaking fast during Ramadan – I’ve only fasted two days, but I still break fast with my family every night

· Things are starting to grow in my garden

· Rain storms

· Receiving packages and letters from home!

My Room. Home Sweet Home.

Trail Blazers

Alright, so I know it’s been a while since I’ve last written. What can I say? Life has been busy. I’ll try my best to recap some of the highlights.

Each year, the fourth of July in Senegal passes just as any other normal day for any Senegalese throughout the country. Well, just about everywhere in the country. For the past couple years, Peace Corps Volunteers in Senegal infiltrate the town of Kedougou (about 15,000 inhabitants) for a good ole fashion 4^th of July Party. Perhaps it takes being away from home for so long to bring about an extreme sense of patriotism or maybe it was five long weeks at my new site, but this epic party was something I was not willing to pass up. The party is hosted by the PCVs in the Kedougou Region (the southeastern most region of the country bordering Guinea). 5,000 fCFA ($10) got you in the door, which is actually more like a gate to an outdoor hippie commune known as the Kedougou PC regional house, and all you can eat and drink. Some of the highlights of the event include:

· Three warthogs were slaughtered

· American style appetizers

· GSaap drinks – gin mixed with bisaap juice

· Fireworks (you work with what you can get)

· Dance Party into the night

· Beer Pong tournament

· Waterguns and waterballoons

· Ridiculous American Paraphernalia that you can only find in random Senegalese garages, fukki jaays (Senegalese thrift markets) and Lumos (weekly village markets). Some of these items include “Obama, President of Space” hats, flashy American flag t-shirts, and Budweiser bathing suits.

· Speaking English

· Reuniting with some of the PCVs from my stage

· Debauchery

A shot of the entrance of the Kedougou Regional House.

I love Mika lurking in the background of this shot.

It would seem like the American Independence Party itself would be more than enough excitement for me after becoming a fresh new Peace Corps Volunteer, but a few other PCVs and I had another idea to make this experience even more grandiose. Preceding our American holiday festivities, we embarked on a three day bike trip from my regional capital of Tambacounda to our party destination of Kedougou (about 250K or 150 miles). We talked to other volunteers who had made the trip the year before and decided that with a little bit a planning and a tune-up on our bikes, that the expedition was quite feasible. The roaster for the trip included Kourtney (PCV from Kaffrine), Anna (my closest PCV neighbor from my stage), Aude (a Tostan NGO volunteer who we know from Tambacounda), Austin (PCV from Tambacounda), and yours truly.

A shot of the group right outside the Niokolo Park Entrance.

Packed up for the trip.

The first day of the trip we biked from Tambacounda to Wassadou (about 70K south), where we met up with Amanda whose site was about 5K outside of the roadtown. Wassadou has a fabulous campement (hotel) right on Gambia River. We met up with Amanda and Kim (another PCV who was visiting Amanda) in Wassadou in the mid-afternoon and spent the rest of the day lounging around next the river, catching a few glimpses of hippos and monkeys in the distance, and drinking Gazelle beer with lime (it’s the only way to make Senegalese beer tolerable in my opinion). Being on a low-budget, we did not stay at the campement for the night but rather crashed in the back of Amanda’s hut in her village. No major set-backs for the day expect a flat tire on the way back to Amanda’s village. Kim and Amanda decided to bike the rest of the trip with us.

Aude relaxing at the campement after day 1 of the bike trip.

The Gambia River. I don't think there are any hippos in this shot.

Mmm. Beer.

Not a care in the world.

Day two was our longest day. We biked through Senegal’s only national park of Niokolo. It’s prohibited to spend the night in the park, so your only opinion is to bike it all in one day (about 120K). We stalked up on food and water for the day and made plans to stop at “campement” mid-way through the park to rest up, avoid the heat of the day, and refill on our water. The morning started off smoothly but the farther and farther we pushed on, we realized that none of us had any idea as to where this “campement” was. At one point, we were stopped and hassled by a group of park guards for not having a pass (you don’t need one if you staying the night in the park). Another time, we greeted a guard station but continued to ride on towards what we thought was our campement destination. It turned out that the guard station was the destination and respite point we were looking for and we completely passed it up in the heat of the day. The terrain was getting more and more demanding as we forwarded the mountains.

When it rains, it pours – literally and figuratively. Shortly after we passed up our chance to rest and refresh ourselves, a few of us began to experience heat exhaustion that involved throwing up, delusion, and almost the point of passing out. We regrouped and cooled ourselves just off the national road under a couple shady trees. After about forty-five minutes of rest, rehydration, and Power Bars, our presence started to attract a couple spectators. Monkeys of all sizes and a few large baboons started to inch their way closer to us to see who was impeding on their turf. The monkeys gawked in our direction (a monkey gawk sounds strangely like a small dogs bark) and the baboons started to circle around us. I really have no idea what they intended to do, but whatever it was, it was enough to make Kourtney and Aude packed up our stuff right away and seek another shady spot. This left Austin and I behind as both of us were a little curious as to what was going to happen next (the other girls had regrouped over another hill). We slowly started to pack up the rest of the stuff and back away when we heard a warthog approaching in the distance, which turned our slow pace into a quick sprint out of there!

As we started to set-up our new camp, we noticed a large black mass of clouds rapidly approaching from the southeast. We scrambled to cover our bags with the tarp that we had packed, but within 3 minutes we were drenched in torrential downpour with massive gusting winds. We huddled together under a tree to try and block ourselves from the wind and piercing rains. We went from being practically overheated to the brink of hypothermia (I’m exaggerating a bit, but it was pretty extreme). Since we were almost out of water, we attempted to catch the rain water off the leaves of the trees into our water bottles (we are so Bear Grilles). It rained for over an hour. We were soaked, cold, and out of water. We still had about 50K to go until we could rest in Mako for the night. We devised a plan to hail down the next car we see and start to put those who were to most tired in it to go on to Mako. What we got was a sept-place filled with a group of PCVs on their way to Kedougou for the 4^th of July party. The car filled with PCVs that hardly any of us knew gave us bunch of water to continue on our journey. We were saved! We decided for forge on to Mako. It sprinkled the rest of the afternoon, which kept the temperature cool. The terrain became more extreme but with the group morale was surprisingly high (though exhausted) and we now had water.

We finally made into Mako around dusk. There was one campement in Mako that was open at the time. It was situated on the Gambia River and about 1K off the main road on a completely flooded muddy mess of a path. Most of us got our bikes stuck in the mud. By the time we made it to the actual campement, we were stoked from the rain and caked in mud. What a site to see! We negotiated a price for us to stay the night and have dinner. We were able to clean ourselves up and have a somewhat restful nights’ sleep.

The group getting into Mako after about 150K of biking.

Sign for the turnoff to the Campement. (The next morning. Notice the clear skies.)

Champions! Kim is wearing Austin’s t-shirt because all of her stuff got drenched in the downpour.

The next morning, we took in the beautiful view of the Gambia River and spent the morning preparing for our final leg of the trip. The facet water was out for the most of the morning and we needed it to wash off our bikes. There was no suitable drinking water available to fill all of our water bottles so we pulled water from the well and treated each water bottle. We paid our bill. By the time we finally got back to main road to find some breakfast, it was already 11:00 a.m. That heat of the day was already approaching and we kept seeing sept-places pass us filled with our friends coming from other regions on their way to Kedougou. It might have taken us all day with the hilly terrain and the heat of the day to bike the rest of way. A cold beer and a swimming pool were calling to us from Kedougou. We made the executive decision to rent out a sept-place to take us the last 30K of the trip. A somewhat of a defeat, but I don’t think so considering all that we had endured. When arrived in Kedougou, we relaxed with a beer in hand by the pool. The next day was the Fourth of July party. The day after, a few of us lazily floated down the Gambia River. It was a Fourth of July that I will never forget.

Austin walking his bike into Mako from the campement the next morning.

Aude – probably asking herself why she signed up for this.

So you think you can dance?

Dance is a universal language. One doesn’t need words to express emotions, desires, and story. Though movement and body language, everyone possesses the ability to universally communicate. By utilizing the median of dance, one Peace Corps Volunteer brought together individuals from five different continents in a small Pulaar village in the middle of Senegal.

It all started when PCV Erika received an email on the Peace Corps listserve. A small international dance group was touring around the world with the hopes of performing in fifty different countries in one year. They contacted Peace Corps with the offer to perform in a couple villages around Senegal, if a volunteer desired it. Erika seized the opportunity to enlighten her very conservative Pulaar village of about 250 inhabitants and invited the group to perform at her site. It wasn’t until after the invitation that Erika did a little research on the group and viewed a couple of their videos on YouTube and she realized that the style of dancing is very modern and will be completely foreign to her village. Unsure of how the dance event would play out, Erika pondered that this day could turn out to be one of the most memorable days of her service.

Ndoumane, Erika’s village, is 12K away from Koumpentoum. Naturally, I was not going to pass up the opportunity to check out an international event such as this. I rode my bike into Ndoumane around 10 a.m. (I love bike riding in the bush). The dancers had not yet arrived and Erika had sent out for speakers from a nearby village about three and a half hours earlier. She had arranged to have lunch prepared for her whole village (that’s pretty much the only way you can get people to show up to events in Senegal) and was still waiting for her order of rice and fish to arrive.

The dancers arrived around 10:30 a.m. Of course, the speakers had not arrived yet and the presence of new guests in town started to already draw a crowd. One of the dancers was an older gentleman from Venezuela and the other dancer was a younger guy from Mozambique. He claimed that everyone in Senegal keeps trying to speak Wolof with him since he is African. The third member of the group was a woman from England. She was the choreographer and manager of the group. At around 12:00, the speakers finally arrived – after we had sent out another car after them. The international dancer did their bit for about 20 mins. Their presence along with the noise from the speakers definitely drew a crowd. It was hard to tell what the villagers thought of their contemporary interpretive dancing style. Most of them had puzzled looks on their faces during the presentation – of course it was like nothing they had ever witnessed before. I think most of them thought that the foreigners were just a little confused about what “real” dancing is. Nonetheless, the village was still very grateful for the guests’ visit. In addition, a few of the JICA volunteers came in from Koumpentoum to check out the dancing for the day, so it was quite the international crowd represented in Ndoumane that day.

After the dance troupe had finished their bit, the villagers of Ndoumane capitalized on the sound system that was reserved for the day. This meant very long winded speeches into the microphone which pretty much all covered the same general statements of “peace be with you” and “we are very happy”. The sound system also served as an opportunity for Ndoumane to whip out their dance moves. These dance moves varied from the traditional Senegal “booty-shake” dance to an attempt at American hip-hop to imitating dance from the Ivory Coast.

I biked back to Koumpentoum in the early-evening, filled with my lunch of fish and rice and tired from all the dancing that I had done throughout the day. I took the opportunity to glaze off into the pastel-painted sunset as it fell over the vast bush in Senegal and used the moment to remind myself that I am actually here, living the dream. It had been a great day.

New Beginnings

It’s been a little over a week since I official arrived in Koumpentoum as an official PCV. I’ve heard from other PCVs that the first couple weeks is supposed to be the most difficult: you begin the process of adjusting to a new area, language, dialect, climate and suddenly the 40+ other Americans you’ve been surrounded by day in and day out for the past 9 weeks are all gone. During the first three months, we are instructed to not to start any projects, but to take the time to get to know the community and learn the language. With these being basically the only two vague goals, that leaves a lot of room for innovative ways to occupy one’s time. Typically, I start each day with a list of goals that I would like to accomplish that usually involves greeting people that my ancienne worked with or people that I might actually end up working with, reading my book, and working in my garden. Other than that, I pretty much just let the day unravel on its own and I’ve been pretty busy.

I spend a decent amount of time with my new family, which consists of my mother, aunt, mostly high-school aged kids and two other men that live in the compound – one is my counterpart, Balla, and he works in the Mayor’s office and the other man works for a NGO in the Health Sector of Koumpentoum. The family is Bambara (an ethnic group that descends from Mali), but speaks Wolof and French as well. So far, the family has been really patient with my Wolof and incredibly caring over all. The boys usually help me in the garden and sometimes just drop by my room to look through photos, chat, and listen to music. The girls also like to frequently visit my room (when I’ve been spending too much time on my own) also to chat and look through photos. My mother and my aunt (who is also my namesake) are very involved in the women’s group. I’ve tagged along a few times to the women’s group meeting and am starting to get to know some of the women in my community.

As an Environmental Education volunteer, part of my work involves encouraging individuals to become self-sufficient and environmentally conscious through gardening. Within my first week at site, I managed to meet the leader of a local GIE called Les Ami des Tous which already laid the groundwork for a community garden in town. Unfortunately, the garden had a few problems with the fencing, so a couple weeks ago, animals managed to penetrate the garden and eat everything. We are basically starting from scratch. I’ve been spending my afternoons working with the women on composting and getting the soil ready for the rainy season.

As an attempt to avoid the mid-day heat, I’ve been keeping myself busy with little projects. So far, these projects include: painting one of the walls black in my room in order to use it as a massive chalk board, putting up photos in my hut, studying up on composting and gardening techniques, and configuring a map for my personal backyard garden. Slowly but surely, I’m laying the groundwork for a successful next two year of service.

Welcome to Tambacounda

As I stated earlier, I’m living in the Tambacounda region of Senegal. The region of Tambacounda borders the countries of Mauritania to the north and northeast, Mali to the east, Kedougou to the south and southeast and The Gambia to the southwest. Tamba is the largest geographic region in all of Senegal. Niokolo Koba National Park is located within the region and as of a few years ago, Kedougou was a department of the Tamba region.

Ethnically, the area is predominately Pulaar and Mandinka though there are many other ethnic groups represented in this area (Bambara, Bassari, Jaxanke, and Wolof). The majority of volunteers assigned to this area speak Mandinka or Pulaar, but in the bigger towns French and Wolof is very helpful.

Tamba is known as one of the hottest inhabited places on the earth, a fact in which many of the area volunteers take great pride. The months of April, May, and June tend to be the hottest. Approximately, 700-1500 mm of rain falls between the months of May and October each year. After the first couple of rains, the temperature decreases and it is noticeably more comfortable though slightly more humid. Temperatures range from 60°F to a maximum of about 140°F.
The region is primarily wooded savannah, but vegetation can vary from shrub savannah to the more forested areas in the south. Koumpentoum is primarily savannah though.

The newest members of the Tamba Nation

Swearing In

It’s official! I am a Peace Corps Volunteer. After about 8 months spent on filling out an application, six months to wait for a PC nomination, another three months to get medically cleared to serve, two more months of waiting for an invitation, six weeks of preparation for departure, two days of staging in Washington, D.C., and nine weeks of training in Senegal, I am officially inducted as a Peace Corps Volunteer. My stage’s induction ceremony was at the U.S. Embassy in Dakar on May 14th, 2010. We were all dressed in our finest Senegalese attire. The U.S. Ambassador to Senegal spoke to our group as well as the Peace Corps Country Director, Chris Hedrick, and the Training Coordinator, Demba. Each of the language groups selected an individual to deliver a brief speech in their local language. The ceremony was apparently broadcasted on one of the Senegalese television networks.

Afterwards, we enjoyed a verity refreshments and hors-d’oeuvres (including tasty mini pizzas) in the Embassy courtyard. Then we spent the rest of our afternoon swimming and relaxing at the American Club in Dakar. Most of us had a day to pack up our things arrange transportation to our regional capitals where we spent a day or two purchasing the essentials before we installed in our villages/sites. And so it begins.

The Wolof speakers are nothing but style

Tending the ailing

Falling ill in any country is never considered a light matter. Whenever I would become ill in the States, it meant a day spend at home sleeping excessively, drinking tea or sprite, and hoping someone will feel sorry enough for me to help me feel comfortable. I would spend my time trying to figure out exactly why my body is not agreeing with me and how to alleviate my suffering as quickly as possible. Being sick in Senegal is a slightly different routine. Whereas, I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to experience true illness in Senegal, I was exposed to a situation as a sidelines spectator. Feeling helpless that I could do little to abate the condition, I had to sit back and learn that even issues such as illnesses are dealt with in another ways in different cultures.

During my last week in Tassette (my training site), my host mother fell ill. She spent a day lying in bed and the next morning my uncles took her into Thiès to admit her to the regional hospital, about a 30-40 minute trip. The regional hospital (Hôpital Régionale) is the largest facility in the area until Dakar. I expected whatever illness my host mother had must have been serious. I tried asking my family what was the matter with her, but I could never get a direct response out of anyone. The most information I could gather was very vague like “she is not feeling well” or “she is ill with malaria”. In the Senegalese culture, people do not talk about one’s illnesses in detail, not even the family. In fact, 95% of the time, people (who are not doctors) will say that anyone who is sick has sibiru (malaria). Every conclusion falls immediately to sibiru, whether or not you know the true diagnosis. I experienced this first hand when I spent a day ill off of some bad ceeb u gen or something. When people had found out that I was ill, they would ask me Naka sibiru bi? (how is the malaria?). It was clear that I did not have anything remotely close to malaria, but that’s always the diagnosis. This is so contrary to how Americans deal with illness of a loved one. In the States, you try to gather as much as information as possible about ailment. You talk to any of your friends that are nurses or doctors. You jump online and do your research. Doctors are expected to be as detailed as possible in their analysis. There is an inherit responsibility to be informed and to inform others if you can. As I still hold that cultural trait, you can imagine my frustration with these very indirect responses to my questions.

My host mother did not have sibiru. She did spent ten days at the Hôpital Régionale in Thiès due to high blood pressure and hypertension. I had to learn this information through the grapevine via my language instructor. While I was in Tassette, I did not have the opportunity to visit my host mother in the hospital. However, once I was back in Thiès, I visited her everyday she remained in the hospital. My host mother was in the salle d’urgence (Urgent Care Room) during her entire stay in the hospital. Each time I visited my mother, the room was filled with other patients and their families. There were about eight hospital beds in the Urgent Care Room. There were not any curtains dividing the patients. There was no air conditioning. There were no convenient buttons to push to call for help. There were no nurses, only a couple doctors that rotated in and out every couple hours. Patients that occupied the salle d’urgence were admitted for various reasons: broken limbs, burns, skin infections, internal problems. Patients going into surgery waited and recovered in the salle d’urgence along with a number of other patients.

The first day I visited my host mother in the hospital, I was happy to see the familiar face of one of my uncles and an older woman from our village. The second day I visited, the same uncle was still at the hospital. He was sitting outside of the hospital on a large mat with a small stove and a blanket. Over the course of 4-5 visits, I came to the conclusion that my uncle was not going home every evening after he visited his sister. He stayed the nights at the hospital, camping outside the hospital doors along with other patients’ families. As there are no nurses, the family is expected to care for their family member in the hospital for the day to day activities such as going to the bathroom, bathing, supplying food and clothing, etc. Tending to your ill family member becomes a full-time job.

I am happy to report that my host mother is no longer in the hospital and is recovering quite well back at home. The fact that I was helpless to directly assist my host mother even on the level of competence of her ailment was mind-numbing for me, but it revealed another invaluable lesson about Senegalese culture. Don’t even take the simplest assumptions for granted.

Senegalese Prom

Remember your first middle school dance where the boys all stood on one side of the gymnasium and the girls stood on the opposite side, both groups too afraid to make the first move? Well, that’s basically how adolescent social functions operate in Senegal. All week in Tassette, everyone was talking about the end of the year party at the CM2 (middle school / high school). Girls spent hours putting braids in their hair and guys scrubbed their shoes as clean as humanly possible. It was all the hype in the village. Naturally, Ann Marie, Justin, and I had to make our appearance at a social function with so much buildup.

We made a fashionably late entrance at the school’s “courtyard” (dirt field). After greeting all the teachers, we made our way over to the students. Everyone was looking smart. The girls wore their special complètes and the guys wore their pants lower than usual with the nicest shirt they owned. And what was everyone doing? Sitting. Girls on one side and boys on the other. A few of the “talented” guys monopolized the microphone with their mad lip-syncing skills and pseudo ability to rap. For once, I actually felt like the most popular kid at school. Apparently, associating with toubabs makes you slightly cooler or more exotic in the Senegalese adolescent world. So, not only did we steal the lime light when we entered the “party”, but suddenly everyone knew our names and wanted us to sit with them. We got a nice cushy spot in plain sight of the “entertainment”. And it was very entertaining… for us. Who would have thought that bad rapping in Wolof about ceeb u gen (the popular Senegalese rice and fish dish) and even worse lip-syncing would be so entertaining?

The ladies looking their finest

Crashing Baptisms

Similar to States, ceremonies hold great importance in Senegalese culture. Weddings, funerals, and baptisms serve as a reason for people to get together and either celebrate for grieve. Depending on the event, a special dish is prepared and the tam-tams are broken out. Since birthdays are not celebrated in Senegal as they are in the State, any excuse to get together for a party is a good one. Throughout training, my fellow trainees at my village site, Ann Marie and Justin, and myself had listened to other trainees’ accounts of these cultural festivities. We waited patiently for our chance to partake in some sort of celebration. However, since our training had wind down to our last week and then last day in our host sites and we still had not witnessed any of these cultural accounts, we decided to take matters in our hands.

Earlier in the week, we had heard rumors of a potential baptism taking place in our village. A baptism is an important event in Senegalese culture because it is the naming ceremony of a new-born baby. Anytime from a week to a month after a baby is born, the father of the child organized a ceremony to celebrate the baby’s birth and to official give the baby a name. The father usually decides the name or discusses the name with his wife. The imam of the village, the prayer leader of the local mosque, makes the name official by whispering it into the baby’s ear and then announcing the name aloud. A few prayers are spoken and then the festivities begin. Usually, a goat or a sheep is slaughtered for the celebration and the family and guests indulge in the delicious dish called lax (in Wolof) or bouillie (in French). Lax is a porridge that is served with “milk”. Imagine a huge bowl of very dense tapioca pudding with a pool of runny yogurt served on top. And then, imagine ten people gathered around the bowl with their spoons slurping up the tasty goodness. You think it might not be your cup of tea? Give it a shot and you’ll crave it for the rest of your life.

Anyway, as my fellow trainees and I were determined to attend one of these events, we (not so discreetly) asked one of our families if they were attending the baptism and if we could tag along. Of course, we didn’t know the family at all and had no idea what we should bring or wear to a baptism, but nonetheless, we invited ourselves. Our accompanists told us they were going around 4:30 p.m. – calculate that into Senegalese time and that means at 6:00, the women were still braiding their hair and not even dressed. We decided to go ahead anyway with the plans to crash another party at the college (middle school) taking place at the same time. One our way to the college, we happened to stumble upon the baptism and continued to check it out unaccompanied. Everyone was dressed in their finest traditional attires (we looked like sloppy Americans, as usual) and the women had their hair elaborately braided with hair extensions or sported a classy wig. The women of the family of the new-born had done their make-up, which at first is a little terrifying.

Now, I’ve never been one much for make-up. I think it is a fine art to master applying color ever so elaborately to one’s face and for it to actually look good. Whenever I would apply make-up, I would always feel like I was playing dress up as a child, as my skill is that of a child. I envy those that possess the talent to apply and successfully sport a beautifully painted face. As an American, my perception of “well-done” make-up maybe slightly skewed due the colossal cosmetic industry and media outlets such as “What Not To Wear” influencing what is perceived as “beautiful” in our modern society. With all that said, the way make-up is applied in Senegal would teeter on the line of over-done drag queen and perhaps subdued circus clown in the States. I have never seen purple painted tall eyebrows anywhere else besides a drag show. Perhaps when Senegalese women do wear make-up, they are compensating for the months of monotony in their daily lives.

We started off with our greetings, which takes an exceptional amount of time. Without missing a beat of Senegalese hospitality or even questioning “who invited the Toubabs?”, we were escorted into a room with a massive bowl of ceeb u yapp (rice and meat) and were instructed to sit down and eat. Eat we did! A couple bits into the mid-day meal we discovered that our mystery meat was foie or liver. I thought it was quite good. Afterwards, we were ushered outside an instructed to sit and wait for the tam-tams and dancing to start. It wasn’t until an hour later, that things actually picked up, but we witness an impressive display of rhythmic dancing paired with acrobatics. The family of new-born was Fula-Kunda (we didn’t even speak their language) and their ethnic group is known for this type of dancing. As some point in the evening, someone that it would be a good idea to plop the new-born baby into my arms for a while, which was slightly terrifying in my mind. I’m just happy I didn’t break the fragile little thing. As night fell, we decided to head back and spend our last night in the village with our host families.

If it isn’t enough that we crashed one baptism before we left our training village for good, we managed to weasel our way into another baptism our final morning before we heading back to Thiès for the end of training. Once again, my fellow trainees and I were walking around taking in our last moments in our host village, when we saw a crowd. We couldn’t resist heading over to check out what all the commotion was about and sure enough, another baptism! We greeted everyone and sat around chatting for a good hour. As the blessing commenced we decided to make an attempt to slip away because we had promised to have lunch at one of our family’s homes and Senegalese tend to a bit long winded. As we were sneaking out in the middle of a prayer, the imam stopped to yell out Kay! Togg! Lekk! (Come! Sit! Eat!). Instantaneously, every pair of eyes was on the three bizarre Toubabs of the village. We had no choice but to walk back to our seats (which were rapidly snatched up by a bunch of kids). We enjoyed some delicious lax with a group of village strangers and way too many children, thanked the family repeatedly, and finally took our partings.

Ann Marie and I enjoying some tasty lax at the second baptism we crashed.

Koumpentoum – Home Sweet Home (to be)

We received our site placements! My site is a road town called Koumpentoum. It’s located in the Tambacounda region which is located in the south-east of Senegal. It recently acquired “ville” (city) status last year with a population around 12,000 people and growing. It will be interesting to serve in Koumpentoum during this transition time. They just built (administratively and physically) a new mayor’s office. The city is currently building a hospital and has hopes to install a second forrage (water tower) soon. Since it falls on the national road, Koumpentoum serves as a connecting city to get to other villages in the bush. It’s a very ethnically and linguistically diverse city with languages of Wolof, Pulaar, Pula Funta, Fula Kunda, Bambara, Mandinka, Sereer, and French. Since Wolof is the most widely spoken language in Senegal, I’ll be fine with just speaking Wolof and French. Home sweet home for the next two years!