January was a month that alternated between moments of staring at the top of my hut in extreme boredom and busy moments like the village wide presentation I helped give to start our local cashew tree project. In the midst of learning to cope with the heat, the Senegalese diet, gardening, and all the other aspects of village life, a puppy happened.
In the (slightly) cooler evening, I walked to the well to begin pulling water for myself when I saw a small bundle of fur right beside the rope to pull up the water. I decided to ignore it because I knew that if I touched it I would both fall in love with it and it would follow me home. Obviously a bad idea because it's ferocious bush-dog mother was probably waiting three feet away in the grass AND I was struggling to perform basic village-life functions by myself without the added stress of a puppy. Not to mention that dogs are not considered good animals for pets by most Senegalese people. So I just stood a ways away and waited for the puppy to wander off, a brilliant plan!
My brilliant plan was thwarted when my neighboring girls came to pull water and were terrified of the ball of fur that was looking up at them with loving puppy eyes. Not the best of problem solvers, the girls decided to make the ferocious puppy move away from the rope and pulley by hitting it with a giant stick while simultaneously cutting off all routes of escape by standing in a circle around it. This lovely chain of events led to a terrified, shaking puppy being beaten ferociously by pre-teen girls. I broke. Breaking the group of girls up, I scooped up the puppy and began comforting it. Pretty soon the entire village came out to see the white girl comforting what was considered a dangerous animal. At one point, the men laughed and said "Sanu toubab dafa dof!" or "Our white person is crazy!" I decided to put the puppy down so he wouldn't get attached or its mother wouldn't eat me (when really she should have eaten the crazy girls with the big stick), but the moment I started walking away it followed me. This led to everyone at the well bursting out laughing and pointing. I walked faster. The puppy started to lope happily beside me with his tongue sticking out. In a nut shell, it followed me home. Failed plan.
Knowing that most Senegalese people are scared of dogs, I didn't want to saddle my family with a puppy that they would have to take care of when I was away from my village. When I asked my Senegalese host dad if I could keep the puppy, he said that it was a great idea because my 15 year old brother always wanted a dog and I could teach him how to take care of a dog. So this actually turned out perfectly, I share a blond and white bundle of fur with my brother. It has led to several frustrating moments- including the time the puppy ate my banana tree. It has led to great moments- like when I was able to first successfully have an angry tirade in Wolof because a child teased my dog. My brother and I have grown quite a bit closer because we spend hours together with our puppy, whom my brother has named "Yussa Ndor." And I feel pretty accomplished because I'M TRAINING MY DOG IN WOLOF. Pictures are on the way!
The last week in January, I traveled to Tamba for a week-long language seminar. I was able to reunite with some of my stage mates (those of us who trained together) and ask all our language questions to a Peace Corps language teacher. As traveling long distance can be difficult (see my last blog post), I decided to break my travel into two days and spend the night between at my neighbor/ friend Sara's hut. After a fun day of chatting, working in her garden, and playing with her dog the two of us decided to have a salad dinner her family had prepared. We gobbled fresh lettuce with onions from her family's garden and prepared to go to bed. While Peace Corps volunteers are not supposed to drink local water or eat anything that's been washed in local water, sometimes that is hard to follow because the only food available was washed in local water, or you want to be polite, or you really want to eat some fresh salad. I'd eaten salad a couple of times before, so it didn't even occur to me that I might have digestion issues from the delicious vegetables I'd eaten... until 4am when I woke up so nauseous that I felt like the room was spinning. I was up the rest of the night with the symptoms of giardia (look them up) with one of the smallest douche holes in all of Senegal. It was quite an adventure.
The next day, I traveled to the neighboring region's capital and we started our week of language classes. There was city food (including burgers, shwarma, chicken, and stores to buy other food), alcohol available, and many other draws of the city but I wasn't able to enjoy them since I was violently ill for several days. After not being able to keep down food for FOUR days, I started having 'sulfuric' burps- the dead giveaway that you have giardia. So I called the Peace Corps Senegal medical office and they told me which medicine to buy at the corner pharmacy. Thankfully, I was able to make a 3 minute trip to the pharmacy, take the one dose of medicine, and start keeping food down that night. Hence the story of my first parasite!
A puppy and parasites, I've started the year of with a bang!
In the (slightly) cooler evening, I walked to the well to begin pulling water for myself when I saw a small bundle of fur right beside the rope to pull up the water. I decided to ignore it because I knew that if I touched it I would both fall in love with it and it would follow me home. Obviously a bad idea because it's ferocious bush-dog mother was probably waiting three feet away in the grass AND I was struggling to perform basic village-life functions by myself without the added stress of a puppy. Not to mention that dogs are not considered good animals for pets by most Senegalese people. So I just stood a ways away and waited for the puppy to wander off, a brilliant plan!
My brilliant plan was thwarted when my neighboring girls came to pull water and were terrified of the ball of fur that was looking up at them with loving puppy eyes. Not the best of problem solvers, the girls decided to make the ferocious puppy move away from the rope and pulley by hitting it with a giant stick while simultaneously cutting off all routes of escape by standing in a circle around it. This lovely chain of events led to a terrified, shaking puppy being beaten ferociously by pre-teen girls. I broke. Breaking the group of girls up, I scooped up the puppy and began comforting it. Pretty soon the entire village came out to see the white girl comforting what was considered a dangerous animal. At one point, the men laughed and said "Sanu toubab dafa dof!" or "Our white person is crazy!" I decided to put the puppy down so he wouldn't get attached or its mother wouldn't eat me (when really she should have eaten the crazy girls with the big stick), but the moment I started walking away it followed me. This led to everyone at the well bursting out laughing and pointing. I walked faster. The puppy started to lope happily beside me with his tongue sticking out. In a nut shell, it followed me home. Failed plan.
Knowing that most Senegalese people are scared of dogs, I didn't want to saddle my family with a puppy that they would have to take care of when I was away from my village. When I asked my Senegalese host dad if I could keep the puppy, he said that it was a great idea because my 15 year old brother always wanted a dog and I could teach him how to take care of a dog. So this actually turned out perfectly, I share a blond and white bundle of fur with my brother. It has led to several frustrating moments- including the time the puppy ate my banana tree. It has led to great moments- like when I was able to first successfully have an angry tirade in Wolof because a child teased my dog. My brother and I have grown quite a bit closer because we spend hours together with our puppy, whom my brother has named "Yussa Ndor." And I feel pretty accomplished because I'M TRAINING MY DOG IN WOLOF. Pictures are on the way!
The last week in January, I traveled to Tamba for a week-long language seminar. I was able to reunite with some of my stage mates (those of us who trained together) and ask all our language questions to a Peace Corps language teacher. As traveling long distance can be difficult (see my last blog post), I decided to break my travel into two days and spend the night between at my neighbor/ friend Sara's hut. After a fun day of chatting, working in her garden, and playing with her dog the two of us decided to have a salad dinner her family had prepared. We gobbled fresh lettuce with onions from her family's garden and prepared to go to bed. While Peace Corps volunteers are not supposed to drink local water or eat anything that's been washed in local water, sometimes that is hard to follow because the only food available was washed in local water, or you want to be polite, or you really want to eat some fresh salad. I'd eaten salad a couple of times before, so it didn't even occur to me that I might have digestion issues from the delicious vegetables I'd eaten... until 4am when I woke up so nauseous that I felt like the room was spinning. I was up the rest of the night with the symptoms of giardia (look them up) with one of the smallest douche holes in all of Senegal. It was quite an adventure.
The next day, I traveled to the neighboring region's capital and we started our week of language classes. There was city food (including burgers, shwarma, chicken, and stores to buy other food), alcohol available, and many other draws of the city but I wasn't able to enjoy them since I was violently ill for several days. After not being able to keep down food for FOUR days, I started having 'sulfuric' burps- the dead giveaway that you have giardia. So I called the Peace Corps Senegal medical office and they told me which medicine to buy at the corner pharmacy. Thankfully, I was able to make a 3 minute trip to the pharmacy, take the one dose of medicine, and start keeping food down that night. Hence the story of my first parasite!
A puppy and parasites, I've started the year of with a bang!
